microsoft word fet-v2n4-p181 frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 181 short paper comparison and fusion research of graduate training between china and france in the double first-rate background yuanbin wang1* 1 xi’an university of science and technology, shaanxi, china * yuanbin wang, xi’an university of science and technology, xi’an yanta road middle secion, no 58, shaanxi, 710054, china received: august 25, 2019 accepted: september 5, 2019 online published: september 10, 2019 doi:10.22158/fet.v2n4p181 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v2n4p181 abstract research on graduate training between china and france are made in the paper. aiming at the problems in training goal, speciality characteristics and teaching method, measurements which can be taken are presented associating with chinese situation and french education. it is verified that the methods are practical and feasible. keywords comparison, fusion, education, training, graduate 1. introduction in 2017 september, double first-rate construction started. talent training is the central task and work in universities, the goal of double first-rate construction is to train first class talents. in this significant background, how to crack the defect and insufficiency from graduate training, explore and seek new way and new mode is becoming an important task for first class training. now in some extent the environment for graduate training is not good enough, the system is not mature, and teaching staff is needed to improve, and the training quality is needed to be enhanced. during the course of double first-rate construction, graduate training should be reformed, and connotative development should be promoted. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 182 published by scholink inc. 2. existing problems it is found that from investigation main problems in graduate training lie in the following aspects: (1) training goal is not specific, and assimilation is severe graduate are the important talent source for economic development, and the graduate training should be consistent with the economic, scientific and technology, and society. however, social factors should be considered enough. the dynamic feature and developing feature should be adjusted correspondingly. (2) the speciality charactersistic is not distinct from the training plan, it can be seen that the plan is not specific, and the discipline is not distinct, the training direction is not obvious, and some courses are too old. it is reflected in three aspects: 1) frontier knowledge has not been given and the interdisciplinary is easy to be ignored. 2) practice course is scarce, and practice ability is not enough. connection between theory and practice is not strong and valid. 3) innovation ability of graduates is not strong, and training method is too single. cooperation between universities and enterprise is scarce, technical ability is weak. (3) teaching method is not novel enough, and the learning interest of students is not high teaching is a way to master theory knowledge. teaching method is traditional, and it is not easy to motivate the learning interest of students. however, once the motivation of students are encouraged, they will make better progress. 3. graduate education in france higher education can be traced back to century 12th. after many times reform, its higher education become famous in the world, and france is one of the most advanced countries. after world war ii, to recover higher education destroyed by the war, the government began to develop graduate education and train practical talents needed by the society. now higher education, engineering education and high technology education have been formed. and their education method is famous in the world. practical problems are brought into the classroom by practical course or project developing, and students are arranged into enterprise to technical training. good ability training platform is built by open practice teaching environment and practice in enterprise. now to train talents in the international environment, our graduate education must be internationalized. we must join in the main stream of international graduate education and develop ourselves from completion. 4. methods which will be adopted combined with the background of double first-rate background, the similarity and difference are compared, training mode are investigated and probed. cdio, pbl will be introduced into the graduate training, practice ability, engineering ability and innovation ability will be trained all together. (1) curriculum system of double first-rate background should be constructed, and course should be optimized. in france, some courses are laid down by enterprises and school together. furthermore, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 183 published by scholink inc. teaching contents may be adjusted by the need of enterprise. therefore, our curriculum system may be laid down like france, and the courses can be associated with society need. on the other hand, superior courses can be shared by internet, and frontier knowledge and interaction learning between different universities may develop. (2) education construction of graduate should be optimized, and training of comprehensive quality should be enhanced. theory knowledge quality, science research quality and practice quality should be improved on the base of training quality model. thus it is helpful for them to be adaptive to future work after graduation quickly. (3) industry-university-research development should be boosted, and cooperation between school and enterprise should be promoted. cooperation between school and enterprise is very obvious in french higher education, and it is also an important reflection of collaborative development for higher engineering education. during the course of cooperation with enterprise, plenty of information about the related industry can be obtained, and this is very helpful to speciality setting, target location. students’ ability in team cooperation, coordinate, communication and solving practical problems may be trained a lot. (4) school characteristics are combined with industry characteristics together, and speciality characteristics should be optimized to be adaptive to the diversified development of students. on the basis of talent training mode and the need from industry, comprehensive specialized talents should be enhanced. students may go to work in mining enterprise and also other industry after graduation. 5. conclusion france is the earliest and western country which built relation with china. during recent 40 years, communication and cooperation between france and china is old and long, and develop continuously. graduate education play an important role in higher education. therefore, the investigation and research on the construction of graduate and training mode is very important. on the basis of comparison and analysis, and at the same time we persist in our chinese characteristics graduate training. the training mode of graduate education may be enhanced and improved, and this is meaningful and helpful for development. acknowledgements this work was supported by graduate teaching reform project from xi’an university of science and technology; in part by higher education research project from xi’an university of science and technology (no. 2080218010); in part by shaanxi education science project (no. sgh18h158). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 184 published by scholink inc. references ge, x. (2017). cultivation model of postgraduate research based on the perspective of social demands. nanchang hanghong university. guo, t. p., wang, z., & xu, p. (2014). a comparative study on experimental curriculum between china and france. higher engineering education research. huang, m. f., wang, j. z., xiao, w. y., & tang, s. j. (2018). system construction of graduate education in double first rate background. academic degree and graduate education. yu, l. m., ma, j. m., & zhang, x. t. (2013). on the comparison and blend between the teaching methodology of the pre-undergraduate in france and that of the undergraduate course in china. higher engineering education research. frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no.4, 2022 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 9 original paper femina cartoonica: gender dimension of disney themes as a pedagogy of popular culture lejla mušić1 1 department of sociology, faculty of political sciences sarajevo, sarajevo university, bosnia and herzegovina received: october 17, 2022 accepted: november 16, 2022 online published: november 29, 2022 doi:10.22158/fet.v5n4p9 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v5n4p9 abstract disney project, as an all enhancing pedagogical project, offers interactive methods of learning for preschool children, and multidisciplinary, trans disciplinary, multicultural teaching methods on all levels of schooling, involving advanced levels of gender studies, inside social studies disciplines, on the upper educational levels. keywords multicultural, disney pedagogy, disney heroes, disney heroines, femina cartoonica 1. introduction the discussion on the influence of the themes inside the disney movies, and research projects developed around the idea, influenced pleads of new, and developed teaching methods for understanding the contemporary society, and developed gender roles system, in the popular culture. garden, and sandlin in their e book teaching with disney (2016) emphasize that teaching gender, in the classrooms, through the popular disney pedagogies, offers multicultural perspectives on depiction of the teachers, and different females, inside the disney world (emperor’s new groove: kuzco’s academy, elena from avalor (sister’s teacher). femina cartoonica represents the notions of the female characters emancipation, influences inside the cartoon industry, mainly through the prism of the walt disney characters. as the emancipation of women human rights from 1970-ties continues, the understanding of women skills, and female heroines, changes from the patriarchal perspectives, to the different forms of emancipated female multicultural characters. inside the literature, disney villains, male and females are mentioned, and developed. negative side of women leadership in fashion industry, in the most celebrated cruella de vil (101 dalmatians), and see urchins such as ursula (little mermaid), evil queen (snow white), maleficent (1 and 2), are investigated by pleads of the authors such as glen dakin, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 4, 2022 10 published by scholink inc. victoria saxon, serena valentino, amy davis, etc. the focus of this work is the emancipation of disney female characters, and positive influences of this perceptions, on the feminist stance advancement, inside the focus group of the university students, of both genders. 2. objectives multiculturalism in the classroom, through the prism of disney characters, offers heroines that originate from all over the world, from europe (germany, france, norway) to saudi arabia, polynesia, south america, america, latin america, china, russia, and speak diversity of languages such as french, russian, arabian, german, chinese mandarine, etc, in the multinational surroundings. the obstacles, and problematic occurrences, are multiple, and unique for every disney character, and if we are discussing the development of the female characters, influenced by the feminism waves, there are differences in between the roles of disney female characters, from 1950-ties, in comparison with his contemporary heroines (merida, mulan, moana). 3. methods investigation on identification with disney characters population sample: ma students of sociology of gender ll, sarajevo university, faculty of political sciences, department sociology (ma). inherently to the research, the examinees were asked to find the most interesting disney male, and female character, after watching the short movies about disney heroes, and disney heroins, with the special requirement, not to mention the same character. inside the chosen sample, 30 % of students were males, and 70% were female students. the questions raised were: 1) what female disney character do you find the most accomplished? 2) what disney male heroes do you find the most accomplished? 3) do male students chose advanced female characters, or more patriarchal models? 4) which female characters are chosen, and in what statistical measurements? inside the responds, on the choosing of the female characters, the repeating of the same character, was more often, when compered with the analyses of male character. this confirms, already constituted general hypothesis, that disney’s most accomplished characters, are his princesses, that are globally celebrated, and admitted into multidisciplinary investigations, inside the social sciences. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 4, 2022 11 published by scholink inc. 4. results figure 1. what female disney character do you find the most accomplished? female students more often chose disney princesses, mainly snow white, and cinderella. only two female students had chosen the modern female characters, such as merida, and mulan. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 4, 2022 12 published by scholink inc. figure 2. what disney male heroes do you find most accomplished? the research had shown that male students prevailingly chose tour advanced female characters, rather than the ones, that are more patriarchal princesses, mainly only mulan, merida, or moana are chosen. not even one male student has chosen the traditional female character, that responds to gender stereotypes. the rest of the female students had chosen traditional female disney princess characters, involving the trans human performativity (supernaturality of hair, and animal transformativity). additional explanation for choosing this female characters can be found in the following explanations: www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 4, 2022 13 published by scholink inc. figure 3. do male students chose advanced female characters, or more patriarchal models? www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 4, 2022 14 published by scholink inc. figure 4. which female characters are chosen, and in what statistical measurements? women rights are human rights once and for all! (hillary rodham clinton, beijing conference) according to the interest based on the audience that influenced the high level network selling, the diversity of the most sold animated disney princess, is somewhat different. 5. discussion the best earning female featured characters are less mentioned, while as the best sold male featured characters are well known. the over billion dollars earning disney featured female heroins, are oscar winners alice in the wonderland (2010) for best art direction, and costume design, and frozen 1, won oscar for best animated feature frozen 2, involving trans speciation themes, beauty and the beast, and zootopia. the only two disney, male featured heroes, that are 1 billion of american dollars success, are lion king, and aladdin. lionel bailly in the book lacan: beginners guide (2009), in the chapter through the looking glass: mirror stage, emphasizes the following notions on the mirror stage, since according to lacan, the opposite is the truth: “at the mirror stage, the intellectual perception of oneself is alienating experience, and the beginning is the series of the untruths; but it is a necessary alienation that allows subject access to the symbolic realm” (bailly, 2009). the “me” formation, in lacan’s theory “the making of ‘le moi’, after hearing his/her name pronounced (moana, mulan, alice, elsa, belle, aladdin, kristof)”, it has heard its name before, but now, it affixes it to the image in the mirror” and identifies himself/herself: “that is elsa. elsa is me!” (bailly, 2009) bailly explains the most important maxima of lacan’s, is that “ human beings are very largely oblivious of their own subject. the ego is what person says about himself/herself: the subject is unrecognized self, that is speaking” (bailly, 2009). on the question who is moana, mulan or merida (the brave), as female identities, or aladdin, kristof, even gaston, huntsman, hercule, tarzan, or peter pan, as male identities, is their own quest for identity. in the lacanian mirror stage: “the subject is an active mind, that produces the concept itself, as the other in the mirror, but it cannot recognize itself”. “the subject is the product of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 4, 2022 15 published by scholink inc. the subjects imaginary game, it produces unity, although not wholeness.” (bailly, 2009). moana: “what if that is not who am i”? her voice wavered, as all the fears of disappointing her family, and people churned, in her stomach (sutherland 2016) merida as an subject, in her teenage age states: “my name is merida. i’m the princess of dunbroch, a kingdom in the highlands of the scotland” (jones, 2012). kristin schiele, lauren louie, and steven chen, in study entitled marketing feminism in youth media: a study of disney, and pixar animation, “through the thematic analyses of 17 disney, and pixar animated films (produced in between 1989 and 2018), and featuring female lead, or co-lead”, they analyze the messages transmitted to young female consumers (louie & chen, 2020). defining disney production, according to forbes’s list, as a “240 billion entertainment business encompassing film, television, theme parks, broadcast, character licensing, and merchandising” (2020), chen, louie, and schiele, showed that most of the female heroins are in some form of identity quest, and passing through the mirror stage, of early self searching, and self understanding, (i will focus onto the ones mentioned by my case study group), through the some form of trans special element , such as little mermaid “makes faustian bargain with a sea witch, to meet human prince on the land”, belle “offers herself to the beast (prince under magic spell) to save her father”, rapunzel (with her trans human “magical hair”, is about to discover her true identity, after being closed, in the tower for so many years). especially celebrated, in my case study group, contemporary female heroins such as mulan, merida, moana (sutherland 2016) represent “savior of father from death, through the transgendered identity, becoming the china’s greatest heroin”, or “searching her own path, through the archery skills”, trans humanly “answering the oceans call to set the things right, after the demigod maui reaches her island, moana seeks out demigod, by her own quest on open seas”, the new disney heroins challenge the traditional patriarchal values, and in line with the social studies notion, on the importance of the skilled female professionals, they practice their skills, rather than being subordinated component of patriarchal order. 6. conclusion the prestigious female heroins elsa, and anna, offer the idea of sisterhood, as an universal principle, and when queen elsa makes a mistake (that causes infinite winter), her sister anna makes things right, through the tremendous efforts (louie & chen, 2020). “winter girl”/elsa (frozen) inside the literature, also had received the negative interpretations, related to the promotion of anorexia, and bulimia, and “girl frozen in time” (holmes, 2015). raja and the dragon, as the newest disney female character, inside the trans human, and trans special environment, admits the notions of female advancement, and in new adaptation of the cruella, the deconstruction of patriarchalism as a project. disney film as a medium of cultural pedagogy, in jack zipes’s critic (randall, 2016), breaking the disney spell: but what the disney spell mean? the great “magic of the disney spell, is that he animated the fairy tale only to transfix audiences, and divert their potential utopian dreams, and hopes, through the false promises, of the images he cast upon the screen. “(bell, haas, & sells, 1995). matusitz and palermo (2014), in the article www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 4, 2022 16 published by scholink inc. entitled the disneyfication of the world, offer the “grobalisation perspective”, through the depicting of the differences, in between the disneyfication, and disneyisation, referring to the idea of the great companies such as disney (walmart, coca-cola) to impose them self globally, for the reason of the profit multiplication. disneyisation is the disney attribution to the shopping malls, and it in baudrillard’s terms consists of “the double process of cannibalization (by host culture), and carnivalisation (by american cultural hegemony)” (roberts, 2020). disneyland parks, films and phenomenology of imagination, in contemporary sociology, in hong kong, tokyo, shanghai paris, and in california, florida, as a form of hyper urbanisation, and hyperreality (eco), inside the investigation field of disney culture, reopen different forms of scientific conclusions, and nouvelle debates (jackson, 2011). supporting the feminism ideas, black history month ideas, and raising “responsible and inspiring campaigns around gender” disney in 2016, inside multimedia (channels, apps, parks) “announced its dream big princess featurettes campaign” (roberts, 2020), as a part of women empowerment discourse, real girls stories vs. princesses”. eco in his travel to hyper reality, precepts disneyland, and disney world as a “artificial cites dedicated to entertainment” (eco, 1986). baudrillard considers that “disneyland, is presented as imaginary, in order to make us believe that the rest is real, when in fact, all of ..... and the america surrounding it, are no longer real, but of the order of hyperreal, and of simulation” (baudrillard, 1988) and concludes that the “disneyland is a paradise. paradise is just paradise. mournful, monotonous, and superficial though it may be, it is paradise. there is no other” (baudrillard, 1998). references bailly, l. (2009). a beginner’s guide. oneworld publications, oxford. retrieved from https://oneworld-publications.com baudrillard, j. (1988). simulacra, and simulations, selected writings (pp. 166-184, poster mark, ed.). stanford university press, stanford. baudrillard, j. (1998). america. verso, london/new york. baudrillard, j. (2017). symbolic exchange and death. sage, london. bell, e., haas, l., & sells, l. (1995). from mouse to mermaid, the politics of film, gender, and culture. bloomington: indiana university press. dakin, g., & saxon, v. v. (2020). the essential guides to the evilest of them all, penguin random house. new york. davis, a. m. (2011). good girls, and wicked witches: changing representations of women in disney’s feature animation, 1937-2001. john libbey publishing, bloomington. eco, u. (1986). travels in hyperreality. essays, harvest books, new york. first lady hillary rodham clinton’s remarks for the united nation’s fourth world conference on women, beijing, china. (september 5, 1995). retrieved from https://www.un.org/esa/gopher-data/conf/fwcw/conf/gov/950905175653.txt www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 4, 2022 17 published by scholink inc. garlen, j. c., & sandlin, j. a. (2016). teaching with disney. peter lang publishing. [e book]: retrieved from https://catalog.loc.gov/vwebv/search?searchcode=lccn&searcharg= 2015038043&searchtype=1&permalink=y holmes, s. (2015). ‘that perfect girl is gone’: pro-ana, anorexia and frozen (2013) as an ‘eating disorder’ film. jackson, k. m., & west, i. m. (2011). disneyland and culture, essays on the parks and their influence. mcfarland and company, inc., publishers, london. jones, j. (2012). brave, merida’s wish. new york: disney press. matusitz, j., & palermo, l. (2014). the disneyfication of the world: a grobalisation perspective. journal of organizational transformation, and social change, 13(2), 91-107. https://doi.org/10.1179/1477963313z.00000000014 randall, sean, feminisney: when disney meets feminism. (december 6, 2016). retrieved from https://medium.com/cinenationshow/feminisney-beauty-and-some-brains-716b52143840 roberts, sh. (ed). (2020). recasting the disney princesses on an era of new media, and social movements. lexington books, new york. schiele, k., louie, l., & chen, s. (2020). marketing feminism in youth media: a study of disney, and pixar animation. business horizons, 63, 659-669. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bushor.2020.05.001 sung, n. ch. (2021). the glocalization of shanghai disneyland (routledge focus on asia). routledge, new york. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003131908 sutherland, k. (2016). the story of moana: a tale of courage and adventure. disney press, new york. valentino, s. (2014). fairest of all, a tale of the wicked queen. disney press, new york. https://catalog.loc.gov/vwebv/search?searchcode=lccn&searcharg https://doi.org/10.1179/1477963313z.00000000014 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bushor.2020.05.001 https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003131908 microsoft word fet-v2n4-p201 frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 201 original paper over-parenting in middle school: how can parents help? suzanne lindt1* 1 department of curriculum and learning, west college of education, midwestern state university, wichita falls, tx, usa * suzanne lindt, department of curriculum and learning, west college of education, midwestern state university, wichita falls, tx, usa received: august 30, 2019 accepted: september 28, 2019 online published: october 9, 2019 doi:10.22158/fet.v2n4p201 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v2n4p201 abstract as students enter the period of adolescence, students perceive parents as less important than their peers. however, many parents continue to remain involved in their adolescent’s lives, when it comes to helping with homework, problems in their social lives, and academics. previous research suggests that both positive and negative outcomes have resulted from parents’ over-involvement in their adolescent’s lives. suggestions for teachers to encourage positive parental involvement to positively influence adolescent development are discussed. keywords adolescence, social development, parenting 1. introduction research suggests that middle school students experience a sudden change in their cognitive, social, and emotional development during this period of adolescence (bandura, 1977). for many of these students, these developmental changes may lead to a decline in academic performance, while the pressure of academic performance increases (hill & tyson, 2009). for teachers of the current adolescent group of students, there is much to understand about these influences and changes to be expected during this critical period. much of the social influence received from parents during childhood shifts when adolescents adopt a greater influence from peers during the period of adolescence (muenks, wigfield, & eccles, 2018). however, many parents of middle school students remain involved in their adolescents’ lives, resulting in both positive and negative social and emotional outcomes. parental involvement with adolescents in middle school may lead to positive academic achievement resulting from parents’ help with academic socialization (hill & tyson, 2009). in addition, parents who maintain an authoritative parenting style (theresya, latifah, & hernawati, 2018) with www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 202 published by scholink inc. supportive feedback may also positively influence their adolescent students’ development (muenks et al., 2018). to the contrary, parental involvement may negatively impact academic achievement when parents adopt a permissive style of parenting (theresya et al.), are overly critical (muenks et al.), or are involved in homework help (hill & tyson, 2009). as teachers of middle school students, understanding parents’ role in the development of the adolescent is salient, and middle school teachers can help parents to be involved enough to help their adolescent but not over-involved. leung and busiol (2016) explain that over-involved parents are considered “helicopter” parents because they hover over their adolescent’s life to help him or her avoid failure. despite the fact that many parents intend to protect their growing children, the over-parenting may lead to poor development adjustment and an increased amount of problem behaviors. in their review of literature, leung and busiol criticize the current research in over-parenting to suggest that much of the research focuses on older samples and may not suggest that over-parenting is maladaptive for adolescents. in addition, little research exists regarding possible mediating variables, such as mutual trust and family life satisfaction. though parents may be involved in their adolescent’s life, might their over-involvement lead to stronger relationships between parent and adolescent? how can teachers encourage parents to possess a strong, supportive relationship with their adolescent, while allowing their adolescent to develop into his or her own person? 2. over-parenting self-determination theory suggests that over-parenting creates a conflict for the child when the child fails, leading to guilt and shame and eventually leading to resentment and anger toward the parent (deci & ryan, 2012). though over-parenting has been defined in various aspects in the literature, segrin woszidlo, givertz, bauer, and taylor (2012) describe over-parenting as falling into four different categories. though parents can over-parent in one, or several of these different over-parenting styles, most tend to over-parent in one way. the four dimensions of over-parenting are: 1) anticipatory problem solving and risk aversion, 2) excessive advice and affective involvement with children, 3) control over children’s self-direction, and 4) provision of abundant tangible assistance. therefore, parents who are over-involved may try to solve problems for their adolescent, provide constant advice and opinions, control their adolescent’s decisions, or provide a large amount of assistance in homework or academic activities. though teachers want parents to provide their adolescent with assistance and encouragement, teachers should also encourage parents and students to learn to work together. over-parenting may cause adolescents to lack autonomy, and may cause them to have lower self-efficacy as they develop into adults. though research demonstrates many negative correlations between overprotective parenting and adolescent’s social and emotional adjustment, other studies have found that intense parental support may lead to greater life satisfaction and long-term psychological adjustment (segrin, woszidlo, givertz, & montgomery, 2013). in a recent study, both parent and emerging adult child were given surveys to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 203 published by scholink inc. complete regarding over-parenting. students who perceived their parents as over-parenting were more likely to report that they had difficulty forming relationships with others, especially when the child perceives the over-parenting as not from that of good intentions. this was not supported with parental reports (segrin et al., 2013). one problem with students self-reporting is that parents may possess intentions unknown to the child (segrin, givertz, swaitkowski, & montgomery, 2015). perhaps teachers can encourage parents to inform adolescents of parental intentions, while explaining to adolescents the importance of adolescent’s actions. table 1 provides suggestions for teachers to understand the different ways that parents may become over-involved and offers suggestions to provide a more positive way of encouraging adolescent development. teachers may have difficulty helping parents to understand how to provide positive feedback and help to their adolescent, so figure 1 provides some suggestions for each type of over-parenting. table 1. suggestions for parents to avoid over-parenting tendency to over-parent negative behavior from parents positive behavior from teachers anticipatory problem solving and risk aversion parents seek to protect their children from failure and may not allow them to take risks (i.e., trying out for cheerleader, going to the debate competition). encourage parents to allow their adolescent to try new things and explain that not making the team or not winning will provide an important life lesson. also, children can learn valuable feedback to improve skills. excessive advice and affective involvement with children parents may be very involved with their adolescent’s personal life and provide feedback and suggestions for peer relationships. with technology, parents may communicate frequently and help their adolescent with every emotional problem. explain to parents that the period of adolescence involves much social and emotional growth. adolescents may have difficulty with peer relationships but should learn how to deal with these relationships independently. the independence will provide adolescents with important social skills in the future. control over children’s self-direction parents may take over control of scheduling of classes and extra-curricular activities of their adolescent to control his or her future career decision making. explain to parents that they should speak with their adolescent to get feedback to make decisions together about future college or career plans. pushing their adolescent into a career path undesirable or www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 204 published by scholink inc. uninteresting to him or her may result in low self-esteem in the long run. provision of abundant tangible assistance because parents may worry about their adolescent’s failure, they may become over-involved in offering assistance. most often, this may occur with homework and school projects. encourage parents to help their child to understand the homework or project, but not to do the work for him or her. explain to parents the importance of their adolescent learning the required skills to be successful in the current and future classes. adapted from segrin woszidlo, givertz, bauer, & taylor, 2012 3. parenting styles parenting styles have been defined as permissive, authoritative, and authoritarian (baumrind, 1973, 1993; maccoby & martin, 1983). first, permissive parenting explains parents who try to avoid conflict and allow their children to make their own choices. this parenting style may have few rules and few consequences for adolescents and may lead to negative social developmental consequences (segrin et al., 2012). permissive parents may be difficult to reach and may not provide any type of assistance or help for students in school and outside activities. adolescents of permissive parents may appear withdrawn and lack self-esteem because of the lack of support and encouragement they receive (maccoby & martin, 1983). teachers may have difficultly encouraging permissive parents to become involved in their adolescent’s life, but sending notes home or emailing parents may be helpful to encourage greater parent involvement. if teachers do not make an attempt to encourage parents to become more involved, these children may withdraw further and develop lower self-esteem. second, authoritarian parenting imposes many rules and describes a parent who is over-protective and does not allow the child to make any choices. this parenting style is also viewed as maladaptive in ones’ social development. authoritarian parents may be the over-protective or “helicopter parent”. these parents may try to control their adolescent’s choices, prevent them from taking risks, and become overly involved in peer relationships and schoolwork. by explaining the importance of adolescent autonomy, teachers may help authoritarian parents to step back and allow their adolescent to take some risks. the third type of parenting style is authoritative parenting, which provides a balance between the other twoparenting styles. this parenting style provides children with rules but allows the child to make choices and discuss changing rules if needed. though consequences result from broken rules, the consequences are not overly harsh as in the authoritarian parenting style. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 205 published by scholink inc. table 2. parenting styles parenting syle explanation permissive  accept the child’s decisions  use little punishment  allow the child to make his or her own decisions authoritative  expect mature behavior from the child  set standards for behavior and expect child to follow them  encourage child to be independent authoritarian  overbearing and controlling  set regid standards for child to follow  do not respond much to child’s need for independence note. adampted from baumrind (1973). though much research suggests parenting can be categorized into one of these three styles, recent research suggests that these traditional parenting styles may not fit with the demanding parents of today because of conflicting examples and the changes occurring in youth today. research suggests that providing rules for adolescents remains important, but with increased technology, these rules may be ever-changing. many parents believe that their intentions are good and that over-parenting and rules will improve the well-being of the child and enable him or her to attain greater future personal and academic success (locke, campbell, & kavanagh, 2012). finding a balance between creating rules to protect adolescents from the dangers of the internet and social media, while also providing adolescents with an opportunity to self-explore and create their own sense of self is important for parents today. teachers may share information with parents about technology and internet safety to help in setting rules to protect their adolescent at school and at home. 4. creating healthy development despite the fact that research offers suggestions for avoiding over-parenting, little is known about the current generation of adolescents. with many influences from social media and the abundance of information available, adolescents of today may be different from the generations of the past. however, research does provide developmental theories to suggest the sequence of development and its stability from one generation to the next (bandura, 1977). to create a healthy development, parents of adolescents should avoid over-parenting by becoming involved in their child’s social development. when parents intervene in problems the adolescent has at school or with peers and fail to provide their adolescent with an opportunity to solve problems independently, this over-parenting may lead to negative developmental consequences (segrin et al., 2012). with social media and the increase in bullying, many adolescents www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 206 published by scholink inc. may feel especially vulnerable to hurtful words and actions from their peers and classmates. to protect their children, parents may become involved in these conflicts. in addition, over-parenting can be avoided when parents allow children to make some of their own decisions especially concerning future directions. erikson (1980) suggests that the period of adolescence is critical to self-discovery and identity development. when parents and teachers attempt to control students’ pathways and influence their natural self-exploration, this period of adolescence and development may become negatively influenced. teachers and parents should provide their adolescents with an opportunity to self-explore and establish their own sense of identity. 5. conclusion as adolescents reach the period of development that includes great social and emotional developmental changes, the influence of parents is important to creating a healthy development. parents who become overly involved in their adolescent’s lift may cause negative influence, leading to poor social skills, academic skills, and the ability to solve conflicts. however, parents adopting an authoritative parenting style, who build strong supportive relationships with their adolescents, and who allow their adolescent children to learn how to solve conflicts on their own may provide their child with the necessary skills to become a functioning adult. as the youth of today have changed and a new generation seeks to be defined, both parents and teachers should try to better understand the role of technology and social media in this important period of development. as adolescents become more independent, they may also be hindered from engaging in much of the healthy face to face conflict of previous generations. in addition, parents and teachers must reach an agreement regarding homework help and academic pressure to ensure that this new generation does not experience stifled emotional development. references bandura, a. (1977). social learning theory. englewood cliffs, nj: prentice hall. baumrind, d. (1973). the development of instrumental competence through socialization. in a. d. pick (ed.), minnesota symposium on child psychology (vol. 7, pp. 3-46). minneapolis: university of minnesota press. https://doi.org/10.5749/j.ctttsmk0.4 baumrin, d. (1991). effective parenting during the early adolescent transition. journal of early adolescence, 11(1), 56-95. https://doi.org/10.1177/0272431691111004 deci, e. l., & ryan, r. m. (2012). self-determination theory. in p. a. m. van lange, a. w. kruglanski, & e. t. higgins (eds.), handbook of theories of social psychology (vol. 1, pp. 416-437). thousand oaks, ca: sage. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446249215.n21 erikson, e. h. (1980). identity and the life cycle. new york, new york: norton & company. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 207 published by scholink inc. hill, n. e., & tyson, d. f. (2009). parental involvement in middle school: a meta-analytic assessment of the strategies that promote achievement. developmental psychology, 45(3), 740-763. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0015362 leung, j. t. y., & busiol, d. (2016). adolescents growing up in a “greenhouse”: a literature review. international journal of child and adolescent health, 9(4), 413-422. locke, j. y., campbell, m. a., & kavanagh, d. (2012). can a parent do too much for their child? an examination by parenting professionals of the concept of over-parenting. australian journal of guidance counseling, 22(2), 249-265. https://doi.org/10.1017/jgc.2012.29 maccoby, e. e., & martin, j. (1983). socialization in the context of the family: parent child interaction. in e. m. hetherington (ed.), p. h. mussen (series ed.), hand book of child psychology: socialization, personality, and social development (vol. 4, pp. 1-101). new york: wiley. mihret, a. m., dilgasa, g. s., & mamo, t. h. (2019). parenting style as correlates of adolescents’ academic achievement motivation of bate secondary school, haramaya, ethiopia. international journal of education and literacy studies, 7(2), 172-176. https://doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijels.v.7n.2p.172 muenks, k., wigfield, a., & eccles, j. s. (2018). i can do this! the development and calibration of children’s expectations for success and competence beliefs. developmental review. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dr.2018.04.001 segrin, c., givertz, m., swaitkowski, p., & montgomery, n. (2015). overparenting is associated with child problems and a critical family environment. journal of child and family studies, 24(2), 470-479. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-013-9858-3 segrin, c., woszidlo, a., givertz, m., bauer, a., &taylo, m. m. (2012). the association between over-parenting, parent child communication, and entitlement and adaptive traits in adult children. family relations, 61(2), 237-252. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-3729.2011.00689.x segrin, c., woszidlo, a., givertz, m., & montgomery, n. (2013). parent and child traits associated with over-parenting. journal of social clinical psychology, 32(6), 569-595. https://doi.org/10.1521/jscp.2013.32.6.569 theresya, j., latifah, m., & hernawati, n. (2018). the effect of parenting style, self-efficacy, and self-regulated learning on adolescents’ academic achievement. journal of child development studies, 3(1), 28-43. https://doi.org/10.29244/jcds.3.1.28-43 frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no.1, 2022 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 76 original paper measuring what you test testing what you intend to measure wade smith, phd1 1 southeastern louisiana university, hammond, la, usa received: february 5, 2022 accepted: february 28, 2022 online published: march 19, 2022 doi:10.22158/fet.v5n1p76 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v5n1p76 abstract public school teachers across america are supposed to differentiate instruction while simultaneously adhering to a highly scripted curriculum. teachers routinely comment that they know they are teaching materials that are not retained, but they cannot adjust instruction due to the preset pacing of the curriculum. adding to this problem is the expectation that teachers will stay on pace to prepare students for end-of-year exams. understandably, these expectations are a significant contributor to stress incurred by teachers. this paper provides an analysis of these contradictions as well as suggesting a strategy for teachers to use that can provide for differentiated instruction while following highly scripted curriculum. keywords active engagement, assessment, curriculum, instructional alignment 1. introduction jeopardy is a long-running television game show. the premise of the game is that people can select dollar values in a subject category. when a value is chosen from a category an answer is revealed, and it is up to the player to provide the question that applies to the answer. correct questions are awarded their assigned value and incorrect answers are penalized by the same amount. whoever has the highest score wins at the end of the day. the notion that more difficult challenges should be rewarded with higher gain is intuitive. return on investment, where greater performance is met with higher compensation is a standard business practice in companies across america. that said, the risks associated with merit pay have been well known for some time. lawler (1973), for example, points out that merit pay can results in portions of job descriptions being ignored or neglected if they are not in the performance plan. additionally, merit pay www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 77 published by scholink inc. can result in employees artificially inflating data used in their performance evaluations. finally, there is the possibility that group work norms may suffer when one person’s work is singled out as exemplary. recognizing these risks is important to framing an optimal work environment that rewards extraordinary work while protecting against unintended consequences. schools, like businesses, strive to recognize and reward excellence, primarily through the rewarding of letter grades and most specifically, letter grades on exams. as we shall see, there are also risks associated with providing harder test items with higher weights. 2. the problem identifying mastery on a test is surprisingly easy when compared to identifying a basic level of achievement. as long as the test is aligned with instruction, the entire test can be written at the mastery level and those who have actually mastered the information will be able to demonstrate that fact. but what about the student who may be performing at a basic level? if the test is heavily weighted towards mastery questions, then it is quite likely their grade will be very low and do a poor job of demonstrating what they actually learned. for the first student, the test provides multiple opportunities to demonstrate mastery. for the second student, the test affords no opportunities to demonstrate a basic understanding of the material on the exam. schools are now under intense pressure to demonstrate their effectiveness vis-à-vis student success on standardized and high-stakes tests. in order for schools to score at the highest levels of a state’s performance rankings, they need as many students as possible to score as high as possible. as a result, standards-based curricula with higher expectations have enjoyed heightened interest. the no child left behind act of 2001 (nclb) was perhaps the culmination of what has become a prolonged effort producing many standards-based reforms in school accountability. supporters of these efforts believe that heightened accountability would result in improved instruction, more rigorous curriculum, and ultimately increased student performance (berger, 2000). as nclb began to take hold, states began an effort to create a common testing platform so that scores could be compared from state-to-state in a direct manner. ultimately, efforts by the national governors association and council of chief state school officers, created the common core standards in 2009 and 2010 respectively. a primary expectation for common core was, as noted, creation of a platform that would allow for state-to-state comparison of student progress. this expectation has been essentially scuttled due to most states creating their own accountability measures and setting their own benchmarks for success (nelson, 2015). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 78 published by scholink inc. although common core has evolved into a much broader and diffuse set of expectations that when originally envisioned, many of the initial expectations still impact the classroom. teachers, for example, are commonly given scripted curriculums in an effort to comply with state and federal mandates (griffith, 2008; milosovic, 2007). common complaints from teachers are that these materials are not flexible enough to meet the needs of all their students and that their required level of instruction is not sensitive to the various ability levels in their classroom (hudson, 2017). what teachers are describing is a tension between what is taught and what is tested. not only what is taught, but at what level of difficulty. the issue of how to reward successful completion of challenging work is straight at hand. 3. a possible resolution the trend towards scripted curriculum is established, as is the trend towards increased instructional expectations. one can debate the merits or shortcomings of this reality, but the time spent towards that end will not affect what is currently the order of the day. what is needed is a means to work within the system so that students can remain engaged in challenging but doable activities while teachers can simultaneously document that they are supplying the rigor embedded in their curriculum. the solution impacts both teaching and assessment. one of the ironies of scripted curriculum is the ongoing expectation that instruction be individualized to meet the needs of all students. the challenge created by expecting flexibility from a highly structured delivery model approaches the level of an oxymoron. on the one hand, the curriculum is highly scripted and adherence to the curriculum an expectation. on the other hand, the teacher is supposed to meet the needs of the student(s) not responding to the highly scripted curriculum. this is where we need to revisit and challenge the notion that higher levels of achievement should be rewarded with more points. the concept may work well in the workplace, but it has little application to a classroom. to receive high compensation in the workplace for a difficult task you first must demonstrate that you have achieved what would be the normal expectations. rewarding excellence means that you have also recognized basic expectations were achieved. assessments, on the other hand, can and often do try to document excellence without allowing for a demonstration of basic expectations. as mentioned at the beginning of this paper, the most egregious example of that type of test would be one where all items were written at the mastery level. that test assuredly documents mastery, but it has no capacity to demonstrate basic competencies. in this case, the assessment is measuring what a student does not know instead of what they do know. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 79 published by scholink inc. if a test is generated with twenty questions, and every question is worth five points, then the implicit assumption is that every question holds equal value. when i first became a principal, i filled out my first self-evaluation. the criteria were straightforward: do you dress properly? do you speak properly? are you punctual? are you organized? and so forth. but then, there was one criterion that struck me as standing by itself: do you exhibit sound decision-making strategies? i filled out my self-evaluation and then i noticed that out of the 25 odd questions, i was going to be deemed deficient if i received a negative ranking from my superior for more than two of the categories. according to the rules set forth in my evaluation, i could be unable to generate a proper response to a crisis as long as i was punctual, organized, well-spoken, and dressed to the nines. this is the kind of stuff that happens when you fail to differentiate between what is mission critical and what might be important. tests, like my first performance evaluation, are often guilty of this oversight. to remedy the situation, it is not enough to identify which questions are at the basic level and which questions demand more expertise. it is also crucial to weight the items appropriately. as noted, it is a common thought that harder questions should be worth more points. but, considering the example of a test that asks question solely at the mastery level, we can see where this thinking is misguided. if a grading scale for an exam is 90, 80, 70 and so on, then we can see that the top 10% of the test is supposed to differentiate for the a. it makes sense then, that the problems or questions intended to demonstrate a level work should make up approximately 10% of the grade. if they make up more than 10% then the test is sliding towards the extreme example we have noted, and students are being overly penalized for what they do not know rather than being rewarded for what they do know. there is, therefore, an inverse relationship between the level of difficulty and the points assigned to the item. easy questions should be worth more and harder questions should be worth less. of course, this thinking has to be balanced against the recognition that a test should discriminate between basic, above basic, and mastery levels of attainment. since this is the case, it might be reasonable to have 75% of a test at the basic level (a middle c on a 10-point scale). about 15% of the test would be geared towards above basic material and about 10% would be identified as mastery level. extending this thinking, an assessment might have multiple opportunities to document mastery of a skill. even if there are five items that are linked to mastery level achievement, their collective score should be about 10% of the total test score, otherwise the assessment is beginning to measure what a student does not know rather than what they do. importantly, the principle guiding the weighting of items can be applied to any grading scale. at its most extreme, a grading scale might be 98-100 for an a. if that is the case, the same five items would now be worth 2% of the total grading scale. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 80 published by scholink inc. 4. linking assessment to instruction identifying difficulty levels for items and assigning proper weighting for these items is important, but insufficient. it is also important to align the instruction that takes place with the assessment. this is where the rubber meets the road for the typical teacher trying to balance the expected curriculum rigor with the various levels of skill and potential within their class. early on in common core’s implementation, concerns were raised by leaders in the field. initial results on common core assessments were generally dismal, with one principal remarking the difficulty for the exams were more akin to ap exams rather than a general classroom (ravitch, 2013). nearly a decade removed, the same concerns are still being expressed by classroom teachers and those concerns provided some impetus for the movement of states towards their own peculiar standards. the standards may now vary state-by-state, but the curricula used by these states generally comes from a very small pool of suppliers. one of the selling points for those supplying curricula is their product is aligned to rigorous standards. aligning instruction to standards is all well and good. but one can reasonably question whether a standard may or may not have too high of a performance expectation. for example, a track coach might set a standard of 6’6” for the high jump, but that expectation might not be reasonable for an athlete just learning the fundamentals of the event. that analogy holds up well for the classroom. the high standard has been established, but it might not be reasonable for some students. fortunately, it is possible to maintain the standard as documentation of the highest level of achievement while also providing students with opportunities to demonstrate basic or above basic achievement. just as the test must weight test items properly, it is also important to properly weight the time spent on the ascending levels of attainment. so, for example, a class would spend a necessary amount of time making sure that students understand and can actively engage the basic expectations that will translate to being able to pass the forthcoming assessment with at least a c. how much time? that question has no set answer. there is a tension between pacing for basic and preparing for mastery, but that is nothing new, it has been this way since the first one-room schoolhouse. although it cannot be definitively stated how much time will be needed to address basic, it is quite possible that there will be an inverse relationship at work here as well, i.e., the basic expectations that will comprise the majority of the weighting for the test assessment would be expected to require less time to cover when compared to the higher-level expectations yet to come. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 81 published by scholink inc. explaining to students that the materials currently being covered will provide the majority of the points to be earned on the next exam would be a direct means of communicating to students that they must obtain this level of proficiency to pass the exam. providing task specificity, such as suggested here, is known to contribute to heightened belief in one’s ability to organize and execute successful courses of action, i.e., self-efficacy. that is no small achievement since self-efficacy has been demonstrated to influence how much effort is invested in a given endeavor, perseverance in the face of obstacles and failure, resilience to adversity, whether thoughts are self-aiding or hindering, levels of stress and depression while facing significant obstacles, which courses of action are pursued, and ultimately the courses of action chosen to pursue (bandura, 1997). if instruction is clearly identified as aligning with the basic, above basic, and mastery portions of the attendant assessment, teachers have also differentiated their instruction to meet the needs of the varying levels of ability and potential found in the class. as an aside, it is simply not possible to manage a class of 25 students, provide an effective lesson, answer the intercom, send the sick kid to the nurse, and find time to give significant individual differentiated instruction to the child who desperately needs it. it is possible, however, to provide that student and every other student with adequate opportunity to engage the tasks necessary to document basic proficiency. 4.1 real world application i have collaborated with schools that have worked to properly weight their assessments while aligning their instruction to these assessments. these schools have ranged from college preparatory schools to schools serving high levels of poverty. in one particular case for the latter, a teacher was faced with the onerous task of teaching algebra i to students that included 17-year-old students. she lamented their apathy and their resistance to engaging much of anything she was trying to present. to address the problem, we introduced a criterion referenced learning guide (crlg). this was a document given to the student that told them what basic looked like, the tasks associated with documenting basic, and when the assessment would take place. we also identified above basic and mastery, but the immediate task was to get students involved with the most basic level of skill documentation. the teacher handed out the crlg and followed it diligently. when the assessment was administered, the students’ performance was unchanged. she was disappointed, but we were not done. the next day, when she returned to class, she pulled out the crlg and the assessment and showed the students exactly how the crlg was preparing them to pass the exam. this demonstration led one of the 17-year-old students to ask: “you mean to tell me you are going to tell us what we need to know?” www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 82 published by scholink inc. the next time we met she was pleased to announce that engagement and interest had both risen significantly. bandura would nod his head approvingly. the students, knowing what was expected of them and that these expectations were a direct path to success had acted rationally and engaged those expectations. to be clear, the likelihood of 17-year-old ninth graders finishing school is not reasonable. that said, the students who had been left behind for so long were able to see that there was a path to success that might include a ged. positive results such as these were not limited to at-risk populations. in one instance, a math teacher at a school where 98% attended college upon graduation employed the strategy in her class. the students quickly realized that they had a ready means of identifying how to optimize their test score. after the first exam, the teacher reported that she observed students answering the questions that secured the highest point values first. after they “banked” as many points as possible, they turned their attention to the harder questions where the higher levels of achievement would be documented. similar reports have come from elementary schools. one third-grade teacher implementing the crlg spoke passionately about how students were often left frustrated by tests that stressed the highest level of achievement. when she introduced the crlg and aligned her assessment’s weighting to reflect the inverse relationship between difficulty and point allocation suggested in this paper she saw immediate results. students who had experienced test anxiety were now much more at ease. interestingly, many students were now attempting the more difficult problems with a higher level of energy. removing the stress from the attempt facilitated active engagement and encouraged the students to view difficult tasks as challenges to engage rather than landmines that would obliterate their test score. 5. conclusion an interesting trend is emerging in education. teachers are leaving the profession in ever greater numbers and the pool of the next generation of teachers is shrinking (walker, 2022). asking teachers to follow a highly structured curriculum while simultaneously expecting them to differentiate instruction is undoubtedly contributing to the exodus. meanwhile, the next generation of teachers is understandably reticent to engage the very tasks that are driving their predecessors from the profession. emphasis upon student excellence is admirable and necessary. however, emphasis upon excellence that is not properly sensitive to documentation of basic skill attainment is misguided and fraught with logical and practical unintended consequences. undue stress worsens negative reactions to assigned tasks. that is true of students, teachers, administrators, engineers, doctors, plumbers, and lawyers. it is as close to a universal truth as you can find. one way to mitigate stress is to provide a clear means to success. for schools, that requires proper weighting of assessments and subsequent alignment of instruction to that test. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 83 published by scholink inc. references bandura, a. (1997). self-efficacy: the exercise of control. w.h. freeman. new york. griffith, r. (2008). the impact of a scripted reading program on teachers’ professional spirits. teaching & learning, 22(3), 121-133. hudson, c. (2017). stakeholders debate pros and cons of new curriculum. retrieved from https://www.thewashingtondailynews.com/2017/11/10/stakeholders-debate-pros-and-cons-of-new -curriculum/ lawler iii, e. e. (1973). motivation in work organizations. brooks/cole publishing. monterey, ca. milosovic, s. (2007). building a case against scripted reading programs. education digest, 73(1), 27-30. nelson, l. (2015). everything you need to know about the common core. retrieved from https://www.vox.com/2014/10/7/18088680/common-core ravitch, d. (2013). why i cannot support the common core standards. retrieved from https://dianeravitch.net/2013/02/26/why-i-cannot-support-the-common-core-standards/ walker, t. (2/01/2022). survey: alarming numbers of teachers may soon leave the profession. retrieved from https://www.nea.org/advocating-for-change/new-from-nea/survey-alarming-number-educators-ma y-soon-leave-profession https://www.thewashingtondailynews.com/2017/11/10/stakeholders-debate-pros-and-cons-of-new-curriculum/ https://www.thewashingtondailynews.com/2017/11/10/stakeholders-debate-pros-and-cons-of-new-curriculum/ https://www.vox.com/2014/10/7/18088680/common-core https://dianeravitch.net/2013/02/26/why-i-cannot-support-the-common-core-standards/ https://www.nea.org/advocating-for-change/new-from-nea/survey-alarming-number-educators-may-soon-leave-profession https://www.nea.org/advocating-for-change/new-from-nea/survey-alarming-number-educators-may-soon-leave-profession frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no.4, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 19 original paper perception of linguistic and affective prosody in individuals with aphasia abhishek b. p.1,2 1 assistant professor, department of speech language pathology, all india institute of speech and hearing, india received: june 25, 2023 accepted: july 31, 2023 online published: august 30, 2023 doi:10.22158/fet.v6n4p19 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v6n4p19 abstract the current study was carried out with the aim of testing the perception of linguistic and affective prosody in individuals with aphasia. convenient sampling was followed for the recruitment of participants. comparative group design was used. the participants were divided into two groups. the first group comprised of 10 individuals with aphasia while the second group comprised of 10 neurologically healthy individuals. the study was carried out in native and non-native languages of the participants. based on this premise, two tasks were configured. the first task required the participants to judge the prosody of sentences in native language and the second task required the participants to judge the sentences based on the prosody in the non-native language. mann whitney u test was used to compare the performance of the two groups. statistically significant difference between the two groups was found on both the tasks. the theoretical premise suggests that the linguistic prosody is affected in left brain damaged adults however, the affective prosody is spared in this population. the findings of the current study contradicted this result as perception of linguistic and affective prosody was found to be affected in persons with aphasia. keywords executive control, response inhibition, cognitive flexibility, trend in performance 1. introduction the term prosody refers to the melody in speech. the terms prosody and supra-segmentals are used interchangeably. the term speech prosody therefore affirms to the vocal modulation that combat with speech. speech prosody is assumed to operate based on pitch modulations (fiez, 1997) . the frequency, amplitude and duration convey the linguistic and paralinguistic aspects. stress, rhythm and intonation are the key. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 20 published by scholink inc. the pitch modulations act as an interface in conveying the linguistic information, in adjunct it can also convey information about the emotional status of the person. the former is termed as linguistic prosody while the latter is called affective prosody (fonagy, 1978). the affective prosody is assumed to convey the emotional status of the speaker through the changes in pitch, duration and loudness. in other words, the acoustic signal of the speakers signal is assumed to serve to disambiguate the emotional status. the affective prosody is often compared with the facial expressions. the perception and production of linguistic and affective prosody is often investigated in left-brain damaged and right brain damaged individuals (gandour et al., 1998). the basis for the studies pertaining to linguistic and affective prosody roots back to case studies. the focus of these study was on lateralisation. it is accepted in consensus that the left hemisphere is associated with lexico-syntactic processing. while the right hemisphere is associated with perception of prosody. left-brain damaged individuals with aphasia are assumed to confront difficulty in the perception of linguistic prosody while the perception of affective prosody remains intact. the theoretical evidence concerning this claim is derived from the functional lateralization hypothesis, which postulates that the right hemisphere of the brain processes affective prosody while the left hemisphere processes linguistic prosody. the hypothesis is supported by earlier studies (golfinopoulos et al., 2010), in unilateral right hemisphere lesions in the same lines, difficulty in the perception of linguistic prosody have been reported in patients with lesions in both the left and right brain damage (pell, 1998). a meta-analysis of literature on the perception of linguistic and affective prosody by michel and steven (2013) revealed that both affective and linguistic prosody are impaired by damage to either hemisphere, the damage to an exclusive left brain damage can have an impact on linguistic prosody predominantly and damage to right hemisphere can have an impact on affective prosody predominantly. this claim has been subjected to testing. the site of lesion may be unclear in few studies while the site of lesion is dispersed or scattered in other studies. therefore, the neurological literature does not permit an examination of localization hypotheses at a finer scale than the lobe per se. the neuro imaging studies also have failed to provide a linear relationship between the perception of linguistic and affective prosody with the site of lesion. while other studies in this direction (monrad-krohn, 1947; weintraub et al., 1981), testing the functional cue hypothesis or differential cue has attracted criticism as the right hemisphere is assumed to work based on holistic and coarse processing of information. in addition, there are evidences to suggest that the affective prosody is affected in individuals with left hemisphere damage (pell, 1998). hence there is no univocal findings on the perception of linguistic prosody in brain -damaged individuals. prosody conveyed by the linguistic content is termed linguistic prosody while the prosody conveyed by the affective component is termed as affective prosody. the affective prosody is perceived regardless of the language. the perception of linguistic and affective prosody in brain damaged adults has been studied extensively by considering left and right brain damaged adults. the notion is that linguistic prosody is affected in left brain damaged and the affective prosody is www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 21 published by scholink inc. affected in right brain damaged individuals, however the prevalence of right brain damage in clinical scenario is very sparse in nature. hence it is practically difficult to study linguistic and affective prosody in right brain damaged individuals. as an alternate the perception of linguistic and affective prosody was tested by using native and non-native languages of the participants. the perception of linguistic prosody is tapped through the native language while the perception of affective prosody is tapped through the non-native language. thus, the current study attempted to investigate the perception of linguistic and affective prosody in individuals with aphasia (iwa) by employing a judgment task in native and non-native languages. linguistic prosody and affective prosody is considered to be a pre-requisite for correct judgment in native and non-native languages. the other factor which necessitated the current study is that there is no consensus regarding the perception of linguistic and affective prosody in brain damaged generally and aphasia in specific. the present study was carried out with the aim to investigate the perception of linguistic and affective prosody in iwa and specific objectives to compare the scores on judgment task in native and non-native language in iwa and neuro-typical adults 2. method 2.1 study design and participants details the study involved a comparative group design. a total of 30 participants were considered for the study and the participants involved in the study were divided into two groups: group 1 comprised of 10 stroke survivors and the second group comprised of 20 neuro-typical adults. group 1 consisted of 10 stroke survivors all the individuals in group 1 had a left hemisphere damage. the participants were selected based on convenient sampling. thus, purposive-sampling was used for recruitment of participants. as comprehension is a pre-requisite for judgment task, other types of aphasia were not included deliberately. wab-k (ravikumar et al., unpublished) was administered on these participants and it was revealed that 7 individuals had broca’s aphasia and the remaining had anomic aphasia. the details of the participants are represented in table 1. table 1. details of participants sl no age/gender post stroke duration initial diagnosis diagnosis at the time of conduct of the current study 1 52/male 10 months broca’s aphasia broca’s aphasia 2 50/male 6 months global aphasia broca’s aphasia 3 46/male 9 months global aphasia broca’s aphasia 4 49/male 9 months broca’s aphasia anomic aphasia www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 22 published by scholink inc. 5 53/male 1 year 2 months global aphasia anomic aphasia 6 50/male 7 months transcortical motor aphasia anomic aphasia 7 44/male 6 months broca’s aphasia broca’s aphasia 8 49/male 1 year broca’s aphasia broca’s aphasia 9 50/male 8 months global aphasia broca’s aphasia 10 51/male 9 months global aphasia broca’s aphasia profiling of persons with aphasia revealed that the mean age range of participants was 49.3 years, all of them were male and kannada was the native language of these participants. the post-stroke duration was 9 months on an average and all these participants had received therapeutic intervention. group 2 participants were non-brain damaged and were age matched with group 1 participants. group 2 participants did not have any history of cognitive, communication and sensory problems/deficits. informed consent was sought from the participants and caregivers of group 1 and from participants of group 2. following this, two main tasks was administered on the participants. judgment task was used to test the perception of linguistic and affective prosody. to test the linguistic prosody, sentences in the native language were used. it was decided to use 25 sentences in native language (8 interrogative, 9 declarative and 8 exclamatory sentences) were recorded from native kannada speaker and each sentence had an average of 5 words. these sentences were recorded and played to participants of both the groups. the task of the participants was listen to the sentences and match it with ‘smileys’. the smileys corresponded with the prosody conveyed by the sentences. the smileys used in the study is depicted in figure 1. the participants were acclimatized to the task by using a trail block. each correct judgment was awarded a score of 1, thus the maximum score was 25. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 23 published by scholink inc. figure 1. smileys used to depict the different form of sentences for testing affective prosody, sentences from malayalam was used, recording, play-back, sentence length, type of sentences was similar to the first task. the maximum score was 25. the only difference was that task 1 used sentences in native language while task 2 used non-native sentences. 3. result the median score on judgment task in native language (task 1) and non-native language (task 2) was computed from group 1 and group 2 participants. group 1 participants secured a score of 11 on task 1 and 9 on task 2. group 2 participants obtained a score of 24 and 18 on task 1 and task 2 respectively. figure 2. comparing group 1 and group 2 on task 1 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 24 published by scholink inc. figure 3. comparing group 1 vs group 2 on task 2 the objective was to compare the performance of group 1 and group 2 individuals on task 1 and task 2. in other-words, between and within group comparison was carried out. within group analysis revealed that the data did not abide the properties of normal distribution as evident on shapiro-wilk’s test (p<0.05), wilcoxon’s signed rank test, a non-parametric test was used for comparison. for group 1, there was a marginal difference between the performance on task 1, task 2, z score obtained was 0.83, and the statistic revealed no significant difference. for group 2, the performance was clearly better in task 1 than task 2, z score obtained was 2.08 (p<0.05) and the corresponding p value showed significant difference. between group comparison was carried out to compare group 1 and group 2 on task 1 and task 2. the z score was 3.02 (p<0.05) for task 1 and 2.89 (p<0.05) for task 2. the corresponding p values showed significant differences on both comparisons. in summary, within group analysis revealed that there was no significant difference between task 1 and task 2 for group 1. for group 2, there was a significant difference between task 1 and task 2. 4. discussion as stated in the method section, the study involved a comparative group design. the participants of the study were divided into two groups. the first group consisted of persons with aphasia. this group represented brain damaged population. the second group on the other hand consisted of neurologically healthy individuals and this group represented non brain damaged individuals. two judgment based tasks were administered on the participants. the first task used sentences from the native language of the participants and tapped linguistic prosody. the second task on the other hand used sentences from the non-native language and tapped affective prosody. group 1 comprised of iwa. all these individuals were stroke survivors with lesion in the left www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 25 published by scholink inc. hemisphere and the right hemisphere was intact for all participants. the theoretical evidence in left-brain damaged individuals’ show that linguistic prosody is affected in this population 4. linguistic prosody was tapped through native sentences while sentences in non-native language (malayalam in this case) tapped the affective prosody. the participants were not exposed to malayalam in their routine hence the judgment was based on affective prosody. the theoretical claim from the differential cue hypothesis is that the left hemisphere mediates the linguistic prosody and the right hemisphere mediates the affective prosody. the site of lesion was different for different participants but the site of lesion was in the left hemisphere itself for all the participants considered hence the participants can be deemed as left brain damaged individuals. even with intact right hemisphere, the participants underperformed in non-native language. the descriptive scores on affective prosody (task 2) showed that they exhibited difficulty in judging sentences in non-native language also. in adjunct they exhibited difficulties in judging sentences of native language, which can be attributed to the linguistic deficits. it is note-worthy that the three individuals with anomic aphasia performed better compared to individuals with broca’s aphasia. hence recovery and the quantum of linguistic deficits had a direct bearing on the results. the findings of the current study also throws light the probable pattern of co-activation of left and right hemisphere and shows that the perception of affective prosody could be affected in iwa. neuro-typical participants on the other hand performed well in both the tasks tapping the linguistic and affective prosody. native language advantage was evident and it attributed to better performance in native language. in non-native, they exhibited difficulty especially in distinguishing interrogative and exclamatory sentence. the overall findings show that perception of speech prosody regardless of native or non-native language resort on an intact left hemisphere (monrad‐krohn, 1947; pell & baum, 1997; weintraub et al., 1981). the primary limitation of the current study was that only limited number of participants were considered and the neurological and linguistic deficits were heterogeneous. the study can be extended by considering more number of individuals with aphasia, this would enable studying the site of lesion, quantum of linguistic deficits and correlating these factors with the performance on judgment tasks. in summary, the study was carried with aim of investigating linguistic and affective prosody in iwa. 10 iwa and 20 neuro-typical participants were considered. linguistic and affective prosody was tested through judgment task in native and non-native language of participants. the findings showed that there was a clear distinction between native and non-native languages in neuro-typical participants. iwa flaunted difficulty in both native and non-native language even with the right hemisphere being intact. there was a significant difference between iwa and neuro-typical participants in both native as well as non-native language the findings show that perception of speech prosody in native or non-native language would demand the left hemisphere to be intact. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 26 published by scholink inc. acknowledgement the author acknowledges with gratitude director, all india institute of speech and hearing for permitting to conduct the study at the institute. the authors also like to acknowledge the participant for co-operation. references belyk, m. b., & steven, r. (2013). perception of affective and linguistic prosody: an ale meta-analysis of neuroimaging studies. social cognitive and affective neuroscience, 9. fiez, j. a. (1997). phonology, semantics, and the role of the left inferior prefrontal cortex. human brain map, 5(2), 79-83. fonagy, i. (1978). a new method of investigating the perception of prosodic features. language and speech, 21(1), 34-49. https://doi.org/10.1177/002383097802100102 gandour, j., wong, d., & hutchins, g. (1998). pitch processing in the human brain is influenced by language experience. neuroreport, 9(9), 2115-2119. https://doi.org/10.1097/00001756-199806220-00038 golfinopoulos, e., tourville, j. a., & guenther, f. h. (2010). the integration of large-scale neural network modeling and functional brain imaging in speech motor control. neuroimage, 52(3), 862-874. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2009.10.023 monrad-krohn, g. (1947). the prosodic quality of speech and its disorders: (a brief survey from a neurologist's point of view). acta psychiatrica scandinavica, 22(3-4), 255-269. pell, m. d. (1998). recognition of prosody following unilateral brain lesion: influence of functional and structural attributes of prosodic contours. neuropsychologia, 36(8), 701-715. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0028-3932(98)00008-6 pell, m. d., & baum, s. r. (1997). the ability to perceive and comprehend intonation in linguistic and affective contexts by brain-damaged adults. brain and language, 57(1), 80-99. https://doi.org/10.1006/brln.1997.1638 ravi kumar, s.,vijayashree,s.,&shyamala,k.c (2001). development and validation of wab in kannada. unpublished aiish funded research funded project report, all india institute of speech and hearing, university of mysore weintraub, s., mesulam, m. m., & kramer, l. (1981). disturbances in prosody. a right-hemisphere contribution to language. archives of neurology, 38(12), 742-744. https://doi.org/10.1001/archneur.1981.00510120042004 https://doi.org/10.1001/archneur.1981.00510120042004 microsoft word fet-v2n3-p159 frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 159 original paper informal correspondence by greek learners of the italian language: a study based on learner corpora, native corpora and textbooks katerina florou1* 1 department of italian language and literature, national and kapodistrian university of athens, athens, greece * katerina florou, department of italian language and literature, national and kapodistrian university of athens, athens, greece received: july 31, 2019 accepted: august 13, 2019 online published: august 28, 2019 doi:10.22158/fet.v2n3p159 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v2n3p159 abstract the aim of this study is to compare various lexical structures between a learner corpus of students with italian as a foreign language and a reference monolingual italian corpus. more specifically, the first is a learner corpus (part of a wider learner corpus) comprised of greek students studying italian as a foreign language while the second is the cwic reference corpus of native italian speakers. the research findings help us explain the role of didactic material in comprehending linguistic structures that are found in informal letters/emails and, moreover, they provide us valuable information regarding the use of the same lexical structures by native speakers. keywords foreign language teaching, contrastive linguistics, linguistic structures 1. introduction during the last two decades corpora have established their position in the field of computational linguistics and foreign language teaching and have formed an autonomous sector (corpus linguistics) (mcenery, 2012). this specific research is an attempt to detect converging and diverging elements in written speech produced by greek students learning the italian language and by italian native speakers; furthermore, more generalized results could be expanded and produced which could be exploited by various teaching applications. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 160 published by scholink inc. in this paper learner corpora and native corpora have been used in order to show that there are systematic differences between the student’s interlanguage and native italian language concerning the frequency of words, phrases and structures, with some elements being overused and others underused (granger, 1998). learner corpora are large collections of oral or written texts produced by learners of a foreign language (granger, 2004). consequently, more and more studies now turn to corpora as a source of primary data. while corpus-based methodologies have increased in sophistication, the use of corpus data is also associated with a number of unresolved problems (arppe, gilquin, zeschel, hilpert, & glynn, 2010). learner corpora can be studied regarding the learners’ errors or they can be compared with other learner corpora or native corpora. such researches have been carried out in order to study, for example, the frequency of the use of verbs (ringdom, 1998), the use of connectors (altemberg & tapper, 1998), the vocabulary (lenko-szymanska, 2005), the use of prepositions (diez-bedmar & casas-pedrosa, 2006), the use of modal verbs (aijmer, 2002). the present paper, even though it draws upon all the previous research experience, differs because it compares the same genre of written speech in the italian language and, most of all, because the results of such research can be used effectively in foreign language teaching. before introducing the main analysis, it would be useful to clarify why this kind of speech/genre was chosen to be studied. firstly, it is very common during language certification exams (of all foreign languages and not italian in particular) for learners to be asked to write an informal letter or email, so it is something which learners practice thoroughly. it is also a kind of writing that is taught at the beginning of the course, even before teaching basic linguistic structures and, finally, it is among the first written communication tasks. moreover, it is a very convenient communication activity, since students see the immediate application -mostly professionals and students who are familiar with online communicationand it does not require special guidance, as there is always something more to be said or written to a friend without the use of formulated expressions. this satisfies the need for simplified communication skills, which is covered with the use of basic vocabulary. that need is eminently evident in the early stages of foreign language acquisition, when the student seeks linguistic realization through lexical structures that he/she has already obtained in his/her mother language and searches for the lexical items with which he/she feels more familiar in the target language and, at the same time, constitute its own basic vocabulary (ιακώβου, μαρκόπουλος, & μικρός, 2003). this particular choice of genre also serves the purpose of applying the research results in teaching or in the development of textbooks. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 161 published by scholink inc. 2. research hypothesis the present study examines whether the structures of opening and closing a letter/e-mail as well as the connective structures within the letter/e-mail written by the learners of italian language are identical to those that have been taught in class and/or those that native speakers use. we observed that in most italian language textbooks aimed at greek students a template letter is used which includes some ways of addressing the recipient and others to conclude the letter. the students of the italian language do not always apply the lexical rules and there is a need to determine whether these rules actually describe patterns of native speakers. furthermore, the informal e-mail is one of the first communicative tasks taught in class (due to its simplicity) and it is useful to learn some words or phrases that will be used as connectors. some connectors are already known and others are taught to facilitate this communicative task. but students and teachers often wonder if memorizing all these words is really effective, or if it is more natural to use fewer (as they might imagine italians native speakers do). in order to study the abovementioned claim, we used learner and native corpora to achieve both speed in data processing and reliability in findings. 3. comparison of the two corpora the corpora used and contributed to the formulation of the conclusions was the learner corpus named sub-iflg corpus (florou, 2009) and the native corpus of italian language named cwic-lettere (miceli & kennedy, 2005). the first is a corpus which is constructed of written texts of adult students who attend a private italian language institute and consists of 66 texts with a total of 8,342 words. it is a collection of letters, written by learners, which cover the same topic: “during vacation you are writing to a friend inviting him to join you”. this is a sub-corpus of a larger learner corpus, iflg, of 20,000 words, which has been error-tagged by a semiautomatic tool developed in the university of athens named “episimiotis” (koutsis, markopoulos, & mikros, 2007). the second is a native corpus used as a reference corpus, as a linguistic resource that is used to compare the language of students with that of native speakers. it has been compiled by kennedy and miceli in a university of australia and it is a smaller part of cwic. for the use of the above data special permission was granted by the corpus developers restricted to academic use. the cwic-lettere consists of 40 letters which total amount of 8,648 tokens (miceli & kennedy, 2005). in order for the comparisons to be reliable, the two corpora should be equal in terms of size. for the accurate analysis and counting of the structures under study, a corpus analysis tool is necessary (chambers, 2005) and, in this case, the one that we used was wordsmith (v. 6.0). this tool was used mainly for counting the frequency of occurrence of the searched linguistic features. 3.1 structures of address forms in order to facilitate the writing of a letter/email for students of italian, textbooks for italian as a foreign language suggest some specific structures for addressing the recipient of the letter/email. the use of these structures is not obligatory (teachers do not restrict students to these phrases), while native www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 162 published by scholink inc. speakers use some of those mentioned in the textbooks and also others not suggested to students. the percentages of structures of address forms in both corpora are shown in the following table 1: table 1. structures of address forms structures of introduction sub-iflg % lettere-cwic % caro 26 39,5 3 7,5 cara 36 54,5 10 25 cari 0 0 5 12,5 carissimo 1 1,5 7 17,5 carissima 3 4,5 8 20 ciao 0 0 3 7,5 recipient’s name 0 0 4 10 total 66 100 40 100 note. caro=dear (m), cara=dear(f), cari=dear (pl), carissimo=dearest(m),carissima=dearest(f), ciao=hallo. the most striking observation is that the letters/emails of native speakers have a greater variety of address forms. this seems quite natural since students do not write spontaneously, but take on a role and, therefore, they choose the most simple and popular form. the second area of concern is that letters with only the name of the recipient or a simple greeting are not used by greek students. should these forms be used, since they are not recommended in the textbooks, they are corrected by the teachers. the high frequency terms cara and carissima, both in sub-iflg and the cwic-lettere, appear more often, because the chosen recipient (imaginary or real) is a woman and not a man; in addition, regarding the learner corpus, there are more female students than male students who attend italian language courses. on the other hand, cwic does not keep any personal data of the native speakers who offered the original material. it should be noted that in the iflg the use of caro and cara becomes excessive in relation to what natural speakers use, with a significant difference. in contrast, in cwic the forms cari and carissima are widely used. the same forms seem to be avoided by italian learners because they are rarely addressed in plural and a form like carissima in greek language sounds overly affectionate. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 163 published by scholink inc. 3.2 closing structures regarding closing structures, textbooks suggest some standard phrases but in this case there is more variety. nevertheless, it is possible to group these structures into sets with approximately the same meaning, as shown below table 2: table 2. closing structures structures of closing sub-iflg % lettere-cwic % ti bacio/baci/bacioni/ baci e abbracci/ baci e saluti 40 60,6 13 32,5 ti abbraccio/un abbraccio 8 12,1 10 25 saluti/un saluto 8 12,1 1 2,5 a presto 1 1,5 3 7,5 con affetto 2 3,1 1 2,5 con simpatia 0 0 2 5 ciao 0 0 4 10 ti aspetto 2 3,1 0 0 senders’ name 4 6 4 10 1 1,5 2 5 total 66 100 40 100 note. ti bacio=i kiss you/ baci=kisses/ bacioni=big kisses/ baci e abbracci=kisses and hugs/ baci e saluti=kisses and greetings, ti abbraccio=i hug you/ un abbraccio=a hug, saluti=greetings/ un saluto=a greeting, a presto=in a minute, con affetto=with tenderness, con simpatia=with affection, ciao=bye, ti aspetto=i expect you. as far as closing a letter/email is concerned, there are more ways used by native speakers. the phrase ti aspetto is not used in the italian corpus, but appears frequently in the iflg since it is semantically associated with one of the topics of the letters (a topic regarding an invitation was given to the students). without doubt, what stands out from the above table is an agreement on the most popular closings, but also a prevalence of phrases related to kissing in the learner corpus. in all likelihood, the learners are strongly influenced by the greek language and the corresponding expressions used in similar cases. there is a particular overuse of phrases ti bacio, baci, etc., or even ti abbraccio, un abbraccio etc. and also un saluto, saluti. on the other hand, in iflg there is a minimum appearance of a presto while there is no use of con simpatia or ciao, probably because they are not taught and they do not resemble anything that would be used in the greek language. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 164 published by scholink inc. 3.3 connective structures when the students of the intermediate level of italian are taught the structure of a letter/email, they have the opportunity to see some types of connection; structures that are either singular words or verbal sets, some belong to the category of links and others are adverbs or even verbal types (e.g., gerund); for this specific research all previous fall under the label of connectors. the table below lists all the connectors proposed by textbooks in the specific unit on how an email should be written, i.e., those that learners of italian use, but those that are used by native speakers are also included. table 2. connectors connectors sub-iflg % lettere-cwic % quindi 3 8,3 10 29,4 così 5 13,9 0 0 dunque 2 5,5 2 5,9 di conseguenza 1 2,8 1 2,9 invece 1 2,8 3 8,8 tuttavia 0 0 0 0 comunque 2 5,5 10 29,4 eppure 0 0 1 2,9 al contrario 0 0 0 0 inoltre 12 33,3 0 0 in più 0 0 1 2,9 d’ altra parte 1 2,8 0 0 concludendo 0 0 0 0 riassumendo 0 0 0 0 in altri termini 0 0 0 0 in breve 0 0 0 0 infatti 2 5,5 2 5,9 in seguito 0 0 2 5,9 alla fine 5 13,9 2 5,9 infine 2 5,5 0 0 total 36 100 34 100 note. quindi=then, così=so, dunque=therefore, di conseguenza=accordingly, invece=instead, tuttavia=however, comunque=nevertheless, eppure=and yet, al contrario=conversely, inoltre=also, in più=plus, d’ altra parte=on the other hand, concludendo=in conclusion, riassumendo=summing up, in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 165 published by scholink inc. altri termini=in other words, in breve=in short, infatti=in fact, in seguito=after, alla fine=eventually, infine=finally. the differences in the use of connectors for both corpora appear to be quite large. of a total of twenty connectors appearing in text books, only seven are used in both corpora (quindi, dunque, di conseguenza, invece, comunque, infatti, alla fine). six of all connectors, even though recommended by the text books, are not used by learners; even native speakers do not commonly use them (tuttavia, al contrario, concludendo, riassumendo, in altri termini, in breve). furthermore, it should be noted that quindi, comunque, and invece are predominantly used by italians for connection (with percentages of 29.4%, 29.4% and 8.8% respectively). on the contrary, greek students do not use those connectors and prefer others like così and inoltre (with percentages of 13.9% and 33.3% respectively), which have no appearance in cwic. essentially, a different choice of connector is used to express the same sense: e.g., quindi and comunque in cwic are used to introduce a conclusion, while the greek students prefer for the same role così. the same holds true with inoltre that greek students use for adding some information, while native speakers achieve the same effect with in seguito and in più, which occur at a frequency of 5.9% and 2.9% respectively. finally, it is worth noting that alla fine and infine (with percentages of 13.9% and 5.5% respectively), considered necessary by textbooks and teachers to complete a written letter/ email, are used by greek learners while italians omit them. 4. concluding remarks in this research the forms of address for opening and the forms for concluding a letter/email were studied, including the use of connectors in the studied texts. one first conclusion that emerges is that no choice is given to the students, either by their books or their teachers, to use more simple forms of address, such as the recipient’s name. another issue that arises is that learners are being restricted by structures presented by both the textbook and the teacher and, therefore, do not experience the freedom of expression that a native speaker has. finally, teachers and textbooks do not give the appropriate attention to the pragmatical meaning of the connectors used by native speakers. this results in inefficient communication that can reveal the non-nativeness of the speaker. this study demonstrated that the use and exploration of learner and native corpora is a fruitful methodological choice (granger, 2003), and can be applied in the classroom, so that foreign language learners can become more aware of the disparities between their interlanguage and the language that native speakers produce. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 166 published by scholink inc. one of the suggestions for further research would be to compare a learner corpus of a larger number of words with a native corpus of greek language (consisting of letters/emails) for the detection of interference from the mother tongue. in addition, iflg corpus could be expanded with formal letters/emails (from learners of a higher level) so that a similar comparison with texts of the corresponding level and genre of the cwic could be performed. we can use this comparison in order to check whether the textbooks can provide adequate linguistic resources for effectively teaching these forms. publishers and authors of textbooks should use corpora with authentic material for suggesting realistic language use. this study and similar investigations can easily be applied to the full range of teaching and the process of language acquisition. these results affect classroom teaching and motivate teachers to lead students to approach foreign language authentic texts. of most importance is that such investigations use authentic pragmatic contexts, such as the emails to which foreign language students will respond, and in which the same students will be asked to communicate with native speakers. references aijmer, k. (2002). modality in advanced swedish learners’ written interlanguage. in s. granger, j. hung, & s. petch-tyson (eds.), computer learner corpora, second language acquisition and foreign language teaching (pp. 55-76). john benjamins publishing company, amsterdam/ philadelphia. https://doi.org/10.1075/lllt.6.07aij altenberg, b., & tapper, m. (1998). the use of adverbial connectors in advanced swedish learners’. in s. granger (ed.), learner english on computer (pp. 80-93). longman, london and new york. arppe, a., gilquin, g., glynn, d., hilpert, m., & zeschel, a. (2010). cognitive corpus linguistics: five points of debate on current theory and methodology. in corpora 5 (pp. 1-27). https://doi.org/10.3366/cor.2010.0001 chambers, a. (2005). integrating corpus consultation in language studies. language learning and tecnology, 9(2), 11-125. diez bedmar, m., & casas pedrosa, v. (2006). the use of prepositions by spanish learners of english at university level: main problems. in 7th conference on teaching and language corpora (talc) proccedings (pp. 42-44). paris. florou, k. (2006). the experience of creating a learner corpus: the italian as foreign language to greek students (iflg). in 7th conference on teaching and language corpora (talc) proceedings (pp. 174-176). paris. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 167 published by scholink inc. granger, s. (2004). computer learner corpus research: curent status and futur prospects. in m. conn, & t. upton (eds.), applied corpus linguistics: a multidimensional perspective (pp. 123-145). amsterdam and atlanda: rodopi. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004333772_008 granger, s. (1998). the computer learner corpus: a versatile new source of data for sla research. in s. granger (ed.), learner english on computer (pp. 3-17). longman, london and new york. ιακώβου, μ., μαρκόπουλος, γ., & μικρός, γ. (2003). καθορισμός βασικού λεξιλογίου μέσω ησk: πρακτική εφαρμογή στη διδασκαλεία της ελληνικής ξένης γλώσσας (translation: determination of basic vocabulary through corpora: application on teaching greek as foreign language). in 6ο διεθνές συνέδριο ελληνικής γλωσσολογίας. retrieved august 1, 2019, from http//www.philology.uoc.gr/conferences/6thicgl/ebook/a/iakovou&markopoulos&micros.pdf kennedy, c., & miceli, t. (2001). an evaluation of intermediate students’ approaches to corpus investigation. language learning & technology, 5(3), 77-90. koutsis, i., markopoulos, g., & mikros, g. (2007). episimiotis. a multilingual tool for hierarchical annotation of texts. in m. davies, p. rayson, s. hunston, & p. danielsson (eds.), proceedings of the corpus linguistics conference cl2007, 27-30 july, 2007. university of birmingham, uk. retrieved august 1, 2019, from http://ucrel.lancs.ac.uk/publications/cl2007/paper/243_paper.pdf lenko-szymanska, a. (2005). the role of l1 influence and l2 instruction in the choice of rhetorical strategies by efl learners. in b. lewandowska-tomaszczyk (ed.), palc’2005. practical applicatios in language corpora. peter lang. mcenery, t., & hardie, a. (2012). corpus linguistics: method, theory and practice. cambridge: cambridge university press. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511981395 ringdom, h. (1998). vocabulary frequencies in advanced learner english: a cross-linguistic approach. in s. granger (ed.), learner english on computer (pp. 41-52), longman, london and new york. frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 63 original paper an analysis of the translation of chinese culture-loaded words in fortress besieged from the perspective of reception aesthetics wenxue hu1 1 school of english studies, xi’an international studies university, xi’an, china received: february 8, 2024 accepted: february 30, 2024 online published: march 19, 2024 doi:10.22158/fet.v7n1p63 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v7n1p63 abstract culture-loaded words are phrases and idioms that reflect unique national cultural characteristics and can directly reflect the historical uniqueness of a country. this paper discusses the translation of culture-loaded words in fortress besieged from the perspective of reception aesthetics, and analyzes the translator’s translation methods according to the similarities and differences between the source language culture and the target language culture. it also analyzes the feasibility of the translation of culture-loaded words under the guidance of reception aesthetics and the quality of the translation under the guidance of the two main theories of reception aesthetics (reader’s horizon of expectation and the implied reader). the main findings of this study are as follows: firstly, translators adopt some translation methods and selectively meet readers’ directional and creative expectations. for different cultural transplanting phenomena, translators adopt different translation strategies to cater to readers’ receptivity and needs. secondly, the implied reader plays an intermediary role in literature, connecting the creator and the audience, so that the work can be interpreted and experienced in a variety of contexts. keywords reception aesthetics, fortress besieged, culture-loaded words, reader’s horizon of expectation 1. introduction 1.1 significance of the study fortress besieged is a long satirical novel written by qian, which has a unique style in the history of modern chinese literature. it mainly describes the group images of intellectuals in the early period of the anti-japanese war. as a work with a historical background, it inevitably contains many words and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 64 published by scholink inc. sentences with chinese cultural characteristics. with the continuous communication of chinese and western cultures, it is becoming more and more important to accurately translate the culture-loaded words in chinese classic literature works, which not only helps to promote the cultural exchanges between chinese and western readers, but also helps to further promote chinese literature to go out. from the perspective of reception aesthetics, this paper analyzes the culture-loaded words in fortress besieged, hoping to provide some references for the translation and processing of culture-loaded words in literary translation, and help to think about translation from the perspective of readers’ receptivity. 1.2 research method this paper mainly adopts the method of descriptive research and literature research. on the basis of consulting and collecting a large number of relevant literature, this paper interprets and analyzes the relevant research of qian’s fortress besieged and the theory of reception aesthetics, and finds out the points that can be further studied. after comparative reading of chinese and english novels, this paper makes a theoretical analysis and research on the translation of typical culture-loaded words in novels by using the theory of reception aesthetics. this paper explores how translators deal with cultural translation, their attitudes towards readers, and the influence of reception aesthetics on translation activities. 2. literature review 2.1 research on aesthetics of reception the concept of “reception aesthetics” was put forward by hans robert jauss, professor of literature and art at the university of konstans in germany, in the late 1960s, when the field of german literary studies was facing a paradigm shift. traditional literary research focuses on the author and the work itself, while ignoring the role of the reader. with the deepening of literary theory research, people begin to realize the important role of readers in literary creation and interpretation. on this basis, reception aesthetics emerged. after the joint development of hans robert jauss and wolfgang iser, it became an aesthetic school of reception aesthetics with far-reaching influence in the 1970s and 1980s. hans robert jauss and wolfgang iser are the main creators of reception aesthetics, and their theoretical origins and research paths are also different. jauss mainly studies the reception of literature from the perspective of literary history, while iser studies the reception of literature from the perspective of reading appreciation. phenomenology and hermeneutics are its theoretical basis. some important conceptual categories used in jauss’ and iser’s theories, such as “horizon of expectation”, “history of effect”, “unfixed point”, etc., are derived from heidegger’s “preexisting structure”, “horizon of understanding”, and gadamer’s “fusion of horizon “(wang, 1998). jauss (1982) believes that any reader, before reading any specific work, is already in a state of understanding structure and knowledge framework, and this understanding is the “horizon of expectation” of literature. according to jauss, “the reader is itself an active constituent of history.” the historical life of literary works is inconceivable without the active participation of the recipients. for it www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 65 published by scholink inc. is only through the reader’s process of reading that the work can enter into a continuously changing field of experience (jauss, 1982, p. 43).” according to iser, “the meaning of a work can only be produced in the process of reading, as a result of the interaction between the work and the reader (1978, p. 97).” he believes that literary works have two poles, one pole is artistic, that is, the text written by the author, and the other pole is aesthetic, that is, the embodiment or realization of the text by the reader. the text structure of a work already implies various interpretations that readers can realize, which is called “implied readers”. this theory emphasizes the openness and ambiguity of literary works and stimulates people’s multiple interpretations of literary works. ma (2000) spoke highly of the birth of reception aesthetics as an epoch-making event. reception aesthetics has not only made great waves in the field of literary studies, but also aroused great repercussions in the field of translation, providing an excellent guide for translation studies to break new ground. the translation of culture-loaded words is a combination of cultural and literary translation. therefore, reception aesthetics is of great significance to the translation of culture-loaded words. 2.2 research on fortress besieged and culture-loaded words fortress besieged is one of the most famous novels in the history of modern literature. its english translation was jointly translated by american writer and translator jeanne kelly and american scholar nathan k. mao, and published by indiana university press in 1979. it has been warmly received in overseas sinology circles. “fortress besieged is the most delightful and carefully wrought novel in modern chinese literature; it perhaps also his greatest novel (hsia, 1961, p. 441).” due to the exquisite and witty language of fortress besieged, the study of its english translation mainly focuses on the unique language of the novel, such as translation of humor, translation of metaphors, translation of idioms, translation of culture-loaded words, translation of character dialogue, etc., from which, it can be concluded that domestication translation strategy, foreignization translation strategy, or both domestication and foreignization translation strategy. as qian (1995, p. 69) himself put it, a good translation will “arouse some people’s curiosity, provoke them to boundless longing for the original work, as if it gives them a taste, arouses their appetite, but does not satisfy their cravings”, and the english translation of fortress besieged has achieved just such an effect. on this basis, a further study is carried out on the cultural reflection of the translation of fortress besieged, such as cultural intervention, cultural violence, intertextuality, etc. (ge, 2013, p. 63). here, regardless of whether the conclusions drawn by the researchers are fair or not, the research methods adopted in these research papers are generally to describe and analyze the specific translation problems of fortress besieged under the guidance of certain theories, and then to summarize. as for the cultural factors contained in the language structure encountered in translation, the famous american translation theorist nida (2001) divided them into five categories: “ecological culture”, “material culture”, “social culture”, “religious culture”, “linguistic culture”. culture-loaded words refer to a series of words in the language system that can reflect the cultural information carried by the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 66 published by scholink inc. language and reflect the human social life. these words often have distinct national characteristics and cultural deposits, reflecting the history, culture, customs and aesthetic concepts of a particular nation. as a novel with chinese culture as its background, fortress besieged contains many culture-loaded words, which sometimes hinder cultural communication and translation. therefore, it is of great practical significance to explore these culture-loaded words and their translation. 3. application of reception aesthetics to the translation of culture-loaded words in fortress besieged 3.1 fortress besieged in view of horizon of expectation 3.1.1 transliteration in the horizon of expectation 1) 这是七月下旬, 合中国旧历的三伏, 一年最热的时候 (qian, 2003, p. 6)。 translation: it was toward the end of july, equivalent to the “san-fu” period of the lunar calendar-the hottest days of the year (kelly & mao, 2003, p. 7). in china, “三伏天”, which fall between minor heat and end heat, is the hottest, humid and sultry time of the year. the three periods are divided into the first period, the middle period and the last period, and its date is determined by the combination of the 24 solar terms and the date of the dates designated by heavenly stems and earthly branchesra. after the “入伏”, many places in the country will enter a continuous high temperature mode, which appears every year from mid-july to mid-august in the gregorian calendar. its climate is characterized by high temperature, low pressure, high humidity and small wind speed. therefore, as a typical culture-loaded word, “三伏” contains a lot of cultural information, which will naturally be hindered for readers who lack cultural background. however, there is no corresponding cultural information in english, which is different from the previous life experience and reading experience of the target language readers, and the problem of large aesthetic distance will be encountered in the process of reading. the translator adopts the transliteration method, which is beyond the readers’ expectation and vision, and the readers are often happy to think that it has improved their aesthetic level and enriched their aesthetic experience (liu, 2005). at the same time, this translation method makes the unique chinese meteorological classification culture spread smoothly. 2) “你！苏东坡的妹妹，才女！” (qian, 2003, p. 5) translation: “you! su tung-p’o’s little sister, *the girl genius!” (kelly & mao, 2003, p. 7) annotation：su tung-p’o (1037—1101): a celebrated chinese poet，essayist，painter，and calligrapher. his sister, su hsiao-mei, probably a legendary figure, is reputed to have been equally talented. su tung-p’o was a famous writer, calligrapher and painter. his younger sister, “little sister su”, read poetry and literature from childhood and was proficient in classics. the use of names of historical figures to describe characters in the original text has a special pragmatic effect, but it brings difficulties to english readers. the translator considered that “su tung-p’o” and “su hsiao-mei” occupy an www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 67 published by scholink inc. important position in the source culture, and hoped to reduce the english audience. therefore, the method of transliteration is chosen here. cultural differences are most prominent at the lexical level and involve a wide range of aspects. there is no unified translation method and formula for the translation of culture-loaded words. translators should deeply understand the spirit of the original text and correctly infer the intention of the author on the basis of proficiency in the two languages and cultures, while taking into account the thoughts and receptive ability of the target language recipient, and correctly absorb the nutrients of the source language culture within the framework of the target language culture. in order to properly convey the cultural factors in the culture-loaded vocabulary of the source language. 3.1.2 literal translation in the horizon of expectation 3) 那男孩子的母亲已有三十开外，穿件半旧的黑纱旗袍，满面劳碌困倦，加上天生的倒挂眉毛， 愈觉得愁苦可怜 (qian, 2003, p. 4)。 translation: the toddler’s mother, already in her thirties, was wearing an old black chiffon *chinese dress, a face marked by toil and weariness, her slanting down ward eyebrows made her look even more miserable (kelly & mao, 2003, p. 7). annotation: the chinese dress refers to ch’i-p’ao, which has a high collar that usually fits close to the neck. before the translation of fortress besieged, the translators nathan k. mao and jenny kelly had their own experience in translating chinese literary works, which helped them to adopt appropriate translation strategies to reproduce the beauty of fortress besieged to western readers (zhang, 2012). “旗袍”, a traditional robe for chinese women, is a typical chinese cultural word. this kind of vocabulary contains rich chinese cultural connotation, there is no corresponding vocabulary in english, which leads to the phenomenon of vocabulary vacancy. for the target readers, this is inconsistent with their own vision of expectation, and readers need to exert their own initiative to create a sexual imagination of this image. jauss (1982) proposed that the historical essence of the text, that is, the existence of the text and the literary vision, exists in the continuous alternating evolution of the vision in the time series. the reader’s expectation vision will also change with the connotation of the text. only when the reader’s expectation vision is integrated with the text vision, can we talk about acceptance and understanding. the translator adopts the literal translation method, which not only facilitates the readers of the target language to imagine the image of the cheongsam, but also enables the integration of the two perspectives and preserves the cultural color of the source language. 3.1.3 free translation of the horizon of expectation free translation refers to the translation according to the general idea of the original text, not a word-for-word translation (different from literal translation). it is often used in the translation of sentences, phrases, or larger groups of meanings, mainly in cases where the source language and the target language reflect significant cultural differences. from the perspective of cross-cultural language communication and cultural exchange, free translation emphasizes the relative independence of the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 68 published by scholink inc. cultural system of the target language and the cultural system of the source language. in the english translation of fortress besieged, nathan k. mao and jenny kelly used free translation to deal with culture-loaded words, preserving the chinese cultural connotation, which is also conducive to the spread of chinese culture. 4）“她们有什么东西陪过来，对你吹牛！” (qian, 2003, p. 307) translation: “what sort of trousseau did they bring?” they were giving you a lot of bull (kelly & mao, 2003, p. 324)! “吹牛”, also known as blowing a cow’s skin or blowing a law snail in china, refers to lying or speaking without facts, exaggerating or exaggerating the content of the words. general bragging is to describe no strength, but also like to pretend that they are very powerful people, such people generally no one is willing to communicate with them. as a farming culture in china, cattle is a very important labor tool, and cattle is a symbol of farming civilization, so cattle is often mentioned in china. “吹牛” means boasting, and the actual cow is not the same thing, just borrow the cow to describe a person has no strength, but also like to pretend. however, in western culture, readers have no cultural understanding of the image of the cow in their past life experience. the translator’s free translation of it as “giving you a lot of bull” can not only make readers have a positive association, achieve the degree consistent with the cultural connotation of this article, but also stimulate readers’ interest in reading. literary translation aesthetics is connected with chinese and western cultures, and provides a profound cultural background for translation aesthetics. this not only broadens the research horizon, but also changes the thought mechanism of the research, and thus changes the research method (xi, 2000). by using the theory of reception aesthetics, translators can also provide useful theoretical reference for dealing with the translation of culture-loaded words, and better spread chinese culture to foreign countries. 3.2 the fortress besieged in view of the implied reader for the reading of individual texts, iser (1978) first proposed the so-called “blank” theory, that is, the unwritten part of a literary work which is constantly implied to the reader. the production of the blank is related to language, that is, “the expression of words”, and at the same time, it is related to the picture fragments presented by the work and some constraints of cultural norms at the level of ideological value. because of the blank space of the text, some so-called calling structure will be formed to guide the reader to read in a certain way. because of the summoning structure, there is the so-called implied reader---the reader who understands the work according to the summoning structure. this is the ideal audience of a potential author, the object of the author’s implied expression. 5) 他的国文曾得到老子的教授，在中学会考中考过第二，所以这信写得文绉绉，没有把之乎者 也弄错 (qian, 2003, p. 7)。 translation: since he had received his father’s guidance in literary composition and achieved second place in the high school general examination, his letter was couched in an elegant style without incorrect using of any various particles of literary chinese (kelly & mao, 2003, p. 8). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 69 published by scholink inc. “there are so-called “cultural symbols” almost everywhere in the language, which are left for translators to “decode (liu, 1995, p. 316).” there is a big gap between chinese and english, so the translator should decode the words with chinese cultural connotation in the process of translation. “文 绉绉”, means that speaking is not colloquial, literary education and self-cultivation, and describes the way people speak and act gracefully. the translator uses free translation to translate this word, using this word “elegant” can lead the reader to imagine the true meaning of this word. although the author comes from a different country and cultural background, he still reflects the consideration of ideal readers in the translation process, and the word “elegant” provides convenience for the implied readers to understand the work, and further eliminates the dyslexia. the original meaning of “之乎者也” is the four auxiliary words commonly used in classical chinese, so it also refers to the basic ability that scholars should have, and then it is used to ridicule the scholars only know how to talk about literature, but can not solve practical problems; it is a culture-loaded word with rich cultural connotation, and it is not easy to translate it completely in translation. the existence of implied readers can not only help the author to clarify the goal of writing and choose the appropriate language style, but also influence the author’s creative thinking and expression. kelly and mao translated the word as “literary chinese” can not only help to arouse readers’ thinking, but also increase the reading value and influence of the work. 4. conclusion culture-loaded words play an important role in literary translation, and the success or failure of literary translation and the communication of literary works between english and chinese depends largely on the treatment of culture-loaded words. this paper analyzes typical examples of culture-loaded words in novels from the perspective of reception aesthetics, and finds that translators fully consider readers’ expectations in the process of english translation, and flexibly reproduce the meaning of culture-loaded words by using literal translation, free translation and transliteration. at the same time, translators make assumptions and presets according to their own experience, hobbies and understanding of potential readers, and reflect their consideration of implied readers in their creative ideas and expression methods. in general, implied readers play a kind of intermediary role in literature, connecting creators and audiences, so that works can be interpreted and experienced in various contexts. references hsia, c. t. (1961). a history of modern chinese fiction. new haven: yale university press. iser, w. (1978). the act of reading: a theory of aesthetic response. baltimore and london: the johns hopkins university press. https://doi.org/10.56021/9780801821011 jauss, h. r. (1982). toward an aesthetic of reception. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. kelly, j., & mao, n. k. (2003). fortress besieged. beijing: foreign language teaching and research press. https://doi.org/10.56021/9780801821011 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 70 published by scholink inc. nida, e. a. (2001). language & culture----contexts in translation. shanghai: shanghai foreign language education press. ge, x. q. (2013). textual research on the english translation of besieged city. foreign language studies, 6, 63-66+112. li, j. (2007). review and reflection on the development of contemporary chinese translation aesthetics. journal of renmin university of china, 5, 139-145. liu, f. m. (2005). translation from the perspective of reception aesthetics. journal of beijing international studies university, 2, 23-26+13. liu, m. q. (1995). introduction to translation aesthetics. taipei: shulin publishing co., ltd. ma, x. (2000). the receptive aesthetic view of literary translation. chinese translation, 2, 47-51. qian, z. s. (1995). seven collections. shanghai: shanghai ancient books publishing house. qian, z. s. (2003). fortress besieged. beijing: people’s literature publishing house. sui, r. y., & li, f. p. (2007). translation aesthetics. foreign languages and foreign language teaching, 11, 54-57. wang, y. c. (1998). literary theory of reception reaction. jinan: shandong education press. wang, z. l. (2012). on jauss’s theory of reception aesthetics. jiangsu social sciences, 3, 174-182. xi, y. j. (2000). comparative aesthetics of literary translation. wuhan: hubei education press. zhang, f. (2012). english translation of besieged city from the perspective of translation studies (master’s thesis). shanghai international studies university. frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no.4, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 89 original paper exploration and research on the construction of environmental design discipline in the context of interdisciplinary studies lili shi1 & yingquan wang2* 1 college of design and fine arts, qingdao huanghai university, qingdao, china 2 faculty of creative industries, city university, kuala lumpur, malaysia * yingquan wang, e-mail: wangyq@qdhhc.edu.cn received: october 15, 2023 accepted: november 9, 2023 online published: november 22, 2023 doi:10.22158/fet.v6n4p89 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v6n4p89 abstract in recent years, in order to thoroughly implement the “national medium and long-term educational reform and development plan,” the construction of art colleges has emphasized the characteristics of disciplines and industries. “integration of art and technology” is not only a contemporary design principle but also the direction and essence of modern design talent cultivation. as the demand for talent in the country continues to rise, versatile talents are currently in short supply. this paper explores the research and practice of talent cultivation in the field of environmental design based on the characteristic of “integration of art and engineering,” using the environmental design major at qingdao yellow sea college as an example. with the rapid development of society and continuous technological progress, the traditional single-discipline training model can no longer meet the complex and changing design requirements. therefore, this study integrates the fields of art and engineering, constructing a new talent cultivation model aimed at nurturing individuals with both artistic creativity and engineering technical capabilities. keywords integration of art and engineering, environmental design major, talent cultivation model 1. introduction with society continually advancing and technology rapidly developing, the demand for talent in the field of design is becoming increasingly diverse and complex. in this context, the traditional single-discipline training model is no longer sufficient to meet the growing challenges of design. in order to cultivate versatile talents that meet the needs of contemporary development, academia and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 90 published by scholink inc. practitioners are actively exploring innovative talent cultivation models. among these, the characteristic model based on the “integration of art and engineering” is gaining attention. this paper takes the environmental design major at qingdao yellow sea college as an example, delving into the research and practice of the talent cultivation model based on the “integration of art and engineering” characteristics. in this model, the disciplines of art and engineering blend together, aiming to cultivate interdisciplinary talents possessing both creative artistic thinking and mastery of engineering technology. through this comprehensive cultivation, students can not only pursue aesthetics in design but also apply creativity in practical scenarios. the paper will thoroughly explore the exploration and practice of qingdao yellow sea college’s environmental design major in the cultivation of talents based on the “integration of art and engineering.” through interdisciplinary studies, practical projects, and the integration of industry, academia, and research, the study will examine the enhancement of students’ comprehensive competencies and the application of this model in actual design. simultaneously, attention will be given to potential issues and challenges encountered, as well as the future prospects of this model. through this research, the aim is to provide valuable insights and references for innovation in design education and talent cultivation. 2. the necessity of talent cultivation with the “integration of art and engineering” characteristic as society undergoes rapid transformations and technology advances swiftly, the traditional boundaries of disciplines are gradually fading, and increasingly diverse challenges are emerging. in this context, the urgency of cultivating talents with comprehensive competencies and interdisciplinary capabilities becomes more apparent. “integration of art and engineering,” as an innovative talent cultivation model, is increasingly recognized as a crucial approach to meet the demands of contemporary society. firstly, “integration of art and engineering” can foster innovation. the fusion of artistic and engineering domains sparks unprecedented creative inspiration through the collision and intersection of diverse perspectives. this interdisciplinary thinking aids in solving complex problems, propelling the development of new fields, and injecting a continuous stream of vitality into societal innovation. secondly, “integration of art and engineering” emphasizes comprehensive abilities. traditional single-discipline training struggles to meet the demands of complex tasks, whereas this model cultivates students with multidimensional literacy. it enables them to apply professional knowledge to problem-solving and coordinate resources in interdisciplinary collaboration, resulting in more comprehensive solutions. moreover, real-world problems often require collaborative efforts across multiple disciplines, and talents cultivated through “integration of art and engineering” play a crucial role in meeting this demand. they can bridge gaps between different fields, facilitate the integration and coordination of various disciplines, and thus better address complex and ever-changing challenges. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 91 published by scholink inc. most importantly, talents cultivated through “integration of art and engineering” possess enhanced overall competitiveness. modern society not only demands narrow specialists but also seeks versatile talents capable of navigating effortlessly across various fields. the talents nurtured through the “integration of art and engineering” model fit this profile, making them more competitive in the job market and better suited to meet the needs of the workplace. in conclusion, the talent cultivation with the “integration of art and engineering” characteristic is of significant necessity. it not only promotes innovation, enhances comprehensive abilities, and meets the requirements of interdisciplinary collaboration but also nurtures talents with enhanced overall competitiveness, providing robust support for sustainable development and innovation in society. 3. current research status and shortcomings of talent cultivation with the “integration of art and engineering” characteristic in recent years, to deeply implement the “national medium and long-term educational reform and development plan,” the national and provincial governments have raised higher requirements for the development of disciplines and majors in universities. directives emphasize building industry-oriented schools, including art schools, highlighting the characteristics of disciplines and industries, and concentrating efforts on constructing advantageous and distinctive discipline clusters to enhance overall strengths. series of documents, such as “opinions on accelerating the construction of high-level undergraduate education and comprehensive enhancement of talent training capacity” and “opinions on deepening undergraduate education and teaching reform to improve talent training quality,” have been successively issued, treating teaching reform as a breakthrough point for improving talent training quality. simultaneously, within the context of the national goal to build an innovative country, environmental design, as a crucial component of the national talent landscape alongside architectural design and urban planning, prompts many universities to analyze their existing resources and conditions critically. they actively explore innovations tailored to their characteristics and academic strengths, aiming to follow a path that highlights distinctive features in order to better serve society. in 2005, canadian scholar george siemens proposed in the article “connectivism: a learning theory for the digital age” that knowledge pathways are more important than knowledge content. based on theoretical research, we need to explore teaching implementation paths that focus on collaborative education, interdisciplinary integration, and comprehensive cross-campus training. through collaboration between the university and local communities, businesses, and government, multiple specialized nodes and information sources can be created to form knowledge pathways, ultimately constructing a comprehensive, multidimensional, and collaborative local university environmental design learning system. as the demand for talent in the country continues to rise, cultivating versatile talents has become an urgent goal. therefore, many scholars have conducted in-depth research and practical exploration of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 92 published by scholink inc. the “integration of art and engineering” education model, aiming to nurture arts students who not only possess foundational knowledge in art and aesthetics but can also address deficiencies in science and engineering knowledge. although there has been research and practice in the field of art and engineering integration in china, most scholars have focused primarily on analyzing the advantages of this model and conducting macro-level studies. however, there is a relative lack of research on the technical micro-level aspects, such as the mechanisms and specific implementations of integration. 3.1 difficulty in course integration the cultivation of talents with the integration of art and engineering requires the integration of courses from different disciplines, but the significant differences in the knowledge structures and teaching methods of various disciplines make course integration challenging. it is difficult to ensure a balanced integrated curriculum that retains the characteristics of each discipline while forming an organic learning system. 3.2 imbalanced faculty structure the structural differences between faculties in the fields of art and engineering create communication and collaboration barriers among teachers. teachers in art and engineering have differences in teaching methods, philosophies, and professional backgrounds, making it challenging to coordinate their collaboration and ensure consistency in teaching objectives. 3.3 imperfect evaluation system talent cultivation with the integration of art and engineering involves comprehensive abilities across multiple disciplines, making traditional assessment systems inadequate for evaluating students’ interdisciplinary literacy comprehensively. there is a need for the design of evaluation methods that align with the characteristics of art and engineering integration, accurately measuring students’ performance in creativity, technology, collaboration, and other aspects. 3.4 blurred discipline boundaries the talent cultivation model with the integration of art and engineering may lead to blurred discipline boundaries. while interdisciplinary integration is necessary for cultivating versatile talents, excessively blurring discipline boundaries may result in insufficient deep learning in specific areas, affecting professional development. 3.5 relatively low social recognition traditional talent cultivation models have existed for a long time, leading to relatively low social acceptance of emerging models like art and engineering integration. this may result in lower professional recognition during recruitment processes, affecting the employment opportunities for talents cultivated through art and engineering integration. 3.6 uneven distribution of teaching resources talent cultivation with the integration of art and engineering requires more investment in teaching resources, including faculty, experimental equipment, and course resources. however, there may be an www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 93 published by scholink inc. uneven distribution of resources in different disciplinary areas, affecting the implementation effectiveness of the talent cultivation model with art and engineering integration. in conclusion, while talent cultivation with the integration of art and engineering has many advantages, it also faces challenges and shortcomings. addressing these issues requires collaborative efforts from schools, teachers, employers, and others to continually improve the cultivation model and adapt to the evolving needs of the times. 4. research on talent cultivation pathways with the “integration of art and engineering” characteristic in environmental design major 4.1 research framework environmental design, as a comprehensive discipline involving architecture, art, and engineering, demands a higher level of talent cultivation. historically, the environmental design major has primarily focused on artistic qualities, neglecting the supplementation of science and engineering knowledge, resulting in students facing challenges in practical applications. additionally, the traditional teacher-centered teaching model lacks practical and interdisciplinary teaching, making it difficult for students to adapt to the complex and ever-changing professional environment. therefore, how to truly integrate artistic and engineering knowledge, provide comprehensive interdisciplinary education, remains a subject requiring in-depth exploration. simultaneously, there is an urgent need for reforms in teaching models and faculty development to meet the demand for cultivating versatile talents. building on the historical and current development of the “integration of art and engineering” specialty and the training models and issues in the environmental design major, we should focus on the following aspects to advance the reform and development of talent cultivation in the “integration of art and engineering” specialty in environmental design: 1) establishing a multidisciplinary curriculum: the curriculum of the environmental design major should encompass various disciplines such as art, design, architecture, materials, humanities, and social sciences, ensuring students receive comprehensive knowledge and skill development. simultaneously, strengthening collaboration with other disciplines promotes interdisciplinary learning, enhancing students’ overall capabilities. 2) promoting innovative teaching models: in the teaching process, adopting a student-centered teaching model is essential, encouraging active student participation to foster creativity and teamwork. through project practices, internships, and social research, students can engage with real-world issues, enhancing their problem-solving abilities. 3) faculty development and integration of teaching resources: schools should prioritize faculty development, hiring teachers with rich practical experience and academic expertise. additionally, fostering discipline exchange and collaboration, and bringing in renowned domestic and international scholars and industry experts, can enrich teaching resources. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 94 published by scholink inc. 4) addressing industry needs and social feedback: the cultivation of environmental design professionals should closely align with industry needs, paying attention to social feedback. continuously adjusting teaching content and cultivation objectives ensures students are better equipped to meet industry development and societal demands. through these efforts, talent cultivation in the environmental design major will better align with societal needs, address industry challenges, nurture outstanding and comprehensive design professionals, contributing more to social development and progress. this represents a crucial direction and development trend for talent cultivation in the environmental design major with the “integration of art and engineering” characteristic. 4.2 research strategies by implementing a quality strategy — accelerating the transformation of professional education from quantity to quality — and adopting a distinctive strategy — establishing a diversified and hierarchical environmental design professional education system — we aim to strengthen the cultivation framework of practical and creative abilities. this framework is designed to meet the demand for environmentally friendly and resource-efficient talents in society. the goal is to deliver well-rounded, applied, and high-quality design professionals with a higher level of knowledge and strong innovative capabilities: 4.2.1 focus on professional intersections, emphasizing the characteristics of art and engineering integration leveraging the provincial first-class major, qingdao yellow sea university has developed a training model based on the integration of art and engineering. this model emphasizes “professional intersection, disciplinary cross-fertilization, and open collaboration.” the university prioritizes foundational knowledge, places emphasis on practical skills, and strengthens the development of capabilities. the curriculum system is comprehensive, with clear levels. the teaching process is overall coordinated, step-by-step, and progressively implemented. the practice system is diverse, flexible, and goal-oriented. 4.2.2 establish external interfaces for a diverse and open teaching model enhancing the service capabilities of first-class majors for strategic needs such as rural revitalization, living environments, and cultural heritage conservation. this involves further advancing the in-depth cooperation within the “university-administration-industry” quadrilateral framework. the university aims to explore talent cultivation models, curriculum development, and establish an excellent mentor resource pool. the objective is to create a diverse and collaborative education system. 4.3 research content 4.3.1 building an environmental design talent cultivation model based on the “integration of art and engineering” characteristic redefining the curriculum system to embody the innovation and strong practical aspects of the integration of “design, culture, art, architecture, ecology, and engineering.” this reconstruction aims to create a talent cultivation model for environmental design that is characterized by the integration of art and engineering. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 95 published by scholink inc. 4.3.2 restructuring the “three verticals and four horizontals” curriculum system to build an integrated course cluster establishing a new approach, model, and distinctive curriculum system for cultivating high-quality applied art and design professionals in the environmental design major. this restructuring involves the integration of vertical and horizontal courses to foster a comprehensive understanding of the field. 4.3.3 implementing project-led education for industry-education integration introducing elements such as collaboration with enterprises, integration of scientific research, practical projects, competitions, village preservation, heritage conservation, and transformation. implementing project-led teaching to enhance students’ professional innovation and practical application capabilities through a blend of academic and real-world experiences. 4.4 research pathways an exploration into multidisciplinary and cross-professional integration in professional development aims to break through existing limitations of disciplines and professions. cross-disciplinary professional development is not only a proactive response to the requirements of the new era, adapting to the new technological revolution and industrial changes, but also an intrinsic driving force for deepening professional reforms, creating “first-class majors,” and innovative development such as “gold courses.” 4.4.1 establishment of an art and engineering integrated teaching and research team qingdao yellow sea university, with a comprehensive range of disciplines, strengthens communication and dialogue among talents from different disciplines. this fosters an interdisciplinary teaching and research team combining art with science, technology, and engineering. the aim is to extend a unique and creative talent cultivation model in line with contemporary needs and societal demands. 4.4.2 construction of an art and engineering integrated curriculum system the “integration of art and engineering” aligns with the ministry of education’s “four new” professional development initiative. it combines artistic disciplines with computer science, big data analysis, and artificial intelligence. the curriculum system is structured along “three verticals and four horizontals,” featuring the integration of art, architecture, and electronic information under the “three verticals.” horizontally, it establishes four levels of courses and practical course systems: design practice, cognitive foundations, technical assurance, and entrepreneurial foundations. 4.4.3 collaborative integration with emerging industries adhering to systematic and targeted approaches, the emphasis is on collaborative cultivation with enterprises. there is a focus on enhancing reforms and innovations in teaching models, teaching forms, and teaching content. the “university-administration-industry” collaboration forms an effective mechanism for multi-party collaborative education. this includes the integration of industry and education, and the establishment of a sound ecosystem for university-enterprise cooperation. utilizing external internship bases, the involvement of enterprise mentors in practical teaching, and the creation of a collaborative education mechanism that is “open, co-constructed, and shared.” www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 96 published by scholink inc. 5. conclusion and outlook the cultivation of talents in the integrated field of art and engineering for environmental design represents an innovative training model. by seamlessly merging artistic and engineering disciplines, it produces well-rounded professionals with diverse skills. in practice, the cultivation of talents in this integrated field has yielded significant achievements. looking ahead, the development of talent in the integrated field of art and engineering for environmental design will continue to grow, facing both challenges and promising directions: continuous improvement of the educational system: to enhance the integration of art and engineering, ongoing improvements in the educational system, optimization of course structures, and the strengthening of faculty development are essential. emphasis on interdisciplinary collaboration in practice and comprehensive training requires increased attention to the synergy between disciplines, fostering the integration and transmission of knowledge. reinforcement of practical education: the cultivation of talents in the integrated field of art and engineering for environmental design should place greater emphasis on the importance of practical education. collaborative efforts with industries should be intensified to provide more practical projects and opportunities, enabling students to continuously enhance their skills and address real-world challenges. focus on technological and digital advancements: as technology advances and digitalization progresses, talent cultivation in the integrated field of art and engineering for environmental design must keep pace. institutions should incorporate new technologies and tools into their teaching methods, enabling students to grasp cutting-edge technologies, thus improving design efficiency and quality. promotion of international collaboration: talent cultivation in the integrated field of art and engineering for environmental design needs to align with international standards, incorporating advanced international experiences and philosophies. institutions can actively engage in international exchanges, cooperate with foreign educational resources, and provide students with broader development platforms. through continuous improvement of the educational system, reinforcement of practical education, focus on technological and digital advancements, promotion of international collaboration, and emphasis on social responsibility and sustainable development, talent cultivation in the integrated field of art and engineering for environmental design is poised for a broader and more prosperous future, making positive contributions to the prosperity and sustainable development of the design industry. conflicts of interest the author declares that there is no confict of interest regarding the publication ofthis article. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 97 published by scholink inc. funding this research was funded by the 2022 shandong province undergraduate teaching reform research project. research and practice on the cultivation mode of environmental design professionals based on the characteristics of “integration of art and engineering” (m2022136) references gao, y., gao, s., & luo, w. (2018). the integration mechanism of “art and engineering integration” education model. journal of anhui radio and television university, 2018(1), 11-15. mi, y. (2021). reflections on the development of design education in the context of new liberal arts. journal of shandong university of art and design, 2021(1), 9-14. tang, h. (2021). the construction of engineering pricing course oriented by professional competence. journal of science and education, 2021(23), 23-26. wang, h. (2023). the significance and exploration of “integration of art and engineering” in the design art course under the background of new liberal arts. journal of hubei university of economics (humanities and social sciences), 2023(20), 17-22. xia, y. (2018). the existing problems and deficiencies of the curriculum system of environmental design specialty. tomorrow’s fashion, 2018(11), 44-46. yan, q., zhang, c., & zhao, x. (2021). research on teaching reform of environmental design specialty under the background of “integration of art and engineering.” industrial design, 2021(9), 33-36. zhou, x., & jia, r. (2021). new liberal arts construction: create the advantage of “art and art integration” of fashion and art. art design research, 2021(12), 28-34. frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no.3, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 62 original paper mediation through computerized dynamic assessment (c-da) for second and foreign language learning: a literature review xiaotian liu1* & miao hu2 1 school of humanities and foreign languages, qingdao university of technology, qingdao, china, 2 school of foreign language education, qingdao university, qingdao, china * xiaotian liu, school of humanities and foreign languages, qingdao university of technology, qingdao, 266520, china received: june 2, 2023 accepted: june 30, 2023 online published: july 26, 2023 doi:10.22158/fet.v6n3p62 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v6n3p62 abstract this paper examines research on the effects and roles of computerized dynamic assessment (c-da) in mediating second language (l2) learning and development. the review synthesizes studies on c-da interventions for developing language skills including reading comprehension, vocabulary and grammar skills. c-da studies indicate the promotion of language development, but the effectiveness is not all attributed to c-da mediations. effectiveness seems dependent on both c-da and additional factors like noticing skills or teacher mediation. in these studies, most c-da prompts are pre-constructed and not fully attuned to learners’ zone of proximal development, and some c-da studies address this by complementing c-da with human mediator interaction. given the limited number of c-da studies, the findings of this review are limited. more research is needed, especially on integrating human and computer mediation. however, this review offers implications for designing responsive c-da platforms to better attune to learners’ needs. keywords computerized dynamic assessment, mediation, zone of proximal development 1. introduction dynamic assessment (da) integrates assessment and instruction to promote learners’ language development, and it provides the mediation which is sensitive to the learners’ abilities (lantolf & poehner, 2007). it “takes into account results of an intervention” during which “the examiner teaches www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 63 published by scholink inc. the examinee how to perform better on individual items or on the test as a whole” (sternberg & grigorenkeo, 2002). it can be indicated that external interventions to learners are introduced in the process of da. given its unique view on assessment and instruction, da has received increasing interests in second and foreign language learning and teaching (li & li, 2015). da is mainly studied in terms of its effectiveness of learners’ language development in language sub-skills, such as listening and reading comprehension, grammar and vocabulary skills. however, most da practices are conducted one-on-one, which makes it difficult to implement for a language classroom with multiple learners (poehner, 2009). as an alternative da practice to address multiple learners, computerized dynamic assessment (c-da) is proposed. c-da is argued to serve multiple learners efficiently and enable frequent re-assessment and automatic generation of learners’ reports, given its technological advantage (poehner, 2008). however, as a da practice which may also promote language development, c-da’s mediation of language learners to develop their language skills has not been comprehensively reviewed. therefore, this literature review aims to address this research gap and tries to answer the following two research questions: question 1: how does c-da mediate language learning? question 2: how effective is c-da in promoting language development? 2. theoretical background 2.1 da and vygotsky’s sociocultural theory (sct) da is theoretically rooted in vygotsky’s sociocultural theory (sct). sct views learning as a social and cognitive process—new knowledge is originated in the process of social interaction and is subsequently internalized into mental schema (ellis, 2015). in the process of social interaction, mediation—“the process through which humans deploy culturally constructed artifacts..., and activities to regulate...their own and each other’s mental activity” (lantolf & thorne, 2006, p. 79)—involves using tools to support learners in order to fulfill the task that they cannot fulfill independently (ellis, 2015). in this spirit, learning abilities need to take account of the potential learning ability with external help. zone of proximal development (zpd) delineates a scope of learning abilities ranging from the actual ability of working independently to the potential ability of working with external support. therefore, in order to fully assess a learner’s ability, external support needs to be offered when learners cannot complete the task independently. while a learner’s scope of abilities is being assessed, the external support provided serves to further promote the learner’s development within his/her zpd (poehner, 2008). given this view on assessment, the relationship between the examiner and examinee can also be seen as the mediator and learner: the mediator provides support to learners to mediate learners’ development within their zpds (poehner, 2008). such re-conceptualization of roles as mediator and learner sheds a new light in the language teaching and learning. in this light, teachers can be seen as www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 64 published by scholink inc. mediators who assess and explore learners’ problems while offering instructional support to further cultivate learners’ potential abilities (lantolf & poehner, 2008). and da exemplifies well this integration of assessment and instruction between a mediator and learner. 2.2 two da models as previously discussed, mediation needs to be provided to learners when they are not able to fulfill a task independently. however, mediation can be provided in different forms, ranging from relatively fixed, standardized hints to dynamic, dialogic interaction. lidz and gindis (2003) stress the importance of distinguishing the different forms of mediation since different kinds of medication should not be viewed as equally effective in mediating learners’ development. vygotsky (1998) was aware of the different mediation approaches and viewed the dynamic mediator-learner interaction that mediates learners’ development as cooperative dialoguing. based on the different forms of mediation used, lantolf and poehner (2004) propose the two general models of da: interventionist dynamic assessment and interactionist dynamics assessment. interactionist da resembles vygotsky’s cooperative dialoging, with external support provided in the dynamic mediator-learner interaction, which features high sensitiveness to learners’ zpd: in other words, interactionist da takes accounts of individual learners’ development; interventionist da, on the other hand, provides a quantified number of standardized-formed assistances to prompt learners to reach a pre-specified outcome in an efficient manner. it can be seen that the main difference between the two da models lies in the way that mediation is provided: in interactionist da, mediation is dynamically provided through the mediator-learner interaction; in interventionist da, mediation is sequentially provided with the pre-scripted prompts. however, for interactionist da, its high sensitiveness to individual learners’ development requires intensive work, which limits the contexts of its use; on the other hand, despite the limited flexibility of the mediations that interventionist da provides, the standardization of mediation enables the da’s implementation with multiple learners (poehner & lantolf, 2013). 2.3 computerized dynamic assessment (c-da) computerized dynamic assessment (c-da) is designed to assess test takers’ various abilities in a computerized test, and when test takers give an incorrect answer to a test item, c-da offers a tutorial program that re-examines the same concepts involved in the test item (ghahderijani, namaziandost, tavakoli, kumar, & magizov, 2021). ghahderijani et al. (2021) also believes that test takers’ learning of the assessment items in the tutorial program can help assess their zpds. poehner (2008) argues that c-da can provide pre-constructed mediations to test takers in the process of an assessment, and it can serve multiple learners efficiently and ensure frequent re-assessment and automatic generation of learners’ reports. despites its recognized use (in the light of vygotsky’s sct theory) in the assessment context, c-da is also proposed as one component in the instructional context. poehner and lantolf (2013) propose the implementation of c-da together with classroom-based da in the classroom instruction, in order for teachers to better attune teaching to learners’ zpds. however, the questions of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 65 published by scholink inc. how c-da mediates language learning and how effective are c-da mediations have not been clarified in the literature. 3. c-da studies in second and foreign language teaching in order to select the appropriate empirical studies for literature review, the key words computerized dynamic assessment and l2 are searched, and only peer-reviewed articles are selected. furthermore, the abstracts of c-da studies (from the searching results) have been examined to further refine the searching results and keep the ones that focus on the mediation of learners’ language development. based on the searching results, the main language skills that c-da mediates mainly are reading, vocabulary and grammar. the discussion of the selected studies focuses on the mediation provided and the effectiveness of the mediations. the discussion is first segmented into subsections based on the specific language skills that c-da mediates, and then synthesized to answer the two research questions. 3.1 c-da’s mediation of learners’ reading development teo (2012) studies the mediation of taiwan efl students inferential reading skills through c-da. c-da is delivered on a user-friendly software, and it is situated in an english language course at a taiwan university. in other words, c-da goes along with the daily instruction. the mediations that c-da provides are pre-constructed based on the students’ abilities presented in their pre-test. c-da in this study provides four-level mediations progressing from the implicit to explicit. in other words, when students answer the questions incorrectly, the c-da mediations will be shown in the order from implicitness to explicitness: from the most implicit mediation advising students to focus on the general idea of reading, to the less implicit mediation focusing on specific paragraphs, to the second most explicit one focusing on specific sentences and finally to the most explicit one providing and explaining the correct answers. it is noteworthy that the researcher refers to students’ scores of c-da to understand which mediation levels that individual learners repeatedly reach, and then uses that information for reference and performs one-on-one interactionist da with learners. the study shows the improvement of students’ inferencing skills as well as their meta-cognition on the inferencing skills, which demonstrates the effectiveness of the mediations that students have received. the c-da mediations together with the mediations that the interactionist da provides have shown their effectiveness in promoting inferencing reading skills; the c-da mediations also inform the mediations of the interactionist da. yang and qian (2019) adopt c-da to promote chinese efl learners’ development of reading comprehension. the study features the quasi-experimental design with pre-/post-test for the control and experimental group. c-da is solely used in the experimental group, both on the assessment and instruction. in the pretest, the experimental group incorporates the c-da pre-scripted mediations into the multiple choice questions; in the treatment, the experimental group perform c-da exercises with the pre-scripted mediations provided, and if students fail to answer correctly and remain on one c-da www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 66 published by scholink inc. mediation, the teacher will further explain the c-da mediation to the whole class. the post-test also adopts the same c-da design as the pre-test. on the other hand, the control group features the same pre-/post-test without mediation provided, and their treatment does not involve c-da. the study finds that the experimental group involving the use of c-da outperforms the control group, which indicates the effectiveness of c-da on promoting reading comprehension. for the c-da mediations, they are pre-scripted and presented in the order from the implicit to explicit. teacher helps explain the c-da mediations if students have difficult of understanding them, but such teacher’s explanation is not made in a da way that attunes’ to learners’ zpds. bakhoda and shabani (2019) investigate the use of computerized group dynamic assessment (c-gda) for learners to promote reading comprehension in a classroom setting. like other c-da practices, the mediations are prefabricated and presented in the order from the implicit to explicit. however, the c-da mediations involve the use of textual and picture information. the five-level c-da mediations from implicit to explicit are: 1) reading the whole text again; 2) reading the beginning of each paragraph; 3) reading the highlighted vocabulary; 4) looking at the first picture while reading the highlighted vocabulary; 5) looking at the second picture while reading the beginning of each paragraph. it can be seen that mediations 1 to 3 follow the usual mediation patterns for reading comprehension---from general to specific; however, mediations 4 and 5 provide more explicit information by complimenting the textual information with picture information, to help further explain the accompanying texts for learners. besides c-da, this study also integrates the use of concurrent group dynamic assessment (gda) which provides mediations to different learners in a classroom. c-da and g-da are integrated as c-gda to involve both computer and human mediator. if a student provides an incorrect answer, the most implicit c-da mediation will be provided by the human mediator to the student; if the student still provides an incorrect answer, the second most implicit c-da mediation will be provided by the human mediator, but to a second student...and so on. the integration of c-da and g-da has demonstrated effectiveness in promoting the learners’ reading comprehension, and it provides the chance of mediating a group of learners in a classroom by using both computer and human mediators. unlike their c-gda study, bakhoda and shabani (2019) try to incorporate language learners’ preferences of mediations into the design of c-da for the facilitation of learners’ reading comprehension. they provide three modes of mediation for learners’ free selection: visual, audio and textual. c-da has pre-scripted mediations proceeding from the implicitness to explicitness, in the three modes of mediations respectively. in the c-da procedure, when learners provide incorrect answers, c-da program will ask learners to select the preferred modes of mediation (among visual, audio and textual) and then to proceed with the mediations provided in the preferred modes. overall, the study finds the learners’ preferences are different in the modes of c-da mediations, and also the effectiveness of the c-da’s mediations provided in the learners’ preferred modes are confirmed on the promotion of learners’ reading comprehension. this study contributes to c-da studies by attempting to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 67 published by scholink inc. address the issue of lacking human mediators. it takes account of learners’ preferences on mediation modes and presents a variety of mediation modes, in order to appropriately respond to learners’ needs and attune to their zpds. this study provides implications for the c-da to present various modes of mediations for learners’ reading comprehension. unlike the previous four studies, estaji and saeedian (2020) focus on the effectiveness of the da mediations provided in different manners. they compare human-computer mediation, computer-only mediation and human-only mediation to investigate which manner of mediation better facilitates learners’ reading comprehension. computer-only mediations are prefabricated; human-only mediations are conducted by a mediator in a dialogic interaction; human-computer mediations are initially provided with the prefabricated prompts, and if the prompts cannot be understood, dialogic interaction with a mediator will be conducted. the study finds that all da practices have shown effectiveness in promoting learners’ reading comprehension, with human-computer mediations outperforming the human-only mediations and computer-only mediations. 3.2 c-da’s mediation of learners’ vocabulary and grammar development when it comes to vocabulary development, c-da is coupled with the use of in noticing. ebadi et al. (2018) studies the effectiveness of c-da mediations and noticing on the learners’ development of lexical referencing skills. in the quasi-experimental design, the experimental group of c-da provides four-level pre-constructed mediations from implicit to explicit: 1). suggesting the answer is wrong and asking to think again; 2). highlighting the target word and the relevant parts of texts that can help understand the word; 3). specifying the relationship between the target word and the relevant parts of texts; 4). giving the correct answer and providing explanations. the study finds that c-da facilitates vocabulary acquisition and retention. the study implies the combination of noticing and c-da can enhance vocabulary learning from lexical inferencing. the graduated prompts of c-da can increase the learners’ noticing of the unfamiliar words. similar to ebadi et al. (2018), ebadi, vakilifard and bahramlou (2018) develop a similar study and confirm the effectiveness of c-da mediation and noticing on the learners’ persian vocabulary development. ai (2017) studies the graduated computer-mediated corrective feedback, in terms of its effectiveness in assisting learners to identify and correct potential grammatical issues. the mediations are provided mainly by an intelligent computer-assisted language learning system (proceeding from the implicit to explicit), and an online human mediator will provide remedies when the system fails to do its part. unlike other c-da software that has a fixed number of pre-scripted mediations, this system provides responsive mediations based on the types of syntactical errors that students make. the study finds that this intelligent system is effective in mediating students to self-identify and self-correct grammatical issues, and also implies the possibility of more graduated and interactive mediations provided by c-da. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 68 published by scholink inc. 4. discussion based on the c-da studies above, it can be seen that most c-da practices provide a fixed number of pre-constructed mediations—in other words, c-da mainly adopts the interventionist da model. before being introduced to c-da, all the pre-scripted mediations of c-da were generated from mediator-learner dialogic interactions (interactionist da) and were piloted with learners at the same proficiency levels, to make sure the pre-scripted mediations can maximally attune to learners’ zpds. also, the mediations are always provided in the order from the implicit to explicit. for the two studies of bakhoda and shabani (2019a, 2019b), the modes of c-da mediations are not only limited to textual information. however, the limited flexibility of pre-constructed mediations is one major drawback of c-da. some studies try to address this issue by incorporating additional human mediators. for example, in teo’s (2012) study, the researcher (also the human mediator) refers to the learners’ performance in c-da to see which mediation level learners are stuck at, and then uses the information for the subsequent one-on-one mediator-learner dialogic interaction (interactionist da). in this case, c-da not only mediates learners but also provides information to guide the subsequent da practice. ai (2017) and andujar (2020) also involve the use of human da mediations to remedy the failure of c-da mediations. alternatively, one study tries to address the issue by incorporating the learners’ preferences on mediations into c-da (bakhoda & shabani, 2019a). for the effectiveness of mediations, all the studies have demonstrated the positive impact of da mediations on the promotion of learners’ language abilities in reading, vocabulary and grammar. however, the effectiveness is not all attributed to c-da mediations. teo (2012), yang and qian (2019), ai (2017) and andujar (2020) have demonstrated that the effectiveness comes from both c-da and human mediation. ebadi, vakilifard and bahramlou (2018) and ebadi et al. (2018) also mention that the integration of both c-da mediations and noticing effect contributes to the development of lexical referencing skills. 5. limitation and conclusion to sum up, the literature review seems to suggest that c-da mostly adopts a fixed number of pre-constructed mediations to facilitate learners’ language development. given the limited flexibility of c-da mediations, human mediation can be introduced to compliment c-da in order to better attune to learners’ zpds. the effectiveness of mediations can be largely ascertained, however, such effectiveness needs to be interpreted by taking account of additional factors other than c-da mediations (e.g. human mediation). the main limitation lies in the limited c-da studies that are reviewed. based on the searching results of c-da relevant studies (only 10 studies), it can be seen that c-da mediations and their effectiveness are largely under-researched. therefore, the findings of this literature review cannot be generalized. more studies need to be conducted in c-da to further test the conclusions above. however, important www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 69 published by scholink inc. implications can still be made from this review. for example, the review indicates that researchers have realized the limitation of using c-da alone, and some of them have included human mediations to help better attune to learners’ zpds. andujar (2020) addresses the c-da’s limitation by introducing the mode of mobile-mediated da—which adopts da in the whatsapp application. mediations are provided in a group chat of whatsapp in the form of a mediator-learner interaction. the mediator (also the teacher) provides mediations from an inventory of prompts proceeding from implicit to explicit. unlike other c-da studies with pre-scripted prompts, the mediator in the study provides more levels of mediation, including repetitive question-asking to elicit students’ attentions to the erroneous parts (before pointing out the erroneous parts). however, how human-and-computer da should be delivered is still largely under researched, and it is worth more attention for future c-da studies. references ai, h. (2017). providing graduated corrective feedback in an intelligent computer-assisted language learning environment. recall, 29(3), 313-334. https://doi.org/10.1017/s095834401700012x andujar, a. (2020). mobile-mediated dynamic assessment: a new perspective for second language development. recall, 32(2), 178-194. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0958344019000247 bakhoda, i., & shabani, k. (2019a). bringing l2 learners’ learning preferences in the mediating process through computerized dynamic assessment. computer assisted language learning, 32(3), 210-236. https://doi.org/10.1080/09588221.2018.1483950 bakhoda, i., & shabani, k. (2019b). enhancing l2 learners’ zpd modification through computerized-group dynamic assessment of reading comprehension. innovation in language learning and teaching, 13(1), 31-44. https://doi.org/10.1080/17501229.2017.1286350 ebadi, s., vakilifard, a., & bahramlou, k. (2018). learning persian vocabulary through reading: the effects of noticing and computerized dynamic assessment. cogent education, 5(1), 1507176. https://doi.org/10.1080/2331186x.2018.1507176 ebadi, s., weisi, h., monkaresi, h., & bahramlou, k. (2018). exploring lexical inferencing as a vocabulary acquisition strategy through computerized dynamic assessment and static assessment. computer assisted language learning, 31(7), 790-817. https://doi.org/10.1080/09588221.2018.1451344 ellis, r. (2015) understanding second language acquisition. oxford: oxford university press. estaji, m., & saeedian, a. (2020). developing efl learners’ reading comprehension through computerized dynamic assessment. reading psychology, 1-22. https://doi.org/10.1080/02702711.2020.1768981 ghahderijani, b. h., namaziandost, e., tavakoli, m., kumar, t., & magizov, r. (2021). the comparative effect of group dynamic assessment (gda) and computerized dynamic assessment (c-da) on iranian upper-intermediate efl learners’ speaking complexity, accuracy, and fluency (caf). language testing in asia, 11(1), 1-20. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40468-021-00144-3. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 70 published by scholink inc. lantolf, j. p., & poehner, m. e. (2004). dynamic assessment: bringing the past into the future. journal of applied linguistics, 1, 49-74. lantolf, j. p., & poehner, m. e. (2008). sociocultural theory and the teaching of second languages. london: equinox. lantolf, j. p., & thorne. s. (2006). sociocultural theory and the genesis of second language development. oxford: oxford university press. li, q., & li, d. (2015). a review of empirical studies in l2 dynamic assessment. chinese journal of applied linguistics, 38(1), 55-73. https://doi.org/10.1515/cjal-2015-0003 lidz, c. s., & gindis, b. (2003). dynamic assessment of the evolving cognitive functions in children. in a. kozulin, b. gindis, v. s. ageyev, & s. m. miller (eds.), vygotsky’s educational theory in cultural context. cambridge: cambridge university press. poehener, m. e. (2008). dynamic assessment: a vygotskian approach to understand and promoting l2 development. new york, ny: springer. poehner, m. e. (2009). group dynamic assessment: mediation for the l2 classroom. tesol quarterly, 43,471-491. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1545-7249.2009.tb00245.x poehner, m. e., & lantolf, j. p. (2013). bringing the zpd into the equation: capturing l2 development during computerized dynamic assessment (c-da). language teaching research, 17(3), 323-342. https://doi.org/10.1177/1362168813482935 sternberg, r. j., & grigorenko, e. l. (2002). dynamic testing. the nature and measurement of learning potential. cambridge: cambridge university press. teo, a. (2012). promoting efl students’ inferential reading skills through computerized dynamic assessment. language learning & technology, 16(3), 10-20. retrieved from http://llt.msu.edu/issues/october2012/action.pdf vygotsky, l. s. (1998). the problem of age. in r.w. rieber (ed.), the collected works of l. s. vygotsky. vol. 5. child psychology. new york: plenum. yang, y., & qian, d. d. (2020). promoting l2 english learners’ reading proficiency through computerized dynamic assessment. computer assisted language learning, 33(5-6), 628-652. https://doi.org/10.1080/09588221.2019.1585882 microsoft word fet-v1n2-p180 frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 180 original paper an international comparison of educational research review mechanisms chiou-rong wang yang1 & huei lan wang2* 1 department of health & social work, yu-da university, miaoli, taiwan 2 nan hua university, chiayi, taiwan * huei lan wang, nan hua university, chiayi, taiwan received: july 15, 2018 accepted: september 25, 2018 online published: september 27, 2018 doi:10.22158/fet.v1n2p180 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v1n2p180 abstract this paper explores the current status of educational research review mechanisms, assessment and ethical mechanisms in the uk, usa, germany, france and australia, and assesses the merits and shortcomings of the mechanisms and ways in which to improve them in those countries. this exploration is based on the perspective of comparative education and the concept of the academic tribe of t. becher to assess peer review mechanisms. the research results include, first, the peer review system that was gradually developed in the uk, usa, france and germany in the 1950s, which became a common mechanism for academic gatekeeping of the quality of educational research. second, to ensure academic excellence, peer reviewers are required to be fair, professional, and specialized in a variety of “procedural justice” designs. third, anonymous or not, peer review depends on the subcultures of different countries or academic communities. in the uk and usa, the process tends to be more transparent, and authors can suggest potential reviewers; however, this is not the case in germany and france. fourth, for the purpose of improving malpractice in terms of ethics and reliability in peer review, the professional qualifications of reviewers should be evaluated regularly. finally, the outcome of the comparative study may be used as a reference for improvement of review mechanisms for educational research in taiwan. keywords peer review mechanism, educational research www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 181 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction in recent years, countries such as france, germany, and the usa, etc., have reflected upon the quality of educational research. criticisms of the quality of educational research include lack of rigor and originality and weak correlations among educational policies, practices and educational research. in order to improve the quality of educational research and to provide a more practical contribution to the enhancement of education, two approaches have been employed to reconstruct the mechanisms that control the quality of educational research: one is the provision of sufficient educational research resources; the other is reasonable and effective regulation of inherent review mechanisms. peer review, which is referred to as the “academic gatekeeper” and is a means by which to review and allocate funding to academic projects, is a common approach operating in the uk, germany, france, the usa and australia. however, problems with this approach remain, such as fairness (armstrong et al., 1982), gender bias (lane & linden, 2009) and integrity issues (jeffers, 2002; macrina, 2005). some have even described the peer-review process as a turf battle, the ultimate prize being knowledge, science or doctrine being published. on the one side, we have the writers and originators of ideas, and on the other, editors and critics (spier, 2002). therefore, the question of how to improve and ensure the credibility of review mechanisms is key to assuring the quality of educational research in these countries. in taiwan, investigation into the fairness of review mechanisms and review ethics can be traced back to 1982. investigation of research review mechanisms in developed countries by comparative study may contribute to improvement of the practice of this mechanism in taiwan. therefore, the purposes of this article are as follows: 1) to understand the development of review mechanisms in relation to educational research in the uk, usa, germany, france and australia; 2) to explore approaches to the improvement of review mechanisms in educational research in the uk, usa, germany, france and australia; and 3) to synthesize comparative study results as reference points for the improvement of review mechanisms in educational research in taiwan. 2. development and criteria of review mechanisms for educational research in various countries peer review is a widely-used method for evaluating research papers and proposals nowadays. it is primarily used for manuscripts submitted to periodicals and for research proposals for which authors have applied for funding. peer review is also employed to evaluate individual researchers and whole institutions. independent peer reviewers are commissioned to carry out reviews to determine whether a manuscript or proposal meets the quality indicators of the discipline, the funding organization, or the journal in germany, france, the uk, usa, and australia. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 182 published by scholink inc. 2.1 histories and current status the peer review mechanism was first developed in connection with the founding of scientific societies in the 17th century, in particular the royal society in england. however, unfortunately, the foundation of peer review was not created as a means of scientific quality control; rather, it was a political compromise aimed at guaranteeing self-control in the interests of the establishment of the day. to date, peer review has played an important role in controlling the quality of educational research. manuscripts and proposals are sent to two or more anonymous peer reviewers who are experts in the same area. their reviews then form the basis of a decision as to whether to accept the paper or not. most developed countries, including those referenced above, have established peer review systems to control the quality of research. a brief history and the current status of research review mechanisms in various developed countries, including germany, france, the uk, usa and australia, are presented below. 2.1.1 germany in germany, the deutsche forschungs gemeinschaft (dfg), founded in 1951, is the academic institute responsible for awarding grants for fundamental research in germany. the dfg consists of 87 members, including 64 universities, 13 research organizations, 7 research institutes and 3 associations for technological research. for the provision of financial grants for high-quality research projects, the peer review system is very rigorous. the selected reviewers have excellent qualifications, including a doctoral degree and three years of work experience, and serve for a four-year period to ensure the quality of review results, which is based on the standards of scientific, fair and authoritative features. anonymity is enforced by the review system. in the process, two experts are nominated by the dfg to review research projects. if the review results show a consensus between the two members, the opinions of the reviewers will be reported to the financial committee; if not, a third member will review the project. the third reviewer is the key person who plays a decisive role in terms of granting the funding. joint research projects are encouraged by the dfg. the collaborative research center (crc) of the dfg is responsible for reviewing joint research projects. applicants are required to complete a 100-page proposal for review, following which almost 60% of the applicants qualify for a second review opportunity. for the second-round review, the qualified applicants write a 500-page document that is more complete than their submission for the first review round. in the second round review, 80% are successful following the review process and receive grants from the dfg. then, two members appointed by the dfg, two from the financial committee, and ten from the review committee of the crc spend two days every four years visiting researchers in the field. the tasks of reviewers include reviewing the research proposal, attending the review meeting of the crc, consulting on the final decision of the financial committee, and reporting the final decision to the review committee with regards to awarding or refusing the grant. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 183 published by scholink inc. 2.1.2 france the review mechanism in france, the “comité national d’évaluation de l’enseignement supérieur” was founded in 1985. qualitative peer review and panel review are the major means by which quality assurance is ensured in educational research. in 1996, ten survey questions used for reviewing grant proposals were developed: 1) do they make progress in research quality compared with the level on the agreement made with the ministry of education four years ago? 2) are there any regulations to maintain an appropriate portion of time spent conducting research in the university’s budget? 3) what is the relationship between the university and research organizations outside the university? 4) does the university provide special support for the leader(s) of research groups? 5) are there any strengths or weaknesses in the research? 6) what is the function of the doctoral program in relation to research? 7) how does the university participate in local level research activities? 8) how can research results be applied to local development? 9) for how much is the research to be funded and how are the funds to be distributed? 10) do you value the research resources? (aesec, 2010) these questions show that there are three key criteria for evaluating research quality: 1) the strength and/or weakness of the research; 2) research conditions: staff, the funding, the professional growth of researchers, and their relationship with research organizations; and 3) the potential application of research results. after 2007, the european union (eu) developed european educational research quality indicators (eerqi). there include five main measures (gogolin, 2011; gogolin et al., 2003): 1) rigor: are there clear and congruent arguments and appropriate methodology? are research conclusions fully supported by research evidence and is this evidence reflected sufficiently? 2) originality: does the paper have sufficient creativity and innovation, and do its results provide possibilities for developing new knowledge? 3) significance: are the issues researched valuable? do the results show innovation in theoretical and/or (?) methodological approaches? 4) integrity: has the author authentically written the paper, and has the author abided by ethics codes and liability regulations? 5) style: is the paper’s structure well organized? is the writing style concise and attractive enough for reading through? the measures include fitness of theoretical basis and methodological application, as well as an appropriate writing style. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 184 published by scholink inc. 2.1.3 the united kingdom (uk) in the uk, there has been radical debate over issues of efficiency and effectiveness of peer review mechanisms between educational policy researchers and research councils uk (rcuk, 2006, p. 13) in the past decade. in the 1990s, the advisory board for the research councils published the boden report (1990), which explored the merits of and improvements needed to the peer review process. in 1995, the royal society completed a report discussing the peer review process, which showed the merits of peer review to be as follows: 1) to keep the confidence of the community; 2) to improve research perspectives; 3) to provide accountability; and 4) to offer access to compete appropriately (rcuk, 2006, p. 15). in the report, it appears that there are two shortcomings in educational research: 1) conservatism negates the appearance of radical perspectives; 2) the burden of peer review (rcuk, 2006, pp. 16-17). the research councils announce the results of the institutionalized review process both before and after awarding a grant. oancea (2009) argues that a good peer review process needs to build in quality criteria for the assessment of educational research in different contexts. for example, for journal publication, the assessment criteria are: relevant, significant and original contribution, accessibility and clarity, high standards of scholarship in argument and interpretation, sound methodological basis, ethics, adequate presentation, good writing style, and fluent language (oancea, 2009). criteria used in the assessment of proposals for funding research projects are: relevance, originality, innovation and topicality, scholarly importance, uniqueness, sufficient background information, clear description, concise and appropriate objectives, clear aim and purpose, explicit theoretical and conceptual framework, scientific quality of approach, potential for positive use, social-economic importance, user engagement, good dissemination, contribution for capacity enhancement and benefits for the wider scholarly community, international competitiveness, ethical conduct and awareness of wider ethical implications, proper scientific practice, outstanding ability of the applicants, inclusion of feasibility/achievability, containing evaluation, showing profit, presentation of the application, and corresponding to regulations (oancea, 2009). criteria used in the assessment of proposals for the development of practice-based research, and criteria used in project and report evaluations, include good performance in terms of: accountability, effectiveness, quality, innovation, contribution to knowledge, contribution to policy and practice, contribution to research training and professional network, further development of research results, quality of output and effectiveness of dissemination, possibilities for further research, peer appreciation and user satisfaction (oancea, 2009). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 185 published by scholink inc. 2.1.4 the united states of america (usa) peer reviews are conducted in the usa by the national science foundation, which was founded in 1950 based on the national science funding law, and is the major institute that offers funding for proposals twice a year. the process of review includes the following procedures: 1) proposer submits a proposal to the nsf. 2) the proposal is reviewed by members of a review committee. 3) the type(s) of review is identified: electronic review, panel review, and special board review. 4) the proposer receives suggestions for proposal improvement (?) from the review committee. 5) the nsf makes a decision to award a grant or not. if the grant amount is over usd $1,500,000.00, it must be awarded by a council member of the nsf. 2.1.5 australia in australia, the australian research council, which belongs to the department of the national board of employment and training (nbeet), is responsible for managing proposals for both scientific research and educational research. the features of the peer review mechanism are a focus on feedback from peer reviewers and the provision of a means by which to appeal reviewer judgments. 2.2 criticisms of the peer review system peer review is an important mechanism within the scientific research system. it determines which articles will be published in which journals and which projects can be carried out. as peer reviews play such an important role in decision-making for the distribution of funding and for public reward and recognition, peer reviewers have significant effects on the course of scientific research and on the career success of researchers. in view of the power that is thus conferred on peer reviewers, critical voices have been continually heard over the past 30 years. criticisms include the following: 1) peer review is too slow and too expensive. 2) peer review is unfair, because it discriminates against women and young female researchers and favors known figures (matthew effect). 3) peer review is hostile to innovation because it favors established methods and ways of thinking. 4) peer review is unreliable because reviewers often contradict each other. 5) peer review opens the door to cronyism in which established researchers favor each other in the anonymity of their review work (old-boys-network) (reinhart, 2006). 6) peer reviews lack credibility due to practices whereby assessors are nominated by the applicants themselves. however, in connection with this last criticism, a whole research field was initiated in a study by the us national science foundation (nsf) in 1978. the authors came to the conclusion that 50% of a proposal’s success was determined both by random factors and the decisions of reviewers; these conclusions focused on journals, rather than on funding organizations. above all, three questions are always proposed: www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 186 published by scholink inc.  how fair is the process (bias)?  to what extent do the peers agree (reliability)?  is the approved proposal indeed better than the rejected project (validity)? (reinhart, 2006) answers to these three questions remain unclear for now, because the results of peer review are affected by many complex factors. in addition, research on the content of review reports is insufficient by which to evidence proper criticism of peer review. 2.3 critiques of educational research review mechanisms in various countries review mechanisms for educational research in the usa and germany were established earlier, and were later implemented in france. the main reason for this is that the funding principle in the usa is based on capitalism, while products of educational researchers in germany and france belong to the public, with strong autonomic professional self-regulation. since the bologna declaration to form the ehea, academic evaluation processes and mechanisms have gradually become more similar to the approaches used in the uk and usa. in particular, research review mechanisms in germany focus more on mutual communication between the applicant and reviewer, which aims to prevent unfairness in a one-way review. common challenges in these five countries reflect two problems: first, the reliability and fairness of the review mechanism, and second, limitations related to peer review ethics. 2.4 reliability and fairness in educational research review mechanisms turner (2003) discusses promoting fair, appropriate, identifiable, timely and helpful (f.a.i.t.h.) core attributes for peer reviews in the journal of academic ethics. there are also stakeholders in the process of peer review, which include the author, reviewer, editors and academic communities. in this process, there are individual responsibilities, technical responsibilities and professional responsibilities. the reviewer’s individual responsibility is to avoid personal preference or confirmatory bias—the tendency to emphasize and believe experiences which support one’s views and to ignore or discredit those which do not (mahoney, 1977)—while also understanding the research situation and new developments in his or her research domain. the technical responsibility of reviewers includes providing detailed, constructive and deliberate feedback and supporting his or her comments based on related core literature. 2.5 reliability in the operation of peer review mechanisms becher (1989, pp. 61-62) finds that malpractice takes place in the peer review system. according to becher, there are two common complaints against the peer review system. first, in highly-specialized fields, extensive fair assessment is very limited, because the selection of reviewers is sometimes limited to professional acquaintances. their review comments may lack professionalism and reliability, or may be a result of selection from a limited pool of experts. these people may resist an opponent’s academic point of view in an irrational way in order to protect their own positions. second, some people believe the peer review system to be unreliable. opinions of peer professionals are often in disagreement, and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 187 published by scholink inc. in marginal areas of scientific research, obtaining funding for scientific research to a large extent depends on “chance”. becher (1989, p. 62) points out, further, that different effects of the peer review system are seen in different disciplines. principles of the selection of authors from areas different to those of the published article are common in professional journals. there is more inclusiveness in soft disciplines, with inherently permeable boundaries, than in hard disciplines, with firm boundaries. this echoes bernstein’s (1971, pp. 203-210) investigation of power distribution and the social control of educational knowledge in terms of “classification” and “framing”. becher (1989, p. 64) received different responses when interviewing experts in the pure sciences and the soft sciences. experts in pure, hard and applied sciences pointed out that there will be unethical acts in peer reviews—so-called “improper means” or “plagiarization”. they accuse prestigious reviewers of delaying or denying others’ research, but publishing similar papers themselves. this phenomenon of corruption is not common in the soft sciences. few would conduct research on the same topic, and even within the same theme there exist different views or opinions. these fields of science have more space in which scholars can express their views. it is clear that there are significant differences in the review system between hard and soft sciences. becher (1989, p. 64) pointed out that limitations of peer review can be seen in book reviews or journal reviews in the public domain, in which the author can deliver his or her opinion, and black box behavior can more easily be seen in this arena than in academic promotion, science funding, honors and awards. the intention of ignorance, exclusion of outstanding researchers, and selection of relatively poor researchers is to consolidate the boundaries of poor academic review processes. shils (1997, pp. 305-306) mentions that the secrecy and anonymity within the peer review system causes dissatisfaction among reviewed authors. there are also doubts about fairness. therefore, reforms to the peer review system to limit secrecy and anonymity have been requested. the reason for secrecy in science research is that professors with prominent positions control the consistency of views in the field. a remedial measure would be to let authors know the names of their reviewers, the presumption being that reviewers should take responsibility for their review comments, so that the review is more equitable. smith (2006) argues that authors know the names of reviewers for the british medical journal, and the nsf list the names of all reviewers on their website (nsf, 2006). 3. conclusions and recommendations 3.1 conclusions in summary, the paper draws the following conclusions: 1) the peer review system gradually developed in the uk, usa, france and germany in the 1950s has become the common mechanism of academic gatekeeping in educational research communities. it is still believed that the function of peer review in academic communities is an appropriate approach for quality management in educational research. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 188 published by scholink inc. 2) the standard procedures of the peer review system are well-established in developed countries such as the usa, germany, france, uk and australia. the deliberately-designed peer review system fulfils its function. specializing in a variety of “procedural justice” designs, peer reviewers are asked to be fair and professional. 3) whether peer review takes place anonymously or not depends on the subcultures of different countries or academic communities. the uk and the usa tend to list reviewers’ names publicly, but this is not the case in germany or france, in which countries it is believed that a blind review process is better than a transparent process. 4) there exists malpractice and the problem of reliability in the peer review process. in germany, reviewers must be qualified to ph.d. level and have at least three years of related work experience. the service period for reviewers is also limited to a four-year term. however, other countries do not have such regulations. when reviewers cannot exert professional ethics as “self-discipline”, reviewer decisions in such situations have lost their review reliability and validity. 5) professional qualifications for rigorous reviewer selection are emphasized in the five countries, because professional judgment and argumentation are broadly influenced by many factors, such as the ideology of the peer reviewer arising from conservatism, cognitive cronyism or disciplinary hegemony, chronic levels of disagreement or incompetence of reviewers, misconduct by reviewers, loss of creativity (how is this related?), bias and elitism, especially in relation to minority groups and women. 3.2 recommendations based on the conclusions above, this paper makes the following recommendations to improve educational review mechanisms: 1) the elaboration of the peer review: before establishing a good review mechanism, select professional reviewers with perspectives for the committee as academic gatekeepers. in brief, meta-evaluation of reviewers and committees is needed in the peer review system. 2) reviewers and committee members are required to be able to practice fully professional argumentation and to have a professional consciousness regarding constructing an epistemic authority. according to tuner and j. habermas (2003), the greater the opportunities for communication between researchers and reviewers, the less prejudice, selfishness, and non-professional involvement there will be. in other words, reviewers should exert themselves to play the role of constructors of high-quality knowledge as a community responsibility. 3) encourage the establishment of a recruiting and nurturing system of cross-disciplinary or interdisciplinary review vision. most of the malpractice in peer review is due to unconscious bias and/or professional fixation, or a superiority complex. in order to improve the quality of review, it is necessary to establish a database of experts with the ability to review cross-border and to give them greater honor and a review tenure of at least three years or so. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 189 published by scholink inc. 4) establish a punishment mechanism. although the number of reviewers is relatively small in taiwan in comparison with the uk, usa, germany and france, malpractice still exists in the academic arena. therefore, it is worth reflecting on the qualifications of reviewers in research communities. references aesec. (2010). association des enseignants et chercheurs en sciences de l’education. retrieved december 20, 2010, from http:// www.aecse.net/ cgi-bin/prog/index.cgi?langue armstrong, j. s., starr, m., ayres, h. f., robinson, s. m., & bonder, s. (1982). is review by peers as fair as it appears. interfaces, 12(5), 62-74. https://doi.org/10.1287/inte.12.5.62 becher, t. (1989). academic tribes and territories. in intellectual enquiry and the culture of disciplines. milton keynes: society for research into higher education & open university press. bernstein, b. (1971). class, code and control. in theoretical studies towards a sociology of language (vol. 1). london: r.k.p. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203014035 gogolin, i. (2011). quality indicators. retrieved december 30, 2011, from http://www.eerqi.eu gogolin, i., smeyers, p., garciaa del dujo, a., & rusch-feja, d. (2003). european social science citation index: a chance for promoting european research? european educational research journal, 2(4), 574-553. https://doi.org/10.2304/eerj.2003.2.4.6 jeffers, b. r. (2002). continuing education in research ethics for the clinical nurse. j contin educ nurs, 33(6), 265-269. lane, j. a., & linden, d. j. (2009). is there gender bias in the peer review process at journal of neurophysiology? journal of neurophysiology. https://doi.org/10.1152/jn.00196.2009 macrina, f. l. (2005). scientific integrity: text and cases in responsible conduct of research (3rd ed.). washington, d.c.: asm press. mahoney, m. j. (1977). publication prejudices: an experimental study of confirmatory bias in the peer review system. cognitive therapy and research, 2(1), 161-175. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf01173636 nsf. (2006). report to the national science board on the national science research councils. oancea, a. (2009). quality criteria for the assessment of educational research in different contexts. retrieved june 15, 2018, from http://reflectiveteaching.co.uk/media/3.11_oancea_rb_80_final.pdf rcuk. (2006). report of the research councils uk efficiency and effectiveness of peer review project. retrieved june 20, 2018, from http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20090507143607/http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/cmsweb/downl oads/rcuk/documents/rcukprreport.pdf www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 190 published by scholink inc. reinhart, m. (2006). peer review. retrieved june 15, 2018, from http://www.research-information.de/iq/iq_inhalt.php?agora/peer_review/peer_review_inc.htmlx xxpeer%20review shils, e. (1997). order of learning: essays on the contemporary university. piscataway, nj: transaction publishers. smith, r. (2006). peer review: a flawed process at the heart of science and journals. journal of the royal society of medicine, 99(4), 178-182. https://doi.org/10.1177/014107680609900414 spier, r. (2002). the history of the peer-review process. trends in biotechnology, 20(8), 357-358. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0167-7799(02)01985-6 turner, l. (2003). promoting f.a.i.t.h. in peer review: five core attributes of effective peer review. journal of academic ethics, 1(2), 181-188. https://doi.org/10.1023/b:jaet.0000006844.09724.98 microsoft word fet-v2n3-p168 frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 168 original paper the use of technology in english language teaching alqahtani mofareh a1* 1 king khaled military academy, civilian studies, english department, riyadh, saudi arabia * alqahtani mofareh a, king khaled military academy, civilian studies, english department, riyadh, saudi arabia received: august 13, 2019 accepted: august 27, 2019 online published: august 30, 2019 doi:10.22158/fet.v2n3p168 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v2n3p168 abstract the application of modern technology represents a significant advance in contemporary english language teaching methods. indeed, mohammad reza ahmadi (2018) maintains that electronic teaching programmes have become the predominant preference of instructors since they arguably boost positive student engagement with teachers and incentivize overall english language learning. most contemporary english language teachers now actively incorporate a range of technological aids designed to facilitate optimum teaching delivery. the current research therefore addresses various elements of the technology used in english teaching by devising innovative curricula which harnesses recent scientific and technical developments, equip instructors with the technological skills to ensure effective and quality subject delivery, provide technical media such as audio-visual and modern technical programmes, and create student-teacher platforms which maximize positive language learning outcomes. for the purposes of this study, the relevant literature has been reviewed, technology defined linguistically and conventionally, and correlation with modern teaching skills fully evaluated. in light of this, the researcher outlines the fundamental research problem, elucidates the significance of the research objectives and hypotheses, and presents the findings. the paper concludes by offering a number of recommendations which may further contribute to the improvement of teaching methods by advancing the widespread application of modern technology. keywords modern, technology, teaching www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 169 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction the use of modern technology in teaching english is broadly understood to encompass an innovative application of methods, tools, materials, devices, systems, and strategies which are directly relevant to english language teaching and lead to the achievement of the desired goals. thus, while technology is now generally accepted as an important educational and auxiliary tool across a range of teaching and learning contexts, it is particularly true of english language teaching since it affords a number of potential opportunities to enhance both the content and delivery of the pedagogies typically associated with traditional english language instruction. this is primarily achieved by enabling the student and/or teacher to revisit problematic content time after time until it is fully understood and assimilated. familiarity with the concept of using modern technology is not merely limited to the use of modern appliances and devices, but rather obtains to the introduction of innovative systems and methods of teaching which facilitate faster and more comprehensive learning progression. according to prevailing pedagogical theories, in utilizing the learning potential of technology students are better able to acquire and hone their language knowledge and skills. the use of technology in teaching english consolidates the integrated view of the modern means system and association with other components which benefits students by achieving the required results. the use of modern technology in english language teaching has therefore become indispensable, especially in the wake of unprecedented developments across numerous fields and disciplines. it is essential that the education sector keep apace of the global technological revolution by adopting modern technological means such as computerization, multi-media devices, mobile phones, audio/visual effects applications, and social media, to optimize english language instruction and equip teachers to connect with classroom language learners in a systematic and advanced way. the internet provides easy, immediate, and virtually unlimited access to software, applications, and a host of ancillary platforms and materials which can expedite english teaching and learning. while these affordances may be widely available to all, it is noted that teachers often play a key role in operating the different tools and teaching methods. moreover, many such programmes are specifically designed to promote effective english teaching whilst simultaneously increasing learner understanding and attainment of english language skills. 2. previous research stepp-greany (2002, p. 165) used survey data from spanish language classes which utilized a range of technological approaches and methods in order to determine the importance of the role of teachers, the relevance and availability of technology labs and individual components, and the effect of using technology on the learning process of a foreign language. the results confirmed student perceptions of the teacher as the primary learning facilitator, and stressed the importance of regularly scheduled language labs and the use of cd rom. stepp-greany recommended a follow-up study to measure the effects of relevant technology on the learning process of foreign language acquisition. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 170 published by scholink inc. warschauer (2000a) proposed two different ways to integrate technology into the class: a cognitive approach which gives learners the opportunity to meaningfully increase their exposure to language and thus make their own knowledge; and a social approach which gives learners opportunities for authentic social interactions as a means to practice the real-life skills obtained through engagement in real activities. bordbar (2010) investigated the reasons and factors behind language teachers’ use of computer technology in the classroom. the study further explored teacher attitudes towards computer and information technology and the various ways they applied practical computer-assisted language learning experience and knowledge to their own language instruction delivery. the results found that almost all the teachers held positive attitudes towards the use of computers in the class. the results also underscored the importance of teachers’ overall perceptions of technology, technological experience, skill, and competence, and the cultural environment that surrounds the introduction of it into schools and language institutes and shapes attitudes towards computer technology. shyamlee (2012, p. 155) analyzed the use of multi-media technology in language teaching. the study found that such technology enhances student learning motivation and attention since it implicates students in the practical processes of language learning via communication with each other. shyamlee recommended the use multi-media technology in classrooms, particularly as its positive impact on the learning process aligns with the ongoing efficacy of the teacher role. the findings of the research support the proven futility of traditional english teaching methods, and confirm that learners are more enthusiastic and interactive when using modern technology to assimilate english. statistical data reiterates that a high percentage of those learning english language skills do so via modern media such as smart boards, computers and screens, as compared to traditional teaching methods. moreover, the study reveals that the interaction with teachers and overall responsiveness of students in the classroom is significantly improved when using modern techniques in english teaching. in fact, it is clear both that students are more likely to learn from electronic curricula and that english language teachers prefer to employ modern technology rather than traditional methods of instruction. 3. purpose of the study the topic of english language teaching and learning has emerged as one of the central issues of contemporary educational debate as studies have consistently demonstrated poor standards of student achievement across all levels. since the current era is epitomized by the ubiquitous use of technology, it follows that technology has penetrated the field of teaching on a worldwide scale. in fact, since most educational institutions have now absorbed such technology into current and future curricula, technological and/or media-based pedagogies have assumed considerable prominence due to proven enhanced learning outcomes, especially in comparison with traditional teaching methods. obsolete teaching practices include a number of problems, as follows: www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 171 published by scholink inc. 1) traditional methods lead students through precise curriculum content and rely on outdated learning aids such as blackboards and textbooks. as such, the teacher merely relays the information without accounting for positive or negative results. 2) traditional methods rely on simple strategies that do not meet the purpose of learning or basic needs in the process of teaching. since such teacher-centred pedagogies situate the learner as a recipient, their overarching goal is the extent to which a student can replicate information without necessarily understanding it. 3) students rely on received sounds and images as opposed to interaction and discussion with the teacher. 4) student accreditation by means of set texts tend to foster boredom and loss of motivation and attention in attainment, as opposed to modern technological teaching methods which inhere numerous incentives that increase the likelihood of acquiring english language skills in a timely and positive way. in light of the above obstacles, the present study was undertaken to ring-fence the causes at the heart of the problem and attempt to resolve the issue by introducing a range of modern technologies into the context of english language teaching. 4. research questions comprehensive investigation of the above issues and the bid to find logical solutions for these challenges rests on the following questions: 1) are there an adequate number of sufficiently qualified and suitably-trained teachers to use modern technology in teaching english language in the saudi context? 2) how effectively do english language learners respond and/or interactive with the use of modern technology? 3) is all modern technological means available to support a successful english language teaching in the saudi context? 4) how effective is the use of modern technology in teaching english? 5) what are the expected outcomes or outcomes achieved on the ground through the use of modern technology in english language teaching? 5. significance of the research the study aims to advance knowledge in a number of significant areas. in the first instance it will identify traditional teaching practice challenges which retard or obstruct the process of effective language learning in order formulate a range of solutions to update them with technological methods and aids. the research will also evaluate the scale of the difficulties confronted by english teachers who use modern technology and determine whether additional it skill training is required. it is hoped that the ensuing data may be used as a reference guide for future researchers in the same field and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 172 published by scholink inc. context, along with a detailed analysis of the teaching and education sector as intrinsic to the infrastructure of any modern society. technology has become ubiquitous in all forms of contemporary life. since the teaching process cannot be atomized from this global trend, this study further considers the impact of recent english teaching technology as compared to traditional practices which arguably render students passive, and prone to boredom. indeed, this study demonstrates that the introduction of modern technological assistance yields timely learning progress and improved student proficiency across all english language skills including writing, reading, and conversation. ultimately, the research provides key educative stake-holders and authorities with practical solutions to tackle the problems related to the use of modern technology in english language teaching for teachers and students alike. 6. objectives the research aims to identify the following: 1) the extent of the technological contribution to the development of the english language teaching process. 2) a suite of solutions to enable both teachers and learners to overcome the challenges which currently hinder the use of modern technology in english teaching. 3) possible alternatives and/or substitutes for traditional instruction in order to boost the efficiency of teacher and student potential to acquire english language skills. 4) appropriate it training for english language teachers to meet the growing need. 5) the pros and cons of using technology in teaching english. 6) technological teaching programmes and aids which enable students to learn via an electronic curriculum. 7. hypotheses this study tested the following hypotheses: 1) there are statistical differences indicating variations between traditional methods and modern technology in teaching english. 2) there are statistical indicators demonstrating the level of student assimilation of english language skills. 3) there are statistically significant indications of the efficiency of teachers in using of modern technology in terms of teaching english language curricula. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 173 published by scholink inc. 8. methodology the researcher followed each of the following methodologies: 1) the researcher applied the descriptive method and experimental monitoring in order to fully interrogate the study questions and devise appropriate solutions. 2) based on the determination of time and spatial period, the application of historical methodology based on an analysis of the elements and reasons which gave rise to the basic research problem and the attendant challenges further assisted an evaluation of present and future developmental impacts. in addition the collation, review and comparison of secondary data sourced from relevant records, reports and previous studies, were intrinsic to the design and scope of effective solutions. 3) the researcher also applied experimental methodology which is based on studying the impact of changes placed on the research problem where one variable is fixed. the study the impact of its existence rests on several variables; namely the laboratory experimental methodology conducted in the laboratory under certain conditions, such as studying the impact of technology on teaching english and the non-laboratory experimental methodology applied to a group of volunteer students beyond the scope of study. technical terminology modern: designed and made using the most recent ideas and methods. technology: methods, systems, and devices which are the result of scientific knowledge being used for practical purposes. teaching: the concerted sharing of professional knowledge and experience, usually organized within a discipline: more generally, the provision of stimulus to the psychological and intellectual growth of a person by another person or artifact. 9. results the research results support the uselessness of traditional english language teaching methods. this is evident in the studies conducted, where it was found that between 75% and 85% of students confirm these results and 60% to 80% of students are dissatisfied with the traditional methods. in contrast, students are more enthusiastic and interactive when using modern technology to absorb english by more than 90%. statistical data confirm that a high percentage of those who learn english skills interact with modern technology means such as smart boards, computers and display screens compared to traditional teaching methods. according to statistics conducted on random samples of students, including private schools that adopt the most modern means of technology and public schools that lack modern means were surveyed on a number of students in the classroom and others volunteers outside the perimeter of the interaction of most students from both the results of the analysis of students’ performance showed that 75% to 95% achieve high results in their attainment in english, unlike those who are taught by traditional means, their achievement rates are very low. in addition, the study www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 174 published by scholink inc. revealed that interaction with teachers and the overall response of students in the classroom has improved significantly when using modern techniques in teaching english as the interaction with teachers using modern media reached more than 90%, unlike those who are taught by traditional means have less than 50% interaction with teachers, thus it is clear that studies, surveys have shown that students are more inclined to learn from e-curriculum and english teachers prefer to use modern technology rather than traditional teaching methods due to the students fast response and their interaction and educational attainment with high statistically rates. 10. discussion despite the fact that modern technology is increasingly ubiquitous across all aspects of modern life, the scope and utilization of appropriate technology within the education sector in general, and within english language teaching in particular, has remained conspicuously limited. so much so, that recent educational studies have attributed poor levels of student achievement to an inadequate use of technology in education which is compounded by the continued prevalence of traditional teaching methods (tamimi, 2014; salama, 1999). to date, very few educational saudi institutions routinely use technology and/or internet to teach english (rahman, 2015) despite the fact it has become the dominant language of trade, industry, education, engineering, medicine, media, and almost all branches of practical and social life. in fact, current technology offers a vast array of affordances to enhance the efficacy, methodologies and interest level of teachers. moreover, studies of teaching english with the addition of technological tools found it enabled students to be more pro-active and to learn in line with their particular interests and abilities (roma, 2013). 11. reasons for using technology in english language teaching jacqui murray (2015) taxonomies the rationale for using technology in english language teaching as follows: 1) technology allows students to demonstrate independence. 2) technology differentiates the needs of students. 3) technology deepens learning by using resources that students are interested in. 4) students actively want to use technology. 5) technology gives students an equal voice. 6) technology enables students to build strong content knowledge wherever they find it. 11.1 merits of using technology in english language teaching english-language students are highly implicated in and motivated by the use of the modern technology such as radio, tv, computers, the internet, electronic dictionary, email, blogs, audio-visual aids, videos, and dvds or vcds (nasser, 2017) as follows: www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 175 published by scholink inc. 1) the use of technology in teaching english is deemed interesting and motivating as the student reacts with the subject. 2) technology plays an important role in the process of teaching english by enhancing timely understanding, and thereby enabling students more learn more efficiently. 3) teachers perform more effectively when using modern technology since they can communicate with the students through a variety of ways. 4) the use of modern technology enables both teachers and students to access a wealth of books, publications, and references which are directly relevant to the english language curriculum. 5) modern technology encourages student self-sufficiency which better equips them for the future. 6) unlike traditionally passive teaching methods, modern technology teaching and learning aids incentivize both teacher and student. 11.2 drawbacks of using technology in english language teaching 1) many teachers and students have limited access to modern technology. 2) the role of the teacher can be relegated in cases where students become over-reliant on modern technology. 3) it can reduce student social activities by consuming most of their free time. 12. findings the answers to the core research question are summarized as follows: 1) studies confirm there are not enough english language instructors trained in the use of relevant technological teaching aids. 2) the survey found greater student response and interaction with the use of modern technology than traditional methods. 3) the study also showed that the language teaching process was hampered by the unequal availability of relevant technology across educational institutions. 4) studies confirm that up-to-date sound and visual effects and tablet display devices are more effective in teaching english language skills due to their immediacy and user-friendly english content, which reflects real-life situations as opposed the traditional means that student find contrived and boring. 5) as anticipated, the study confirms that the use of modern technology leads to enhanced learner outcomes including better student motivation, improved achievement levels, and increased interaction between student and teacher. improved student self-learning, self-reliance, positive self-talk were also observed, as were maximum utility of time and effort for both the teacher and student. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 176 published by scholink inc. going forward, it is evident that the various modes and sources of modern classroom technology have proven their reliability and effectiveness in the comprehensive, relevant, and timely instruction of contemporary english language skills. 13. hypotheses findings the following indications relating to the study hypotheses have been determined: there are statistical differences indicating variations between traditional methods and modern technology in teaching english. no statistical differences were found to indicate significant variations between traditional methods and modern technology in teaching english.  there are statistical indicators demonstrating the level of student assimilation of english language skills. no statistical indicators were found which demonstrated levels of student assimilation of english language skills. there are statistically significant indications of the efficiency of teachers in using of modern technology in terms of teaching english language curricula. no statistically significant indications of the efficiency of teachers in using of modern technology in terms of teaching english language curricula were identified. 14. recommendations in light of the findings, the researcher suggests the following: 1) substitute modern technology for obsolete english language teaching methods. 2) provide appropriate training for all teachers to use modern technology in english language teaching. 3) adopt complete electronic curriculum projects in line with modern requirements. 4) urge english teachers to encourage students to use modern technology as a means to develop their language skills. 5) establish internet networks within educational institutions to equip teachers to properly avail of modern technology. 6) provide appropriate student training in all forms of available technology in order that they maintain pace with the requirements of the electronic curriculum. 7) establish an english language teaching portal school-home connection to enable students to learn in their free time. 8) english teacher development of classroom dialogue and discussion programmes which use modern technical means such as screens, projectors, and smart panels in order to promote student mastery of the english language. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 177 published by scholink inc. 15. conclusion in summary, it is clear that despite genuine efforts to modernize traditional methods of teaching english, residual obsolete practices should be phased out and replaced by the use of the available technology on offer via computer, smart devices, display, audio-visual materials, and electronic approaches. this study underscores the vital educative potential and numerous benefits of technology in the language classroom for positive learning outcomes in the language classroom and the wider world, the financial implications of setting up the infrastructure, and encouraging teachers to overcome their anxieties around of teaching technologies. of course, the purpose of both traditional and modern technologies is to maximize students’ english skills and provide a space where learning can be best facilitated. one of the ultimate goals of using modern technology is to actively engage them students in language learning and motivate them to acquire english language skills in a practical and realistic way. this can be achieved through an open learning context which fosters openness and access to the subjects and information through modern technology means, wherein students are motivated and directed to communicate with each other. in terms of future development, it is clear that multimedia will be integral to the student-centred process of teaching english to modern standards. as such, the quality of teaching and application of students to modern educational foundations would benefit from an extensive survey of english language skills in to improve overall communication proficiency. in conclusion, we believe that this process can fully enrich student thinking and practical language skills and promote improved efficacy in overall teaching and learning. indeed it is evident that many routine learning issues that can be overcome through the effective incorporation of 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(1997). computer-mediated collaborative learning: theory and practice. the modern language journal, 81(4), 470-481. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4781.1997.tb05514.x www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 180 published by scholink inc. warschauer, m., & meskill, c. (2000). technology and second language learning.   frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 24 original paper phonological perversion as detriment to effective use of spoken english among secondary school english teachers in non-native context oyinloye, comfort adebola1*, fatimayin, foluke2, osikomaiya, mojisola olufunke2 & fatola, olugbenga lasisi3 1 department of education, school of education and humanities, babcock university, ilishan-remo, ogun state. nigeria 2 arts and social sciences education department, faculty of education, national open university of nigeria, abuja, nigeria 3 department of educational management and business studies, faculty of education, olabisi onabanjo university, ago-iwoye, nigeria * oyinloye, comfort adebola, department of education, school of education and humanities, babcock university, ilishan-remo, ogun state. nigeria received: july 28, 2020 accepted: august 6, 2020 online published: august 14, 2020 doi:10.22158/fet.v3n3p24 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v3n3p24 abstract this study investigates the effect of phonological perversion in the use of spoken english among secondary school english teachers in ogun state, nigeria. the population of the study comprised all english language teachers in the selected schools with the sample size of 120. the validated instruments used for collecting data were pronunciation test and questionnaire. a reliability index of 0.84 was achieved using cronbach’s alpha. the data collected were statistically analyzed using frequency, percentages and t-test at 0.05 level of significant. the findings revealed that the english language teachers in ogun state whose language background is yoruba had problems in pronouncing some english sounds, e.g., /v/ and /f/, /z/ and /s/, /ei/ and /e/, /iǝ/ and /ea/, /i:/ and /i/ and h-dropping (hard as add). it is recommended that nigerian teachers of english language be professionally developed in the rudiments of english sounds for intelligent communication. keywords phonology, phonological perversion, spoken english, secondary school, english teachers, non-native context www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 25 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction language is the major tool of communication in human society and speech occupies a major position in most discussions of language as a communicative medium. speech is paramount to any language and knowledge of the english language cannot be appreciably good without effective manipulation of the speech sounds, for linguistics competence. this means that the mastery of english is highly connected to the mastery of the spoken form of it. according to bruce (2007), phonology does not deal directly with the physical nature of speech sounds, but rather with the largely unconscious rules for sound patterning that are found in the mind/brain of a person who speaks a particular language. phonology concerns itself with the ways in which languages make use of sounds to distinguish words from one another. english language teachers should be knowledgeable about the phonology of english because the sound system is primary and the basis for the spelling system, more so, as they may have to teach english pronunciation to students who are not native speakers of english for the purpose of providing systematic and well-founded understandings of the sound patterns of english language. one might think that english language teachers would not have difficulties with the target language (tl). however, english still presents formidable challenges, especially in the realm of pronunciation. most of the world‟s english language teachers speak english as a second/third language user rather than as first language users. for many, their level of proficiency in english may not reach benchmarks established by their employers, raising the issue which is the focus of this article. the importance of pronunciation cannot be overemphasised in human speech because good pronunciation is the key to intelligibility. if the goal of language learning is to communicate in the tl, then learners of english as a second language (esl) should strive for intelligibility (sound patterns recognized as english), comprehensibility (listener understands meaning of utterance) and interpretability (listener understands purpose of utterance). english pronunciation is very important in teaching and learning. this means that teachers should spend time in improving their pronunciation competence. good quality pronunciation enhances learning while bad pronunciation promotes great difficulties in language learning (pourhosein, 2012). the goal of pronunciation instruction is not to ask learners to pronounce like native speakers but rather intelligible pronunciation should be the real purpose of oral communication. if learners want to change the way they pronounce some english words, they have to change their thinking about the pronunciation of some words. this is true for both segmental features (individual sounds) and for suprasegmental/prosodic features (syllables, stress patterns, tone and rhythm). unfortunately, pronunciation instruction is sometimes ignored in english language teaching (pourhosein, 2011; pourhosein, 2016). pronunciation according to pourhosein (2016), is the production of a sound system which doesn‟t interfere with communication either from the speakers‟ or the listeners‟ viewpoint. pronunciation is learned by repeating sounds and correcting them when produced inaccurately. when learners start learning pronunciation, they make new habits and overcome the interference issues emanating from the first language. yates (2002) sees pronunciation as the production of sounds that is used for making www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 26 published by scholink inc. meaning. james (2010) noted that the aim of learning pronunciation for some learners is the native-like accent. this can probably be a primary objective but it cannot be the ideal goal of teachers who intend to improve their learners‟ pronunciation for purpose of effective communication. if a speaker has a heavy english accent, this may cause negative judgments about his/her personality and competence. as a result, learners need not to pronounce like native speakers of english but they need to have an accent that is close to a known standard, therefore, english teachers can use different kinds of models for teaching and learning pronunciation in english language. james (2010) suggested that one can turn on his/her tv and find channels such as cnn international, bbc, or sky news. these channels help one to hear different people from germany, france, and the other non-english-speaking countries. all of these channels have acceptable english language pronunciation and this will facilitate the process of persons‟ understanding of the language. according to yates and zielinski (2009), much attention to english pronunciation indicates that pronunciation has a key role in learning english. if teachers do not present the general rules and principles toward comprehensible pronunciation to their efl learners, nobody will certainly do it. it is the responsibility of efl teachers to do this by teaching the new sounds, words, sentences, and phrases and arranging appropriate materials for understandable pronunciation in their efl classes. efl teachers should explore new ways of indicating, practicing, and giving feedback on english pronunciation that are actually appropriate for learners to learn english pronunciation easily and effectively. hismanoglu and hismanoglu (2011) declared that many teachers try to teach grammar, vocabulary, and the four language skills to their learners without incorporating english pronunciation into their curriculum. also, thompson (1995) observed that recent teaching materials reflect absence of intonation. according to ghorbani (2011), since pronunciation does not appear or is not tested in the formal education exams, it is neglected by many iranian efl teachers. he argues that lack of english phonemes in persian, unpredictability of the orthographic system of the english language, and sacrificing teaching of pronunciation on the altar of other language skills by teachers account for iranian learners‟ problem in learning english language pronunciation. he suggests that the relation and correspondence between each symbol and sound can be more clarified by using phonetic transcription. language remains the bedrock of classroom teaching; this implies that, teachers are expected to properly manipulate the segmental and suprasegmental features of english to effectively pass across instructions or messages without distortion that may hamper semantic expression through mother tongue interference. however, errors as a result of mother tongue interference, affect the effective communication of reports by some english teachers. this affects school students and particularly those who look up to such teachers as role models. in the light of this, the study is set to investigate whether the errors of the english teachers under study are as a result of the influence of their mother tongue and identify implications for the teaching of spoken english in senior secondary schools. phonological perversion is defined as (in the speech of a second or foreign language learner) the use of a linguistic item, (e.g., a word, a speech) in a way which a fluent or native speaker of the language www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 27 published by scholink inc. regards as showing faulty or incomplete. phonological perversion can also be called pronunciation error. error is a systematic deviation made by learners who are yet to grasp the use of the target language rules. jong, xiaodong and yu (2016) defined an error as a systematic deviation made by learners who lack knowledge of the correct rule of the target language. it shows a lack of language competence and it reflects in a learner‟s current stage of l2 development. moreover, the incompetence of a vast majority of teachers teaching the english language in error, out rightly ignoring the rules of the language is bound to lead nigerian students towards the wrong path of understanding the language. however, mohammed (2015) examined the influence of mother tongue on the spoken english of television correspondent reporters. live report of two correspondent reporters from desmims international television (ditv) and nigeria television authority (nta), kaduna were recorded and played back. errors detected were grouped according to whether they are substitution, epenthesis, under-differential or reinterpretation errors. the study revealed that the television correspondent reporters committed errors when they pronounced vowel sounds, consonant sounds in some english words and also they stress every syllable of bisyllabic and polysyllabic words of english language. onwubiko (2011) sees the influence of mother tongue on english language as a result of some ethnic groups over indulgence in their primitive cultures in addition to a misguided passion to create impression that they cherish their supposedly “rich cultural heritage”. the sad thing is that children grow to have their mindset conditioned in such manner. he warns that it is high time the irrational pasturing mindset and perception be checked to enable children key into the norms of the language of instruction and communication around the world. okoye (2012), in line with onwubiko (2011), stressed that mother tongue constraint has, in every possible assessment, endangered a staggering and persistent decline in the quality of english spoken in africa. this may make one to wonder why, in all levels of schools in nigeria, many learners have so much difficulty with their communication skills in english such that they cannot function effectively in the academic use of english. recent researches churned out by the west african examination council indicate that the performance in the english language dropped from 52.24 per cent in 2017 to 46.79 per cent in 2018. angwah (2019) investigated the correlation between cameroonian esl teachers‟ linguistic perceptions and the phonological aspects of their english. a total of 75 secondary school teachers of english, from five regions of the country, constituted the sampled population of the study. a questionnaire, with close and open-ended questions, was constructed to gain an understanding of their linguistic perceptions. a test of 10 sentences, with targeted phonological variables /dʒ, tʃ, ð, θ, ə, з, əu, əʊə, and aʊə/, was conceived and the participants were asked to read them aloud while the investigators tape-recorded their phonological renditions. the data was then transcribed and compared to their linguistic perceptual claims. the results revealed a significant gap between the respondents‟ linguistic perceptions and the phonological aspects of their english. rehman, khan and bukhari (2012) looked into the problems faced by pashto speakers, while learning english. the study identifies that five english consonants namely, the labio-dental voiceless fricative www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 28 published by scholink inc. /f/, the labiodentals voiced fricative /v/, the dental voiceless fricative /θ/, the dental voiced fricative /ð/ and the post-alveolar voiced fricative /ʒ/ are problematic for pashto speakers. the study further shows that these consonants are replaced by l1 sounds: 1) english labio dental fricative /f, v/ are pronounced as bilabial voiceless stop /p/ and bilabial approximant /w/; 2) english dental fricatives /θ, ð/ are replaced by dental stops /t , /; 3) palatal voiced fricative /ʒ/ is replaced by palato-alveolar voiced affricate /dʒ/. wheelock (2016) used the data from the speech accent archives and conducted an error analysis of 27 italian learners reading aloud an english passage. the study found that the most common vowel error was a misformation of /ɑ/ as [ə], which was retained by the seven advanced speakers. being that /ə/ is the most common reduced vowel in english and /ɑ/ is not an italian phoneme, this vowel error is explicable. the study also found that the most common consonant error was a misformation of /z/ as [s], also retained by the advanced speakers. devoicing of /z/ to [s] also becomes explicable once the speaking passage words were examined for /z/ placement. the investigation of lapusza, yunita and syatroh (2019) on the phonological errors in tongue twister activity of javanese and sudanese people, the study proved the assumption about javanese people who are famous with medok sounds and for sundanese people having difficulties to pronounce /f/ and /v/ sounds. the result of the study showed that javanese people have 57% phonological errors of bilabial sounds and for sundanese people have 59% phonological errors of labio-dental sounds. we can see a lot of inconsistencies in the literature which leads to this. 1.1 problem of the study yoruba language sounds are similar to english sounds but while there is a one-to-one correspondence between sounds and letters in the yoruba language, the same cannot be said of english. owolabi (2014) rightly noted that no two languages exhibit exactly the same sounds and have the sounds combined in exactly the same ways in all their spoken forms. this, therefore, is a major problem, especially for yoruba speakers of english as a second language. spoken english has always been a problem to non-native speakers, most especially in a second language situation. the problem of native language interference continues to threaten proficiency in the spoken english of non-native speakers of the language. a close observation of secondary schools‟ english teachers in western part of nigeria indicates problems in the pronunciation of some english sounds. elkhair (2014) noted that the errors of pronunciation made by learners of english from different language backgrounds are systematic and not accidental. so they concluded that the main problem of the speakers of english as a second language, is substitution of sounds, that is, they substitute the sounds that they do not have in their native language, with other sounds which are close to them in the place of articulation. though, it is generally agreed that, it is difficult for a second language learner to speak with native-like pronunciation but there is need for them to communicate effectively using the accurate pronunciation. therefore, this study attempts to identify the problematic areas of pronunciation and to identify the factors responsible for the phonological errors committed by english teachers. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 29 published by scholink inc. 1.2 research question to guide the study, the following questions were posed: 1) what are the problematic phonological patterns that the secondary school english language teachers encounter? 2) what are the perceptions of secondary school english language teachers regarding the factors responsible for the phonological errors committed by english language teachers? 3) is there difference in the performance of male and female english language teachers in pronunciation? 1.3 hypothesis the following hypothesis was tested at 0.05 significance level: 1) there is no significant difference in the performance of male and female english language teachers in pronunciation. 2. methodology the population for the study comprised all junior and senior secondary school english language teachers in ogun state, south-west geopolitical zone of nigeria. multi-stage sampling technique was used to get the sample of 120 english teachers used in the study. firstly, ogun state was selected from the six geopolitical zones in nigeria; secondly, six local government areas were randomly selected from the 20 local government areas in ogun state. ten secondary schools (one from junior secondary and one from senior secondary schools) were selected from the six randomly selected local government areas resulting to 60 schools. two english teachers were randomly selected from the 60 selected schools; therefore, the sample of the english teachers is 120. a pronunciation test and questionnaire were used as the instruments for collecting data. the test consisted of a word list and a set of sentences all containing problematic phonemes for yoruba speakers of english and the questionnaire consists of english teachers‟ perceptions towards the factors that are responsible for the phonological errors committed by english teachers the participants were asked to read aloud english words while the researcher audio recorded the responses. the recorded data were then transcribed and analyzed after listening to each participant‟s pronunciation. the questionnaire was validated by two experts in linguistics and educational measurement and evaluation and from their comments and recommendations; some of the items were modified and re-worded. a reliability index of 0.84 was achieved using cronbach‟s alpha. the data collected were analyzed using descriptive (frequency and percentages) and statistically (independent sampled t-test) which was tested at 0.05 level of significant. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 30 published by scholink inc. 3. results table 1. the sample distribution of the participants variable frequency male 49 (40.8%) female 71 (59.2%) total 120 (100%) the participants of the study were (n=120) english language teachers at the selected secondary schools in ogun state, nigeria. among the participants, there was (n=71) female english teachers and (n=49) male english teachers. the data is represented below: figure 1. the gender of the participants research question one: what are the problematic phonological patterns that the secondary school english teachers encounter? www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 31 published by scholink inc. table 2. problematic phonological patterns that the secondary school english teachers encounter sound word wrong pronunciation number of participants that pronounced correctly number of participants that pronounced incorrectly total /v/ very fery 56 (46.67%) 64 (53.33%) 120 /z/ zip sip 30 (25%) 90 (75%) 120 /h/ happy appy 12 (10%) 108 (90%) 120 /ei/ kate ket 27 (22.5%) 93 (77.5%) 120 /iǝ/ beer bea 38 (31.67%) 82 (68.33%) 120 /i:/ beef bif 50 (41.67%) 150 (58.33%) 120 table 2 shows the phonological perversion that affect the use of spoken english among secondary school english teachers in ogun state. the table shows that the english language teachers in ogun state whose language background is yoruba had problems with the pronunciation of some english consonants and vowels such as: /v/ is wrongly pronounced as /f/; /z/ is wrongly pronounced as /s/; /ei/ is wrongly pronounced as /e/, /iǝ/ is wrongly pronounced as /ea/, /i:/ is wrongly pronounced as /i/ and h-dropping (happy as appy). research question two: what are the perceptions of secondary school english teachers regarding the factors responsible for the phonological errors committed by english teachers? table 3. the perceptions of secondary school english teachers regarding the factors responsible for the phonological errors committed by english language teachers s/n items mean standard deviation 1 motivation and exposure 3.1 1.75 2 attitude 2.97 1.42 3 age 2.7 1.28 4 personality 3.04 1.71 5 mother tongue 3.12 1.73 6 inadequate instructional materials 3.11 1.81 7 stress, intonation and rhythm 2.97 1.42 grand mean 3.00 1.59 table 2 shows the participants‟ perception on the factors responsible for the phonological errors committed by english language teachers. all the items in table 2 has mean values greater than the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 32 published by scholink inc. criterion mean of 2.5 and the grand mean is also greater than the criterion mean of 2.5. therefore, the factors responsible for the phonological errors committed by english language teachers are: mother tongue interference; inadequate instructional materials; motivation and exposure; attitude; age; personality; and stress, intonation and rhythm. hypothesis one: there is no significant difference in the performance of male and female english language teachers in english pronunciation. table 4. independent sampled t-test analysis of the male and female teachers in their perceptions on the factors responsible for the phonological errors committed by english language teachers variable n mean standard deviation df t sig.(p-value) male teachers 49 25.93 12.23 118 1.090 0.278 female teachers 71 25.87 12.15 α=0.05 table 4 shows the male respondents‟ mean=23.93; standard deviation=9.23 and the female respondents‟ mean=25.8; standard deviation=12.0; t=1.090 and p-value=0.278. testing the hypothesis at the alpha level of 0.05, the p-value (0.278) is greater than the alpha value. this shows that there is no significant difference in the performance of male and female english language teachers in pronunciation. conclusively, there is no significance difference in the performance of male and female english language teachers in pronunciation errors. 4. discussion of findings research question one revealed that the phonological perversion affects the effective use of spoken english among secondary school english teachers in ogun state. the finding of this study also revealed that the english language teachers in ogun state have problems with the pronunciation of some english consonants and vowels such as: /v/ which is wrongly pronounced as /f/; /z/ is wrongly pronounced as /s/; /ei/ is wrongly pronounced as /e/, /iǝ/ is wrongly pronounced as /ea/, /i:/ is wrongly pronounced as /i/ and h-dropping (happy as appy). the result of this study is in agreement with the findings of chukwuma and otagburuagu (2002), who discovered that the yorubas realize /v/ as /f/, e.g., “very” becomes “fery”, /z/ does not exist in yoruba so it is substituted with /s/, e.g., “zeal” is pronounced, “seal, issue is pronounced „izzue‟”. moreover, owolabi (2014) examined yoruba speakers of english as a second language to discover their recognition of some vowels and their production as a result of the inconsistencies between spelling and sounds in the english language as opposed to what are obtainable in the yoruba language. the results of the study showed that the participants, who are www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 33 published by scholink inc. teacher trainees and expected to be models cannot pronounce some sounds correctly, especially words containing the letter “i” in words like hide, ride and rid; in the words kite and kit and in the words bite and bit. kanoksilapatham (2014) investigated the thai elementary school teachers‟ english pronunciation competence. the instrument used to collect data in the study are: a questionnaire to elicit thai teachers‟ personal information and a stress identification test consisting of 50 multisyllabic words. the test scores were used to help describe thai teachers‟ pronunciation competence. the results how that thai teachers have difficulty identifying stressed syllables in english. research question revealed that the participants‟ perceptions on the factors responsible for the phonological errors committed by english language teachers are: mother tongue interference; inadequate instructional materials; motivation and exposure; personality; attitude; age, stress, intonation and rhythm. the result of this study is in consonance with the findings of wheelock (2016), who investigated the phonological difficulties encountered by italian learners of english and found that the factors that influence english pronunciation acquisition are: motivation, interference of l1 (mother tongue) and many instructors find pronunciation difficult to teach due to inadequate skills and/or teaching materials. rehman, khan and bukhari (2012) also found that the factors in pronunciation errors are: interference from the mother tongue particularly in pronunciation, syntax, and idiomatic usage; lack of opportunity to use english in their daily lives; unchallenging english lessons; being passive learners; lack of responsibility for their own learning. moreover, kanoksilatham (2010), who examined the 574 thai teachers‟ ability to place a stress syllable on 80 multisyllabic english words, found that the teachers‟ performance was relatively low and the factors that claimed to be responsible for the teachers‟ failure are: unqualified teachers, teachers‟ underestimation of the importance of english stress placement, inadequate instructional materials, and the curriculum. hypothesis one revealed that there is no significance difference in the performance of male and female english language teachers in pronunciation. the result of this study is in line with the findings of omovrighoidialu (2015), who examined the effects of oral english language cards (orelancadrds) on students‟ achievement in segmental and supra segmental phonology (test of oral english). the finding of the study showed no significant difference in performance of the participants with respect to their gender. however, the findings in hypothesis one is not in agreement with the findings of akindele (2014), who investigated the educated edo english (eee) speakers‟ level of conformity to established phenomenon in standard english (se). auditory analysis revealed that eee speakers‟ could not alternate stressed and unstressed syllables of the english words with syllabic consonants appropriately as findings revealed 4.2% overall performance for eee speakers, with males performance at 2% and females 2.2%. also, osikomaiya (2018) investigated teachers‟ achievement in oral english between male and female primary school teachers, using t-test comparison, she discovered that difference in male and female teachers‟ achievement was statistically significant, that is, the values of means achievement of female primary school teachers is higher than their male counterparts. ceron, gubiani, oliveira, oliveira and keske-soares (2017) determined the occurrence of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 34 published by scholink inc. phonological disorders by gender and a phonological evaluation was performed to analyze the operative phonological processes. the finding revealed that phonological alterations were more prevalent in males than females. 5. conclusion based on the findings of this study, it is concluded that the english language teachers in ogun state who have yoruba background encounter phonological difficulties in pronouncing some english vowels and consonant sounds and this is as a result of transfer of their native language pronunciation in yoruba to the english language in some words, thus leading to inappropriate pronunciation resulting in communication deficiency. 6. recommendations based on the finding and conclusion, it is recommended that: 1) nigerian teachers of english language need professional development as well as regular training/seminars/workshops to achieve effective english pronunciation teaching to learners. 2) teachers should be well prepared and equipped to meet the challenges of teaching english pronunciation in both primary and secondary schools. 3) teachers should not dodge from teaching oral aspect of english language to learners. 4) english teachers in primary and secondary schools should have good knowledge of phonetics and phonology because this will provide a basis for teachers to pronounce a word correctly and identify the physical reasons for inaccurate approximations of foreign language sounds which will enable them to give precise instructions of correcting faulty pronunciation. references akindele, j. (2014). weight sensitive factor in the english syllabic consonants of educated edo (nigerian) english as reflection of non-native english. world scientific news, 124(2), 292-303. angwah, j. m. (2019). cameroonian esl teachers‟ linguistic perceptions and the phonological aspects of their english. research on humanities and social sciences, 9(14), 1-7. bruce, h. (2007). introductory phonology: about phonemes. department of linguistics, ucla. ceron, m. i., gubiani, m. b., oliveira, m. b., oliveira, c. r., & keske-soares, m. (2017). prevalence of phonological disorders and phonological processes in typical and atypical phonological development. codas, 29(3), 14-25. https://doi.org/10.1590/2317-1782/20172015306 chukwuma, j., & otagburuagu, m. (2002). phonological problems of secondary school students in english language. bichi journal of education (bije), 1(2), 71-89. elkhair, m. i. h. (2014). pronunciation problems: a case study of english language students at sudan university of science and technology. english language and literature studies, 4(4), 31-44. https://doi.org/10.5539/ells.v4n4p31 https://doi.org/10.1590/2317-1782/20172015306 https://doi.org/10.5539/ells.v4n4p31 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 35 published by scholink inc. ghorbani, m. r. (2011). the impact of phonetic instruction on iranian students‟ listening ability enhancement. asian efl journal, 52, 24-34. hismanoglu, m., & hismanoglu, s. (2011). internet-based pronunciation teaching: an innovative route toward rehabilitating turkish efl learners‟ articulation problem. european journal of educational studies, 3(1), 2336. james, r. b. (2010). teaching pronunciation gets a bad r.a.p: a framework for teaching pronunciation. hankuk: university of foreign studies. jong, h., xiaodong, h., & yu, l. (2016). error correction in oral classroom english teaching. english language teaching, 9(12), 98-103. https://doi.org/10.5539/elt.v9n12p98 kanoksilapatham, b. (2014). thai elementary school teachers‟ english pronunciation and effects of teacher variables: professional development. the electronic journal for english as a second laguage, 18(1), 1-13. kanoksilatham, b. (2010). teaching english intonation in thailand: overview. journal of the faculty of arts, silpakorn university, 31, 299-319. lapusza, w. p., yunita, k., & syatroh, i. (2019). phonological errors between javanese and sundanese of bilabial and labio-dental sounds in tongue twister activity. professional journal of english education, 2(5), 675-681. https://doi.org/10.22460/project.v2i5.p675-681 mohammed, s. h. (2011). influence of mother tongue on the spoken english of selected hausa television correspondents: implication for teaching of spoken english at the ss level (masters‟ degree theses). department of arts and social science, faculty of education, ahmadu bello university, zaria. okoye, o. (2012). english language learning constraints. the sun newspaper online. omovrighoidialu, p. (2015). enriching the teaching/learning of segmental and supragemental phonology through orelancards. iosr journal of humanities and social science, 20(7), 8-13. onwubiko, p. (2011). nigerian broadcasters and mother tongue interference. accessed on february 14, 2020, from http://www.daily independent.com/../nigeria… osikomaiya, m. o. (2018). pragmatic approaches to the teaching of phonics and phonetics to primary school teachers in ogun state. tetfund sponsored research intervention report, ijebuode, babs global press. owolabi, d. (2014). grapho-phonic discrepancy in english and the problem of vowel production by yoruba speakers of english as a second language. review of arts and humanities, 3(2), 63-78. pourhosein, a. g. (2011). why is pronunciation so difficult to learn? english language teaching, 4(3), 74-83. https://doi.org/10.5539/elt.v4n3p74 pourhosein, a. g. (2012). a study of factors affecting efl learners‟ english pronunciation learning and the strategies for instruction. international journal of humanities and social science, 2(3), 119-128. https://doi.org/10.5539/elt.v9n12p98 https://doi.org/10.22460/project.v2i5.p675-681 https://doi.org/10.5539/elt.v4n3p74 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 36 published by scholink inc. pourhosein, a. g. (2016). english pronunciation instruction: a literature review. international journal of research in english education, 1(1), 1-7. rehman, g., khan, a. o., & bukhari, n. h. (2012). english problematic consonants for pashto speakers. academic research international, 2(1), 695-704. thompson, s. (1995). teaching intonation on questions. elt journal, 49(3), 235-243. https://doi.org/10.1093/elt/49.3.235 wheelock, a. (2016). phonological difficulties encountered by italian learners of english: an error analysis. hawaii pacific university tesol working paper series, 14, 41-61. yates, l., & zielinski, b. (2009). give it a go: teaching pronunciation to adults. sydney, australia: ameprc. https://doi.org/10.1093/elt/49.3.235 microsoft word fet-v1n2-p176 frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 176 short research paper teaching practice about flipped classroom on circuit course yuanbin wang1* & jianwen zhao 1 xi’an university of science and technology, shaanxi, china * yuanbin wang, xi’an university of science and technology, xi’an yanta road middle secion, no 58, shaanxi, 710054, china received: july 7, 2018 accepted: august 15, 2018 online published: september 5, 2018 doi:10.22158/fet.v1n2p176 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v1n2p176 abstracts in view of the problems in circuit course, flipped classroom is introduced and new teaching mode is explored. teaching design, teaching reform suggestion, teaching effects and results are presented. it is verified that this kind of teaching mode can enhance the enthusiasm, initiative and participation of the students, teaching efficiency is also improved. it is also a good way for comprehensive practice. keywords circuit course, flipped classroom, teaching reform, teaching practice 1. introduction circuit course is a fundamental course for the students of electrical and electronic major. this course has strong theoretic and practical characteristics. it is very useful and important to cultivate the ability of calculating, experiment and research for students. on the other hand, circuit is very significant to succeeding subjects. however, main problems exist like the following: (1) learning efficiency is not very high, students are passive, and usually they are not active to involve in the class essentially. they usually listen to the teacher passively and will not think a lot by themselves. teachers are the main role in the class, and students are secondary. (2) communication and interaction are infrequent between students and teachers. they seldom ask questions to the teachers or their classmates. discussion or argument seldom occurs in the class. students are not very active in the classroom. (3) for students, theory and practice are separated in the course of study. students pay a lot of attention to the theory, whereas experiments and practice are easily ignored. however, for technology students, practice is very significant. without practice, without progress. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 177 published by scholink inc. aiming at these problems, flipped classroom is introduced to the circuit course. teaching reform, effects and implementation results based on mooc and flipped room about circuit course are presented in this paper. 2. teaching reform about flipped classroom with the development of digitization and network technology, high education teaching mode has changed greatly. mooc (massive open online course) are employed widely in universities. according to the features and laws of mooc and flipped classroom, some reforms about circuit course have been made in this field, and many students has been trained in this way. for us, it is applied in the following way. the teaching flow chart and the figure about students learning offline are shown in figure 1 and figure 2, respectively. review before class strengthen knowledge points problems solving solve the problems students encounter offclass during self learning with mooc resources knowledge deeping probe problems from the class in group cooperation or projects exploring summarizing and inducing help students establish and promote knowledge frame figure 1. flow chart of teaching figure 2. flow chart for students learning offline 3. influence from flipped classroom this kind of teaching mode has the three following effects: (1) learning enthusiasm of students has been improved greatly, initiative has also been enhanced. in the class students are very active and can put forward their ideas or problems boldly, and even they may discuss or argue warmly. (2) practice ability has been improved greatly. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 178 published by scholink inc. in this teaching mode, students are true center role in the class, but in the traditional class teachers are the center. students are interested in some other things such as drawing circuit diagram, drawing printed circuit boarded, simulation, real circuit fabrication, etc. furthermore, now 3 utility model patents have been authorized based on course contest in our class. students got high scores in contest and scientific activity after class. (3) new learning mode formation based on team learning and cooperation learning. in flipped classroom students have more time and chance to discuss or communicate. it is helpful for students to understand the knowledge further, and they may learn in team or cooperation form. therefore, the learning efficiency is improved, and the disparity between students in different levels is reduced. (4) formation of dynamic and multiple evaluation mode. discussion and small test in class can be recorded by special software. teachers know the learning situation of each student well, so they can adjust the teaching schedule and strategy flexibly in time. on the other hand, the score of final exam is connected with daily behavior, such as test and discussion in class. a good basis is also built for succeeding subjects and subsequent learning. 4. implementation results based on flipped classroom in the circuit course teaching of last autumn, one class is based on flipped classroom, and the other one is based on traditional teaching mode. in the view of daily behavior, assignments, tests and final exam, this new teaching mode has better results. students are more active, focused and engaged in class or experiments. they may find problems and solve them cooperatively and independently. however, in the traditional teaching mode, students are more passive. table 1 is the results between flipped classroom and traditional class. table 1. results comparison of circuit course in final exam flipped classroom traditional classroom total students 65 68 average scores of test paper 72 65 failure rate 30% 42% the ratio above 90 11% 4% the ratio below 40 6% 14% from table 1, it can be seen that the average score from flipped class is 7 score higher than that from traditional class, the failure rate of flipped class is 12% lower than that of traditional class. the ratio www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 179 published by scholink inc. above 90 score and below 40 score of flipped class are also higher than that of traditional class. therefore flipped class teaching mode can improve the enthusiasm and score of the students. better teaching results are achieved. 5. conclusion in the times of mooc and flipped classroom, teaching reform about circuit course is explored preliminary. it is shown that this kind of teaching mode enhanced the initiative, participation and teaching effects. in addition, practice is paid more attention than before. for this kind of teaching, establishment of learning environment and innovation should be emphasized. furthermore, specialized quality and teaching skill are also should be enhanced. flipped classroom of circuit course will be a strong and unobstructed bridge between fundamental theory and engineering practice in future. of course, it is a new thing, and the best teaching mode should be explored and investigated further. in addition, this kind of teaching mode brings more work to teachers and teachers should expand their knowledge view. joint effort is needed from teachers and students for further development. references chen, y. y. (2016). considering about student-centered circuit course teaching mode. science and technology innovation herald, 21. liu, y. (2017). exploration and practice of flip classroom of circuit course teaching in mooc era. journal of henan institute of education, 26(2). xie, n., sun, w., & yu, s. j. (2017). practice research about flipped classroom mixed teaching based on spoc. computer knowledge and technology, 13(7). yu, x. j. (2015). application to the online courses. chinese higher education, 2015(24), 9-10. zhang, l. x., yan, y. y., wang, h., & sun, l. (2015). discussion of teaching mode of circuit analysis course in mooc era. journal of eee, 37(2). zhu, g. p. (2017). teaching design of flipped classroom. journal of eee, 39(4). zhu, g. p., yu, x. j., & lu, w. j. (2013). tentative practiceon profound reform of principles of electric circuit course. journal of eee, 35(5). frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no.1, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 13 original paper arithmetic fact fluency supported by artificial intelligence joakim samuelsson1 1 linköping university, 581 83 linköping, sweden received: january 9, 2023 accepted: january 25, 2023 online published: february 2, 2023 doi:10.22158/fet.v6n1p13 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v6n1p13 abstract the main purpose of this study was to investigate to what extent students aged eight years developed their arithmetic fact fluency by using artificial intelligence to practice number combinations. the study compares the effects of three different ways of practicing number combinations: artificial intelligence (ai), memorization (mem), and guided learning (gl). the design was a split-plot factorial design with group as a between-subject factor and time (i.e., before and after a six-week intervention) as a within-subject factor. preand post-test were performed to assess students’ fluency with respect to basic number combinations, i.e., addition, such as 3 + 4, 2 + 1, 6 + 3, etc. the results show that students developed their fluency significantly with respect to basic number combinations when practicing this skill with support of artificial intelligence. it seems that the technique is effective at analyzing and recommending content based on students’ learning patterns and what has worked best for similar students. the results therefore strengthen the findings of previous studies that artificial intelligence presents great opportunities to offer individual support to maximize learning. the results also show that practicing number combinations with artificial intelligence is more effective compared to practicing with a focus on memorization and guided learning. keywords artificial intelligence, mathematics, arithmetic fact, fluency, learning 1. introduction several studies have investigated how teachers and students can best use computers to support students’ mathematics learning. technological development is constantly creating new conditions that can affect students’ learning. not least, researchers argue that artificial intelligence presents significant opportunities such as assessing students’ knowledge and offering individual support to maximize learning (hwang & tu, 2021). new technology has always exerted a captivating force on the human intellect (samuelsson, 2006). this psychological side of technology raises many questions about the conditions of learning. “can www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 14 published by scholink inc. technology help more people to learn more in less time?” is one such question. today, artificial intelligence is starting to become a reality in schools in sweden. artificial intelligence is predicted to revolutionize our society, and education is no exception. a research overview of ai in mathematics teaching states that the technology is being used more and more in this area (hwang & tu, 2021), giving mathematics teachers an opportunity to adapt teaching in a whole new way. the technique, ai, can be adapted to the student by analyzing the student’s abilities and then recommending content, based on the student’s abilities, and learning patterns and on what has worked best for similar students (chen et al., 2007; hwang et al., 2014; hwang et al., 2020). exercises can be tailored to the student’s needs, both in terms of degree of difficulty and number of exercises. there have been various studies on how ai can be used as an intelligent learning support (hwang et al., 2021). these studies have primarily focused on cognition, in terms of learning (e.g., bartelet et al., 2016), but also the extent to which ai can support affective aspects of learning (e.g., nye et al., 2018) such as attitudes, motivation and confidence in one’s own abilities. hwang et al. (2021) conclude their research review by stating: it is important to investigate the effectiveness of using ai in mathematics learning activities from different perspectives by taking rarely considered research foci into account, such as cognitive load, collaboration and communication competencies and learning anxiety (p. 12). this study examines how ai can be used to support the development of students’ fluency with respect to basic number combinations. the main purpose of the study was to investigate to what extent students aged eight years developed their fluency by using artificial intelligence to practice number combinations. 1.1 arithmetic fact fluency learning arithmetic involves different forms of knowledge: a) declarative, b) procedural and c) conceptual (hudson & miller, 2006). declarative knowledge means knowledge that is retrieved directly from memory without hesitation; this is when you know something with fluency (hudson & miller, 2006). students who master basic number combinations and arithmetic facts, and understand the position system and the various arithmetic operations, have a good basis for handling the four arithmetic methods with multi-digit numbers (mcintosh, 2008). having difficulty reproducing arithmetic facts is a common problem both for students with specific arithmetic difficulties and for students with milder math difficulties (andersson, 2010; geary, et al., 2012). procedural knowledge is about being able to manipulate numbers in, for example, an addition such as 123 + 23 = __. conceptual knowledge means that the student has knowledge of number relations, e.g., which number is greater, 4 or 7? the importance of fluency with respect to arithmetic facts is stressed in several studies. for example, fluency with basic number combinations has been shown to explain differences in chinese and american students’ performance when solving multi-digit additions (vasilyeva, laski, & shen, 2015). another study shows that fluency in calculations predicts results in future, more advanced mathematics www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 15 published by scholink inc. studies (rathmell & gabriele, 2011). fluency also presents a significant challenge for students with specific arithmetic difficulties (geary, 2013; skagerlund & träff, 2016). thus, fluency in basic arithmetic seems to be important with respect to mathematical development. there are broadly two positions in mathematics didactics that advocate two different positions in terms of how best to teach students arithmetic facts (baroody, bajwa, & eiland, 2009). the first method is called passive learning, which involves memorizing number combinations by heart. memorizing by heart is based on the idea that recall improves when given the chance to repeat what is to be remembered. in other words, the more times a student actively responds to stimuli such as 3 + 4 = __, the better the student will remember the sum 7. we acknowledge that most of the existing research would recommend the use of timed exercises (e.g., baroody et al., 2014). the second method is conceptualized as active construction or number sense-based learning (number sense). baroody et al. (2009) argue that the student should actively explore the relationship between numbers, with for instance image support, and thereby improve number perception which in turn improves the reproduction of arithmetic facts. there are also proponents of this position who claim that time-limited tests should not be used as a basis for assessing students’ fluency in number combinations (kling & bay-wiliams, 2014), arguing that timed tests can lead to math anxiety. however, it has been shown that exploratory learning without supporting elements such as scaffolding and feedback can have a negative effect on learning (mayer, 2004). on the other hand, alfieri, brooks, aldrich and tenenbaum (2010) show that exploratory learning together with support is an effective way to learn. it is important to note that their meta-analysis shows that this type of learning is more effective for adults than for children and that the researchers are not specific either to students in need of support or to students without that need. thus, few studies have evaluated memorization-focused practice vs conceptual focused practice. tournaki (2003) tested strategy instruction vs drill and practice procedure in a sample of second graders with respect to fluency development. strategy instruction meant teaching the minimum addend strategy (starting with the larger number and adding the smaller number by counting). drill and practice used two forms of tasks that should be solved during a lesson. the researchers examined the effect of eight lessons (15 minutes) and compared development on children with a mathematical learning disability and on children without a learning disability. the result showed that both conditions were better than the control group regardless of whether the child had a learning disability (cohens d = 1.53 for strategy and cohens d = 1.35 for drill and practice). results also showed that children with a learning disability achieved better results if they received strategy instruction than if they worked with drill and practice (cohens d = 1.52). the results seem to favor strategy instruction over drill and practice, although both strategy instruction and drill and practice conditions did emphasize speed for the children during practice. fuchs et al. (2009) have compared two programs with respect to fluency on number combinations. one program focused on drill and practice, while the other focused on conceptual aspects and involved some fluency training. the results showed that drill and practice developed equally as conceptual tutoring, and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 16 published by scholink inc. both developed significant more than control group (drill and practice cohens d = 0.55, conceptual cohens d = 0.62). baroody, purpura, eiland, and reid (2014) have investigated whether unguided practice, guided ten strategy practice, or guided subtraction practice affect first graders’ fluency with respect to basic number combinations. in the unguided group the student practiced number combinations without any guidance. the students in the ten-strategy group were guided in the ten-strategy, while the subtraction group were guided to use addition to solve subtraction combinations. the result show that subtraction practice increased the fluency significant of untrained number combinations (hedges’ g = 0.50 compared to use-a-ten strategy, 0.45 compared to unguided). however, fluency on trained number combinations developed more in the guided subtraction group and unguided practice group compared to ten-strategy group (hedges’ g = 1.46 and 0.95). using addition to solve a subtraction combination could help student doing memorization. greene et al. (2018) investigated the effect of fluency training through peer tutoring with flash cards. the training was carried out three times a week, 30 minutes each session, for eight weeks and the children who participated in the intervention attended grades three and four. the intervention had a high degree of memorization focus while the control group was given standard lessons. the result showed that the intervention group developed significant more than the control group. (cohens d = 1.77). for students with math learning difficulties, baroody et al. (2009) and gersten et al. (2009) show that, among other things, explicit instructions, self-controlled teaching, computer-based teaching, and interventions carried out by researchers together with teachers, seemed to be beneficial. codding, burns and lukito (2011) conducted another meta-analysis that focused on students with math learning disabilities (mld) in terms of fluently reproducing basic number combinations. they also did a component analysis of the studies to determine which type of teaching was most effective. the teaching methods that featured in the studies were as follows: modeling, hiding the answer, recording the answer with the task, showing the results, comparing answers to tasks, flash cards, worksheets with increasing difficulty, independent work, self-assessment, reinforcement, sound recording of tasks, and combinations of the above. they divided the methods into four categories: practice with models, practice without models, tests (drill), and self-directed activity. the results showed that the best effect was produced by practicing with models and conducting tests. fuchs et al. (2012) tested a tutoring program for at-risk learners in grade one. the tutoring took place outside the ordinary classroom in the form of 30-minute one-to-one sessions, three times a week. the study randomized 300 low-risk student and 206 at-risk students to a control condition group (121), speeded practice (195), and to non-speeded practice (190). the results showed that the condition with speeded (memorization-focused) training was superior to the non-speeded training condition, with an effect size of 0.51 (cohens d = 0.43). both intervention groups were significantly better than the control group. fluency in basic arithmetic seems to be important to develop. it predicts results in future, more advanced mathematics studies (rathmell & gabriele, 2011) and is significant challenge for students www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 17 published by scholink inc. with specific arithmetic difficulties (geary, 2013; skagerlund & träff, 2016). few studies have investigated how students should practice in order to gain fluency and as far as we know, no study have compared fluency development practicing with support of artificial intelligence (cf. hwang, 2021), practicing in order to memorize and practicing with focus on conceptual aspects of number combinations (cf. baroody, bajwa, & eiland, 2009; greene et al., 2018). accordingly, the following two research questions were formulated: a) to what extent do eight-year-old students develop their fluency with respect to number combinations when practicing with a) artificial intelligence (ai), b) mathematical symbols to memorize (mem), and c) mathematical symbols and images (guided learning, gl)? b) to what extent do eight-year-old students with mld develop their fluency with respect to number combinations when practicing with a) artificial intelligence (ai), b) mathematical symbols to memorize (mem), and c) mathematical symbols and images (guided learning, gl)? 2. method the design was a split-plot factorial design with group (i.e., practice with ai, mem, gl, and control group) as a between-subject factor, and time (i.e., before and after the six-week intervention) as a within-subject factor. preand post-test were used to assess students’ fluency with respect to basic number combinations, i.e., addition, such as 3 + 4, 2 + 1, 6 + 3, etc. a total of 1,006 students in year 2 participated in the study. data was collected over two years. in the first year, 877 students participated. the aim was then to investigate to what extent the students developed their fluency in number combinations when practicing with mathematical symbols in order (memorizing) and with image support (guided learning). the students were randomly assigned, at class level, to one of three interventions: a) exercises with mathematical symbols (n = 320), b) exercises with image support (n = 386), and c) control group (171). when the opportunity to practice with ai also became possible, schools in a medium-sized municipality were asked if there were any classes that were interested in practicing number combinations with the support of ai (n = 129). all students performed fluency tests before and after the six-week intervention period. the students were asked to answer as many number combination tasks as possible for 90 seconds. test reliability α = .98. 2.1 practice of fluency this study compares how students’ performance regarding fluency in number combinations developed in four different groups: a) ai, practice with ai engine, b) mem, practice with mathematical symbols, c) gl, practice with image support, and d) control group. the project was carried out over a six-week period. in the intervention groups, each mathematics lesson ended with students practicing number combinations for 10 minutes. all teachers scored to what extent they followed the practice plan after each lesson, on a ten-point likert scale. fidelity was calculated to .88. the following four groups’ fluency development over six weeks was investigated. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 18 published by scholink inc. ai: students practice at a computer with an ai engine. the ai engine collects data on how the individual student handles the tasks, identifies patterns in this and gradually learns what the student’s knowledge needs look like. it picks up tasks that respond directly to these needs, without the student noticing that ai is involved (cf. chen et al., 2007; hwang et al., 2014; hwang et al., 2020). mem: students only practice basic number combinations with mathematical symbols of the type (3 + 2, 3 + 6, 6 + 3) in short, timed exercises (cf. baroody et al., 2014). gl: in addition to numbers, students are also presented with an image representing the number combinations (cf. baroody et al., 2009). for instance: 3 + 2 = control group: mathematics teaching is conducted as usual. means and effect size cohen’s d were calculated for each student regarding fluency on preand post-test. finally, repeated measure analysis of variance (manova) was employed to investigate development differences between groups. analyses were made of the entire material to answer our first research question and of the lowest performing 25 percent of students to answer our second research question. we used the cut-off of 25 percent to define our group with special needs in mathematics (mld, mathematics learning disabilities) (cf. cowan & powell, 2013; geary et al., 2012; de smedt & gilmore, 2011). 3. results the results will be presented in two sections. the first section provides descriptive statistics of mean before and after the intervention. we also show the intervention effect with respect to mean change and effect size. the second section contains the results of two mixed anovas. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 19 published by scholink inc. 3.1 descriptive statistics the results, presented in table 1, show that there were significant improvements during the intervention for all groups. students who practiced with ai support had the greatest improvement with respect to effect size measure cohen’s d (.80). the second best development was shown by students focused on memorization (.69), with guided learning (.21) coming third and the control group (.11) last. table 1. mean, standard deviation before and after intervention and effect size with respect to fluency in each group before after intervention effect test group n m sd n m sd m cohen’s d fluency control 171 14.85 7,.05 171 15.54 5.64 .69 .11 fluency gl 386 13.74 5.79 386 16a.37 6.48 2.63 .21 fluency mem 320 13.63 5.94 320 17.72 5.99 4.09 .69 fluency ai 129 11.67 6.94 129 18.21 9.25 6.54 .80 the analyses, presented in table 2, of the group we defined as having special needs show that students who focused on memorization developed their fluency the most regarding effect size measure cohen’s d (1.94). the second best development was shown by students who practiced their fluency with support of ai (.69), with guided learning (1.16) coming third and the control group (1.10) last. table 2. mean, standard deviation before and after intervention and effect size with respect to fluency in each group (mld students) before after intervention effect test group n m sd n m sd m cohen’s d fluency control 32 6.81 1.82 32 10.44 4.21 3.63 1.10 fluency gl 89 6.85 2.17 89 11.11 4.73 4.26 1.16 fluency mem 77 7.09 2.14 77 14.20 4.72 7.11 1.94 fluency ai 48 6.69 1.95 48 10.88 3.05 4.19 1.63 3.2 mixed anova the next step in our analysis was to perform a mixed anova, with group (i.e., ai, memorization, guided learning and control) as a between-subject factor and time (i.e., before and after the six-week intervention) as a within-subject factor. thus, the primary data come from changes in fluency ability. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 20 published by scholink inc. the main issue of interest was the extent to which the four groups had made differential progress on this performance measure. analyses to address this question need to consider the fact that the groups are not perfectly matched for their fluency ability. in a study like this, it was not possible to match the groups exactly. to assess the effects of three different methods for practicing fluency, two analyses of variance (anova) with group as a between-subject factor and time as a within-subject factor were performed. the first was an analysis of the development of fluency for all students, and the second was an analysis of students that fell into the bottom 25 percent on pre-test. an anova with total fluency scores as dependent measures revealed a significant main effect for time, f(1, 1002) = 340.58, p < 0.001, suggesting that fluency with respect to number combinations was improved across teaching groups. there were no main effects of group, f(3, 1002) = .849, p = 0.467, but there was an interaction effect between group and time, f(3, 1002) = 32.59, p < 0.001. these findings suggest that there was a general effect of methods, and that total improvement in fluency was different across groups. figure 1. development of fluency (all students) a second anova, with total fluency scores for students who performed lowest (cut-off 25 percent) on pre-test as dependent measures, revealed a significant main effect for time, f(1, 241) = 300.81, p < 0.001, suggesting that fluency with respect to number combinations was improved across teaching groups. there was a main effect of group, f(3, 241) = 7.33, p < .001. the analysis revealed that there was an interaction effect between group and time, f(3, 241) = 9.89, p < 0.001. these findings suggest www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 21 published by scholink inc. that there was a general effect of methods with respect to the lowest performing students, and that total improvement in fluency was different across groups. figure 2. development of fluency (mld students) to sum up, the results of this study show that students benefited from practicing number combinations with ai support in terms of fluency development compared to students working with other methods. analysis of fluency development among students with mld also showed a positive effect of working with ai. thus, mld students who focused on memorization saw the greatest development in fluency. 4. discussion the results of this study show that students developed their fluency significantly with respect to basic number combinations when practicing this skill with ai support. it seems that the technique is effective at analyzing student’s abilities and recommending content based on students’ learning patterns and what has worked best for similar students (chen et al., 2007; hwang et al., 2014; hwang et al., 2020). the result therefore strengthens the position that ai presents great opportunities for offering individual support to maximize learning (hwang & tu, 2021) with respect to fluency. it gives mathematics teachers an opportunity to modify teaching in an entirely new way that will effectively support students’ learning of basic number combinations. the results also show that practicing with ai is more effective compared to practicing with a focus on memorization or guided learning. earlier debates about whether to use learning where the student memorizes by heart (baroody, bajwa, & eiland, 2009) or conceptualize as active construction or number sense-based learning (codding, burns, & lukito, 2011) are challenged by a third option: practicing with ai. the results of the present study therefore strengthen existing research arguing that www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 22 published by scholink inc. ai can be used as an intelligent learning support (hwang et al., 2021) to design exercises tailored to student’s needs, both in terms of degree of difficulty and the number of exercises. our result also shows that practicing memorizing was significantly better than using images to conceptualize the number combinations. this result therefore strengthens earlier studies result promoting memorization practice (fuchs et al., 2012; greene et al., 2018). this study also shows that mld students significantly developed their fluency as a result of practicing with ai support. this is an important finding, since fluency also presents a significant challenge for students with specific arithmetic difficulties (geary, 2013; skagerlund & träff, 2016). the mld group displayed a different pattern with respect to how best to practice fluency in basic number combinations. students in the mld group developed most when they practiced by memorizing (cf. tournaki, 2003; fuchs et al., 2012). this may be because this group is academically weak in general, which may affect their handling of the computer. writing by hand might therefore allow them to complete more tasks, which is important according to baroody, bajwa and eiland (2009), and therefore students will achieve better fluency on basic number combinations. 5. conclusion to sum up, artificial intelligence has become a reality in schools in sweden. in this study, it is proven that practicing with ai has an impact on students’ performance with respect to fluency in basic number combinations. this is important, since we know that fluency in basic number combinations predicts results in future, more advanced mathematics studies (rathmell & gabriele, 2011; vasilyeva, laski, & shen, 2015). ai presents teachers with a powerful new tool for helping students develop important prerequisites for more advanced mathematics. references alfieri, l., brooks, p. j., aldrich, n. j., & tenenbaum, h. r. (2011). does discovery-based instruction enhance learning? journal of educational psychology, 103(1), 1-18. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0021017 andersson, u. (2010). skill development in different components of arithmetic and basic cognitive functions: findings from a 3-year longitudinal study of children with different types of learning difficulties. journal of educational psychology, 102(1), 115-134. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0016838 baroody, a. j., bajwa, n. p., & eiland, m. (2009). why can’t johnny remember the basic facts? developmental disabilities research reviews, 15, 69-79. https://doi.org/10.1002/ddrr.45 baroody, a. j., purpura, d. j., eiland, m. d., & reid, e. e. (2014). fostering first graders’ fluency with basic subtraction and larger addition combinations via computer-assisted instruction. cognition and instruction, 32(2), 159-197. https://doi.org/10.1080/07370008.2014.887084 https://doi.org/10.1037/a0021017 https://doi.org/10.1002/ddrr.45 https://doi.org/10.1080/07370008.2014.887084 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 23 published by scholink inc. bartelet, d., ghysels, j., groot, w., haelermans, c., & maassen van den brink, h. (2016). the differential effect of basic mathematics skills homework via a web-based intelligent tutoring system across achievement subgroups and mathematics domains: a randomized field experiment. journal of educational psychology, 108(1), 1-20. https://doi.org/10.1037/edu0000051 chen, c. j., & liu, p. l. (2007). personalized computer-assisted mathematics problem-solving program and its impact on taiwanese students. journal of computers in mathematics and science teaching, 26, 105-121. codding, r. s., burns, m. k., & lukito, g. (2011). meta-analysis of mathematic basic-fact fluency interventions: a component analysis. learning disabilities research & practice, 26(1), 36-47. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5826.2010.00323.x cowan, r., & powell, d. (2013). the contributions of domain-general and numerical factors to third-grade arithmetic skills and mathematical learning disability. journal of educational psychology, 106(1), 214-229. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0034097 de smedt, b., & gilmore, c. k. (2011). defective number module or impaired access? numerical magnitude processing in first graders with mathematical difficulties. journal of experimental child psychology, 108(2), 278-292. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2010.09.003 fuchs, l. s., powell, s. r., seethaler, p. m., cirino, p. t., fletcher, j. m., fuchs, d., & zumeta, r. o. (2009). remediating number combination and word problem deficits among students with mathematics difficulties: a randomized control trial. journal of educational psychology, 101(3), 561-576. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0014701 fuchs, l. s., fuchs, d., & compton, d. l. (2012). the early prevention of mathematics difficulty: its power and limitations. journal of learning disabilities, 45(3), 257-269. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022219412442167 geary, d. c. (2013). early foundations for mathematics learning and their relations to learning disabilities. current directions in psychological science, 22(1), 23-27. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721412469398 geary, d. c., hoard, m. k., nugent, l., & bailey, d. h. (2012). mathematical cognition deficits in children with learning disabilities and persistent low achievement: a five-year prospective study. journal of educational psychology, 104(1), 206-223. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0025398 gersten, r., beckmann, s., clarke, b., foegen, a., marsh, l., star, j. r., & bradley, w. (2009). (ed). (2009). assisting students struggling with mathematics: response to intervention (rti) for elementary and middle schools. ncee 2009-4060. what works clearinghouse. greene, i., tiernan, a. m., & holloway, j. (2018). cross-age peer tutoring and fluency-based instruction to achieve fluency with mathematics computation skills: a randomized controlled trial. journal of behavioral education, 27(2), 145-171. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10864-018-9291-1 https://doi.org/10.1037/edu0000051 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5826.2010.00323.x https://doi.org/10.1177/0022219412442167 https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721412469398 https://doi.org/10.1037/a0025398 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10864-018-9291-1 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 24 published by scholink inc. hudson, p., & miller. s. p. (2006). designing and implementing mathematics instruction for student with diverse learning needs. pearson. hwang, g. j., hung, p. h., chen, n. s., & liu, g. z. (2014). mindtool-assisted in-field learning (mail): an advanced ubiquitous learning project in taiwan. education technology society, 17, 4-16. hwang, g. j., sung, h. y., chang, s. c., & huang, x. c. (2020). a fuzzy expert system-based adaptive learning approach to improving students’ learning performances by considering affective and cognitive factors. computers in education artificial intelligence, 1, 00003. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.caeai.2020.100003 hwang, g. j., & tu, y. f. (2021). roles and research trends of artificial intelligence in mathematics education: a bibliometric mapping analysis and systematic review. mathematics. https://doi.org/10.3390/math9060584 kling, g., & bay-williams, j. m. (2014). assessing fact fluency. teaching children mathematics, 20(8), 488-497. https://doi.org/10.5951/teacchilmath.20.8.0488 mayer, r. e. (2004). should there be a three-strikes rule against pure discovery learning? the case for guided methods of instruction. the american psychologist, 59(1), 14-19. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066x.59.1.14 mcintosh, a. (2008). förstå och använda tal. nationellt centrum för matematikutbildning. nye, b., pavlik, p., windsor, a., olney, a. m., hajeer, m., & hu, x. skope-it. (2018). (shareable knowledge objects as portable intelligent tutors): overlaying natural language tutoring on an adaptive learning system for mathematics. international journal of stem education, 5, 12. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40594-018-0109-4 rathmell, e. c., & gabriele, a. j. (2011). number and operations: organizing your curriculum to develop computational fluency. in i. fennell (ed.), achieving fluency: special education and mathematics (pp. 105-141). national council of teachers of mathematics. samuelsson, j. (2006). ict as a change agent of mathematics teaching in swedish secondary school. education and information technologies, 11, 71-81. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-005-5713-5 sjöberg, g. (2006). om det inte är dyskalkyli vad är det då? en multimetodstudie av elever i matematikproblem ur ett longitudinellt perspektiv. [doktorsavhandling, umeå universitet]. skagerlund, k., & träff, u. (2016). number processing and heterogeneity of developmental dyscalculia: subtypes with different cognitive profiles and deficits. journal of learning disabilities, 49, 36-50. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022219414522707 tournaki, n. (2003). the differential effects of teaching addition through strategy instruction versus drill and practice to students with and without learning disabilities. journal of learning disabilities, 36(5), 449-458. https://doi.org/10.1177/00222194030360050601 vasilyeva, m., laski, e. v., & shen, c. (2015). computational fluency and strategy choice predict individual and cross-national differences in complex arithmetic. developmental psychology, 51(10), 1489-1500. https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0000045 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.caeai.2020.100003 https://doi.org/10.3390/math9060584 https://doi.org/10.5951/teacchilmath.20.8.0488 https://doi.org/10.1186/s40594-018-0109-4 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-005-5713-5 https://doi.org/10.1177/0022219414522707 https://doi.org/10.1177/00222194030360050601 https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0000045 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 25 published by scholink inc. vetenskapsrådet. (2002). forskningsetiska principer inom humanistisk-samhällsvetenskaplig forskning. stockholm: vetenskapsrådet. microsoft word fet-v2n4-p208 frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 208 original paper a study of university students’ cognitive competence in performing the learning assignments: interdisciplinary and intercultural approach dr. anna toom1* & dr. natalia inshakova2 1 graduate school of education, touro college & university system, new york, usa 2 journalism department, lomonosov moscow state university, moscow, russia * anna toom, e-mail: annatoom@gmail.com received: march 19, 2019 accepted: may 28, 2019 online published: october 21, 2019 doi:10.22158/fet.v2n4p208 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v2n4p208 abstract one of the major tasks of today’s higher education schools—raising cognitively competent specialists—is still far from completion. two university professors, a journalist and a psychologist, with different cultural backgrounds, united their pedagogical experience and the results of their long-term studies of the students’ cognitive functioning in performing learning assignments. these assignments were analogues of the problems which journalists and school teachers will have to solve eventually in their everyday professional practice. the results showed that most students in each investigated population had poor cognitive skills for working with textual information. their mistakes in performing course work were systematic and similar. they were caused by an inability to identify key-words which most accurately point to the main ideas of the texts. such students had no full-fledged understanding of what they read. to denote this phenomenon, the authors used the term “fuzzy thinking”. the authors concluded that today’s educators’ efforts should be aimed at teaching university students to work with textual information professionally. the necessary analytic and semantic skills should be instilled in students in every course, every semester, and throughout all years of university study. keywords university students, cognitive competence, textual information, analytical skills, informational infantilism, semantic thinking, fuzzy thinking www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 209 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction one of the challenges that higher education schools faces in the epoch of rapid development of information technologies is the formation of cognitively competent specialists. it is expected that such specialists, when dealing with large flows of information, will productively solve scientific and practical problems in various areas of knowledge. at present, the task of raising such specialists is still far from completion. one of the causes for this is insufficient skills in understanding textual information among university students. visual computer culture does not supplant the culture of writing and reading. on the contrary, graphic information as well as digital information coexist with texts. as before, texts remain the main type of information which today’s students work with. more advanced skills in operating with textual information will be needed for future professionals. thus, developing these skills is an ultimate requirement for modern university graduates. this task, if unsolved, can turn into serious social problems preventing progress. these problems can already be found today in representatives of different specialties and in different cultures, even technologically advanced ones. in our work, we discuss how these problems are manifested in students specializing in social sciences and humanities in some universities of usa and russia. 2. theoretical frame cognitive competence (cc) is a cumulative and integrative concept. some authors define cc as an ability to adequately perform a task “essential for living on one’s own in the society” (willis, 1996). other authors add that “it also includes understanding the perspective of others, understanding behavioral norms, and self-awareness” (the w.t. grant consortium, 1992). a social aspect of cc is reflected in these points of view. an individual aspect of cc is usually studied by the specialists in context of academic and intellectual achievement, and in their definitions, cc is the ability to use logic, analytic skills, and abstract reasoning (catalano et al., 2002). some authors add to the latter definition the skills of argument (yanklowitz, 2013). yet other authors understand cc as “drawing correct inferences from information” (moshman, 1998). in psychological works, scholars connect cc to thinking. according to rachel c. f. sun and co-authors, cc inсludes three types of thinking: rational, critical, and creative. in their opinion, decision making should also be considered a component of cc (sun & hui, 2012). in other specialists’ point of view, an evident proof of cc is the development of metathinking (geiwitz, 1996). for some russian authors, cc is an ability for and readiness to cognitive growth. they believe that one’s ability for self-education displays cc. they see reflection of cc in such traits of personality as independent acquiring of new knowledge and actualization of one’s psychosocial potentials (lipatnikova & parshina, 2012). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 210 published by scholink inc. as we see from definitions presented above, cс is usually viewed as a combination of different types of cognitive activity—both simple and complex. with all the variety of these definitions, what remains unchanged, is their direct connection to the phenomenon of problem solving. сс manifests itself in the form of developed problem-solving skills. according to the authors’ vision, cc is, first, a formal-logical phenomenon. it is necessary to consider such cognitive functions as analysis and synthesis, basic components of formal-logical thinking. they are in a reciprocal relationship: analysis is the deconstructing of information into separate elements, and synthesis is a unification of elements into the whole. however, in practice analysis and synthesis coexist and are even mutually necessary. in their opposition and unity, they are the important cognitive mechanisms underlying cc. another important type of thinking that is needed for problem solving is semantic thinking. in fact, at all stages of problem solving, an individual must operate with the meanings (semanticheskiy analysis, 2018). adequate operating with the meanings contained in the information is another cognitive mechanism underlying cc. in this paper, authors study cc of the university students specializing in social sciences and humanities. cc is viewed here as a complex of both logical and semantic skills. such skills are required for dealing with textual information to perform daily learning assignments either with the use of technological tools or without them. 3. methodology the arsenal of tools which any teacher may use for study is small. not every research method works in the classroom. in fact, the goals of teaching and studying the act of learning are different, often they are opposite. the instructor’s function is to model, explain, find mistakes, help to analyze them, and form students’ skills in solving various subject problems. however, the researcher must delineate the student’s learning activity with all the mistakes and shortcomings without any influence (unless this influence itself is not the subject of the study). the instructor as a pedagogue strives to maximize his/her influence on the students’ activities, while the instructor as a researcher minimizes it to exclude artifacts. the present work is based on methods which allow one to combine the roles of the teacher and the researcher in a learning situation. the professor’s conversations with the students during classes and analysis of their homework assignments were the basic techniques for collecting empirical data in the study conducted in a traditional classroom of lomonosov moscow state university. in touro college & university system, the courses were delivered in the internet. the same research techniques were used in a virtual classroom. an analysis of the students’ assignments was carried out with the use of a simplified version of the content analysis (content analysis, 2018). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 211 published by scholink inc. 4. studies 4.1 titling a note in the modern world, which is overwhelmed with information, people, when looking at a title, want to understand what a publication is about and whether it makes sense to read it. of course, the publications must meet the needs of the audience (gilyarevsky, 2003). the titles should be informative that is, it should provide the fullest possible reflection of the publication’s content (inshakova, 2017). informative titles for printed and electronic issues are important for all areas of mass communication: education, religion, culture, and even advertising, in which the accuracy of the commercial proposal determines the response of a future consumer. dr. natalia inshakova, professor of philology, proposed these sorts of assignments to the students when she was teaching the topic “work on the title” in her course basics of editing media texts in the journalism department of moscow university. 4.1.1 goal testing whether students could apply knowledge gained in lectures into practice. namely, how well they learned the strategy of creating titles for newspaper or magazine notes. 4.1.2 task a. classification of students’ answers b. determining possible causes of students’ failure in solving the task. 4.1.3 participants there were 198 senior undergraduate students (4th year), who participated in this research. they attended the same course in different semesters of 2013-2018. 4.1.4 procedure dr. inshakova specified features and values of the informative titles in her lectures and demonstrated informative titles on numerous examples during practicums. the students were familiarized with the strategy for analyzing titles and the algorithm for constructing meaningful adequate titles (gendina, 2013). after that, students received a small newspaper’s note for their homework. its title did not adequately reflect its content. the text of the note is present in figure 1. students were instructed to determine whether the title was informative and, if not, propose their own, more informative option. 4.1.5 correct solution to formulate the title, it is necessary, first, to determine the topic of the note because they are very closely connected. to determine the topic, the three main concepts should be found in the note: the subject of activity, the object of activity, and the event. these main concepts have their indicators in the text. identifying the textual indicators is a key to solving this kind of problem, because the informative title is based on textual indicators of the topic’s main concepts. the note, the main concepts, and their textual indicators (highlighted in colors) are illustrated in figure 1. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 212 published by scholink inc. figure 1. the note and a sample of its correct analysis the most complete and correct version of the title is: “presentation of publishing programs for the 260th jubilee of moscow state university: project classical textbook for the university”. 4.1.6 results the students’ answers belonged to 4 types: correct, incomplete, incorrect, and unspecified. answers were considered correct if the students proposed informative titles which reflected the essence of the note to the greatest degree. answers were considered incomplete if students, although determined the specific aspects of the topic, proposed non-informative titles. answers were wrong, when students did not manage the task and offered rather an advertising title. the “no answer” category was connected to students who refused to perform the task. these research results are present in the table 1. percentage scores for all types of answers are shown in the a column, and examples of the titles created by the students—in the b column. table 1. the types of answers with percentage scores and examples a b correct 5% “federal agency presents a new publishing project for the university jubilee” incomplete 25% “textbooks for the university jubilee”; “moscow university: publishing projects” incorrect 30% “in the jubilee with a new textbook”; “age of maturity”; “learn, learn and learn!” no answer 40% – the students, which provided no answers, called the title given for the analysis in their homework assignment “quite informative”, “good enough” and believed that “in general, nothing is wrong with unclear and vague titles”. “if the people need, they will read the note and understand what it is about”, —these students declared. many of them were also convinced that “to attract attention of the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 213 published by scholink inc. readers is more important than anything else”. “you want, they were saying to their professor, us to come up with boring titles, but titles must not be boring!” 4.1.7 discussion not all students were able to apply the knowledge gained in lectures to the solution of a practical problem. almost two thirds of the investigated population did not master the thinking strategy needed to accomplish the task and did not find text indicators of the three main aspects of the topic: the object of action, the subject of the action, and the events. a quarter of the investigated population, although they managed to find some textual indicators, admitted that it was very difficult for them to analyze the note and find main concepts of the topic. identifying the event described in the text turned out to be especially hard. when discussing with the students the results of their homework, the instructor asked, “what is the note’s main event?”, the most common answers were “publishing projects”, “publications for jubilee”, and “moscow university jubilee”. from semester to semester, most students were losing sight of the main event—they missed “the presentation”. a special attention is drawn to the fact that 40% of students refused to admit that the original title “260 is only the beginning” was uninformative and inadequately presented the content of the note. the students’ subjective criteria of informativeness were wrong. this is very strong evidence that these students lacked the developed skills of logic and semantic thinking. that is their cognitive incompetence prevented them from a successful performance of the task “titling a note”. 4.2 drawing up an annotation the annotation serves for informing the readers about the publication. annotation is derived from the latin word annotatio (note). it is a brief description of a publication’s content and form: it contains the publication’s main characteristics. in fact, any book or article in mass media, art, or science, may be accompanied by an annotation; in the english-language, in scientific journals, it is usually called the abstract. for some majors, including journalism, an annotation is an obligatory element for the qualification works. dr. natalia inshakova proposed this sort of assignments to the students in her course basics of editing media texts at journalist department of moscow university. 4.2.1 goal testing the students’ knowledge of the theoretical approach and requirements for creating annotations. 4.2.2 task a. determining possible causes of students’ failure in: a) analyzing another’s annotation provided by their instructor b) creating one’s own annotations www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 214 published by scholink inc. 4.2.3 participants 192 undergraduate students, seniors (the 4th year), participated in this research. they attended the same course basics of editing media texts in different semesters of 2013-2018. 4.2.4 procedure dr. inshakova familiarized her research participants with requirements for writing an annotation. first, in her lecture, she discussed with the students aspects of the text which are mandatory for inclusion into annotation: author (compiler, translator), genre, content, year of publishing, the composition of a reference apparatus, specifics of publishing and printing form, the reader’s address (basic standards for publishing, 2010). second, she informed the students about methodology of composing annotations (suminova, 2001; baryakina, 2018; nikitenkova, 2018). third, students found out the requirements for the literary format of annotation (methodology of composing annotation, 2006). additionally, restrictions were explained to the students that it is a necessity to avoid stamps, citations of the annotated work, and exceeding the normative volume (600 characters). after all this, students were offered an annotation to a published novel with a bibliographic description of the book: “till we have faces is a philosophical parable, a “retold myth”, by the author’s own definition. the eternal story of amur and psyche raises eternal questions about the fate of man and the nature of love and gives answers to them. 220 characters.” lewis c. (2010). till we have faces. translated from english by i. kormiltsev. moscow: foreign literature; b.s.g. press. 304 p. students were asked to find errors in the annotation given and propose one’s own, more informative options. acquaintance with the book was not a prerequisite. the use of the internet electronic libraries for getting more information about the book and its author and translator was recommended. 4.2.5 results the analysis of the data showed the following: a. 63% of investigated population managed the task assigned; b. 37% of investigated population did not complete the task at all or did it wrong; c. 30% of students were able to detect errors in someone else’s annotations, but they could not compose their own; d. 33% of students drew up informative annotations which met most formal requirements; e. the most common mistakes in students’ annotations were a/an: a) absence of the main book’s characteristics (for example, on the account of its content); b) excessive amount of insignificant details and/or mandatory data (about the author, the circumstances of the creation of the work, etc.); c) lack of language discipline (verbosity, repetitions, many words with undefined meaning). 4.2.6 discussion the short annotation given to students for their homework followed only two formal requirements: it had the textual indicators of the book genre (“philosophical parable”) and its content (“eternal story of amur and psyche”). that’s why almost the two third of the investigated population completed the first www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 215 published by scholink inc. part of the assignment. what is more, almost all these students noticed that in the proposed sample there were no names of the author and translator, and no year of the novel’s publication. many students found that such a characteristic as a nominative volume is also absent in the annotation. very few students paid attention to the absence of the readers’ address, what can be easily interpreted: the readers’ address is considered one of the most complicated concepts. however, most of those who completed the first part of the assignment still failed with the second part of it. only 33% of the investigated population was able to compose an informative annotation which met from 6 to 9 formal requirements. the matter is that the task of finding the textual indicators in the annotation provided is easier than the task of searching of such textual indicators in a huge array of internet data. the first task is ordinary, the second is creative. to solve the first one, analytical thinking skills are needed. to solve the second—the entire wide range of cognitive skills including informational competence is required. the fact that most students did not manage the task of compiling their own annotations on the given topic indicates their cognitive unpreparedness for solving such problems and their informational infantilism. one of the best samples of created annotation by the students-journalists is shown in figure 3. the textual indicators of the main concepts of the topic are highlighted. its text reflects 7 concepts and can be considered informative. figure 2. an informative annotation and a sample of its correct analysis 4.3 identifying key-words the tradition to ask the questions on a topic that is being studied and thus check mastering knowledge by the students is the most popular in the global teaching practice. in modern pedagogy, the evaluation of the quality of students’ answers, oral as well as written, remains among the most effective. today’s distant internet-based courses with their written and mostly asynchronous communication productively develop this method through visualization. the student has an opportunity to reflect and better comprehend one’s response messages, and the teacher—to see the style of the student’s thinking on the computer screen. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 216 published by scholink inc. dr. anna toom, a professor of psychology, proposed this sort of assignment to her students when she was teaching the online course child development and learning in cultural contexts in graduate school of education at touro college & university system. 4.3.1 goals a. developing instructional methodology for detecting how well students understand and assimilate the scientific and educational texts proposed as readings in the course. b. applying a traditional pedagogical method of “ask a question—receive an answer” to a new learning environment, i.e., in online courses. c. introducing a concept of “textual key-components” for analysis by students of their own answers. 4.3.2 tasks a. classifying errors in students’ answers b. explanation of causes of these errors c. testing reliability of the results 4.3.3 participants fifty-six students who took dr. toom’s online course child development and learning in cultural context in the spring semester of 2016 participated in the study. there were two sections of the same course, 28 students in each. 4.3.4 procedure we studied the topic “applying behaviorism in today’s classroom”. students had read assigned articles, chapters of the books, and/or watched educational video clips. then, they answered the following question in writing: “how are scientific findings of behaviorists reflected in your own teaching practice?” finally, in accordance to the professor’s instruction, they bolded or highlighted words, phrases, or sentences in their answers which most accurately pointed to the correct (from their point of view) answer. 4.3.5 results there is a set of key elements which stipulated the correct answer for this question: skinner, operant conditioning, reward, punishment, reinforcement, learning, new skills. subsequently, the conclusion about the correctness of the students’ answers was made based on their comparison with this data. 4.3.5.1 categories of answers four categories of students’ answers can be distinguished by the nature of keyword extraction. in the students’ answers, key-elements were: a) highlighted mostly correctly (a category), b) highlighted mostly incorrectly (b category), c) were not highlighted at all, even if they were present (c category), d) whole paragraphs of more than 40 words were highlighted as key-elements (d category). these results are illustrated in figure 3. kct is an abbreviation of the concept “key components of the text”. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 217 published by scholink inc. figure 3. distribution of students between categories of answers in the learning task for identifying key-components of the text; spring of 2016 4.3.5.2 types and causes of errors only the a category students found key-components in their written answers. this indicated their developed skills to analyze and synthesize the textual information and operate with its meanings. they had in-depth understanding and comprehension of the readings provided for the task. these students were cognitively competent. the study participants which highlighted non-key units of the texts instead of key-components belonged to the b category; they showed weak skills in analyzing and synthesizing information. we can state that they had poor understanding of the texts. these students were rather cognitively incompetent for solving the task. those who did not highlight anything in their answers belonged to the c category; they either didn’t find or ignored the instructions for completing the task or didn’t understand the task, which, apparently, was outside of their “zone of proximal development” (vygotsky, 1978, p. 86). it was determined that they had poor discipline of mind, which indicated their cognitive incompetence. the d category participants whose answers contained large arrays of the texts (in other words, were excessive) could not actually separate the key words from non-key words. we can state that they had insufficient skills to analyze and synthesize the textual information and operate with meanings. their understanding of the texts was superficial. they were also cognitively incompetent for solving the task. 4.3.5.3 reliability of results distribution of the students between the categories of answers is illustrated in figure 4. results are represented for each section of the course separately and shown in percentages. it appeared to be consistent in both sections of the course. such a similarity of graphic composition for different groups of students indicates the reliability of the results. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 218 published by scholink inc. figure 4. distribution of the students between categories of answers across the two sections; spring of 2016 4.3.6 discussion trying to find keywords in the text to correlate to their own answer, less than one third of students (27%) solved the problem correctly. the majority of students either saw irrelevant words/phrases as keywords, or did not see keywords at all, or saw too much of them. seventy three percent (73%) of investigated population did not manage the task at all. this is an alarming fact. the phenomenon requires serious attention and continuing investigation. let’s consider students’ excessive answers. this category of students is the most numerous and made up almost half (48%) of the investigated population. according to the author of the study, many of these students were non-self-confident and believed that the more words they singled out the better because the quantity might somehow turn into quality, and their answer would be considered correct. however, there were others who purposely or involuntary tried to hide their ignorance behind the abundance of words. in any case, these students failed to distinguish important from unimportant, major from minor, significant from insignificant. their understanding of the text’s content, no matter their own or someone else’s, was flat, there was no depth to it. as gestalt psychologists would say, there were no figures on the background for such individuals: everything was either a solid figure or a solid background (hergenhahn, 2005). in such students’ mentality, many different concepts merge into one undifferentiated, confused picture. no doubt, they were cognitively incompetent. in figure 5, a typical answer belonging to such a student (the d category) is shown. the key-components of the text (the theory’s name, its author, its basic concepts, and its main application(s) in the classroom) are typed in red (in total 15). in addition, the student highlighted non-key-units in white; they subjectively are considered by this student to be key-components (in total 91). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 219 published by scholink inc. the ratio of objective key-components to subjective key-units is a measure of the response informativeness. the closer the ratio approaches “1”, the more informative the answer is. the closer the ratio approaches “0”, the less informative the answer is. in the example, the ratio is 15/91 = 0.16, which is close to “0”, i.e., the answer is uninformative. figure 5. a typical excessive answer belonging to a d category student if the number of subjective key-units (words/phrases) is very large in the student’s response, then even the presence of objective key-components among them does not allow us to call the answer informative and to conclude that the student completely understood the text. only the selective identification of objective key-components proves that the text is understood, and the student’s answer based on this text is informative and meaningful. in other words, only selective identification of the entire set of objective key-components in the text indicates the student’s cognitive competence. 5. general discussion the learning tasks offered to students for solution belonged to different fields of knowledge but were similar in their main requirement—to find keywords in the text. as results showed, most of our study participants did not manage this task—they were unable to find textual indicators of the studied key-concepts. this tendency obviously exhibits the students’ cognitive incompetence. this time, students had difficulties in understanding the semantic structure of the mass media, scientific, and educational texts. a few years earlier, in her other study dr. toom obtained a similar result concerning the students’ poor understanding of a literary work—a short story by one of the masters of psychological prose (toom, 2015). this means that the point is not in the features of the texts, but in the students’ inability to perceive and analyze them. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 220 published by scholink inc. students’ cognitive incompetence manifested itself in a specific character of thinking which we named fuzzy thinking. such students are unable, when reading the texts, to discern primary from secondary, to distinguish essential from non-essential. they cannot set the priorities. therefore, they have no full-fledged understanding of what they read. their understanding of the texts’ content is flat, there is no depth to it. as our study has shown, this quality of thinking has been demonstrated for many years by students of both prestigious and statistically average universities; it can be found today in both politically and economically advanced countries as well as in the countries undergoing major changes. the phenomenon occurred to be universal. how did it happen? what can possible be done about it? — it may be assumed that many of the participants of our study had insufficient reading skills. this phenomenon is also universal (toom & inshakova, 2018). nowadays, the visual-audial culture replaces the culture of the printed materials. in the united states, a country of advanced information technology, children avoid reading. even in russia, which was considered to be the most reading country in the world, the percentage of children loving the books decreased tremendously in this century. however, the process began much earlier. back to the middle of the 20th century, school children were taught to analyze sentence structure, its grammar and syntax during their native language lessons. because of that, they developed semantic thinking. indeed, speech and thinking are closely linked (vygotsky, 1986). teaching english in the us has undergone many changes within the last half century. these changes were not always beneficial (fresh, 1986). it suffices to recall the “whole language” method which became “an alternative to any sort of linguistic analysis” (ravich, 2000, p. 443). they stopped teaching children phonics, grammar and syntax systematically and seriously. therefore, several generations of american children did not master the skills of syntactic analysis. the founders and adherents of the “whole language” reform hardly envisioned what consequences their methodology might lead to and what influence it might have on academic and general cognitive development. however, the matter is not only in the possible consequences of that reform. russian youth which participated in our research also had poor skills to analyze and understand texts, although the russian schools were not affected by the “whole language” reform. the teaching of grammar and syntax has always been a necessary component of the school curriculum for the native language learner in russia. it is also possible that the quality of teaching changed and affected the quality of learning. according to specialists, the quality of teaching in russia has deteriorated sharply over the past two to three decades (ivanov, 2018; kotova, 2018). the same tendency has been observed in the us (di carlo, 2011; rothwell, 2016; schneider, 2017; rushe, 2018; crawford, 2019; america’s schools are crumbling, 2019). the ideology and quality of education in our global world has changed: it is increasingly turning from the institution of knowledge into the institution of bureaucracy. whatever the reasons, the fact remains—our university students lack the ability to understand texts deeply, comprehensively and meaningfully. what kind of specialists will they become in the society of rapidly developing information technology? how to prevent future generations from developing fuzzy www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 221 published by scholink inc. thinking (or at least to slow down this process)? the authors strongly believe in the following way to counter this dangerous tendency: it is necessary to teach children to read from an early age and read a lot, offering them the best samples of world literature. if we start teaching our kids literacy at the same time as all primary psychophysical skills, if letters and words, as with toys, become the subjects of their everyday life and play, if reading becomes for them as natural as breathing, walking and talking, and if we encourage them to be intelligent and productive readers at home and, what is especially important, in school, then, perhaps, we will conquer ignorance and fuzzy thinking in future generations. 6. limitations the logic and semantic errors found in the students’ learning assignments for university courses are just the tip of the iceberg. obviously, there exists a complex of physiological, psychological, social, and historical causes which may induce fuzzy thinking in contemporary youth, specifically, majoring in social sciences and humanities. further in-depth studies of this phenomenon are needed. 7. conclusions this article presents the studies of authors belonging to different cultures and different fields of knowledge. one of the authors works in russia, the other in usa. one is a philologist, the other is a psychologist. one works in the most prestigious russian university, the other in a statistically average american educational institution. one teaches exclusively in the classroom, the other only online, and the tasks solved by their students in new york and moscow were specific to their specialties. however, the results received by the authors turned out to be surprisingly similar. many university’s students specializing in journalism and education in both undergraduate and graduate programs demonstrated weak skills in analyzing and synthesizing information as well as a lack of an ability to operate with its meanings. it is an indisputable indicator of students’ cognitive incompetence. one of the brightest manifestations of the cognitive incompetence is fuzzy thinking. it is invisible, but it affects cognitive functioning and, above all, learning. it makes learning less meaningful and effective. the phenomenon discovered in this study certainly deserves further and more in-depth study. the authors concluded that the educators’ efforts should be aimed at teaching our students how to work with texts academically and professionally. it makes sense to begin such training not in bachelor’s or master’s programs of the universities, but much earlier. in many ways, it depends on us, today’s educators, whether the younger generations will become cognitively competent. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 222 published by scholink inc. references america’s schools are crumbling—what will it take to fix them?. 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(2017, december 6). developing cognitive competence: learning the skills of argument. retrieved november 9, 2018, from https://www.huffingtonpost.com/rabbi-shmuly-yanklowitz/ cognitive-competence_b_3764561.html frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no.2, 2021 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) original paper application of flipped classroom methodology in applied sciences through stem exploitation activities during covid pandemic period plageras antonios1, xenakis apostolos2, vavougios dionysios3 & kalovrektis konstantinos4 1 phd(ct) department of computer science and telecommunications, university of thessaly, lamia, greece 2 assistant professor, department of digital systems, university of thessaly, larissa, greece 3 professor, department of physics, university of thessaly, lamia, greece 4 post docresearcher, department of computer science and biomedical informatics, university of thessaly, lamia, greece received: march 13, 2021 accepted: march 28, 2021 online published: april 11, 2021 doi:10.22158/fet.v4n2p37 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v4n2p37 abstract differentiated instruction is an approach that presupposes the existence of a diverse number of students and their ability to access knowledge provided that a variety of methods and activities is used. differentiated instruction is a way to incorporate and diagnose the individual needs of every student separately and to create such a learning environment so as to cover all needs. all students are not the same that means that they learn in different ways and at a different pace. based on this knowledge, differentiated instruction applies an approach both to teaching and learning that offers the students a variety of choices to gain information and better understand the newly acquainted knowledge. differentiated instruction is a teaching approach based on the principle that all teaching techniques must vary and adapt accordingly in relation to the needs and the various ways of learning on the part of the students with the view of enhancing the understanding of knowledge within the classroom. the model of differentiated instruction proposed requires on the part of the teachers to be flexible in the technique they use and adaptable in the curriculum and in the presentation of the information based on the needs of the students. based on the idea that change in teaching practices may help overcome the ineffectiveness of the educational systems and their inability to cover the needs of the students, it is considered necessary to examine whether the use of differentiated instruction learning approach could improve the understanding of the students in the fields of applied sciences. 37 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 keywords differentiated teaching, flipped classroom, stem, computational thinking, innovation 1. differentiated instruction as a teaching method for the elimination of exclusion according to the international teaching standards, differentiated instruction is the vehicle through which a number of schools frame the teaching component of cohesive practices (jarvis, bell, & sharp, 2016). contemporary research articles present differentiated instruction as an answer to the inevitable diversity within any classroom and therefore are correlated with the full spectrum of students at any level. it is sometimes interpreted as a single uniform teaching approach or a collection of teaching strategies for the reinforcement of teaching. (taylor, 2016) the differentiation of instruction can be comprehended with at least one of the following ways: a. as a complete and systematic approach to deal with the needs of the students’ diversity in mixed ability classes which aims at the tackling of the different levels of learning readiness on the part of the students. b. the students’ interests should be pertinent to the content of the curriculum in order for the students to be encouraged and motivated for their further commitment to learning. c. the differences in the students’ preferences dependent on the content in order to exploit their abilities to the fullest (tomlinson, 2014). the effectiveness of a differentiated approach is based on a series of interdependent thorough teaching methods that guide the whole class dynamic. they include a high-quality curriculum which is organized around clear learning aims and demand a dynamic differentiated design. that means flexible cooperative practices, appropriate homework for all students and a positive learning environment in which teachers emphasize personal development and promote relationships of mutual respect among the students (tomlinson et al., 2003). as reported by (fuchs et al., 2010), “differentiated instruction in the general classroom is recognized both as crucial as well as difficult to achieve”. for a number of schools, encouraging the application of new teaching practices with emphasis on differentiated instruction constitutes a significant procedure of long-term learning organization, which requires the support on the part of the school leadership (jarvis et al., 2016; tomlinson et al., 2008). this changing procedure at this point is likely to be more effective when the application of the change is connected to a wider aim for the improvement of the teaching results (harris, 2013). analyzing the manners through which the teachers can comprehend the concept of differentiated instruction in relation to the traditional teaching practice and the way they are involved in chances for professional development is considered to be a vital need and can contribute to the incorporation of innovative teaching methods and changes within the classroom. 38 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 2. steam and computational thinking computational science involves the fundamental principles (as the theory of computation), incorporates educational techniques and teaching methods in order to solve problems and promote knowledge (e.g., abstract thought and justification). it also promotes a different way of thinking called computational thinking. the basic principles of this science are related to the methodology and design of theoretical analysis and experimentation, i.e., are based on stem education (science, technology, engineering and mathematics). they maintain a cooperative relation with stem since they fuelat the same timethe cognitive fields of stem with cognitive content. the field of art was added to the original stem turning it into steam (science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics). thus, arts are also included in the promotion of innovation, critical thinking, design and creative solutions. 2.1 learning and innovation in order to be able to create the schools of the future using new teaching methods, innovative developments and exploitation of technology, we must rely on the sciences of learning. learning sciences indicate how to design environments that teach deep knowledge and adaptable technical know-how that is required in an innovative era. these reports started with the “how people learn” of the research council of the usa (bransford et al., 2000). since the first publication of this manual in 2006, osed has published numerous significant reviews of this research including the innovative learning environments (2013) and the nature of learning: a. use of the research for the inspired practice (2010) and innovation for learning b. learning through innovation (2008). societies that are able to restructure their schools in the domain of learning sciences effectively will be leading the 21st century (osed, 2000, 2004, 2008, 2010, 2013). the issues that learning sciences face have been recognized as crucial in all 28 countries under study by the iste (kozma, 2003). these countries’ leaders agree that the global economy has changed and is now based on innovation and knowledge. they also claim that education must change in order to be able to successfully support this transition (plageras, 2018). therefore, an issue that arises is the delineation of an ever-becoming specific vision for the future of learning. the steam approach combines innovation with teaching and offers the students the possibility to construct and apply new ideas and practices as well as deal with the resolution of problems even in areas outside the field of applied sciences such as the subject of history (plageras et al., 2021). in parallel, we aim at the formation of a creative, original, both different and impressive learning environment, which will offer the students an exceptional learning experience in relation to the conventional learning classroom environment. 2.2 problem-solving learning problem-solving learning (pbl) developed in the 1950s to react to the criticism that the conventional teaching method failed to prepare medical students to be able to solve problems in clinical environments (hung et al., 2008). pbl is a non-conventional, active, inductive method centered around students and focuses on solving the real problem (ehrlich, 1998). the problem is a process created by the need to design, build, repair in order to improve something (burgess, 2004). pbl aims to promote 39 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 and encourage active learning, students’ development of interpersonal and cooperative skills, open research skills, real-life problem solving use cases and critical thinking (barrows, 1998; hmelo-silver, 2004; savin-baden, 2000; springer et al., 1999). hmelo-silver claimed that pbl allows students to set up an extended and flexible knowledge database which goes beyond real knowledge and offers them the possibility to retrieve and apply this amount of information in various situations. hence, pbl helps students to proceed and move beyond the spiritual understanding of knowledge so that they learn to apply it in the needs of real life. furthermore, given that knowledge lies within that framework which requires the use of problem-solving skills, teachers consider that the unification of knowledge better prepares the students for their future choices. in addition, one of the challenges teachers face while applying the problem-solving learning is the students’ resistance and their reaction during the transition from the traditional curriculum to pbl curriculum (hungetal, 2008). previous research has shown that if there is not appropriately designed teaching approach, students feel frustrated by the open nature of the learning environments based on problemsolving (yadav, 2006). research also shows that problematic learning also causes concern and fear among students as the necessary information is not directly available as it is in traditional lecturing. nevertheless, it has been proposed that the level of easiness on the part of the students improve with the lapse of time and that a period of six months be required in order for them to adapt to the new pbl method (schultz-ross & kline, 1999). 2.3 flipped classroom and the way it combines with teaching flipped learning within the classroom has become a popular pedagogical method that many educational institutions all around the world use. the main idea behind the flipped approach is that it transfers the teacher’s lectures outside the classroom time via internet videos in order to have more available time in the classroom for further learning through activities based on problem-solving. the use of flipped classroom has been extensively studied upon especially within the higher levels of education. through previous research (e.g., bernard, 2015; betihavas et al., 2016; bishop & verleger, 2013; chua & lateef, 2014; giannakos et al., 2014; o’ flaherty & phillips, 2015; presti, 2016; seery, 2015; zainuddin & halili, 2016; zuber, 2016) we came to the understanding that flipped classroom approach gives the teachers the opportunity to dedicate more time in the classroom and to the students’ skills such as team and individual student work. the students’ beliefs and their dedication to the flipping of the classroom are overall positive and through the application of this teaching approach certain indirect educational results may arise. an example of those would be the improvement of the students’ communicative skills, the formation of more independent students as far as learning is concerned and the change in the students’ habits (e.g., reviewing electronic educational material prior to the examination). when the learning results are being compared to the conventional method ones, previous studies indicate that the flipped classroom approach is able to improve the students’ performance or in the worst-case scenario, does not reduce their learning capacity. in published research findings concerning flipped classrooms, 40 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 very few studies (e.g., gundlach et al., 2015) reveal and mention that students were a lot better in the conventional classroom than in the flipped one. the major problems faced in the flipped classroom include the significant work load on the part of the teachers for the production of learning material as well as the student involvement in the learning process outside the classroom. in reality, previous studies reveal that certain students are not familiar with this learning approach and neglect the educational out of the class material. in certain subjects where the model of flipped classroom has been applied, a considerable percentage of students appears to be disappointed with the open approach within the classroom. previous studies have presented certain useful data of analytical research in the classroom. certain studies examine the learning limitations only in higher education (e.g., bernard, 2015; chua & lateef, 2014; o’ flaherty & phillips, 2015; seery, 2015). other studies examined subjected fields usually offered in post-secondary education like nursing, (e.g., betihavas et al., 2016; presti, 2016). so far only two articles have been found and reviewed concerning flipped teaching forms in high school students (bergmann & sams, 2009; kong, 2014). during the current period of writing the present paper, no study of bibliographical review which focuses on the flipped classrooms of k-14 education has been found. consequently, a systematic review for the examination of the application of flipped classroom in high school students is considered necessary. via the present research paper, we contribute to bibliography by examining a. students’ beliefs concerning the framework of flipped classrooms. b. students’ attitudes towards flipped lessons. c. their knowledge pertaining the software that can support the flipped classroom. 3. research aim and research questions the flipped classroom approach has been considered to be an innovation in the high school education since 2012 (horn, 2013). the aim of the present research is to render the use of flipped classroom and the value of the activities within the classroom, the effects of the flipped classroom on the high school students’ achievements and their attitude towards this new approach, understandable. additionally, the challenges of the use of flipped classroom in high school education have been detected. along with the views of teachers and students and the existing bibliography, the primary goal of this research is to suggest a flipped classroom model and a set of instructions that could help face these challenges. examining the above studies, we end up forming the following questions: 1) what is the high school students’ attitude towards the flipped classroom? 2) what are the major challenges coming from the use of flipped classroom approach in high school education? the flipped classroom can be described as a real fact occurring in the conventional classroom and is now taking place out of it (large et al., 2000). nevertheless, the organization of the activities, the 41 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 teaching and learning process cannot represent the practice of this educational approach. bishop and verlegerventure to formulate a definition of the approach in the classroom. as they define, the analytical approach of the classroom is a technologically supported pedagogy which is composed of two components: 1) the direct immediate individualized teaching through the computer, outside the classroom through video lectures and 2) the interactive learning activities with the help of the exploitation of the team within the classroom. more specifically, their definition for the demand of the use of educational videos is rather strict as far as their out-ofthe classroom learning is concerned. adopting their definition (bishop & verleger, 2013), we can compare the flipped classroom with other old conventional preparation strategies on the part of the students for their daily tasks. traditionally, students get prepared for their lessons by studying a book on their own. the type of the classroom and the students’ study cannot effectively contribute to the support of the flipped classroom in which the teacher is the main element in the learning process (jensen et al., 2015). on the contrary, teachers can introduce new knowledge to students using educational videos and process the basic idea using examples before they meet in class. therefore, more time becomes available to be taken advantage of inside the classroom. it can be spent doing group activities and solving real problems with the help of the teacher, the students’ cooperation and the help of the software. hence, we consider the use of educational material, sound and video (e.g., educational videos, youtube, screencast, khan academy, ted ed, podcast) useful for learning outside the classroom and regular (instead of optional) meetings face to face in the classroom as two of the indispensable elements of the flipped classroom approach. 4. methodology for our study, 90 middle class students of the second grade of junior high school in the area of magnesia participated. the students attended a lesson following the model of the flipped classroom. due to the problematic situation caused by covid-19 the students did not attend the lessons daily but alternately. this means that half the students attended the lesson live on the first day and the rest of the students the following day. based on this schedule, the day when the students were not at school, attended the lectures through videos and the next day they did all the activities in the classroom. the second-grade high school students were taught the resistance connection through the application of the flipped classroom. the students registered in a free e-class platform which contained the whole material and everyone had access to. before registering, the students were informed about the way they can use the platform for their education. they were informed about the way they can see the uploaded material, ask questions through e-mail and communicate with their classmates. thus, the students who come to the classroom would have more time to exploit inside the classroom and realize their activities in virtual labs. they could experiment with the mistake without the danger of destroying the material. 42 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 there was constant contact with the research team, the students and the teacher so as to solve all sorts of the students’ questions and follow the lesson without further problems. 4.1 activities in the first activity the students tried to create a simple electrical circuit by exploiting the virtual laboratory tinker cad. figure 1. simple electrical circuit as soon as the project is completed, they performed the same task with the same material in the regular laboratory. the aim of the task is to observe the conditions of the operation of the simple electrical circuit and by changing the value of the resistance each time, to observe the led brightness. in this way, the students will be able to control the operation of the simple electrical circuit and how the modification in the resistance affects the intensity of the electrical current in the circuit. in the second activity the students assembled the following circuit. figure 2. electrical measurements in a circuit 43 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 in the same way the students assemble the above circuit first in real life and then in the virtual laboratory. the aim is to record the various values of the tension and how the tension of the electrical current in the circuit is affected and whether this fact affects the brightness of the bulb. thus, they will perceive the proportion of the values of tension and electrical current. lastly, in the third activity the students have been asked to place a resistance in the circuit in picture 2 before the light bulb and by altering its value, to observe what is happening with the brightness of the bulb and record it. in that way they will understand the role of the resistance in an electrical circuit and comprehend what happens inside our house when multiple electrical appliances operate simultaneously. they will also realize the concept of safety in electrical circuit. the duration of the lesson was 3 hours in the classroom and one hour of study at home. 5. results the students, when asked by the researchers about their knowledge relating to the flipped classroom prior to the intervention, answered in their majority that they had no knowledge about it whatsoever. they had no particular contact with educational software and no image at all of its use. figure 3. graph 1 the change in the students’ attitude before the intervention, immediately afterwards and after a month is shown in the diagram below. 44 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 figure 4. attitudes towards the use of flipped classroom as we see in the above diagram of figure 4, the change in the feeling of the students about teaching in the flipped classroom demonstrates significant modification and it is particularly important that the trend was increasingly positive even after a month after the intervention, a fact that shows incorporation in the students’ perception to a great extent. lastly, as far as the question “which method would you prefer to use in your classroom” is concerned, the students’ answers are shown below in the following diagram. figure 5. attitudes towards the use of flipped classroom vs conventional 45 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 an important finding in this question is that the students who chose the conventional method after the intervention have remained stable in their opinion even after a month. on the contrary, those who have selected the flipped classroom method presented a rising trend in the final measurement, a fact that shows an acceptance of the method in the student community as a basic teaching method. 6. discussion the present research claims that the high school students who have exploited differentiated forms of teaching in the classroom will have better results in the comprehension of the curriculum or at least will carry out their tasks equally well as in the conventional teaching way. this finding was similar to the conclusion of previous research about flipped classroom in relation to higher education (e.g., betihavas et al., 2016; o’ flaherty & phillips, 2015). also, in some cognitive fields in higher education such as the chemistry field in seery (2015) research total acceptance of the flipped classroom is stated. the present research does not end up with total acceptance for the specific intervention. even though their attitude changed and was generally positive, several students claimed that they would prefer the conventional teaching approach because of their weakness to pose questions during the video lectures and had difficulty getting accustomed to this approach (schultz et al., 2014). de santis et al. also observed that their students reacted generally negatively to the change of the teaching method for the same reasons. in the meantime, the educational videos produced by the members of the research team did not show the teacher in the classroom, a fact that made acceptance of the method even more difficult. the satisfaction on the part of the students in the flipped classroom was eventually higher than that of the conventional method. as far as the challenges of the flipped classroom are concerned, most of the problems which have arisen have been observed within the framework of the students’ education. as for the students’ challenges, some of them were not open to the curriculum structure in the flipped classroom approach as in the research by (giannakos et al., 2014). moreover, the students had a negative feeling as far as the preparation time range outside the classroom is concerned, as in the research by (betihavas et al., 2016). it is necessary for the teachers to carefully design the educational material for the lecture exploiting the video, as students may get carried away and misunderstand while attending the class online (schultz et al., 2014; snyder et al., 2014). in addition, the students are likely to have questions during the video lectures (bhagat et al., 2016; schultz et al., 2014). as far as the group activities within the classroom are concerned, the students seem to need more guidance for the team procedure in order to work more productively as (grypp & luebeck, 2015) report. in the present research paper, there has not been a reduction in the participation of the students as reported by giannakos et al. (2014), since it has been completed in one lesson. nevertheless, regular attendance may have to do with the strict schedule followed by the high schools and not with the use of the flipped classroom approach. the challenges faced in the classrooms of the junior high school units are similar to the ones in higher education levels. firstly, flipping the classroom requires more personal initial work on the part of the 46 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 teacher specially as far as the production of the educational material is concerned (betihavas et al., 2016; giannakos et al., 2014; o’ flaherty & phillips, 2015). second, the teachers must be adequately qualified in order to use the flipped classroom approach and exploit to the fullest the potential of this approach (zuber, 2016). compared to higher education, more business challenges have been defined within the junior high school framework as many students have limited access to the internet (betihavas et al., 2016). in the meantime, teachers in secondary education may experience difficulties in monitoring the learning process outside the classroom. they may also experience technical issues and demand support from the schools during their flipped method process. in order for everything to be practical in most learning environments within the junior high school framework, we presuppose the following: we have only basic information technology resources (video production, internet access). therefore, the flipped classroom model will not be based on special operations of certain independent systems (e.g., la & hwang, 2016). the central teaching strategy in out of the classroom learning constitutes a direct order (bishop & verleger, 2013; kirvan et al., 2015) which focuses on the levels of knowledge of acquisition and comprehension (lai & hwang, 2016). students learn the lessons by following educational videos. the teachers can provide content notes in order to guide the students (desantis et al., 2015) and make sure that students have been appropriately prepared for the class meetings (clark, 2015). towards the end of out-of-the-classroom learning, teachers can provide online exercises for the evaluation of learning (wang, 2016). through controlling the learning performances of the students on online lessons, teachers can have a discussion concerning misunderstandings or possible questions in relation to the error high rate inside the classroom (lai & hwang, 2016). in order to support the out-of-the-classroom learning process, teachers can provide students with a communication platform so as to submit their questions (guideline 5). as far as the educational component in the classroom is concerned, teachers can firstly have a brief overview of the video lecture in order to jog the students’ memory and clarify potential misunderstandings (e.g., de santis et al., 2015; grypp & luebeck, 2015; lai & hwang, 2016). the remaining time can be spent on group activities (bishop & verleger, 2013) which focus on the application of knowledge acquired through the video lectures (lai & hwang, 2016) and real problem solving (tsai et al., 2015). 7. conclusions the findings of the study demonstrated that differentiated teaching is more beneficial for the improvement of the academic results. it has been defined that the use of differentiated teaching has a positive impact on students after examining the collected data. the application of differentiated teaching has a positive effect on the students’ achievements. the students taught through differentiated teaching performed better than those through conventional teaching approach (plageras et al., 2020). differentiated teaching using the flipped classroom is a constantly promising approach for the support of various needs of all students as it affects positively their achievements. the conclusions of this study 47 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 encourage the use of differentiated teaching as it constitutes a significant benefit for the students who may try in the classroom given the fact that not only the strengths but also the differences of the students are recognized. the increasing diversity inside the classroom is also a given. differentiated teaching inside the classroom is an effective teaching method of applied sciences since it offers students practical learning and more communication opportunities with their classmates in comparison with the conventional teaching approach. based on the findings and conclusions drawn in this study, the adoption of differentiated teaching for the subjects of technology, electrology etc. is recommended. the evaluation of the teaching aims of the lessons and the massive restructuring of the analytical curricula will have to be done in order for the use of the differentiated teaching approach to be incorporated in various cognitive fields. this fact is due to the positive influence exerted for the achievement of the aims when the differentiated teaching method was used. writers of the analytical curricula should include the differentiated teaching approach in the teaching of applied sciences. during the teachers’ instruction and education in university institutions of the relative specialιzations, certain programs using differentiated teaching approaches should be developed and provided for. educational and informative meetings should be realized and motives for the professional evolution of the teachers applying differentiated teaching approaches should be given which at the same time require coordinated cooperation of both teachers and headmasters of the schools (plageras et al., 2020). for instance, what can be used in the classroom is group discussion (bhagat et al., 2016; lai & hwang, 2016) and cooperative homework (clark, 2015). nevertheless, teachers can still provide practical exercises for the students’ individual tasks (clark, 2015). solving problems is equally important for effective learning. in certain cases, teachers can think about the possibility to introduce a brief lecture in order to present the content of the lessons (tsai et al., 2015) and expand the students’ knowledge (lai & hwang, 2016). for instance, the researchers (schultz et al., 2014) suggested that the difficult concepts be presented in class and not through video. it may be more appropriate for teachers to present more complicated concepts inside the classroom. in that way, teachers can have an immediate contact with the way students acquire knowledge better and achieve greater results through developing the difficult parts according to the students’ questions. finally, the teachers can organize the classroom (huang & hong, 2016) for example, ask the students to gather in groups and overview what they have acquired (de santis et al., 2015). teachers can also have a brief out-of-class review for the next lesson (huang & hong, 2016) in order to motivate the students. however, we suggest that the flipped classroom model be incorporated following specific instructions so as to prevent potential challenges from taking place. for example, we propose that the use of video not exceed five minutes. we also recommend that the completion of the out of class tasks be limited to twenty minutes maximum. these strategies can prevent the distraction of the students’ attention from the video lecture and set them free for the preparation of the classroom activities (lo & hew, 2017). 48 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 acknowledgement we would like to thank the teachers who participated in conducting and implementing this research. also all the writing team feels the need to please the students for their participation in the activities and for their cooperation in order to successfully complete the research. references bishop, j. l., & verleger, m. a. 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(2016). the flipped classroom, a review of the literature. industrial and commercial training, 48(2), 97-103.https://doi.org/10.1108/ict-05-2015-0039 52 published by scholink inc. http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/edlabs https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v17i3.2274 https://doi.org/10.1108/ict-05-2015-0039 original paper microsoft word fet-v2n4-p273 frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 273 original paper accreditation challenges in saudi universities saud albaqami1* 1 ministry of higher education, saudi arabia * saud albaqami, ministry of higher education, saudi arabia received: october 7, 2019 accepted: november 18, 2019 online published: december 26, 2019 doi:10.22158/fet.v2n4p273 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v2n4p273 abstract quality assurance in higher education remains to be one of the most prominent fields of research at the present. in the saudi arabian higher education institutions (heis), quality assurance is a relatively new concept and saudi universities seem not to effectively implement quality assurance caused by the certain obstacles. as such, there are two objectives to be addressed; first, to explore the challenging of accreditation. a case studies involving prince sultan university and king abdul-aziz university was used to examine these questions. data was collected using semi-structured interviews with both meso and micro levels, as well as document analysis and observation. a thematic analysis approach was taken to analysis the data. the findings of this study support the perceived use of many different standards based evaluative processes, which provide feedback from the various stakeholder perspectives. the findings also demonstrate perceived supportive factors of the commitment/support of leadership and management, awareness and orientation of employees/faculty. in addition, the findings also report that/faculty resistance and infrastructure limitations focused on financial and human capital constraints were perceived as inhibitive factors to qa. keywords ncaaa, psu, quality assurance mechanism, factors influencing, the quality assurance implementation www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 274 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction 1.1 background of the study quality assurance strategies and standards have long been employed—at least since the dawn of the industrial age, which introduced mass operations and mass production to meet the needs of consumers. in any workplace, plans and strategies are systematically devised and guidelines are implemented in order to ensure the conformity of operations and systems to government or privately established and recognized standards. the high expectations applied to the educational sector cause particularly great demand for standardized quality assurance strategies. this has led to the establishment of accreditation institutions—external organizations that have developed and promulgated standards for quality and have evaluated colleges and universities according to these standards (esib, 2006; napcis, 2012). in saudi arabia, the quality assurance directives of ncaaa require educational institutions to establish dedicated quality assurance models. the present study was intended to assess the current challenging of accreditation implementation at saudi arabian higher education institutions and develop a normative quality assurance model based upon the inferences obtained, to be used as a guideline for future quality assurance systems in saudi higher education institutions. for this purpose, qualitative research was conducted using two case studies—kau and psu—and was cross-analyzed and presented in the previous chapter. as such, this study intends to determine the extent to which challenging that psu and kau are facing to identify the different factors that influence quality assurance effectiveness in the saudi arabian context. therefore, the research questions of this study are: 1) what are the factors influencing the quality assurance implementation? 1.2 literature review as noted above, the ncaaa was part of the initiative to improve and standardize the quality of higher education in saudi arabia. it is governed by a board comprised of members from the ministry of education and associations of public and private institutions, and is chaired by the minister for higher education (ncaaa, 2009a). according to the ncaaa (2010a), its mission is “to encourage, support and evaluate the quality of post-secondary institutions and the programs they offer.” specifically, this means that the commission is involved in the fulfillment of three major objectives: ensuring the quality of students’ learning outcomes, monitoring the efficiency of management and support services provided by higher education institutions, and evaluating the quality and impact of research and community development contributions made by higher education institutions (ncaaa, 2009a). these objectives are carried out in cooperation with higher education institutions and in consultation with various external stakeholders, such as community agencies, business companies in various industries, and government (ncaaa, 2009a). the ncaaa defines the term quality as “the value, worth, or standard of an institution or program in relation to generally accepted standards for an institution or program of its type” (ncaaa, 2009a, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 275 published by scholink inc. p. 37). a distinct but related concept, “fitness for purpose” is also used by the ncaaa to take into account the fitness or suitability of an institution’s mission and also the environment in which the institution operates (ncaaa, 2009a). among the tasks for which the ncaaa is responsible are the establishment and updating of the national qualifications framework, the establishment of quality assurance standards in saudi arabian higher education that are consistent with international benchmarks and relevant to saudi arabian national interests; the integration of internationally recognized best practices in quality assurance protocols for higher education institutions; the provision of guidance on quality assurance to higher education institutions in saudi arabia and of support to these institutions to develop their own quality assurance systems; and the development of a database of best practices and relevant quality indicators for higher education institutions in saudi arabia (ncaaa, 2009a). 2. national qualifications framework the national qualifications framework established by the ncaaa is an essential part of the saudi higher education system. the ncaaa (2009b, p. 37) says the “qualifications framework is a document which defines the nature, amount, and degrees of standards of learning required to achieve technical or academic awards.” the key objective is to make sure that student learning outcome standards are well aligned in the country and are equivalent to the standards of international higher education institutions (ncaaa, 2009b). to this end, the ncaaa standardizes allocation of course learning credits, levels, and “domains of learning outcomes” (ncaaa, 2009b). 2.1 previous case studies on the quality of saudi higher education quality assurance case studies conducted in saudi arabian higher education settings are scarce. sohail and shaikh (2004) conducted a study that focused on student impressions of the quality of service that they received while studying at a university (sohail & shaikh, 2004). however, it was not related to the dimensions of teaching and learning, upon which this study is focused. in another study, alkhazim (2003, p. 479) noted that one challenge evident for saudi higher education institutions was “the lack of sufficient quality measures aligned with global standards.” al-ajmi (2003) conducted a study on the quality of saudi curricula and the employability of graduates, utilizing surveys and interviews administered to the students, graduates, faculty members, and administrative staff of king saud university. the study found that across all these groups, “quality” was perceived mainly to mean “the level of ability achieved” by the student, that is, the extent to which the institution was able to effectively teach the student for the student to become a highly qualified and employable professional. there was disagreement on this definition between students and graduates on the one hand and faculty members and staff on the other, however (al-ajmi, 2003). according to the latter, quality is not just about employability, but about www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 276 published by scholink inc. facilitating students’ knowledge and moral preparation (al-ajmi, 2003), that is, on their learning and development. in another article, yeo (2008) focused on service quality in a saudi arabian university, which again falls outside the scope of this study. darandari et al. (2009) discussed how the rapid growth of higher education institutions in saudi arabia generated increased need for quality assurance, prompting the development of the ncaaa. the study focused on different aspects of the three-stage quality assurance and accreditation system constructed by the commission, which according to darandari et al. (2009) has greatly benefited saudi arabian higher education institutions by helping them develop international expertise while still maintaining their local cultural identity. two case studies on quality have been conducted at kau, one on dental health service quality in the faculty of dentistry and the other on effectiveness of quality assurance protocols in the college of engineering (hassan, amer, & maghrabi, 2005; zahed, bafail, & bashir, 2007). the former study found the services to be high quality and the latter, mixed, with quality assurance efforts suffering from deficiencies in knowledge of advanced tools in the field, but neither study was able to generalize to the whole institution. indeed, no studies have so far been conducted on the overall state of higher education quality assurance in the saudi arabian setting, likely partly because of a lack of case studies on the basis of which to do so. this situation provided the rationale for this study. 2.2 institutional theory this theory is focused on particular aspects of social structures that are inherent in organisations and communities. specifically, institutional theory delves deeper into the social structure. according to the theory, conformity to the rules. norms and values of the institutional environment is compulsory for the sake of legitimacy (meyer & rowan, 1977; covaleski et al., 2003). organisations enhance the chances of their survival and for the by designing formal structure in accordance with the institutional environment that constitute their behaviour (meyer & rowan, 1977; powell & dimaggio, 1991; oliver, 1997). dimaggio and powell (1983) consolidated inputs on institutional theory from several of its proponents and found that institutions in making a transition between one condition and another consist of three possible mechanisms of isomorphism. firstly, there is the coercive isomorphism in which the organisation is led to adopt new structures through compulsion such as from the mandate of a law. secondly, there is mimetic isomorphism in which the organisation follows the lead of another organisation with the purpose of reducing uncertainty (dimaggio & powell, 1983). according to dimaggio and powell (1983), the third mechanism is normative isomorphism in which the pressure of seeking the professionalization norm. the organisation adopts the new condition based on the recommendations of experts within the organisation. applying the theory, higher education institutions seeking to establish a quality assurance system may do so under one or more those mechanisms. the theory also explains that when an organisation www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 277 published by scholink inc. that has been accustomed to operating in one context is suddenly thrust into another, it experiences pressures that exert critical influences on the management of its resources and the conduct of its operations. from institutional theory, the theory was utilised by studies such as those of rosa et al. (2006) and modell (2003) to explain how institutions deal with the development of quality assurance implementation. as discussed by modell (2003), which is appropriate to this study, investigated the development of quality control measures among swedish universities, quality assurance is an endeavour that normally challenges the members of institutions into providing evidence that they have been fulfilling their roles and responsibilities properly. it is resisted because it challenges the norms and cultures that people within the institution have been accustomed to, and generates the fear of change affecting both professional and personal lives (modell, 2003). rosa et al. (2006), on the other hand, conducted a study to explore the perception of rectors and academic on quality assessment system at portuguese universities and their consequence at the institutional level. the authors found that the staff rectors held positive views in implementing quality assurance. furthermore, they argued that new universities in portugal were more adaptable in implementing quality assurance. 3. methodology 3.1 research design this study draws upon the principles of multiple-case-study qualitative research and analyzes responses from university administrative staff and faculty at both kau and psu. the main aims of the study were to consolidating the facilitating and hindering factors for quality assurance in the saudi arabian context as a prerequisite to proposing quality assurance models that are culturally appropriate and feasible for implementation in saudi arabian higher education institutions. towards achieving these aims, relevant research questions were formulated, institutional theory was utilized to collect and analyze data using three sources—(i) document analysis, (ii) independent observations within academic and administrative offices and quality assurance centers, and (iii) semistructured interviews. the research question was—what are the factors that enhance and/or hinder the effectiveness of internal quality assurance systems in saudi arabian higher education institutions? in the document analysis, relevant documents, including government policy documents, were collected and analyzed in order to address the first research question at the macro level. at the meso level, documents relating to quality assurance arrangements at psu and kau were also collected, including documents from quality centers, strategic plans, rules and regulations, and university bulletins, which provided empirical evidence. semi-structured interviews with faculty members and administrative staff at both institutions were used as a second source of data, applicable to research questions. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 278 published by scholink inc. the qualitative analysis of transcribed interview data identified themes among participants’ responses to interview questions. coding in qualitative research is used to classify textual statements (or responses) made by participants in order to support the process of linking data to themes (bazeley, 2007). as such, common responses are used to generate themes that represent the perceptions of each stakeholder group (at meso and micro levels). according to neuman (2001), in coding, the researcher attempts by assigning codes to condense data into groups consisting of similar ideas and then to characterize those groups by theme. the content analysis method is an inductive grouping and coding system that examines and explains a data set in terms of another data set, thus allowing the researcher to consider the data before offering a hypothesis, minimizing the possibility of researcher bias (merriam, 1998). after grouping into thematic categories based on elements or topics mentioned in the interviews, verbatim examples from the interview transcripts are found to highlight and clarify the key concepts (themes) revealed. nvivo 10 qualitative analysis software was used to assist in the coding and the development of themes and patterns by sorting data and tracking frequency of occurrence of different thematic content. the themes developed represent the perceptions of stakeholders at each level and are presented separately for each case study, in relation to the associated research questions. data analysis at each level discusses each theme separately, followed by sequence compressions analysis through two approaches of comparison, vertical (within cases, across levels, to compare emergent themes) and horizontal (within levels, across cases, to develop deep understanding of the phenomenon in different contexts) (miles & huberman, 1994). data analysis is supported with evidence from examples, and direct quotations from interviews. 4. results the following three subsections present a discussion of the data in the relevant subcategories: supportive factors, hindering factors, and suggestions to assist qa implementation. a summary of the key themes identified in each category appears in table 1. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 279 published by scholink inc. table 1. factors influencing qa implementation at psu and kau t he m at ic ca te go ry s ub ca te go ry key themes at psu key themes at kau meso level micro level meso level micro level f ac to rs th at in fl ue nc e qu al ity a ss ur an ce im pl em en ta tio n s up po rt in g/ en ha nc in g fa ct or s support and commitment of management and leadership supportive management and leadership support and commitment of management and leadership support and commitment of management and leadership qa knowledge among faculty qa knowledge among faculty adaption of quality as part of institutional culture adaption of quality as part of institutional culture/ qa knowledge among faculty qa knowledge among faculty quality awareness supportive management and leadership h in de ri ng /in hi bi tin g fa ct or s employee/ faculty resistance; limited resources employee/ faculty resistance employees’ resistance to change infrastructure limitations adaption of quality as institutional culture adaption of quality as institutional culture/ lack of sustainable facilities and manpower limited competence of qa actors quality awareness lack of stable institutional leadership limited resources student admission criteria s ug ge st io ns f or im pr ov em en t adoption of positive attitude reinforcement and incentives implementation of systematic approach development of qa culture development of qa culture integration of technology development of qa culture adoption of positive attitude www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 280 published by scholink inc. 4.1 factors supporting qa implementation the psu participants at both meso and micro levels perceived support and commitment from management and leadership to enhancing qa implementation. at the meso level, the level of commitment was seen as very high, as highlighted by qm1 psu: this is essential to us what i really like in my position is it’s well supported by the administration, especially—i report directly to the president or the university rector. and uh whatever problem or uh whatever items in quality assurance that need to be addressed, uh we discuss it on a weekly basis. and he provides support for these uh—for whatever is needed in a certain department. among the micro-level participants, ac1 psu made the following positive comments regarding support from leadership: it’s like university management is also involved in part of it. because of like management commitment in quality assurance, we say that quality comes with management commitment. if management is not committed, there is no need for quality, right? so for first of all, we get like the signal or light from the top management that they are looking into that. another factor perceived to support the implementation and further development of qa at psu, among both levels of respondents, was qa knowledge among faculty. for example, hs2 psu emphasized its importance, and mentioned ways in which this type of knowledge is supportive: i would say the only main thing is faculty. that’s the most important thing in the implementation of quality assurance—the faculty. they are familiar with quality assurance. they know about quality assurance. [when] they understand its importance, then you have no problem. then what you need to do, you provide some support to them. so every type of support, for instance, resources, et cetera. not only over here, but [at] almost all universities that have people that come from other universities, um then they are motivated about this. they understand this thing. and uh that’s the main thing that currently works to quality assurance. a final common factor cited by psu participants as enhancing qa was the importance of a “quality culture” within the organization. at the micro level, ac2 psu offered a detailed explanation: one major thing is a quality culture. a quality culture means everyone should have a feeling in them or a majority—there will be always exceptions, but a majority should have a feeling that it’s—what we want to achieve is something better than what we are—what we have achieved. you know, this kind of a spirit. for example, we put certain targets for publication. some faculty members didn’t achieve, but [the] majority have achieved [them]. and when they achieved, we went for a little higher target, and people are achieving that as well… similarly, students … we stretch them to work a little harder. most of them do it. i told you, exceptions are www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 281 published by scholink inc. there. you know, it’s not a 100% perfect case, but it is definitely at least like 70, 80% of people coming up with a sense of quality—yes, i want to improve the quality. that kind of a quality culture is there… for example, my individual culture, if i’m in a higher position, would affect the lower levels—you know, the ones below me would get influenced. i have noticed here, you know, when quality-conscious deans who are here—for example, there was one dean who was more on—he [wanted] his graduates to be of excellent quality no matter how—how small is their number. the kau participants at both levels also regarded the support and commitment of management and leadership to be an important factor in enhancing qa implementation. qm1 kau highlighted its importance, explaining that: we need real support from the higher administration, guaranteed commitment is very important. that is the first thing, not just saying that they want to do it if they do not have the real commitment for it. if they do not want to provide resources or do not want to change the culture, then quality will not be delivered. as the above comment implies, at present, the commitment of kau leadership to qa is perceived as rather low. with regard to leadership selection, that in public higher education in saudi arabia, university presidents are nominated by the minister of higher education, with the king as the final authority in their appointment; and deans and managers similarly approved by the minister of higher education on the basis of university presidents’ nominations. even though an attempt at systemic reform toward a new model of leadership nomination has been made at kau, the selection process is still affected by top management, a model that was described as unproductive by qm2 kau and vd1 kau (respectively): i will be honest with you. that one cannot choose the position, if it deanship nor deputy. the job is offered then dean tells you do you want it. in my case, i was offered by the dean and i sat down with him and he explained and i found that i can present some things which i can add but, honestly i didn’t look for it or that because you know the work system here in the kingdom of saudi, there is no person who elicits himself to occupy a position but [if] you were offered [it] then you chose to agree or not, that means, there is a special meaning may be known here. it is not working by this [method]. the high administration put the person they want [in the position]. when i am talking about nomination for managerial positions, there must be a correct mechanism instead of the chaos that exists now in many places, when standards and professionalism are absent nothing goes well so changing the systems and insisting on it is essential. faculty knowledge of qa emerged from the kau data as well as the psu data as supporting the implementation of qa. at the meso level, qm4 kau explained the absence of qa knowledge among www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 282 published by scholink inc. faculty, indirectly revealing the most critical finding of this study: that when there is uncertainty about how to respond to a given pressure, there may be mere symbolic compliance instead of a genuine, substantive response. when i had self-study in some faculty a while ago, so people just fill it up fast, some do not even have previous knowledge about it and give it to whoever they find to fill it, so there must be a central region responsible to guild and impose these policies, make people more aware of it. (qm4 kau) thus, the analysis yielded two factors enhancing qa that were mentioned by participants at both universities, namely leadership commitment and faculty qa knowledge. however, the data also demonstrated a significant difference between psu and kau in this regard: the commitment of management and leadership at psu was reportedly very high, whereas it was poor at kau, despite participants’ recognition of its importance in qa implementation. in terms of faculty knowledge of qa, the interview data revealed that psu participants at both levels reported their staff to be quite familiar with quality concepts, and that this meaningfully supported qa. an orientation program run each semester to raise awareness of qa matters was also mentioned. in contrast, such knowledge seemed largely absent at kau, with no such orientation, and faculty’s lack of knowledge remains a hindrance to qa implementation there. 4.2 factors hindering qa implementation the key inhibiting factor identified at meso level at psu was employee resistance. however, the data also showed that qa actors were playing a crucial role there in overcoming faculty resistance. qm1 psu elaborated on this issue: some of the challenge that—challenges that we of course encounter would be the element of change. some faculty members, although we have established a culture of uh quality assurance, of course some faculty members need to understand that—the process of change. change will have to be gradual. it doesn’t have to be drastic. the process of change will take more time, but uh we are in that direction. at the micro level at psu, perceived infrastructure limitations, such as resource limitations, financial constraints, and human constraints, were seen as key factors inhibiting qa implementation. however, the data also revealed that despite the widespread perception that the micro-level culture is a reflection of the meso-level culture, the micro level can act independently to influence senior leadership. hs1 psu explained how they convinced their top management to provide financial support: for example, we were the first to use [a] smart board. we were probably the first to use [it] in saudi arabia. see how we did that was uh a guy came and made the presentation here. a couple of us attended it, and we found it was fascinating. it was interesting. you know, we are giving a sense of technology also to the—blending it properly with the mode of teaching. so we wanted it. we decided to buy. then the management had a reservation at that time, particularly one of the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 283 published by scholink inc. vice-rectors had a feeling that will it be a waste of money. so what we did is uh we went [laughs]—went to some of our employers and asked them, you know, would you like to sponsor? and saudi bank has sponsored three smart boards. and we introduced it here. when the rector saw that, he said now you can have it for every—every class. in contrast, at kau, both mesoand micro-level participants mentioned infrastructure limitations as a factor inhibiting qa implementation. at the meso level, this factor was said to be related to financial support, increasing student numbers, and an intensified workload. qm4 kau indicated the absence of financial support for qa implementation as a particular concern: often there is not much support, and there are those who participate and have extra work even without the financial support. then there are those who complain about the absence of financial support. in the same vein, the micro-level kau participants mentioned factors including faculty-to-student ratio, heavy workloads, and poor working conditions. hs1 kau also brought up the expansion of the student body, as follows: the number of the students is one of the criteria that affect the quality. the increase in student numbers has implications on teaching, research and community service. as far as i know, faculty members abroad are being assigned 6 to 9 hours teaching, but in our country the faculty members serve 15, 16, or 18 hours in teaching and this is at the expense of scientific research and community service. therefore, the faculty members will not be able to achieve the desired goals and cannot perform teaching duties in the correct manner. additionally, kau participants commonly reported that student quality would be a primary factor affecting qa implementation. even though kau students are required to complete a preparatory year, the specific requirements were criticized as inadequate by participants. furthermore, the kau participants noted the importance of leadership stability within the organization for qa, both directly and in terms of the motivation of personnel. as hs kau stated: the problem is the fact that in public universities with the appointment of a new manager the plan and the work of the previous manager are in a high potential situation to be changed drastically. employee resistance emerged from the data as another hindrance, at both meso and micro levels. at the micro level, tension between management and faculty was reported by ac3 kau, as follows: it is true that, as i said, people are resistant to change which they do not want, and they say “why do you evaluate us?” differences in professional background and faculty expectations were mentioned as potential reasons for such conflict. hs1 kau described the latter issue as follows: www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 284 published by scholink inc. the professor enjoys a prestigious social status and it is often difficult for him to accept criticism easily. actually, there is a split in terms of ideas, because some faculty members consider teaching operations their own prerogative, and point out that they have been in this field for twenty or thirty years, and if they were given a curriculum that is signed by the university’s council, they would ignore it and teach at their discretion. they claim no one can object to this. an additional critical factor hindering qa at kau was said to be the lack of competence of those in charge of quality, which was thought to lead to poor communication and challenges persuading faculty of the importance of qa. 4.3 suggestions for assisting quality assurance implementation with regard to suggestions for effective qa, respondents of both levels at psu shared several common themes emerged from the interview data. one was the adoption of a patient and persistent attitude toward qa. for example, hs1 psu suggested patience, persistence, and the need to spend resources: the only thing that i would say is that of course it’s something that takes time. and um—which means that you should be prepared or—to wait for years. uh it is possible that it might take many years so that’s one thing. second thing, you must be willing to spend resources. you must have a big heart. you must understand that i mean we are going through something, and there’s a cost for doing that thing. consistent with the above, the importance of the development of an organizational qa culture was frequently suggested by participants at both levels. for example, qm2 psu discussed the impact of leadership on the organisational culture: another thing is that not just change in leadership, but also—the top lead—management leadership, but also the middle—middle management, like chairs, directors who seem to be unsupported by top management in trying to realize the goals of quality assurance. so if you are not very much supportive—or supported and management does not believe in quality assurance as some universities would think, then uh you get demotivated. and the only thing to do is to leave. so what happens is there is now a change—again change in leadership. so there’s no continuity. that’s a big problem. similarly, the related obligations of top management was regarded as key in supporting a quality culture and fostering continuous improvement. in addition, at the micro level, psu participants noted that positive and negative reinforcement and incentives were useful to stimulate employee motivation. a number of suggestions were also made by the meso-level participants at kau. they felt that qa work could be more efficiently carried out given appropriate integration of technology and the declaration of explicit institutional quality standards, to be maintained by staff. traditional paperwork was mentioned as a problem. the meso-level kau participants believed that a systematic approach is a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 285 published by scholink inc. key factor in supporting the qa process. qm4 kau articulated the lack of such an approach as follows: well the first thing is to adhere to standard procedure in all universities, not just do something today and stop doing it tomorrow … real standards … it should be systematic … is it dependent on other things? is there no classification? no … the process should be systematic, done in a periodic way. at the micro level, the key suggestions were the need to foster strong motivation and to encourage faculty acceptance of the importance of quality assessment. ac4 kau provided the following suggestions regarding motivation: any effort requires motivation for work which may be intangible and private, or tangible and public. private motivation means that we move to achieve a good thing. there must be a tangible or intangible reaction. with intangible motivation you hear a good word, encouragement and so on, and with tangible motivation you receive a return. thus, the analysis of participants’ interview responses revealed several suggestions for supporting qa. broadly, the adaptation of the organizational culture was frequently suggested by people at both institutions, while at psu, positive reinforcement and incentives for qa implementation, the adoption of a positive qa attitude and persistence and patience in pursuing qa, leadership commitment and support, and the involvement and training of multiple stakeholders as a team were suggested to enhance qa at psu. 5. discussion the findings also demonstrate several factors perceived to be supportive of the commitment/support of leadership and management, which has been shown to play a crucial role in implementing quality assurance. these findings correspond with those of csizmadia, enders, and westerheijden (2007). leadership selection is one such important element in the management system. while private saudi universities have partial autonomy in appointing leadership, public institutions experience issues in this regard. the minister of higher education nominates these universities’ presidents, who are formally appointed by the king. in the same vein, the minister of higher education formally appoints people to deanships and other higher management positions and deans on the basis of university presidents’ nominations. although there was an attempt to launch systemic reform toward a new model of leadership nomination at kau, there is evidence that the new model has the same problems with transparency and ineffectiveness as the old one, as top management still affects candidate selection and nomination, with a resulting impact on implementing qa particularly at the micro level. raising awareness among and developing orientation procedures for employees/faculty were also found to be important factors supporting motivation and high-quality organizational culture. as www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 286 published by scholink inc. such, as the analysis makes clear, a lack of knowledge has caused serious problems with implementing quality assurance. the analysis also revealed certain factors limiting qa implementation across both psu and at kau. these included employee resistance, as also mentioned by modell (2003), rosa et al. (2006), csizmadia (2006), and papadimitriou (2011). at psu, qa actors reportedly played a crucial role in overcoming this issue and convincing all staff to implement qa. these attempts were supported by the culture of university teaching staff and the competence of those in charge of qa, who were able to communicate successfully about the process with faculty. in contrast, at kau, a lack of competence and communication led to an inability of qa actors to convince staff of its merits, and the data indicated tension between the two levels and a lack of motivation caused by this lack of institutional stability. in relation to competence, lack of qualifications among staff in charge of quality assurance means the university will struggle with micro-level resistance, and effective implementation of qa cannot be anticipated. thus, due attention must be given to quality management, by trained, professional staff who understand quality principles. the findings of this study illustrated that effective communication between meso and micro levels is also necessary. in agreement with newton (2002), this study highlights that inadequate communication accompanying efforts to change established values and beliefs, certain kinds of monitoring or limiting of faculty autonomy, has brought about such costs as faculty resistance. this can lead to increased internal conflict, and also to practices that are decoupled from needs as seen from the institutional perspective and responses that are merely symbolic and not genuine or substantive. in addition, qa implementation requires strong leadership commitment, which seems to be a challenge in saudi arabian public institutions not only at mid-level, as seen at kau, but also at the executive and especially presidential level. according to sapq (29 july, 2015), as of 2015 there were 10 saudi universities that had been managed by interim presidents for more than one year, including kau. as such, this scenario may threaten the stability of leadership. in such circumstance, decisions may be made extemporaneously and driven by mere courtesy rather than long term commitment due to the belief that the position will be for an interim period. furthermore, the data also revealed that participants at both levels at both universities perceived infrastructural limitations to qa implementation. while financial support was reported in the case of psu, the issues of workload and poor working conditions remained problematic for participants at kau. in addition, the data suggested that at kau not only staff but also program quality (cf., almstada, 2014), student quality cf. al dawood (2007) and alnassar and dow (2013) on the very low capabilities of first-year saudi university students), and increasing student enrollment were considered to be key factors hindering qa implementation. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 287 published by scholink inc. another notable difference in kau participants’ responses as compared to psu, was the suggestion that a systemic approach and the integration of technology could enhance qa implementation. here, as overall, the comparison between the two cases confirmed that quality assurance implementation remains a cultural matter (harvey & stensaker, 2008) and that culture change in institutions is needed to achieve good qa. finally, the study found that the type of the university, public or private, may play a significant role in the implementation of quality assurance as a result of seeking legitimacy supported by institutional theory. the age of the university was also found to be crucial, as psu is considered relatively new and kau is not; this is consistent with the argument that new universities have a more positive view of the self-evaluation process and consequently are more adaptable in compliance with external demands in this regard (rosa et al., 2006). the study results support the findings of other studies that demographic variables of participants impact on perceptions of quality (papadimitriou et al., 2008; rosa et al., 2006; stensaker et al., 2011). these factors seem to be largely interrelated, requiring collaborative and integrated action from all stakeholders. for instance, faculty resistance and infrastructure development may be addressed more effectively when management and leadership are committed to providing the necessary funding and professional training in support of qa implementation. references american society for quality. (2011). quality assurance and quality control. retrieved march 15, 2012, from http://asq.org/learn-about-quality/quality-assurance-quality-control/overview/overview.html anderson, d., johnson, r., & milligan, b. (2000). quality assurance and accreditation in australian higher education: an assessment of australian and international practice. canberra: detya. brown, s. (2011). bringing about positive change in the higher education student experience: a case study. quality assurance in education: an international perspective, 19(3), 195-207. https://doi.org/10.1108/09684881111158027 charles, c. b. (2007). the evolution of quality assurance in higher education. faculty working papers from the school of education. creswell, j. (1997). qualitative inquiry and research design: choosing among five traditions. sage publications. csizmadia, t., enders, j., & westerheijden, d. (2008). quality management in hungarian higher education: organizational responses to governmental policy. higher education, 56(4), 439-455. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-007-9103-3 darandari, e. z., al-qahtani, s. a., allen, i. d., al-yafi, w. a., al-sudairi, a. a., & catapang, j. (2009). the quality assurance system for post-secondary education in saudi arabia: a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 288 published by scholink inc. comprehensive, developmental and unified approach. quality in higher education, 15(1), 39-50. https://doi.org/10.1080/13538320902741806 dill, d. (2010). quality assurance in higher education-practices and issues. international encyclopedia of education, 377-383. https://doi.org/10.1016/b978-0-08-044894-7.00833-2 dimaggio, p. j., & powell, w. w. (1983). the iron cage revisited: institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields. american sociological review, 48(2), 147-160. https://doi.org/10.2307/2095101 dimaggio, p. j., & powell, w. w. (1991). introduction. in w. w. powell, & p. j. dimaggio (eds.), the new institutionalism in organizational analysis. chicago: university of chicago press. glaser, b., & strauss, a. (1967). the discovery of grounded theory: strategies for qualitative research. aldine. https://doi.org/10.1097/00006199-196807000-00014 haapakorpi, a. (2011). quality assurance processes in finnish universities: direct and indirect outcomes and organisational conditions. quality in higher education, 17(1), 69-81. https://doi.org/10.1080/13538322.2011.554311 harvey, l., & stensaker, b. (2008). quality culture: understandings, boundaries and linkages. european journal of education, 43(4), 427-442. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1465-3435.2008.00367.x hassan, a., amer, h., abdulbamaid, a., & maghrabi, a. (2005). quality assessment of dental health services provided at the faculty of dentistry. king abdulaziz university. retrieved may 20, 2012, from http://www.kau.edu.sa/files/165/researches/591_quality%20assessment%20of%20dental huusko, m., & ursin, j. (2010). why (not) assess? views from the academic departments of finnish universities. assessment and evaluation in higher education, 35(7), 859-869. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602930903125264 merriam, s. (1997). qualitative research and case study applications in education: revised and expanded from case study research in education. jossey-bass. merriam, s. b. (1988). case study research in education: a qualitative approach. san francisco: jossey-bass publishers. meyer, j. w., & rowan, b. (1977). institutionalized organisations: formal structure as myth and ceremony. american journal of sociology, 83(2), 340-363. https://doi.org/10.1086/226550 ministry of higher education. (2009). statistics of higher education in the ksa, 32. riyadh: ministry of higher education press. modell, s. (2003). goals versus institutions: the development of performance measurement in the swedish university sector. management accounting research, 14(4), 333-359. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mar.2003.09.002 napcis. (2012). the history of accreditation. retrieved april 15, 2012, from http://www.napcis.org/history.html www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 289 published by scholink inc. national commission for academic accreditation and assessment (ncaaa). (2009). quality assurance and accreditation in saudi arabia (ncaaa, riyadh, saudi arabia). national commission for academic accreditation and assessment (ncaaa). (2010). quality assurance and accreditation in saudi arabia (ncaaa, riyadh, saudi arabia). oliver, c. (1997). sustainable competitive advantage: cmbining institutional and resource-based views. strategic management journal, 18, 697-713. https://doi.org/10.1002/(sici)1097-0266(199710)18:9<697::aid-smj909>3.0.co;2-c psu (prince sultan university). (2010). academic assessment and planning center. psu (prince sultan university). (2011). strategic plan, 2011-2016. psu (prince sultan university). (2013). learning and teaching quality framework. psu (prince sultan university). (2013). university bulletin. rosa, m. j., tavares, d., & amaral, a. (2006). institutional consequences of quality assessment. quality in higher education, 12, 145-159. https://doi.org/10.1080/13538320600916759 teqsa. (2013). about teqsa. retrieved june 22, 2013, from http://www.teqsa.gov.au/about university of aberdeen. (2012). section 2-quality assurance in higher education: an overview. retrieved april 15, 2012, from http://www.abdn.ac.uk/quality/section2.shtml yin, r. (2003). case study research, design and methods. newbury park: sage publications. zahed, a., bafail, a., & bashir, m. (2007). quality assurance of engineering education at king abdulaziz university. in proceedings of the 10th uicee annual conference on engineering education, bangkok thailand (pp. 19-23). frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 58 original paper integrative analysis of socio-linguistic principles in applied language teaching shiqi bei1 1 xingzhi college zhejiang normal university, jinhua, china received: january 9, 2024 accepted: january 30, 2024 online published: february 28, 2024 doi:10.22158/fet.v7n1p58 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v7n1p58 abstract in the new century, the pace of academic categorization has accelerated, necessitating the promotion of practical philosophy. this paper contrasts sociolinguistics with applied linguistics, emphasizing challenges in chinese-english bilingual education. the aim is to enhance educators’ theoretical understanding and foster pedagogical reform. keywords socio-linguistic principles, applied language teaching, chinese-english bilingual education 1. historical origins of sociolinguistics and foreign language teaching the intertwining of sociolinguistics and foreign language teaching can be traced back to the early stages of linguistic studies. as societies evolved and became more interconnected, the need to understand the socio-cultural nuances of language became paramount. this realization marked the birth of sociolinguistics as a distinct field of study. in the early 19th century, as colonial powers expanded their territories, there was a pressing need to understand and communicate with indigenous populations. this led to the first systematic studies of local languages and their social contexts. scholars of that era, such as sir william jones and franz boas, began documenting languages and their variations, laying the groundwork for modern sociolinguistics. by the mid-20th century, with the rise of globalization and mass migration, the importance of understanding language in its social context became even more evident. pioneers like william labov in the united states began conducting detailed urban studies, revealing the profound impact of socio-economic status, ethnicity, and other social factors on linguistic variations. his seminal work in new york city, examining linguistic patterns across different department stores, showcased the intricate relationship between social stratification and linguistic nuances. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 59 published by scholink inc. parallel to these developments in sociolinguistics, foreign language teaching methodologies were undergoing their own evolution. the grammar-translation method, which had dominated for centuries, began to face criticism for its lack of emphasis on spoken language and real-world communication. this led to the rise of the direct method and later the communicative approach, both of which emphasized language as a tool for communication rather than just a subject of academic study. the fusion of insights from sociolinguistics into foreign language teaching methodologies was a natural progression. as educators recognized the importance of socio-cultural context in language acquisition, they began integrating sociolinguistic principles into their curricula. this integration marked a shift from mere linguistic competence to communicative competence, ensuring learners were equipped not just with grammatical knowledge but also with the ability to navigate the socio-cultural intricacies of the target language. in recent decades, the advent of technology and digital communication has added another layer to this relationship. the rise of online communities, social media, and digital communication platforms has further highlighted the dynamic nature of language and its deep-rooted ties to social identity and cultural context. modern foreign language teaching methodologies now incorporate these digital dimensions, emphasizing the importance of digital literacy and online communication etiquette in the 21st-century linguistic landscape. 2. characteristics of sociolinguistics sociolinguistics, at its core, is an interdisciplinary field that bridges the insights of linguists and sociologists, offering a comprehensive lens through which the intricate interplay between society and language can be examined. this discipline not only seeks to decipher the mutual influences they exert on each other but also aims to understand the underlying mechanisms that drive these interactions. the macro perspective of sociolinguistics paints a broad picture, examining societal structures, power dynamics, and cultural norms, and their reflections in language. this perspective often delves into the role of language in shaping societal hierarchies, the evolution of dialects in response to migration and globalization, and the preservation or erosion of linguistic diversity in multicultural societies. conversely, the micro perspective offers a granular analysis, focusing on phonetic, syntactic, and semantic variations. it seeks to understand how individual interactions, personal experiences, and localized cultural nuances shape language use. for instance, how do social pressures influence linguistic choices in informal settings versus formal ones? how do age, gender, and socio-economic status influence linguistic behavior at a micro-level? furthermore, the rise of digital communication platforms has introduced a new dimension to sociolinguistic studies. the digital realm, with its unique linguistic ecosystems, challenges traditional sociolinguistic paradigms. emojis, internet slang, and the fluidity of online identities offer a rich tapestry for sociolinguistic exploration. how does the anonymity of online platforms influence linguistic behavior? how are regional dialects preserved or transformed in digital spaces? www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 60 published by scholink inc. scholars like mackey, and more recently, dr. helena fernandes from the university of lisbon, have underscored the importance of a dual research approach in sociolinguistics. dr. fernandes, in her seminal work “digital sociolinguistics: a new frontier,” advocates for the integration of digital communication studies into traditional sociolinguistic frameworks. she argues that in today’s interconnected world, understanding digital linguistic behaviors is paramount to a holistic grasp of sociolinguistics. in essence, sociolinguistics, with its dual focus on broad societal structures and individual linguistic behaviors, offers invaluable insights into the ever-evolving relationship between society and language. as the field continues to adapt to the challenges and opportunities of the digital age, its relevance and importance in the academic world are set to grow exponentially. 3. foreign language teaching characteristics the evolution of foreign language teaching methodologies is a testament to the dynamic interplay between linguistics, cognitive science, and socio-cultural contexts. historically, the pedagogical landscape was primarily influenced by structuralist approaches, emphasizing grammar and vocabulary. however, as our understanding of the human brain and its language acquisition mechanisms deepened, there was a paradigm shift. recent advancements in cognitive neuroscience have provided invaluable insights into the neural substrates of language processing. for instance, studies using advanced neuroimaging techniques, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fmri) and positron emission tomography (pet), have revealed distinct neural networks activated during the learning of a first language compared to a second or subsequent language. these findings suggest that while there are shared neural resources, unique pathways are also recruited based on the age of acquisition, proficiency level, and the linguistic distance between the native and target languages. moreover, the role of the socio-affective domain in language learning has gained prominence. emotional and motivational factors, once considered peripheral, are now recognized as central to the learning process. research has shown that learners with a strong emotional connection to the target culture or with intrinsic motivation tend to achieve higher proficiency levels. this has led to the integration of cultural immersion programs, exchange programs, and the use of authentic materials in the curriculum. technological advancements have also left an indelible mark on foreign language teaching. the rise of digital platforms, language learning apps, and virtual reality experiences offer learners unprecedented access to native speakers and real-world language contexts. these digital tools, when effectively integrated into the curriculum, can bridge the gap between classroom instruction and real-world application. furthermore, the concept of ‘translanguaging’, a pedagogical approach that leverages a learner’s entire linguistic repertoire, has gained traction. this approach recognizes the fluidity of linguistic boundaries www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 61 published by scholink inc. and encourages learners to draw on all their languages as interconnected systems, rather than treating them as separate entities. in conclusion, the characteristics of foreign language teaching are continually evolving, driven by a confluence of scientific discoveries, technological innovations, and a deeper understanding of the socio-cultural dimensions of language. as educators and researchers continue to push the boundaries of what’s possible in the classroom, learners stand to benefit from more holistic, immersive, and personalized learning experiences. 4. issues in interdisciplinary contexts the fusion of sociolinguistics and foreign language teaching, while promising a richer pedagogical landscape, has also brought forth a myriad of challenges and considerations. one of the most pressing issues is the potential for oversimplification. when educators attempt to integrate complex sociolinguistic theories into classroom instruction without a deep understanding, there’s a risk of diluting the richness and nuance of these theories. this can lead to a superficial application, where students are exposed to surface-level concepts without truly grasping the underlying intricacies. another challenge is the cultural bias inherent in many sociolinguistic studies. much of the foundational research in sociolinguistics has been conducted in western contexts, which may not be universally applicable. when these theories are applied to non-western classroom settings without adaptation, they can perpetuate cultural biases and misrepresentations. this underscores the need for a more global perspective in sociolinguistic research, one that takes into account diverse cultural, social, and linguistic landscapes. furthermore, the rapid pace of technological advancement has introduced new dimensions to the interdisciplinary challenges. with the rise of digital communication platforms, language is evolving at an unprecedented rate. sociolinguistic research often struggles to keep up with these rapid shifts, leading to a potential disconnect between theory and real-world language use. educators must be vigilant and adaptive, ensuring that their teaching methods remain relevant in this ever-changing digital age. lastly, there’s the challenge of assessment. traditional language assessments often focus on grammatical accuracy and vocabulary breadth. however, when sociolinguistic elements are integrated into the curriculum, there’s a need for more holistic assessment methods that can gauge students’ understanding of socio-cultural nuances, power dynamics, and contextual appropriateness. developing such assessment tools requires a deep interdisciplinary collaboration, drawing from fields like educational psychology, assessment theory, and of course, sociolinguistics. in conclusion, while the interdisciplinary fusion of sociolinguistics and foreign language teaching holds immense potential, it also presents a complex web of challenges. navigating these challenges requires a delicate balance of respect for academic rigor, cultural sensitivity, and pedagogical innovation. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 62 published by scholink inc. 5. conclusion in the intricate tapestry of language learning and teaching, the threads of sociolinguistics and foreign language pedagogy are inextricably intertwined. the historical evolution and inherent characteristics of both fields underscore their mutual influence and the profound impact they have on shaping learners’ linguistic and cultural competencies. as we navigate the complexities of an increasingly globalized world, the integration of sociolinguistic insights into foreign language instruction becomes paramount. however, as with all interdisciplinary endeavors, challenges arise, necessitating continuous reflection and adaptation. by embracing the rich insights offered by both disciplines and addressing the inherent challenges, educators can pave the way for a more holistic, contextually aware, and culturally sensitive approach to language instruction, ensuring learners are equipped not just with linguistic skills but also with the socio-cultural acumen to navigate diverse global landscapes. reference li, c. y., & xu, j. f. (2018). international publication status and future trends of linguistic research in china: based on 2000-analysis of ssci papers in 2017. foreign language electronic teaching, 2018(4), 30-37 li, y., cui, y. y., & shi, l. (2017). applied cognitive linguistics research from an interdisciplinary perspective: the fifth national congress summary of the symposium on linguistics and second language acquisition. foreign languages (journal of shanghai international studies university), 40(6), 108-112. wang, j. b. (2018). complex theory: an interdisciplinary perspective on applied linguistics. journal of yuncheng university, 36(1), 1-5 yang, y. l., & zhang, c. x. (2007). sociolinguistics and applied linguistics: a comparative study from an interdisciplinary perspective. modern foreign language, 2007(3), 239-250327-328 frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 9 original paper history, research, and theory to practice: scaffolding framework for graduate online courses bernice y. sanchez 1* 1 college of education, texas a&m international university, laredo, tx, united states of america * bernice y. sanchez, college of education, associate professor, texas a&m international university, laredo, tx, united states of america received: july 11, 2020 accepted: july 21, 2020 online published: july 25, 2020 doi:10.22158/fet.v3n3p9 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v3n3p9 abstract the expansion of modern technology has vastly changed and continues to change the way we learn, communicate, and connect with one another. institutions of higher learning including community colleges and universities, traditionally known for their face-to-face courses, have had to reconsider programmatic and delivery mode over the years to transfer their face-to-face courses into online courses based on the growing demand. with this transition, comes reflective reevaluation of curriculum and programmatic structure of courses. these programmatic courses must provide instructional experiences that are meaningful and purposeful for graduate students in higher education and prepare them in the same manner and level of quality as face-to-face courses. there is a need for pedagogical research to assist faculty and instructors to make this transition to online teaching. the following paper examines 1) the historical context of distance education 2) research on face-to-face instruction in comparison to online instruction 3) a modern framework for scaffolding graduate courses and graduate course content. keywords scaffolding instruction, distance learning, online instruction, theory to practice, diverse instructional technologies, graduate education 1. introduction transformational growth, teaching, and learning is on-going and fluid in all academic learning environments. public and private schools k-12, for the most part, continue to provide face-to-face learning environments (brick and mortar) as foundational platforms for instructional teaching and learning. however, the expansion of modern technology has vastly changed and continues to change www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 10 published by scholink inc. the way we learn, communicate, and connect with one another. as a result, 21st-century academic environments have been altered from the traditional face-to-face classrooms with k-12 gradually transitioning into virtual spaces and online forums (archambault & crippen, 2009). academic institutions have evolved to provide more technology infused classrooms that can facilitate learning and provide virtual experiences into the classrooms through blended or web facilitated classrooms in amalgamation with face-to-face meetings. according to picciano and seaman (2009), a national data survey reported 867 school districts across the country indicated that 69.8% of the district’s students, at their respective campuses, had enrolled in online courses in 2007-2008, which is an indication that the vast majority of american school districts are providing some form of online learning for their students. while many educational classrooms k-12 across the country are using technology as a means of facilitating teaching, many organizations including home schooling academy’s (texas connections academy, bridgeway academy, liberty academy) are now offering all online virtual learning and classroom teacher environments as an alternative to face-to-face learning. higher education institutions and organizations have also gradually transitioned towards online learning environments. according to chiasson, terras, and smart (2015), online instruction in higher education has shown substantial growth over the past decade. institutions of higher learning including community colleges and universities, traditionally known for their face-to-face courses, have had to reconsider programmatic and mode of delivery over the years to transfer their face-to-face courses into online courses. in some cases, to compete with new emerging universities that offer 100% online programs and degree offerings. another challenge that traditional higher education institutions and organizations are grappling with, is maintaining the rigor of course expectations within programs, certificates, or degrees. over the past decade, numerous traditional academic universities have transitioned into online degree and program offerings with the intent that these courses would be comparable to traditional face-to-face courses. according to allen and seaman (2013), more than 2,800 traditional colleges and universities reported online learning as critical to university frameworks in terms of long-term strategic planning for the future as part of university goals. as online education continues to fluidly increase, faculty will be challenged to prepare curricula and teaching in this environment. allen and seaman (2013) reported that the number of students taking at least one online course at institutions of higher education equaled 6.7 million students. based on the growth in online enrollments, faculty have been tasked with transitioning from face-to-face instruction to online instruction. some with more experienced technological faculty gradually easing into the transition, and others with little to no technology experience resistant to the transition (hixon, buckenmeyer, barczyk, feldman, & zamojski, 2012). faculty are often not provided with the necessary training and resources on how to use the technology available to them to transition to online teaching. furthermore, with this transition, comes reflective reevaluation of curriculum and programmatic structure of courses. these programmatic courses must provide instructional experiences that are meaningful and purposeful and prepare them equally as well with the level of quality of face-to-face courses. faculty are content experts and not necessarily www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 11 published by scholink inc. technology savvy, so it is important to provide them pedagogical support, strategies, and frameworks from which to consider when making that transition to online instruction, hence, there is both a lack of training for faculty and instructors and limited pedagogical research in the field to assist them in the transition. the historical context and pedagogical suggestions for online instruction are explored here. the following paper examines 1) the historical context of distance education 2) research on face-to-face instruction in comparison to online instruction 3) a modern framework for scaffolding graduate courses and graduate course content. 2. historical overview of distance education online education, also known as distance learning, historically dates back to the 18 th century with some historians suggesting that its origins are prior to documented accounts. distance education is defined as a learner and a teacher working from distant locations. the purpose of distance education was to provide educational opportunities for those in remote locations, who otherwise would not have access to the traditional educational offerings (jonasson, 2001). distance education in the early years was comprised of parcel correspondence, audio, video, and television technologies. methods of delivery gradually progressed with technological advancements including that of advanced computers and the internet. 2.1 earliest evidence of distance learning the earliest evidence of distance learning prior to the 18 th century was documented in the form of advertisements in newspapers offering lessons in shorthand or lessons in art, but historians have argued if this truly fits the criteria for distance learning since there was no way to track nor document evidence that there was actual two-way-communication or correspondence providing feedback on the actual learning process (verduin & clark, 1991). in 1840, isaac pitman began teaching shorthand by postal correspondence in england, where he would mail postcards to students and instructed them to transcribe biblical passages into shorthand and to return them by post, for correction, analysis, and criticism. pitman is recognized as one of the forefathers of distance education and this eventually led to the development of what became correspondence colleges (verduin & clark, 1991). thereafter, the chautauqua movement and various other correspondence studies and programs in the 1870s, soon became models and the foundation for other universities and educational institutions to follow. in the 1870s, illinois wesleyan college established itself as the first academic institution to offer degree programs in absentia through distance learning programs (emmerson, 2004; kentnor, 2015; harting & erthal, 2005). the interest and demand for educational opportunities, that would otherwise not be possible due to location, became apparent and evolved as growing concerns over the quality of the education became the focus. as a result, in 1915 the national university extension association was formed to establish methods and standards for distance education (kentnor, 2015). just as parcel correspondence was evolving, the spark transmitter, the first radio device, and educational broadcasting were progressive advancements that contributed to the distance education evolution. distance educators began to explore communication technologies through radio and broadcasting techniques that would www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 12 published by scholink inc. enhance distance learning. broadcasting licenses were issued for various purposes including sports, dramas, concerts, lectures, and educational material. the establishment of the national broadcasting company (nbc) and the national committee on education by radio (ncer) are a few of the significant organizations that formed and impacted how radio communications became the new technologies for distance education (verduin & clark, 1991; kentnor, 2015). 2.2 visual technology revolution and personal web visual media, long distance video and voice transmission, evolved into television screens and become known as the visual technology revolution. within this movement, several institutions became innovators of educational television including the university of iowa, kansas state university, the university of michigan, and american university. interestingly, use of radio and television in education continued to expand, but not in terms of distance education (kentnor, 2015; verduin & clark, 1991). according to verduin and clark (1991), television courses for distance education seemed to decline in popularity, as they were poorly constructed and not appealing to the general audience. the personal computer and the personal web were the next major inventions to transform distance education. in 1989 the university of phoenix became the first institution to launch a fully online collegiate institution using compuserve, one of the first consumer online services that offered both bachelors and master’s degrees. thereafter, in 1991, the world wide web or internet was unveiled which created a pathway for universities and colleges to further experiment with online courses (carlson & carnevale, 2001; kentnor, 2015). blackboard learning systems were also developed with over 40,000 instructors teaching 150,000 online courses to more than 6 million students in 55 countries across the globe (onlineschools.org). some institutions such as western governors university and california virtual university thrived in enrollment and some traditional universities began the transition and bought into this movement as well. however, by the late 1990s some institutions sustained these methods of online delivery, but numerous traditional universities were on the decline (carlson & carnevale, 2001). it is important to point out that online education is a different medium for teaching and learning and failure to understand that this requires a different pedagogy can result in negative consequences (shelton & saltsman, 2005; bernard et al., 2004). a number of factors led to the decline of online education during the late 1990s, but a large part reflected on the failure of educators to recognize differences that existed between teaching and learning in online forums and face-to-face environments (arenson, 1998). according to shelton and saltsman (2005), faculty reported that online education prompted concerns about the quality of education being provided through this medium, had concerns regarding the lack of institutional support, and finally had concerns regarding the lack of understanding of this method of teaching and delivery. the rush to jump into this on-line education market by the end of the 1990s, resulted in many institutions ignoring the essential principles of institutional governance, development planning, and more importantly the quality of education being transmitted (kentnor, 2015). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 13 published by scholink inc. 2.3 technological progressive advancements after years of reflection and technological progressive advancements, online education is no longer a trend. with current technological improvements, online education is now the fastest growing form of distance education. this has shifted faculty pedagogical perspectives and how institutions approach online instruction for both traditional and non-traditional colleges and universities. more recent data suggests that universities are including online instruction as part of their university goals, in addition, some faculty are also reporting more technological support from their universities and administrative support towards re-envisioning online instruction. sener (2012) and kentnor (2015) suggest that the first era of online education was focused on providing access, while the second era of online education is now focused on the potential to improve the quality of education, with this in mind it is not about changing the knowledge that is being conveyed, but “altering and rethinking the way it is transmitted, preserved, and generated” (sener, 2012, p. 124). according to onlineschools.org website, 1 out of 4 college students across the country were enrolled in at least one online course as of 2009. in 2009, there were a reported 4.5 million students enrolled in online classes and 83% of all u.s. institutions offering online courses stated that they expected an increase in online course enrollment in the coming decade (allen & seaman, 2011; kentnor, 2015). distance education has transformed education from its earliest beginnings of parcel correspondence, to radio and television, and then the invention of computers and the internet. due to progressive technological advancements, lessons from the successes and failures by innovators, teachers, and institutions have been learned. as we continue with his medium of delivery, the focus must be on the quality of education and how it best prepares students for future sustainability and for future jobs that have yet to be conceived. 3. research on face-to-face instruction vs. online instruction online courses are more student centered because of the interactive and collaborative nature of computer communication and as a result less teacher centered. williams and peters (1997) suggest that engagement in online courses requires an instructor to shift from the role of content provider to content facilitator, whereas, students take on a more active role in their learning process. the teaching approach of providing the content in the traditional lecture setting, has now shifted towards the instructor facilitating the students’ learning of content. collective current research has explored the dynamics comparing teaching face-to-face vs. online instruction. it is apparent that the research history on distance education has provided a foundation, lessons, and guidance on how to improve online teaching. the improvements in technology aligned with the evolution of distance education, and pedagogical considerations have created an online instructional presence that is fluidly evolving. 3.1 research studies smith, ferguson, and caris (2001-2002) conducted a study in which they interviewed 22 college faculty for purposes of investigating faculty experiences of teaching college courses online vs. teaching face-to-face. the researchers explored social and media effect issues and teaching strategies. the data www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 14 published by scholink inc. results indicated that faculty recognized that online teaching required different styles of communication that had to be adjusted when teaching face-to-face in comparison to taking the same content online. faculty data reported that online teaching required more work time and attention to detail. the course content must be fully developed and in delivery mode in advance (lectures, assignments, course materials) and instructions and feedback must be well organized and detailed to provide guidance and avoid miscommunications with students. some of the positive commentary provided by faculty from the study were that online teaching in comparison to face-to-face teaching required that faculty reassess and reflect on how the course content was being presented and that deeper online class discussions required participation from everyone online. another positive was that faculty felt that online class environments allowed spaces for more equality between students and instructor. final concluding data from the study, suggest that both faculty and student communication was described as feelings of isolation or community. feelings of community are often experienced within face-to-face classes, as for online courses feelings of community are possible in online forums when online experiences involve more reflective and deeper curricula (smith et al., 2001-2002). a qualitative study by chiasson, terras, and smart (2015) was conducted to examine the experiences of ten faculty members who developed and taught online courses from their originally designed face-to-face courses. the research intent design was to examine faculty perspectives and experiences having taught a face-to-face course and then transitioning it over to an online forum. the data reported indicated that faculty spent ample time with learning new technologies and with instructional designers in efforts to support their self-identified pedagogy. faculty also felt that compensation for course development was necessary, as the time and effort went above and beyond their teaching responsibilities. researchers also concluded that it was extremely important that an established conceptual framework was developed prior to teaching an online course and that teaching online required that they be reflective, regardless that their role had now shifted to a facilitator online. it was important to recognize that the faculty participants for this study were from a college of education. the understanding is that they have strong pedagogical backgrounds, this may have influenced how faculty engaged in this transition from face-to-face to online teaching (chiasson et al., 2015). wiesenburg (1999) documented her perceptions and experiences regarding face-to-face teaching in comparison to online teaching and how research alongside years of experience have allowed her to revisit her theory to practice framework. the process of critical self-reflection has reconnected the researcher to her philosophical background that embraces adult education principles and practices. traditional face-to-face instruction in comparison to online instruction differs in structural constructs where a traditional forum offers listening and speaking opportunities vs. reading and typing. online teaching allows for flexible self-pace participation of instructional learning within open 24 hour forums. course objectives guide the instructional design of online courses which may include discussion forums, assignments, research, and timelines and due dates. all these factors require depth of critical and intellectual participation for effective development and delivery of the online course to occur (wiesenburg, 1999). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 15 published by scholink inc. 3.2 model of teaching adult learners wiesenburg (1999) asserts that pratt’s (1999) model of teaching adult learners is certainly applicable to teaching in both mediums. pratt’s (1999) general model of teaching adults consist of five components which include learner, teacher, content, ideals, and context. three relationships are present within these components: learner and teacher, teacher and content, and learner and content. furthermore, there are five distinctive perceptions on teaching adults: 1) transmission, teacher is the content expert and establishes course objectives while carefully constructing a learning environment and communicates evaluation of course objectives 2) apprenticeship, teacher modeling and coaching while providing feedback to learners on their degree of success 3) developmental, teacher is a facilitator and guide adjusting content for learners’ and scaffolding their knowledge base to push learners to reflect and expand on their knowledge 4) nurturing, teacher facilitator builds a climate of trust and motivates learners and 5) social reform, teacher advocates ideals by authentically demonstrating them through words or actions (pratt, 1999). wiesenburg (1999) asserts that her experiences teaching in both face-to-face and online classrooms informs her that this framework is equally validated in both forums. wiesenburg (1999) reverts to pratt’s theoretical model for adult learners as a foundational tool for structuring and guiding her online courses. as a teacher, wiesenburg (1999) takes on this role of facilitator with the goal of challenging her students’ prior knowledge and understandings of concepts and work towards moving learners beyond their current ways of thinking. online classrooms must scaffold instruction to move students from dependent to self-directed learners. wiesenburg (1999) concludes that it is not necessary to discover an innovative teaching approach towards teaching online courses. what is required, is a critical reflective approach towards pedagogical conceptual frameworks that have deemed successful within our own pedagogical frameworks (adult learning principles) when teaching in face-to-face forums. her experiences have taught her that while the approach to teaching is fundamentally the same in both forums, the instructional roles and specific instructional strategies applied differ in important ways (wiesenburg, 1999). 4. evolution of scaffolding the evolution of scaffolding dates back to bruner’s (1966) foundational educational learning theory. this theory was concerned with how knowledge is represented and organized through different approaches to thinking, with an emphasis on early cognitive development of young children. jerome bruner’s the process of education (1960) suggested through his constructivist theory that learners can construct and develop new knowledge on their own as along as it is organized appropriately. this is applicable to adult learners and not limited to young learners. furthermore, bruner (1961) emphasizes that the goal of education should be not to impart knowledge, but to facilitate thinking skills (scaffolding) that can be transferred into future learning situations so as to create autonomous learners. both bruner (1978) and vygotsky (1978) agree that a child’s social environment should be embedded with adults playing an active role in assisting a child’s learning progression. the purpose of the provision is to allow www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 16 published by scholink inc. the child to achieve higher levels of development (skills) which became known as scaffolding. according to bruner (1978), “scaffolding refers to the steps taken to reduce the degrees of freedom in carrying out some task so that the child can concentrate on the difficult skill she is in the process of acquiring” (p. 19). the actual word scaffolding made its first appearance in the literature when wood, bruner, and ross (1976) conducted a study on how tutors’ engaged with a preschooler to problem solve a block reconstruction task. according to wood et al. (1976), this instructional strategy was to provide a framework that guides and supports learning and helps students’ complete tasks while teaching them valuable skills about moving towards working independently. furthermore, the concept of scaffolding is comparable to vygotsky’s zone of proximal development, and at times the terms are used interchangeably within the literature. the concept of scaffolding is influenced by lev vygotsky’s (1978) zone of proximal development theory. vygotsky (1978) conceptualized three concentric circles that represent 1) things you can currently do 2) things you can do with assistance from an expert or fellow learner, and 3) things beyond your capability. when properly employed, instructional scaffolding transitions a learner from assistance with comprehension and skills towards a learner who can apply those skills towards increased and improved learning on their own and into larger context. the development of scaffolding has evolved over the years from an emphasis on early cognitive development of young learners, to that of transfer of skills towards a progressive process with assistance that is easily applicable to adult learners. 4.1 instructional scaffolding in general education, instructional scaffolding refers to a variety of instructional techniques used progressively to move students toward stronger understanding and, ultimately, greater independence in the learning process. educators provide successive levels of temporary support that help students reach higher levels of comprehension and skill acquisition. the goal is to help learners’ bridge a cognitive gap, through feedback, explaining, modeling, and asking questions that require a cognitive answer. scaffolding strategies include, but not limited to, the following: providing students’ examples of expectations and modeling protocols of tasks, connect students’ prior knowledge to new concepts being introduced, assist students with organizing their thought process before approaching a task, and teach students to breakdown assigned task into smaller manageable tasks (sub-tasks). the objective is to facilitate the learning process as opposed to simply directing it as mirrored in the early literature by bruner (1960) and vygotsky (1978). appropriate goals, procedures, and proper structures can move students from being dependent on their instructor to self-sufficient learners. scaffolding is an effective way to teach students to manage and organize their time while tapping into prior knowledge, and reflecting on the bigger picture or learning goal. instructional scaffolding provides a learning environment that is supportive and this is critical to on-line instruction as it can be an isolating experience for the learner. over the years, various scaffolding frameworks for on-line instruction have been proposed to facilitate a variety of learning processes and outcomes, such as constructing evidence-based influences (belland, glazewski, & richardson, 2008), science explorations (quintana www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 17 published by scholink inc. et al., 2004), structured problem solving (ge & land, 2004; geet al., 2012), and motivation (belland, kim, & hannafin, 2013). a diverse range of research literature has examined scaffolding frameworks that focus on certain skills which have produced positive outcomes for online instruction. however, research and recommendations on frameworks for scaffolding of online courses for purposes of achieving student learning outcomes and programmatic goals are limited. the following proposes a framework based on the theoretical foundations of the scaffolding model. 5. modern framework for instructional scaffolding berge (1995) recommends an instructional framework for virtual online teaching that provides structural functionality components. this framework includes: 1) pedagogical guidance on critical concepts 2) social, consultative, and collaborative learning environment 3) managerial organizational role with established learning objectives, agenda, and procedural rules 4) technical skills. online teaching requires a shift in roles from expert planner and manager, to co-learner, reflective practitioner and researcher. 5.1 foundational context for instructional scaffolding of graduate courses the following modern framework for instructional scaffolding of graduate courses to meet programmatic goals and student learning outcomes was collectively constructed based on that which is described in this context in conjunction with 25 years of academic teaching of grades k-12 and university level instruction both face-to-face and online. as a public school teacher across grade levels, technology was a means to facilitate instruction and impart curiosity to all learners. years of pedagogical experiments and theory to practice methods occurred over the years, while developing a philosophical foundation for teaching that was influenced by bruner (1978) and vygotsky (1978). this transferred over to university level instruction that included face-to-face instruction and online courses. over the last eight years, a movement of transitioning to more online instruction evolved at my university. as a faculty member within a college of education, a shift in delivery mode of some graduate programs, certification programs, and undergraduate courses began to transition from hybrid to fully online instruction. as history both repeats itself and informs us, the online course offerings would provide access to higher education for those not able to have access otherwise, and with this accessibility came the challenge of providing quality education programs. as a faculty participant in the development of program goals and student learning outcomes for various educational programs, the task of restructuring five graduate reading courses for online delivery became the focus. these five graduate courses had been taught previously in face-to-face forums and were degree requirements for a concentration in reading that were an extension of satisfying requirements for various master’s degree programs in the college of education. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 18 published by scholink inc. 5.2 instructional scaffolding framework for graduate reading courses once the reading program goals and student learning outcomes were established collectively, by faculty and informed by state and national reading standards, then the task shifted towards how these objectives would be addressed in a meaningful and sequential matter that would provide quality instruction in an online medium. the process involved critical reflection on a philosophical foundational paradigm in education (bruner, 1978; vygotsky, 1978) and on past and current research in distance learning (kentnor, 2015; verduin & clark, 1991; chiasson, et al., 2015). in addition, instructional design experts and new technologies that would facilitate instruction were critical to the effectiveness of the development of these courses. the next task at hand was to redesign the five current courses in place which required revising course descriptions, course title changes, and alignment of student learning outcomes (guided by state standards) in each course. the courses were scaffold in a sequential manner by which each course build on concepts that were introduced, reinforced, and practiced. the first course in the sequence is a foundational theoretical models course in reading. the second course build on the foundations of student knowledge gained in reading within the first course, and tasked students with evaluating reading programs and then designing their own reading program. the third course in the sequence tasked learners with applying knowledge from the first two courses towards assessing and diagnosing reading problems in students. the fourth and fifth courses were focused on reading remediation and strategic plan development. they focused on case study reviews, implementation of reading interventions, development of campus and district action plans for improvement, and focused on practicum practices in the field of literacy. these were the culminating courses in the sequence where students were expected to work independently to practice and apply knowledge learned in previous courses. 5.3 instructional scaffolding framework for course content within this same paradigm of scaffolding courses, the actual course content was being scaffold for student learning and understanding through the use of various technologies implemented. the role of field expert, planner, manager to co-learner, and reflective practitioner was enacted here, as described by berge (1995) and wiesenburg (1999). one example includes student development of conceptual knowledge on the foundations of reading theory to practice models. the use of discussion thread engagement and peer/professor responses were embedded in multiple courses. for example, prompts were posted that included multilayered questions that required students to think critically and triangulate new knowledge, with state standards, and their teaching experiences as a means of responding to each prompt. students were then asked to respond to a peers’ response and the professor would then check for understanding and accurate conceptual knowledge base, before tasking students to design their own reading model. another strategic scaffolding example, student learners are coached and mentored with instructor guidance and through teacher-student videos where they are provided models of implementation of various literacy assessments and diagnostic tools. students are then assigned to implement an assessment instrument and develop an intervention plan to assist a struggling www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 19 published by scholink inc. reader. students then provide a short video of this process where faculty then provides feedback on the learner-student engagement with an opportunity to engage in reflective practices. a critical component associated with earning a master’s degree is becoming a researcher. in this case, students are called upon throughout the sequence of courses to engage in research practices. students are provided resource materials (links to library database access and library videos) within these five courses so that students can learn how to utilize library resources and to participate in research practices to expand their knowledge base in the field of education. this support is provided to assist students when they are assigned to collectively review case study articles in the field of reading practices/interventions. students’ review of case study articles is another example of strategic scaffolding where the teacher is providing examples of the criteria, characteristics, and context of varying case studies. then a check for conceptual understanding based on the reporting of their interpretation of each study through the use of discussion board responses and virtual meeting spaces. this is conducted before students engage in a thorough independent case study of an actual student leaner in the field. both technologies of discussion board engagement and virtual meeting spaces, are opportunities to check for conceptual understanding and clarity. these technology mediums are utilized at various points within the five courses. finally, the development of campus and district action plans for improvement and practicum practices in the field of literacy are the culminating tasks of the sequential design of these programmatic reading courses. students are provided extensive literature and sample models on campus and district action plans. virtual meetings and discussions over characteristics of these plans set the foundation for students to develop their own campus/district strategic plans focused on improving literacy levels based on the current data. in addition, students are required practicum field tasks for two purposes 1) as observers understanding the roles and responsibilities of reading experts and practitioners and 2) being mentored, observed, and provided feedback while engaging in intervention practices in academic settings. 5.4 conclusions on instructional scaffolding framework johnston’s (2012) spiral curriculum, based on bruner’s (1960) cognitive theory, is represented here in this framework model of courses in that it allows a logical progression of simplistic ideas and prepares a learner for more complicated advanced ideas. the connectivity between scaffold sequential courses based on learning outcomes and scaffolding of course content in conjunction with technologies that facilitate content leaning is present in this framework described. the scaffolding framework for graduate courses suggested are also aligned with pratt’s (1999) theoretical model of adult learner relationship principles of teacher and content, learner and teacher, and learner and content. furthermore, this framework model of courses provided also draws parallels and is consistent with berge’s (1995) instructional framework for virtual online teaching that provides structural functionality inclusive of pedagogical guidance on critical concepts, next a social, consultative, and collaborative learning environment, a managerial organizational role with established learning objectives, agenda, and procedural rules, and finally technical skills. as previously mentioned, online teaching requires a shift www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 20 published by scholink inc. in roles from expert planner and manager, to reflective practitioner and researcher. the research data comparison between face-to-face teaching and online instruction described earlier supports elements of the framework proposed here (chiasson et al., 2015; smith et al., 2001-2002; wiesenburg, 1999; williams & peters, 1997). 6. final conclusions moore (1993) suggested, from a conceptual and sociological perspective, that there are three types of interaction necessary for effective distance education 1) learner-content interaction 2) learner-instructor interaction and 3) learner-learner interaction. the growing demand for online instruction, the historical context of distance learning, pedagogical theory to practice foundations in combination with current research on distance learning practices, have contributed to the development of the framework outlined. this scaffolding framework contributes to the limited field of research from the perspective of a critical and reflective practitioner of best practices in the field of education. online instruction is no longer a trend, but a necessity and way of the future for many traditional universities and educational institutions. faculty and researchers are challenged to reexamine what they know, and what is familiar in their field of practice and what has worked pedagogically. designing curriculum frameworks for programs and course content, while working with the technologies available in efforts to strive towards providing quality online instruction is the future. it is critical that faculty and teachers look to history and lessons learned from the past in guiding the transitioning into this new era of distance learning online education. references allen, i. e., & seaman, j. 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(1976). the role of tutoring in problem solving. journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines, 17(2), 89-100. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-7610.1976.tb00381.x about:blank frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no.4, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 65 original paper a study on enhancing teaching effectiveness of ideological and political theory courses in colleges and universities from the perspective of social cognitive theory he lingyan1 1 sichuan minzu college, ganzi red culture research center, kangding city, china received: october 3, 2023 accepted: october 22, 2023 online published: november 8, 2023 doi:10.22158/fet.v6n4p65 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v6n4p65 abstract exploring the countermeasures to improve the teaching effectiveness of ideological and political theory courses in colleges and universities through the perspective of social cognitive theory is the main goal of this dissertation. starting from the introduction of the basic concepts and main ideas of social cognitive theory, the abstract gradually analyzes the problems of teaching ideological and political theory courses in colleges and universities and puts forward the necessity of improving teaching effectiveness. on this basis, the abstract systematically discusses the countermeasures and methods to enhance the teaching effectiveness of ideological and political theory courses in colleges and universities, including improving the professional quality of teachers, innovating teaching forms and methods, and strengthening students’ ideological and political education. the research results of this dissertation are summarized and future research directions are proposed. the innovations of this dissertation include the exploration of teaching efficacy of ideological and political theory courses in colleges and universities based on social cognitive theory, the systematic discussion of countermeasures to enhance teaching efficacy, and the in-depth analysis of the problems of teaching and the provision of solutions. the teaching effectiveness of ideological and political theory courses in colleges and universities can be effectively enhanced by improving the professional quality of teachers, innovating teaching methods and approaches, and strengthening students’ ideological and political education. future research can further explore how to apply social cognitive theory to the teaching of other disciplines in order to promote the development of education. keywords social cognitive theory, ideological and political theory classes in colleges and universities, teaching effectiveness, countermeasures www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 66 published by scholink inc. 1. overview of social cognitive theory social cognitive theory is an important theoretical framework in psychology for explaining and understanding people’s cognitive processes in social interactions and social environments. this chapter will introduce the basic concepts and main viewpoints of social cognitive theory and discuss its application and significance in the teaching of ideological and political theory courses in colleges and universities. 1.1 basic concepts and main viewpoints of social cognitive theory social cognitive theory is put forward by the american social psychologist albert bandura, who believes that there is an interaction between human cognitive activities and the social environment, and that social cognition is the formation of one’s own behavior and cognition through cognitive processing on the basis of observing the behavior and results of others. social cognition theory mainly includes the concepts of observational learning, imitative learning and self-efficacy. observational learning refers to learning by observing the behaviors, emotions, and outcomes of others. social cognitive theory suggests that after observing the behavior of others, people are able to acquire new ways of behaving by imitating and remembering the behavior of others. observational learning can help people gain new knowledge and skills and improve their cognitive level. imitative learning refers to learning and acquiring new knowledge and skills by imitating others’ behavior. social cognitive theory suggests that people can acquire new ways of behaving by observing the behavior and results of others to determine whether the imitated behavior is suitable for them. imitation learning is not only a way of learning, but also a cognitive process, through which people’s self-confidence and self-efficacy can be strengthened. self-efficacy refers to the degree to which an individual believes that he or she can successfully accomplish a task. social cognitive theory suggests that self-efficacy is an important psychological factor for people to achieve their goals, and that self-efficacy can be improved by observing the behavior and results of others. increased self-efficacy promotes people’s ability to learn, solve problems and cope with frustration. 1.2 the application and significance of social cognitive theory in teaching ideological and political theory courses in colleges and universities ideological and political theory class in colleges and universities is an important way and means to cultivate students with positive ideology and morality and high level of political theory. however, the common problems in the teaching of ideological and political theory courses in colleges and universities at present are the relatively single teaching content and form, the low awareness of students’ participation, and the lack of sufficient interaction in the teaching process. in this context, social cognitive theory provides new ideas and methods for teaching ideological and political theory courses in colleges and universities. social cognitive theory emphasizes the role of observation learning and imitation learning, which can stimulate students’ learning interest and participation. in the teaching process, teachers can stimulate www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 67 published by scholink inc. students’ interest in learning by showing others’ excellent learning achievements and cases, and encourage them to improve their own learning effects by imitating others’ learning styles. social cognitive theory focuses on the cultivation of self-efficacy, which can enhance students’ learning motivation and self-confidence. teachers can help students build up confidence in their own abilities by giving them positive feedback and encouragement, and inspire them to participate more actively in the learning and discussion of ideological and political theory classes. in addition, social cognitive theory emphasizes the importance of observation and imitation, which can help students establish correct patterns of thought and behavior. in the teaching of ideological and political theory classes, teachers can inspire students’ thinking and guide them to form correct thinking and behavioral patterns by citing the remarks and practical cases of excellent ideological and political theorists. social cognitive theory has an important application and significance in the teaching of ideological and political theory courses in colleges and universities. through the lens of social cognitive theory, the problems existing in the teaching of ideological and political theories in colleges and universities can be better understood and solved, and new ideas and methods can be provided, so as to improve the effectiveness of teaching. next, this paper will further explore the specific countermeasures and methods to enhance the teaching effectiveness of ideological and political theory courses in colleges and universities. 2. analysis of the current situation of teaching ideological and political theory courses in colleges and universities this chapter mainly analyzes the problems existing in the teaching of ideological and political theory courses in colleges and universities, including the low teaching level of teachers, the single content of teaching, and the insufficient motivation of students to learn, etc., and discusses in depth the impact of these problems on the teaching effect. by comprehensively analyzing the current status quo problems, we can provide an analytical foundation for the next chapters. on this basis, we can explore various countermeasures and methods to enhance the teaching effect of ideological and political theory courses in colleges and universities, with a view to achieving the purpose of enhancing teaching effectiveness. 2.1 teachers’ low teaching level poor teaching level of teachers is a common problem in the teaching of ideological and political theory courses in colleges and universities. for a theory course, teachers not only need to have rich knowledge reserves, but also need to have good expression ability and teaching design ability. however, at present, some college teachers are deficient in professional knowledge and teaching methods, which can’t meet students’ learning needs. teachers’ low teaching level has a negative impact on the teaching effect, students’ interest in learning is not high, and the classroom atmosphere is rather cold. in the teaching process, teachers lack sufficient interaction and inspirational teaching methods, resulting in insufficient student learning www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 68 published by scholink inc. enthusiasm and initiative. therefore, it is crucial to improve the teaching level of teachers and cultivate their rich teaching experience and methods. to solve this problem, the professional quality of teachers can be improved by strengthening the construction of the teaching staff. colleges and universities can increase their efforts in recruiting teachers, selecting and hiring excellent teachers of civic and political theory courses, and focusing on the academic and teaching abilities of teachers. at the same time, active cultivation measures are taken, such as conducting teacher training and further training programs and providing more research opportunities and platforms, so as to prompt teachers to continuously improve their professional knowledge and teaching ability. these efforts will provide teachers with more development opportunities and stimulate their enthusiasm and innovation in teaching. 2.2 single teaching content the teaching content of ideological and political theory courses in colleges and universities is often single and lacks diversity and breadth. at present, the content of teaching materials mainly centers on some basic concepts and theories, but is not close enough to the actual situation and lacks the idea of advancing with the times. this makes students in the learning process lack of attention to the current social hotspots and practical problems, and can not apply theoretical knowledge in practice in a timely manner. the single teaching content brings challenges to the teaching effect. students often feel boring and lack of interest and passion in the learning process. this affects their learning motivation and thinking ability. in order to improve the teaching effect, we need to enrich and expand the teaching content, focus on the combination of theory and practice, and pay attention to the current social problems and hotspots, so that students can better understand and apply the theoretical knowledge of civics and politics they have learned in the learning process. to address this problem, a variety of strategies can be adopted. first, the content of teaching materials can be updated, focusing on the introduction of the latest theoretical views and practical cases, and encouraging students to pay attention to social changes and problems. secondly, case teaching can be carried out to guide students to think and discuss through actual cases and to cultivate their analyzing and problem-solving abilities. in addition, various forms of teaching can be carried out, such as group discussions, classroom debates, field trips and so on, to stimulate students’ interest and participation in learning. through the application of these strategies, the teaching content can be made more diversified and interesting, and the teaching effect can be improved. 2.3 insufficient learning motivation of students insufficient learning motivation of students is a common problem in the teaching of ideological and political theory courses in colleges and universities. since the ideological and political theory course has been regarded as one of the traditional theoretical courses, students often lack the awareness of its importance and interest. they generally think that the content of the course is boring and out of touch with real life, and lack motivation to learn. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 69 published by scholink inc. the lack of students’ motivation to learn has an adverse effect on teaching effectiveness. in the classroom, students may show a lack of participation and reflection, and a low level of digestion and understanding of the course content. in order to improve students’ learning motivation, we need to take appropriate measures to stimulate students’ interest and motivation in learning. to solve this problem, we can increase students’ participation and interactivity through innovative teaching methods and approaches. for example, interactive teaching, such as gamified teaching and group cooperative learning, can be introduced to increase students’ interactive sessions and practical experience in the teaching process. in addition, exchanges and communication with students can be strengthened to understand students’ learning needs and interests, and personalized teaching guidance and counseling can be provided according to students’ individual differences. through the application of these measures, students’ learning interest and motivation can be stimulated, and their attention and participation in the civic and political theory course can be improved. as mentioned above, low teaching level of teachers, single teaching content and insufficient learning motivation of students are the problems in the teaching of ideological and political theory courses in colleges and universities. these problems have a negative impact on the teaching effect and restrict the improvement of teaching effectiveness. in order to solve these problems, we need to adopt corresponding countermeasures and methods for specific situations, with a view to improving the teaching effect of ideological and political theory courses in colleges and universities. 3. countermeasures to enhance the teaching effectiveness of ideological and political theory courses in colleges and universities this chapter will systematically discuss the countermeasures and methods on how to enhance the teaching effectiveness of ideological and political theory courses in colleges and universities, and illustrate them with specific cases. in order to achieve this goal, this chapter will focus on countermeasures to improve teachers’ professional quality, innovate teaching forms and methods, and strengthen students’ ideological and political education. by taking these measures, the teaching effect of ideological and political theory courses in colleges and universities can be effectively enhanced, and the learning effectiveness and ideological and theoretical level of students can be improved. 3.1 improve the professional quality of teachers the professional quality of teachers in ideological and political theory courses in colleges and universities is of great significance in improving teaching effectiveness. improving the professional quality of teachers needs to start from many aspects. teachers should have solid subject knowledge and theoretical skills. only through in-depth study and research can teachers accurately transfer knowledge in the teaching process and improve students’ theoretical level. teachers can deepen their subject knowledge and theoretical cultivation by constantly participating in academic research and academic exchange activities. in addition, teachers can improve their academic reputation and prestige by participating in writing and publishing academic papers. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 70 published by scholink inc. teachers should have certain teaching ability and educational skills. teachers should have the ability to express themselves clearly and accurately and have good organizational skills to convey complex theoretical knowledge to students in a simple and clear way. teachers should also have the ability to guide students to think independently and critically, and to develop students’ sense of creativity and problem-solving skills. teachers can improve their teaching skills and educational competence by attending teacher training and education and teaching seminars. teachers should have good teaching attitudes and ethics. teachers should set a good example, be a role model for students, and actively guide students to establish a correct outlook on life, values and sense of social responsibility. teachers should care about students’ learning and life, listen to students’ voices, and give students enough care and encouragement. teachers can build up a good image of teachers and enhance students’ recognition and trust of teachers by participating in teacher recognition and merit assessment activities. 3.2 innovative teaching forms and methods to improve the teaching effectiveness of ideological and political theory courses in colleges and universities, teachers need to adopt innovative teaching forms and methods to stimulate students’ interest and enthusiasm in learning. on the one hand, teachers can adopt modern educational technology means such as multimedia technology and network teaching platform to make the teaching content more vivid and improve the learning effect. by playing relevant videos, audios and pictures in the classroom, abstract theoretical knowledge can be made more concrete. teachers can also stimulate students’ interest in learning and improve their participation through online discussions and interactive platforms. on the other hand, teachers can adopt teaching methods such as case teaching and problem orientation to cultivate students’ practical ability and problem solving ability. by guiding students to analyze and solve practical problems, students can better understand and master theoretical knowledge. teachers can also organize group activities and teamwork to cultivate students’ sense of cooperation and team spirit. in addition, teachers should also pay attention to the creation of classroom atmosphere and the vividness of teaching content. teachers can quote vivid examples and tell interesting stories to enhance students’ interest in and understanding of the teaching content. teachers can also use discussion and interaction to let students actively participate in teaching and promote students’ thinking and communication. 3.3 strengthen students’ ideological and political education strengthening students’ ideological and political education is an important part of enhancing the teaching effectiveness of ideological and political theory courses in colleges and universities. by strengthening students’ ideological and political education, it can improve students’ ideological and theoretical level and moral quality, and cultivate students’ correct values and sense of social responsibility. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 71 published by scholink inc. schools and teachers should strengthen students’ ideological and political education. schools can organize students to participate in various forms of ideological and political education activities, such as special lectures, campus cultural festivals, social practice and so on. teachers can focus on cultivating students’ sense of discernment and critical thinking in teaching, guiding students to pay attention to current news and social hotspots, and cultivating students’ sense of social responsibility and civic awareness. families and society should also strengthen students’ ideological and political education. family is the first classroom of students’ ideological and political education. parents should emphasize family education and cultivate students’ correct values and outlook on life. society should provide a favorable public opinion environment and social atmosphere to guide students to establish a correct world view and outlook on life. students themselves should also actively participate in ideological and political education and consciously improve their ideological and theoretical level. students can read more books and magazines on ideological and political theory, participate in academic research and social practice activities, and constantly enrich their knowledge and experience. 4. conclusion in summary, improving teachers’ professional quality, innovating teaching forms and methods, and strengthening students’ ideological and political education are effective countermeasures to enhance the teaching effectiveness of ideological and political theory courses in colleges and universities. through the improvement of teachers’ professional quality and the innovation of teaching forms, students’ learning interest and motivation can be stimulated. through strengthening students’ ideological and political education, students’ ideological quality and outlook on life can be improved. these countermeasures will provide strong support for the improvement of teaching effectiveness of ideological and political theory courses in colleges and universities. references lin, h. p. (2015). research on the effectiveness of ideological and political theory classes in colleges and universities--taking &quot; ideological and moral cultivation and the foundation of law&quot; class as an example (pp. 32-33). yuan, j. h. (2014). research on the practical teaching link and implementation of long-term mechanism of “ideological and political theory course” in medical schools (pp. 113-114). lu, d. (2010). “knowledge, emotion, intention and behavior” is the key to improve the effectiveness of ideological and political theory courses in colleges and universities (vol. 12, pp. 172-173). zhang, l. (2009). teaching is educating, educating is teaching--the efficacy of educating teachers in ideological and political theory courses. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 72 published by scholink inc. ye, w. (2016). the practical path of situational teaching method in theory class of colleges and universities: taking ideal belief as an example (pp. 199-200). frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 16 original paper thinking, a diverse and inclusive process—an epistemological look jose manuel salum tome, ph.d1 1 doctor of education, catholic university of temuco, chile received: february 20, 2024 accepted: march 11, 2024 online published: march 30, 2024 doi:10.22158/fet.v7n2p16 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v7n2p16 inclusive education is the transformation of the system, it highlights difference and diversity, to strengthen the development of skills, under the premise of respect for difference and diversity (barton, 2013). today, educational inclusion is carries out and attends to the educational needs of students individually, where the actors of the educational process contribute to learning while respecting the differences and diversity of each individual, by fulfilling the transforming and integrating role that improves skills and breaks with barriers to learning. abstract contemporary education has taken on the challenge of promoting different programs aimed at promoting inclusive teaching-learning processes that facilitate attention to diversity. it is evident that the integration of students with special needs in regular educational centers has caused significant changes in the curriculum, infrastructure and training among teachers. in the last ten years, educational inclusion has made significant progress, but much remains to be done to expand inclusive spaces. keywords educational inclusion, epistemology, inclusive classroom, inclusive teacher 1. introduction this article carries out an analysis around the main epistemological difficulties that the inclusive education and diversity approach faces today, in public policies of equal opportunities. initially, it describes a certain epistemic vacuum within the educational sciences and, therefore, an unclear pedagogical knowledge, regarding the foundational dilemmas that it has proposed to solve. a displacement model is observed that advances above the problems of the new century, evidencing a hybrid or preconstructed paradigmatic model or approach, facing the challenges and transformations that www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 17 published by scholink inc. postmodern societies demand in times of exclusion. it is concluded about the need to advance towards the assurance of a field of timely curricular, didactic and evaluative problematization in the matter. 2. the epistemology of education and diversity a large percentage of children and adolescents between 5 and 17 years of age are part of school exclusion. in the 60s, 70s and part of the 80s, the genesis of exclusion from education lies in mistreatment, discrimination, neglect of basic physical and emotional needs, among other factors; at that time only normal children received education. 3. epistemological foundations of inclusive education and diversity the epistemological foundation of inclusive education at the beginning of the 21st century, opted for a transdisciplinary enrichment that allows promoting a genealogical critique of its founding paradigm of special education. ocampo (2015) in epistemic terms, inclusive education must address the total eradication of exclusion, that is, it seeks to eliminate school failure and exclusion. this study presents reflections, to contemporary education, to deal with traditionalist pedagogy, which impede the development of skills, proposes epistemological meditation, which positively contribute to overcoming the conflicts faced by students with special educational needs. “currently, the scenarios in which inclusive education and education for all are promoted have diversified and new subjects and new forms of acceptance and/or social elimination have appeared,” kaplan, (2007) that condition social life and school of multiple students. an important step is to understand, from an epistemic perspective, that inclusive education is a model or current trend that is different from education for all. therefore, it is the educational systems and the designers of educational policies who are more aware of what they promote today, because under the model of inclusion, poorly built, new forms of homogenization, marginalization and some contradictions in the management of education become visible. institutions and training practices. the challenge now is that the programs on the matter signify and redefine all our citizens. accepting our own history of ways of thinking about the world, we should situate ourselves in what the different narratives and explanations have called the western tradition of thought, which, in addition to its logical types and rationality, has proposed the paradigm of simplification , this from plato to classical science has affected philosophy and science, which would not be a major problem if it did not directly impact the field of decision-making, and therefore ethics, aesthetics and politics. its aim is to idealize, rationalize, normalize, that is, conceive of reality as something reducible to schemes or ordered and computer concepts, understood from the perspective of identity logic and the principle of disjunction. as for ethics and politics, they are also presided over by rationalization and the unifying order, so that they reject or exclude the “less developed” or “irrational” forms. in short, it is a thought that is based on reifying concepts and an epistemological ideal that is characterized by assuming an absolute point of view, that is, an external, omniscient observer. this epistemological conception implies in parallel the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 18 published by scholink inc. idea of an illusory objectivity that is also absolute, which is not affected by the subject/observer. such an ideal of knowledge, typical of classical philosophy and science, is impossible. from the point of view of action, it is also shown by social and political history, in particular that of our century, which, when it has tried to determine/unify society, has succeeded in the best of cases for a short time. from the above, we can affirm that our role as educators is to respond to the diversity of the student, the objective of inclusive education, and possibly it is the challenge that the educational system must face, to achieve a quality education that benefits all. students at different levels. the changes proposed in education have caused teachers to feel pressured by the demands regarding the constant curricular overload, updating and professionalization of teachers, among other factors. in order for these pressures to be overcome, it is necessary to promote reforms, both in the cultural, organizational and good practices of schools, in order to achieve a change in the attitude of teachers and thus guarantee access, relevance, participation that facilitates learning of all students. inclusion is a right to education under equal conditions; in this sense, the participation of people is carried out under the slogan of respect for diversity, to contribute to the advancement of society. it is important to be clear that each individual is a different world, and each one has their own learning style, which confirms that they are all different. all of the above allows us to socialize the term thinking in our students, it is made clear that everyone has this ability, which is why we will give a perception of thinking from an epitymological perspective. 4. philosophy 4.1 thinking and philosophy when one hears the word philosophy, one thinks of a person, relaxed, who begins to see and think about everything he does and wants to draw conclusions from all actions. it is seen as something dark and mysterious that few men are able to understand and not be able to think about its meaning. however, we see that philosophy is the most natural activity of man, it is something that comes with his essence. it is simply the curiosity of man for each and every one of his actions and to know how? and for what? is in this world, as person. man, because he is not born in the adult stage, gets used to having some questions unanswered and seeing things that he may not understand, but it has always been like that. if man were born an adult, he would ask himself many questions since he would not even know how? why? or what for? is here, therefore the power is restricted to think. philosophy is the knowledge that human reason claims immediately and naturally, its definition is as follows: science of all things by their ultimate causes acquired by the light of reason. for its ultimate causes. this speaks of the fact that he studied all the meanings of a subject, not by parts, nor by specialization, but rather everything in general, so that there is a greater understanding. acquired by the light of reason. this tells us that philosophy is not based on facts of faith, but on real facts, on questions verifiable to man’s reason. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 19 published by scholink inc. in this sense, we can say that the sciences do not think. this does not mean anything negative; on the contrary, the sciences know much more than thinking. they accumulate knowledge about the world that “is there”. thinking, on the other hand, does not accumulate knowledge, it only questions the origin of the world. we don’t think because the memory of our essential historical being was expelled from the beginning of history. we have entered history expelling from memory the original being that opened this history. due to this forgetfulness, we are not thinking. this forgetting of what essentially originates us, this expulsion from memory of the foundation of our essential historical way of being, constitutes a peculiar way that we human beings have of linking ourselves with the history. 5. epistemology, thinking and knowing think and knowledge. the act of thinking and its results, thoughts are still a complex problem for philosophy. in fact, to think is to know. but what is thinking? plato says that it is to remember. descartes that is to doubt, affirm, deny, want, not want, imagine, feel. while hegel affirms that it is the realization for himself of the effective reality of the absolute through human language. however, diversity, we can characterize thinking as a psychological activity, as the act that occurs in the consciousness of a subject in a certain period of time, which can be performed with full attention, distraction, with pleasure or dislike. the result of this activity is the thought that as such is indifferent to who thinks it, how and when they think it, maintaining its identity with itself. in this sense, thought is spaceless and timeless; the socratic maxim “know yourself”, as a thought remains unchanged, regardless of whether it was thought in very particular conditions. socrates in the 5th century bc, or let me think of it now in a different sense. on the other hand, thought is usually accompanied by perceptions or images, i can see something or imagine it; but these elements are not essential to thought, every time i read a book, i do not imagine everything i am reading. the expression of thought also appears, the signs that express it as its meaning or meaning. finally, we can point out that the object of thought, the reference. all thought is thought of something. there are no mere, empty thoughts. we must not, however, confuse thought with its object, since objects as such are not modified by thinking about them. 6. epistemology 6.1 think epistemology the human being lives inserted in a determined physical and social environment. throughout space and time, he has tried to get to know this medium in various ways and using different procedures, each of which has provided him with a concrete explanation of reality. this explanation has nourished the capital of knowledge that has been accumulating. sometimes, summarily, other times, an explanation has replaced the previous one. knowledge is therefore a possibility and a necessity that all societies have developed in one way or another. in our context, in which social work is located, scientific knowledge is the instrument that we www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 20 published by scholink inc. have given ourselves to point out the difference between what is true and what is false. no one can doubt the importance of science in our society. its development is at the base of the organization and of life social. we must question its repercussions in all areas of society. social work, insofar as it is present in a society where science is the dominant criterion in establishing what is true and what is false, has to ask itself about its scientific character or not. epistemology will be a means for this. the conception that we have about it would be determined by considering that it consists of an analysis of the conceptual structures of a particular science and of science in general. this analysis is located at a second order level with respect to scientific reflection itself. its object of work would be determined not by limited space-time entities..., but by the concepts that the specialists of this science handle for its development (ulysses moulines, 1988). epistemology does not want to impose an a priori system, dogmatic, authoritatively dictating what should be knowledge scientific, otherwise study the genesis y the structure from scientific knowledge, that is, studying scientific production from all its aspects, without forgetting that the concepts used, and science itself, are produced in a specific context, so the relationship between science and society should be analyzed (mardones & ursúa, 1982, pp. 41-44). 7. science 7.1 thinking as a creative act it doesn’t seem like these are good times, it’s for philosophical reflection; however, it is urgent that thought be strengthened in these times when scientific and technical development would be capable of putting an end to the evils that the world suffers. it is neither possible nor desirable to return to a pre-scientific world, from which many can be learned. things, but never idealize it; everything that anarchism has already combated since its origins was present in that world: poverty, exploitation, ignorance, prejudice, disease...; all this is possible to eradicate today by delving into the problems thanks to technological progress. it depends on us to be capable of a renewal of philosophical thought that helps to rationalize and humanize societies, as well as to seize the power that is perpetuated in the hands of a few, or, being consistent with the libertarian point of view, to enable that power is diluted in society as a whole, and that hinder the construction of a decent future for everyone. today, more than ever, we have the possibility to plan the world we want, we can be capable of being the legitimate owners of our lives, thoughts and our destination. it can be concluded that a “philosophy of science” is necessary, although it is difficult to determine what its real mission would be. some authors have decided that philosophy must precede science and provide it with a solid base; others, that what must be achieved is a theory of knowledge, either popular or academic, or a professional language that synthesizes all scientific, technical and practical languages. habermas, so critical of marx for subordinating knowledge to the productive forces, considers that the true mission of philosophy is to be critical of science: “criticize the objectivist self-conception of the sciences, the scientistic concept of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 21 published by scholink inc. science and scientific progress; it should deal in particular with basic questions of a social-scientific methodology, so that it does not hold back. but it is required, the adequate elaboration of basic concepts for systems from action communicative”; habermas (1981), not denies the science as the productive force, but it only admits it if it is accompanied by science as the emancipatory force. 8. ontology nothing is broader than the sum of thinking and being. everything, both real and unreal, both existing and nothing, is located in one of these two areas, and there is no more. to take them into consideration is to encompass everything and there is no room for a broader totality. however, the sum of thinking and being is not a totality, in the sense that there is a genus to which two species belong, respectively thinking and being be. it is a totality only in the sense that any “data” belongs to one or another area; it is a merely quantitative totality, and therefore abstract. next, it will begin to clarify what is the relationship in which thinking and being are with each other. they do not intend to go through all the aspects of the matter, but they do touch on the characteristic points. the historical investigation, so important, but so extensive, is left aside, and it is limited to trying to show the outstanding features of the relationship thinking-being compatible and required by “metaphysical realism”. i understand by such realism, from a historiographical point of view, the one found mainly in aristotle and saint thomas aquinas. from a dogmatic point of view, it is that it admits the possibility of metaphysics, that is, of the science of being as such. of course, within this path there are numerous variants that are incompatible with each other at some points that are not secondary or little ones. the “problem” of thinking and being is exercised by thinking. it is a problem for thinking, because being itself does not question thinking. thinking questions its relationship with being insofar as thinking understands itself as a modality of being, as a particular way of being, and, on the other hand, insofar as thinking is situated on the horizon of thinking the being, that is, to the extent that thinking wants to be thinking being. it is, therefore, a problem initially raised from thinking and for thinking. it is the entire thinking, from the outset, that is in question, when it questions itself about being. 9. final reflection epistemologically, education is a diverse and complex process that encompasses all human beings, cultures, religions, ideologies, etc... and that allows us to realize that diversity is present in our society. although transformational learning is complex, it is possible and necessary, it invites us to reflect on ourselves and on our work as human beings in a world of which we are a part, and on our ability to understand the processes of change and adapt to them creatively, our survival will depend neither more nor less. thinking as a normal process of the human being and viewed from different epistemological perspectives, more so in the case of the human and social sciences, also shows that we are facing www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 22 published by scholink inc. different epistemological positions. thinking is a discipline that belongs to this category. there is a clear difficulty in defining its object or objects of study, which causes a proliferation of theories based on diverse philosophical assumptions. teaching has to think implies making these presuppositions patent. in this way, the different theories can be ordered showing the configuration of the world that they presuppose. teaching the thinking process involves influencing the configuration of the students’ network of beliefs so that they can place their object of study within the framework of a certain vision of reality. epistemology, evidently, is complexity. it is transcomplexity. but, it is authentic rationality. however, all this is better appreciated when it is developed as a work of intellectual craft characterized by the deep desire to know and, to that end, by the yearning to find a type of knowing that, once it becomes conscious, is diluted in new understandings. because this is another feature of epistemological thinking: to evolve –this concept is applied to oneself-. in addition, it transcends mere grammatical categories, it is transformational and transgressive of all order. epistemology overcomes the statements of opportunity and context and is always open to the scenario where the probable, the possible and the uncertain come together, again, in favor of the historical formulation of new knowledge, in direct and proportional relationship with the future. of the science. without neglecting that epistemology itself takes flight, in such a way that, on occasions, it assumes scientific leadership. it has been said that epistemology is a sine qua non condition for any attempt associated with science, in addition to being a direct access door to philosophical insight. reference barton, l. l. (2013). inclusive education and teacher education: a foundation of hope or a discourse of delusion. london: university of london. conadis. (2013). national agenda for equality in disabilities. quito, ecuador: conadis. constitution of the republic of ecuador. (20 of 10 of (2008)). the constitution of the republic of ecuador legislative decree s/n. montecristi, manabí, ecuador: official register 449. escribano, a., & martínez, a. (2013). educational inclusion and inclusive teachers. madrid: narcea ediciones. habermas, j. (1981). theorie des kommunikatives handelns. frankfurt, i(225). isch, l. e. (2011). current proposals and challenges in education: the ecuadorian case. educação & sociedade, campinas-brazil, 373-391. https://doi.org/10.1590/s0101-73302011000200008 john, r. c. (2016). normal school of specialization humberto ramos lozano. in national and international journal of inclusive education (pp. 264-275). monterrey, mexico. mardones, j. m., & ursúa, n. (1982). philosophy of the human and social sciences. fontamara. logo collection. barcelona. nomads. (2007). pp. 62-73. central university, colombia. https://doi.org/10.1590/s0101-73302011000200008 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 23 published by scholink inc. ocampo, g. a. (2015). thesis epistemology of inclusive education (p. 152). granada spain: university of granada. oea, o. d. (2014). advances and challenges of inclusive education in ibero-america. buenos aires: organization of ibero-american states. santos, m. (n.d.). epistemology in education. (dni: 72097495q). unesco. (2008). inclusive education, the way to the future, meeting 48 of the international conference on education. retrieved september 16, 2018, from http://www.ibe.unesco.org/fileadmin/user_upload/policy_dialogue/48th_ice/press_kit/glyer_ic e_sp,pdf who, m. (2011). international classification of functioning, disability and health. geneva, switzerland. frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no.2, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 115 original paper an investigation into the factors influencing secondary school students’ deep learning of english in a dual-line blended teaching model chen shijia1* 1 jiangsu university, zhenjiang, jiangsu, china * chen shijia, e-mail: 690632519@qq.com received: april 20, 2023 accepted: may 7, 2023 online published: may 29, 2023 doi:10.22158/fet.v6n2p115 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v6n2p115 abstract with the development of information technology, online teaching has gradually developed to the stage of dual-line blended teaching, but the current development level is not yet high, and it is not deeply integrated with subject teaching. this study aims to clarify the factors influencing secondary school students’ deep learning of english under the dual-line blended teaching mode. to this end, the article first proposes a hypothesis on the factors influencing secondary school students’ deep learning of english in a dual-line blended teaching model. the article then used questionnaires and structural equation modelling to test the hypotheses and validate the model. the results found that: secondary school students’ english deep learning level is moderate; deep learning is influenced by student factors, teacher factors, interaction factors and environmental factors. finally, the article proposes suggestions for improving the four factors: students, teachers, interaction and environment, to promote the development of a t dual-line mixed-integration teaching model, cultivate secondary school students’ higher-order thinking skills, develop their english core literacy, and thus achieve meaningful learning. keywords dual-line teaching, dual-line blended teaching, deep learning, influencing factors, secondary school students, english language teaching mailto:690632519@qq.com www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 116 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction the blended teaching mode, under the background of “internet+”, has been developing rapidly, and online learning has become a common teaching method worldwide. at present, dual-line teaching has gradually moved towards a trend of normalisation and high-quality development, with more and more secondary school courses adopting a combination of “online” and “offline” teaching modes. in 2014, the centre for the development of basic education curriculum and teaching materials of the ministry of education put forward a unit of teaching to promote the development of students’ core literacy, forming the “deep learning” teaching model. the teaching practice model of “deep learning” version 1.0. with the deepening of the reform experiments, version 2.0 of the “deep learning” teaching practice model has gradually taken shape, emphasizing the need to build an open learning environment and to promote the deep integration of teaching and information technology. based on the triadic interaction theory, this paper aims to answer the following three questions: (1) what factors influence secondary school students’ deep learning in english in the dual-line blended teaching model? (2) to what extent do these influencing factors affect secondary school students’ deep english learning? (3) how can we optimize secondary students’ deep learning in english? 2. literature review the main characteristics of deep learning are that students understand the general meaning of what they have learnt, critically assimilate what they have learnt and integrate the new knowledge with their prior knowledge and experience, forming a system of knowledge with internal logical relationships through the conscious construction of meaning. dual-line blended teaching differs from the blended classroom in that it focuses on the deeper blending of teaching time and space, ecological constructs, learning and teaching theories. in essence, dual-line blended teaching is an education and teaching system that is organically integrated online and offline, where teachers and students and information technology and other elements are organically integrated to achieve the most optimal effect of deep learning. in recent years, researchers have explored the influencing factors of deep learning, mainly focusing on model building and teaching strategy exploration. li zhihe (2018) concluded through quantitative analysis that the main influencing factors of online learning engagement include learner factors, instructor factors, environmental factors and peer factors; salmon (2013) constructed a model of deep teaching and learning based on the process perspective of the occurrence of online learning, which includes five aspects: access to the course and motivation, online socialization, information exchange, knowledge construction, reflection and development; martin (2020) and davis (2018), on the other hand, found through a systematic review that interaction, discussion, participation, and collaboration are productive online learning strategies. existing research has mainly focused on deep learning under traditional teaching and learning, with little focus on deep learning under a dual-line hybrid teaching and learning environment, and a lack of deep integration of deep learning with subject teaching and learning. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 117 published by scholink inc. 3. factor sorting and hypothesis 3.1 deep learning process and results deep learning not only focuses on learning outcomes but also on learning states and learning processes. according to the deep learning scale for college students developed by li yubin et al., deep learning has four dimensions: deep learning motivation, deep learning input, deep learning strategies and deep learning outcomes. deep learning motivation is related to students’ initiative, conscientiousness and motivation in learning; deep learning input mainly includes behavioural, emotional and cognitive input; deep learning strategies refer to students’ reflection, criticism and transfer of new knowledge; deep learning outcomes are expressed in students’ mastery of core english content and improvement in critical thinking, problem-solving and cooperative communication skills. the results of deep learning are mainly in terms of students’ mastery of core english content and improvement of their critical thinking, problem-solving and collaborative communication skills. 3.2 deep learning factors based on the triadic interaction determinism proposed by bandura and combined with the teaching ecological features of the dual-line blending teaching model, this study will explore the factors influencing secondary school students’ deep learning of english in the two-line blending teaching model in terms of students, teachers, interaction and environment. the student factors are mainly students’ metacognitive ability and self-efficacy (xu, 2023). the stronger the metacognitive ability, the stronger the students’ self-regulation ability, and the more they can promote the use and improvement of english deep learning strategies; the stronger the self-efficacy, the stronger the students’ interest in learning english, and the more they can improve their deep learning engagement. the teacher factor focuses on teachers’ competence in information-based teaching (qiu, 2020), where teachers take advantage of online learning platforms and higher-order activity designs to guide students in mastering digital english learning strategies and promote deeper inquiry, thereby optimizing deeper english learning outcomes. in addition, the alliance for excellent education (usa) shows that teachers effectively deliver deep learning, where teachers teach students rich core knowledge points by using innovative teaching strategies or methods and students put what they have learned about english into practice in their lives. the interaction factor is mainly the multiple, immediate and deep interactions between teachers and students, students and students and human and machine (li, 2018), where the process of critical questioning, dialectical interpretation and negotiation of opinions helps students to deepen their understanding of english knowledge and facilitate problem-solving, which in turn increases students’ deep learning engagement and interest in learning. the environmental factor is the core factor that distinguishes deep learning from other deep learning, mainly the two-line hybrid intelligent learning environment built on “internet+” education. the personalized english learning resources and learning environment provided by the smart tools can support students’ independent and collaborative learning, enhance students’ interest and motivation in learning, and thus improve deep www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 118 published by scholink inc. learning outcomes. based on the above research and inferences, this study proposes the following hypotheses: h1 student factors had a positive and significant effect on motivation to learn english in depth. h2 student factors have a positive and significant effect on deep learning engagement in english. h3 student factors have a positive and significant effect on deep learning strategies in english. h4 teacher factors have a positive and significant effect on deep learning engagement in english. the h5 interaction factor had a positive and significant effect on motivation to learn english in depth. the h6 interaction factor had a positive and significant effect on deep learning engagement in english. h7 environmental factors have a positive and significant effect on motivation to learn english in depth. 4. research design 4.1 research tools and data processing methods the questionnaires covered in this study include “the current situation of deep learning of english in secondary schools in a dual-line blending teaching model” and “factors influencing deep learning of english in secondary schools in a dual-line blending teaching model”. according to the “depth learning scale for college students” compiled by li yubin et al, a questionnaire called “the current situation of deep learning of english in secondary schools in a dual-line blending teaching model” was designed. in total, 20 questions were asked on a five-point likert scale. in addition, based on bandura’s reciprocal determinism, the questionnaire “factors influencing deep learning of english in a dual-line blending teaching model” was designed according to the characteristics of the information technology environment of the dual-line blending teaching mode, mainly including student factors (5 questions), teacher factors (5 questions), interaction factors (5 questions) and environmental factors (5 questions). (5 questions), with a total of 20 questions, using the five-point likert scale as well. based on the test results, the cronbach’sα for each dimension and overall was above 0.8, indicating good reliability of the questionnaire. the kmo test coefficient was 0.946 and the significance of the bartlett’s sphericity test was 0.000, indicating suitability for exploratory factor analysis. after rotation of the initial factor loading matrix, the attribution of each question item was as expected, indicating good validity of the questionnaire. finally, using the fornell-larcker criterion to test the discriminant validity of the questionnaire, the standardised correlation coefficient between the two dimensions was found to be less than the square root of the ave value corresponding to the dimension, thus indicating that the dimensions have good discriminant validity. 4.2 data processing methods the empirical analysis of the sample data was carried out with the help of spss 28.0 and amos 26.0. firstly, descriptive statistical analysis, correlation analysis and normality testing of the sample data were conducted using spss 28.0 to capture the basic characteristics of the variables, correlations and distribution patterns of the sample data. then, amos 26.0 was used to conduct validation and path www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 119 published by scholink inc. analysis to investigate the extent to which various influencing factors had an impact on secondary school students’ deep learning of english in a dual-line blended teaching model. 5. research results and analysis 5.1 descriptive analysis using an online platform, the questionnaire data was sourced from a total of over 200 secondary school students from 22 provinces in china, mainly in their second year of high school. the overall ratio of males to females was approximately 1:1, with 79.67% of the participants having experienced a live blended classroom and 31.4% preferring a traditional classroom to a dual blended classroom. the results of the analysis of each variable showed that the mean score m for each variable was between 2 and 3, the scale scoring was 1-5 positive, and the standard deviation sd for each question item and the overall standard deviation sd were less than 1.5, so the cognitive and behavioural levels of the group of participants in this study were at a moderate level in both english deep learning and factors influencing english deep learning. the results of the normality test for each of the measured question items indicated that the absolute values of the skewness and fronting coefficients were less than 1, within the range of criteria proposed by kline (1998), and the variables tested for this data can be considered to obey a normal distribution. 5.2 correlation analysis in this analysis the correlations between multiple variables were analyzed exploratively through pearson correlation analysis. according to the results of the analysis, it can be seen that there are significant correlations between the variables in this analysis, and they are all significant at the 99% level, and according to the results of the correlation coefficients, it can be seen that the correlation coefficients r between the variables are all greater than 0, so it can be shown that the variables all of them are significantly and positively correlated with each other. table 1. results of pearson correlation analysis between dimensions dimensionality dj tr cl jg gr js jh hj dj 1 tr .482** 1 cl .512** .459** 1 jg .468** .414** .435** 1 gr .428** .339** .367** .316** 1 js .452** .192** .287** .324** .289** 1 jh .434** .310** .260** .277** .261** .449** 1 hj .437** .218** .260** .375** .316** .445** .234** 1 ** significant correlation at 0.01 level (two-tailed). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 120 published by scholink inc. 5.3 structural equation modelling 5.3.1 sem model fit test of secondary school students’ english deep learning influences according to the model fit test results in the table2, cmin/df = 1.414, which is in the range of 1-3, and rmsea = 0.057, which is in the good range of <0.08. in addition, the test results for cfi, ifi and tli all reached an excellent level of 0.9 or more. therefore, the combined results of this analysis can indicate that the deep learning sem model has good fitness. table 2. standardized measurement model fitting results x2/df cfi ifi tli rmsea threshold values <3 ＞0.9 ＞0.9 ＞0.9 <0.08 fitted values 1.58 0.914 0.915 0.907 0.057 is the standard met yes yes yes yes yes 5.3.2 sem model pathway relationship of factors influencing secondary school students’ english deep learning the study used structural equation modelling to test each hypothesis, mainly to explore the extent to which each of the four influencing factors of english deep learning affects each of the four representations of deep learning, and thus to identify the main factors affecting secondary school students’ deep learning of english. all hypotheses were tested if the significance p-value was less than 0.05, the critical ratio c.r. value was higher than 1.96, and the standardised path coefficient values were within a reasonable range. in the path hypothesis relationship test for this study, the student factor significantly and positively predicted motivation (β=0.349, p<0.001), engagement in learning (β=0.419, p<0.001) and learning strategies (β=0.509, p<0.001), therefore hypotheses h1, h2 and h3 were valid. compared to the student factor, while the teacher factor and interaction factor had a smaller impact on deep learning, the standardised path coefficients were all less than or equal to 0.157. table 3. results of the sem path relationship test for deep learning influences path relationships estimate s.e. c.r. p student factor → motivation to learn 0.44 0.104 4.922 *** student factor → learning input 0.419 0.098 4.813 *** student factor → learning strategies 0.509 0.112 5.603 *** teacher factor → learning input 0.157 0.072 2.006 0.045 interaction factors → motivation for learning 0.13 0.063 1.967 0.046 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 121 published by scholink inc. interaction factors → learning input 0.124 0.068 1.9742 *** environmental factors → motivation to learn 0.349 0.092 3.981 *** note. *** indicates p≤0.001. 6. results 6.1 the level of in-depth english learning of secondary school students in the dual-line mixed-integration teaching mode still needs to be improved according to the results of the descriptive statistics, secondary school students’ cognitive and behavioural levels of both english deep learning and factors influencing english deep learning were at an intermediate level, with senior students outperforming their junior counterparts in english deep learning. the reasons for this are that students in the upper grades were clearer about their english learning goals and the importance of english learning, and their interest and motivation to learn were at their peak in order to improve their english proficiency and understanding of deep english learning. in the individual interviews, some of the younger students indicated that they were not comfortable with the two-line blended teaching model, while the older students had gradually become familiar with the content, format and methods of the two-line blended teaching model in the early stages of their learning, and had developed effective strategies for in-depth english learning, gradually breaking away from the habit of passive receptive learning and beginning to try to complete learning tasks through independent thinking or peer collaboration. 6.2 secondary students’ deep learning of english is mainly influenced by student factors, interaction factors and environmental factors motivation to learn english in depth is closely related to student factors, interaction factors and environmental factors, the most significant of which is the student factor. the student factor includes self-efficacy and metacognitive skills. self-efficacy in the two-line blended teaching model includes general self-efficacy and informational self-efficacy, i.e., students’ interest and confidence in learning in different english learning tasks and english situations, and students’ confidence in using information software devices and solving it problems in an informational teaching environment. the more confident students are in learning in different english tasks and contexts in a dual-linked, blended english classroom, the more internal motivation they will have to learn, and thus deeper learning will occur. students are more motivated to engage in english learning if they believe they can learn something in a dual-line blended teaching model; if they believe they will not gain much, they will avoid or devote less energy to the task. secondly, it and the dual-line teaching ecology complement students’ deeper learning of english; students rely on it for resources and help, and the dual-line teaching ecology is optimised based on students’ learning outcomes and trial feedback. deep learning engagement in english is related to student factors, interaction factors and teacher factors, the most significant of which is the metacognitive skills of the student factors. the stronger the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 122 published by scholink inc. metacognitive ability, the better the secondary students’ self-awareness, self-reflection, self-evaluation and self-regulation in english learning activities, and the more likely they are to achieve high levels of behavioural, emotional and cognitive engagement in the two-line blended teaching model. the second factor is the interaction factor and the teacher factor, which includes multiple and timely interactions between students, teachers and the human-machine. teachers are able to effectively use the characteristics of the intelligent environment to select a variety of teaching methods and assessment methods according to the teaching content, thus guiding students to actively engage in collaborative group learning, motivating students to take the initiative to speak up in the learning process of the course, providing more opportunities for students to demonstrate their abilities and providing timely and personalised help and feedback. deep learning strategies in english are influenced by student factors. to achieve flexibility in the use of deep learning strategies, it is necessary to consider not only what strategies to use, but also “how to use”, “when to use” and “why to use”, and this process undoubtedly metacognitive skills are required. metacognitive skills facilitate the use of rules, methods, techniques and moderation in problem solving, as well as the development of core academic content, critical thinking, complex problem solving and collaborative communication skills. 7. discussion based on the findings of the study, it can be seen that the following recommendations are made in relation to the factors influencing learners’ deep learning of english at four levels: students, teachers, interaction and environment: for students, they should develop their deep learning skills in english in different ways by developing their interest or self-efficacy in learning english, as motivation is an important influencing factor in their deep learning. in addition, they need to identify their shortcomings and then work on developing good habits to remedy their deficiencies in english learning, step by step and little by little. for example, they can combine long-term planning with short-term planning and consciously monitor and reflect on their learning process. in short, deeper learning of english is only possible for students if they make their own behavioural or conceptual changes in their english learning. after all, a person’s internal factors play a decisive role in his or her learning. for teachers, it is important to enhance their competence in information technology and to achieve a two-pronged deep integration of teaching philosophy and teaching methods. firstly, whatever the mode of teaching, it is essentially a way of nurturing people. teachers need to pay attention to the unique growth needs and life experiences of secondary school students, and build a growth connection between everyday life experiences and english subject knowledge. secondly, teachers need to be able to fully understand, grasp and implement the different processes and logics of online and offline teaching, mix and blend various teaching methods, design their own teaching programmes, content and processes flexibly, and realize a ‘shared’ knowledge activity space for teachers and students. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 123 published by scholink inc. for the interaction factor, it is important to enhance the frequency, quality and depth of interaction as much as possible. provide students with opportunities to showcase themselves, encourage each student to actively express their attitudes and opinions, achieve sharing and collision of ideas in communication, cultivate students’ view of english learning, develop critical thinking and develop a sense of communication and cooperation. at the same time, we improve the way teachers collaborate with smart tools, improve the way interaction is achieved and the evaluation mechanism, accurately measure where each student struggles with english learning, develop personalised learning programmes, dynamically monitor students’ learning behaviour and provide emotional support. for environmental factors, the information technology environment needs to provide students with as much authentic context as possible. building a multimodal learning resource platform, providing students with immersive learning experiences, switching learning contexts according to learning objectives and needs, guiding students to learn and construct knowledge from multiple perspectives and pathways, and promoting the formation of a lasting internal drive for students to ultimately achieve an overall improvement in knowledge, thinking and ability. references dan, d. (2018). activating learning at scale: a review of innovations in online learning strategies. computers & education, 125, 327-344. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2018.05.019 john, b. (2012). what the student does: teaching for enhanced learning. higher education research & development, 31(1). https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2012.642839 li, y. b. (2018). development of a deep learning scale for college students in a blended learning environment. electrochemical education research, 39(12), 94-101. li, z. h. (2018). research on the influencing factors of deep learning under the flipped classroom model. modern educational technolog, 28(12), 55-61. qiu, y. n. (2020). from “online teaching competency” to “dual-line hybrid teaching competency”. china distance education, 41(07), 7-15+76. salmon, g. (2013). e-tivities; the key to active online learning. routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203074640 shen, x. j. (2019). a review of foreign empirical studies on deep learning in the past decade themes, contexts, methods and results. electrochemical education research, 40(05), 111-119. xu, z. g. (2023). influencing factors of college students’ deep learning in a smart learning environment. modern educational technology, 33(01), 58-65. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2018.05.019 https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2012.642839 https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203074640 frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 86 original paper construction model of “project-based learning (pbl) + five-dimensional collaboration” for user experience design course group xiaochen lv1 1 qingdao huanghai university, qingdao, china received: june 5, 2025 accepted: june 20, 2025 online published: june 30, 2025 doi:10.22158/fet.v8n1p86 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v8n1p86 abstract in the digital age, the demand for interdisciplinary talents in user experience (ux) design has driven reforms in university course clusters. however, traditional course clusters suffer from issues such as fragmented objectives, disconnected content, and a gap between industry and education. based on the concept of project-based learning (pbl), this study proposes a “goal-content-teaching-practice-evaluation” five-dimensional collaborative construction model, which addresses the fragmentation dilemma by reconstructing the collaborative mechanism of course clusters. taking the user experience design course cluster of a university as the practical object, through over one year of reform verification, the results show that this model can significantly enhance students’ user insight, interdisciplinary collaboration, and full-link design capabilities, and cultivate and deliver “user-centered + practice-oriented” high-quality ux talents to enterprises. the research offers theoretical references and practical paradigms for the development of curriculum clusters in similar institutions. keywords user experience design, curriculum cluster, pbl, five-in-one collaboration, educational model 1. reform background with the popularization of digital products (such as apps and smart hardware), enterprises’ demand for user experience design (ux design) has shifted from “interface beautification” to “user behavior insight + full-link optimization”, requiring practitioners to possess comprehensive capabilities of “user-centered thinking + interdisciplinary collaboration + iterative verification”. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 87 published by scholink inc. the main learning objective of the user experience design course in our school is to simulate the completion of an app design project, which mainly includes four courses: “user needs and experience research”, “interface prototype design”, “mobile media interface design”, and “ui motion design”. after extensive research, there are currently three major problems: (1) discrete objectives: the course positioning is disconnected from industry needs, lacking a systematic orientation of “full-link design”; (2) fragmented content: knowledge modules are either duplicated (e.g., overlap between “prototype design” and “interface design”) or disconnected (e.g., insufficient connection between “prototype design” and “user testing”); (3) disconnection between industry and education: practical teaching mostly relies on simulated tasks, lacking the drive of real enterprise projects, making it difficult for students to access users’ real needs and business constraints. interviews with enterprise mentors in the early stage show that enterprises generally believe that fresh graduates lack practical collaborative capabilities. existing studies indicate that the core competencies of user experience design include four modules: “user research (needs insight), interaction design (process optimization), visual design (experience communication), and service design (full-scenario coverage)”. however, in the current educational practice of user experience design courses in our university, there is a tendency of “emphasizing skills over thinking” and “emphasizing individual courses over collaboration”. pbl is widely applied in the field of design education (such as project-based courses in institutions like idea and parsons). its characteristics of “real problem-driven”, “interdisciplinary collaboration”, and “outcome orientation” are highly consistent with the “user-centered” essence of ux design. however, existing studies mostly focus on pbl practice in single courses, and rarely combine pbl with the collaborative mechanism of course clusters, especially lacking the construction of systematic models in the field of user experience design. pbl (project-based learning) emphasizes “driven by real problems, student-centered, and learning promoted through collaboration”, which highly aligns with the essence of ux design of “user-centered and interdisciplinary collaboration”. the key to curriculum group construction lies in “synergy”. existing studies have proposed strategies such as “goal synergy”, “content synergy”, and “resource sharing”, but there is a lack of specific paths for the interdisciplinary field of user experience design, and there is no in-depth integration with teaching methods such as pbl. however, “five-dimensional synergy” can solve the fragmentation problem in curriculum group construction, and the combination of the two provides a new path for curriculum group reform. this study focuses on “five-dimensional synergy of curriculum group driven by pbl”, aiming to make up for some deficiencies in this research direction. construct the theoretical framework for curriculum cluster development based on “pbl + five-party collaboration”, enrich the practical theories in the field of user experience design education, and provide a new perspective for interdisciplinary curriculum integration. provide replicable operational guidelines for the optimization of user experience design curriculum clusters in colleges and universities, assist students in transforming from “single-skill executors” to “full-link design leaders”, and enhance their professional competitiveness. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 88 published by scholink inc. starting from 2024, the user experience design course team has integrated four courses, namely “user needs and experience research”, “interface prototyping design”, “mobile media interface design”, and “ui motion design”, as a whole for teaching and evaluation. they have also collaborated with teachers from the school of big data to teach interdisciplinary software development knowledge, explored the construction model of user experience design curriculum clusters, and formed the “pbl + five-party collaboration” curriculum cluster construction model. 2. main content of the user experience design course group the user experience design course group of this major mainly includes 4 courses, as shown in figure 1. it is dominated by project-based teaching, and in these four courses, students are required to complete the design work of an app. teachers teach through a combination of theoretical explanation and practical guidance, and guide students to complete the tasks of each course according to the task objectives of each course. the “user needs and experience research” course has a total of 32 class hours. in this course, students need to complete 5 tasks: market research, competitive product analysis, user research, needs experience, and function design, and finally complete 1 phased task: the product requirements analysis report). the “interface prototyping design” course has a total of 32 class hours. students need to complete 3 tasks: ui interface prototype design, interaction method design, and interaction logic design, and finally complete 1 phased task: the interaction design specification document. the “mobile media interface design” course totals 48 class hours. in this course, students are required to complete high-fidelity ui interface design, visual design specification documents, product display board design, and ultimately output a product concept design report. the “ui motion design” course totals 32 class hours. in this course, students are required to complete the presentation and explanation of the app’s product positioning, user requirements, core pages, and main functions, create interactive motion effects for core pages, and complete the page display of all interfaces of the app. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 89 published by scholink inc. figure 1. content of the user experience design course group 3. current situation and pain point analysis of user experience design course cluster 3.1 research design and data sources this study follows the logical sequence of “why collaboration is needed—how to collaborate—what are the outcomes of collaboration,” specifically encompassing: (1) analysis of the current status and pain points of user experience design course clusters; (2) construction of the theoretical framework for the “five-dimensional collaboration” model; (3) design and practical validation of a pbl-based collaboration mechanism; (4) suggestions for model optimization and promotion pathways. the research was primarily conducted using the following methods: literature review: a comprehensive review of literature related to pbl educational theory, ux design education, and course cluster collaboration to establish the theoretical foundation. semi-structured teacher interviews: focused on curriculum goal setting, teaching challenges, and collaboration needs (15 participants interviewed, with each interview lasting 30-60 minutes). student questionnaire (anonymous): 80 questionnaires were distributed, with 72 valid responses collected (a 90% validity rate), covering learning experiences, skill gaps, and collaborative needs. course materials analysis: syllabuses, project cases, and evaluation forms from both the courses within the course cluster and related courses were collected to analyze the coherence of knowledge modules and the authenticity of practical scenarios. case study method: the “user experience design” course cluster of the digital media art program at the school of design and fine arts of our university was selected as the practical subject, and the effectiveness of the model was verified through a one-year reform experiment. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 90 published by scholink inc. action research method: the model was iteratively refined in practice, and the feasibility of the solution was enhanced through the “plan-action-observation-reflection” cycle. 3.2 summary of existing pain points goal level: the course cluster goals are misaligned with industry needs (78% of enterprise mentors report that “students lack full-link design thinking”), and there is an absence of systematic “user-centered + business implementation” orientation. content level: there is knowledge overlap between courses (e.g., both “user research” and “service design” cover user interviews but lack sufficient depth) or disconnects (e.g., the “prototype design” course fails to connect with the “user testing” course), with weak interdisciplinary content integration (only 30% of courses involve multidisciplinary knowledge integration). teaching level: instruction is primarily lecture-based (classroom lectures account for 65%), and project practices are mostly “simulated tasks” (e.g., “design a virtual app”) lacking the impetus of real enterprise scenarios. practice level: student collaboration remains at the level of “task division” (e.g., “one person handles user research, another takes charge of prototype design”), lacking in-depth interaction for “joint problem-solving”; there is a lack of effective school-enterprise cooperation. evaluation level: a singular outcome-based evaluation that neglects the assessment of process-oriented capabilities (such as user insight, teamwork, and iterative optimization) (students have feedback that “efforts made in the process are not fully recognized”), with insufficient emphasis placed on evaluating students’ presentation skills and summarization abilities during the reporting of phased and final outcomes. 4. construction of “five-in-one collaboration” curriculum group construction model based on pbl 4.1 core framework of “five-in-one collaboration” this study puts forward a five-in-one collaborative model of “objective-content-teaching-practice-evaluation” (as shown in table 1). the specific connotations of each dimension are as follows: www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 91 published by scholink inc. table 1. framework of the five-way collaborative model of “goal content teaching practice evaluation” dimension core connotation target coordination centered on “cultivating interdisciplinary ux professionals with user-centric thinking and end-to-end design capabilities”, we align industry demands with the positioning of course clusters. content coordination based on the five-layer ux design model (from strategy to presentation layer), we restructure course content to achieve organic cohesion and interdisciplinary integration of knowledge modules. teaching coordination driven by pbl, we design a teaching process of “problem introduction independent exploration collaborative practice iterative optimization” to facilitate cross-course collaboration among teachers. practice coordination we establish a three-tiered practical platform consisting of “on-campus workshops + real-world corporate projects + interdisciplinary competitions” to enhance students’ interaction with users, teams, and the industry. evaluation coordination we develop a diversified evaluation system encompassing “process-oriented (participation, collaborative contribution) + outcome-oriented (work quality) + development-oriented (ability enhancement)”. 4.2 integration mechanism of pbl and “five-party collaboration” pbl drives goal collaboration: real-world enterprise projects (e.g., “medical app user experience optimization”) are used to define shared objectives for course clusters, ensuring each course content (such as “user research” focusing on patient needs and “interaction design” optimizing operational workflows) aligns with project requirements. pbl promotes content collaboration: project requirements guide the breakdown of knowledge modules (e.g., “user research → requirements documentation → low-fidelity prototyping → user testing → high-fidelity design”), facilitating dynamic adjustments to course content (e.g., incorporating a “medical scenario user interview techniques” module into the “user research” course). pbl supports teaching collaboration: the “driving questions” and “continuous inquiry” features of pbl necessitate cross-course collaborative lesson planning among teachers (e.g., interaction design and visual design instructors jointly developing the “interface usability testing” task), thereby achieving the integration of teaching resources. pbl enhancing practical collaboration: team collaboration in project practice, where students are grouped into roles such as “user researcher”, “interaction designer”, and “visual designer”, naturally fosters cross-curricular and interdisciplinary practical collaboration. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 92 published by scholink inc. pbl empowering evaluation collaboration: project outcomes, including user research reports, high-fidelity prototypes, and user testing data, serve as evaluation vehicles. by integrating student self-assessment (participation), team peer review (collaborative contribution), enterprise mentor evaluation (implementation feasibility), and teacher assessment (knowledge application), multi-dimensional evaluation is achieved. 5. practical verification and effect analysis of the model 5.1 practical background and implementation subjects implementing institution: digital media art program, school of design and fine arts, qingdao huanghai university. implementation target: 3 undergraduate classes of digital media art (2022 intake), totaling 90 students. implementation period: september 2022 july 2023 (1 academic year), push in 3 phases. 5.2 description of implementation process phase 1: alignment of goals and content (months 1-2). enterprise demand research: collaborated with 3 internet enterprises to investigate the capability requirements for ux talents, identifying core enterprise needs (user insight, interdisciplinary collaboration, iterative optimization). establishment of course cluster goals: “master the entire process of user research, interaction design, and visual design; independently complete ux optimization for small and medium-sized products; possess interdisciplinary team collaboration capabilities”. decomposition of goals into sub-tasks: user research (quantitative + qualitative analysis) → requirement document (user personas, pain point list) → low-fidelity prototype (axure/figma) → user testing (usability metrics) → high-fidelity design (visual specifications, interaction logic).revise curriculum content: add the “user interviews in medical scenarios” module to the “user research” course; incorporate case studies on “balancing business goals and user experience” into the “interaction design” course; and enhance training on “user test feedback-driven interface optimization” in the “visual design” course. phase 2: integration of teaching and practice (months 3-6). launch the pbl project: “user experience optimization for campus second-hand trading platform” (with enterprise mentors providing real requirement document). the teaching process is as follows: driving question (month 3): “how to improve platform user retention through ux design?” (instructors guide students to analyze the problem from both user and business perspectives). independent exploration (month 4): conduct group-based user interviews (8-10 target users) and competitor analysis (8-15 similar platforms), and output user personas and requirement lists. collaborative design (month 5): complete low-fidelity prototypes (interaction design) → user testing (service design) → high-fidelity design (visual design) through group collaboration, with joint www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 93 published by scholink inc. guidance from teachers across courses (e.g., interaction design teachers instruct on prototyping tool usage, and visual design teachers provide guidance on interface aesthetics). iterative optimization (month 6): optimize the solution based on user testing feedback (e.g., “the search function entrance is not obvious”), and output the final design report and interactive prototype. phase 3: collaborative evaluation and feedback (months 7-8). evaluation subjects: student self-evaluation (project engagement, collaborative contributions), team peer review (project innovation, execution efficiency), enterprise mentor evaluation (project implementability, user value), and instructor evaluation (knowledge application ability). evaluation indicators: process-based (40%, including completeness of user interview records, team collaboration logs), outcome-based (40%, including prototype and interaction design integrity, user experience quality), and developmental (20%, including iteration depth from initial to final version). feedback and improvement: based on evaluation results, optimize project design for subsequent phases (e.g., adding a training module on “user persona construction”). 5.3 analysis of implementation effect table 2. quantitative data indicators object of reform project achievement quality (full score 100) 89.2±5.1 course satisfaction 92.1% enterprise mentor evaluation (feasibility) 8.7/10 qualitative data: student interviews: “through cross-curricular collaboration, i learned to approach visual presentation from an interaction design perspective, moving beyond a single skill set”; “real-world enterprise projects made me realize that user research isn’t just ‘theoretical speculation on paper’ but directly impacts a product’s success or failure”, etc. teacher reflections: “the ‘five-party collaboration’ model requires teachers to break down course barriers. while initial lesson preparation was stressful, students’ comprehensive abilities improved significantly, making it well worth promoting”, etc. conclusion: the “five-party collaboration” model has effectively enhanced students’ comprehensive ux capabilities and the synergy among course clusters, verifying the model’s effectiveness. 6. optimization suggestions and future outlook 6.1 model optimization suggestions dynamically adjust the weights of the “five components”: flexibly adjust the collaborative focus of “target-content-teaching-practice-evaluation” in response to industry developments (such as the impact www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 94 published by scholink inc. of aigc on ux design) and evolving enterprise needs, for instance, by adding content modules on “ai tool applications”. strengthen teacher collaboration mechanisms: establish cross-curricular teaching and research teams, conduct regular “project-based teaching” training (including inviting corporate mentors to share practical project experience), and enhance teachers’ capabilities in pbl design and collaborative guidance. 6.2 research limitations and future outlook research limitations: the sample size is small (only one university case study), necessitating an expanded scope of validation; the quantitative indicator system for “five-component collaboration” requires further refinement (such as incorporating “student career development tracking” data).future outlook: explore the adaptability of the “five-party collaboration” model across different types of universities, such as art colleges and comprehensive universities; optimize the pbl process by integrating ai tools like the design assistance software midjourney and user research platform usertesting to enhance teaching efficiency. 7. conclusion to address the fragmentation issue in user experience design course clusters, this study proposes a pbl-based “five-dimensional collaboration” development model. through systematic synergy across target, content, teaching, practice, and evaluation, it resolves the collaboration challenges faced by traditional course clusters. practical validation demonstrates that this model significantly enhances students’ user insight, interdisciplinary collaboration, and full-link design capabilities, providing enterprises with high-caliber ux talents characterized by “user-centricity and practice orientation.” this research offers theoretical references and practical paradigms for course cluster reforms in similar institutions, and future efforts can further expand the model’s applicability and explore technology-enabled pathways. project shandong provincial association for science of arts & culture special project on art education in shandong province (l2024y10250167). references liu, m. et al. (2023). “five-in-one” construction mode of core curriculum group for landscape architecture planning and design. modern horticulture, 46(23), 194-197. huang, y. q., xiang, z. x., & li, j. t. (2021). construction and exploration of project-based curriculum group for industrial design[j]. industrial design, 10, 32-33. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 95 published by scholink inc. yang, y. b., & qin, y. m. (2025). research on the construction of artificial intelligence curriculum group for automation major under the background of new engineering. journal of higher education, 11(10), 19-22. bao, y. h. et al. (n.d.). construction and effect evaluation of processing curriculum group for high-end manufacturing in polymer industry[j/ol]. polymer bulletin, 1-7[2025-08-11]. frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no.1, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 1 original paper developing a framework for conceptualizing affordances of technology in education sijia xue1* & zhao han1 1 the college of teacher education, southwest university, chongqing, china * sijia xue, e-mail: xsj2021@swu.edu.cn received: december 20, 2022 accepted: january 9, 2023 online published: january 18, 2023 doi:10.22158/fet.v6n1p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v6n1p1 abstract the term affordance has been defined and interpreted diversely in different domains over decades. however, little attention has been paid to the definition of affordances in the domain of education. with the increasing application of various technologies in education, the conceptualization of educational affordances of technology is essential to fully explore the educational potential of technology and better understand how learning could be supported with the affordances of technology. this paper compares the existing literature concerning affordance theories and defines affordances in the domain of education. a framework for conceptualizing educational affordances of technology has been articulated based on the literature to interpret the notion from three aspects: technology, user, and environment. the framework would not only help practitioners to understand the certain capability of technology to provide an effective mediating tool for educational activities but also assist researchers to study the educational affordances of technology from new dimensions. keywords educational affordances, technology, user, environment 1. introduction since the term ‘affordance’ was first introduced in the field of ecological psychology by psychologist j. j. gibson (1977, 1979), arguments about its definition and interpretation continue. generally, views on the notion of affordance can be categorized into three groups, namely taking affordances as (a) relationships or relational properties (gibson, 1977, 1979; kirlik et al., 1993), (b) perceived properties (baecker et al., 1995; norman, 1988, 1999), and (c) interactions (gaver, 1991; mark et al., 1990). while different groups of theorists hold their positions on the concept, affordances are a multidimensional and multidisciplinary concept, and thus could be interpreted from different mailto:xsj2021@swu.edu.cn www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 2 published by scholink inc. perspectives (evans et al., 2017). however, little attention has been paid to affordance theories for educational research. to date, there is no explicit definition of affordance in the domain of education. with the advance and increasing application of technology in education, it is essential to conceptualize educational affordances of technology to make them specific for educators and better serve educational activities. to this end, this paper compares the definitions and categories regarding affordance based on the existing literature and attempts to define the notion in the domain of education. a framework for conceptualizing educational affordances of technology is proposed based on the extant literature on affordance theories. 2. literature review 2.1 affordances as relationships gibson (1979) defines the affordances of the environment as “what it offers the animal, what it provides or furnishes, either for good or ill” (p. 127). furthermore, he explains “an affordance refers to both the environment and the animal and implies the complementarity of the animal and the environment” (p. 127). similarly, kirlik et al. (1993) define affordance as “a relationship between properties of the environment and properties of an organism’s action capabilities” (p. 934). according to gibson (1979), affordances mean the actionable properties between the environment and an observer, which are “neither objective properties nor subjective properties or may be both” (p. 3). from gibson’s perspective, affordances are relationships and exist naturally, which means that they do not have to be visible, known, or desirable (norman, 1999) and they are independent of the observer’s experiences, knowledge, culture, or ability to perceive (mcgrenere & ho, 2000). the affordances of something do not alter with the changes in the observer’s needs as what an object can provide is defined by its nature rather than by an observer’s needs (gibson, 1977, 1979). however, affordance can be specified by information (gibson, 1979) and there is information that reveals affordances (turvey, 1992). the information, according to gibson (1979), also points to two ways. on the one hand, it specifies the utilities of the environment; on the other hand, it specifies the observer himself. these two ways are accompanied by each other to specify an affordance in that the awareness of the world and one’s complementary relations to the world are inseparable (gibson, 1979). take a mobile social media app wechat for example, the instant messaging feature of the app allows a teacher to answer a question about an event from a student. as the same question is being asked repeatedly by more students, the teacher may consider how she/he could address the issue once and for all. then the teacher may send a message to a saved class group to inform other students of the event. as a result, the affordance of notification of mobile social media is perceived. to put it another way, based on the relationship view, affordances are determined by both the environment and the action capabilities of the observer, and thus are relational properties (kaptelinin, 2014). however, reed (1996) argues that affordance is only a relation when it is perceived and used by an animal that comes into a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 3 published by scholink inc. relationship with the relevant feature of its environment. although affordances are available to come into a relationship with animals, this need not occur (reed, 1996). 2.2 affordances as perceived properties affordances are also considered as “perceived properties” of an object that indicate how it can be utilized (baecker et al., 1995, p. 1). this view was popularized by norman (1988), who defines affordances as “the perceived and actual properties of the thing, primarily those fundamental properties that determine just how the thing could possibly be used” (p. 9). therefore, he stresses the importance of designs as the appearance of a device could provide critical clues required for its proper operation. norman (1999) claims that affordances are dependent on the experience, knowledge, or culture of the user, and the ‘affordance gap’ occurs when the user does not understand the intended actions of the designed object because there are real affordances and perceived affordances. thus, it is the designer who makes sure that the desired, relevant actions can be perceived by an actor because affordances indicate “the range of possible activities” but are useless if they are not readily perceivable (norman, 1999, p. 41). again, take the use of wechat for instance, the instant messaging feature of the app allows a teacher to utilize it to notify an event. however, she/he may also use it to evaluate students’ work or continue to discuss a topic after class. these possible activities are not only determined by the features of the app but also depend on the teacher’s desires as well as his or her teaching experience with the app. besides, norman introduced another concept of ‘signifier’, which refers to “any mark or sound, any perceivable indicator that communicates appropriate behavior to a person” (norman, 2013, p. 14), to further emphasize the importance of design for perceiving affordances. while norman’s conceptualization of affordance became popular in the design community (bucher & helmond, 2018), the question of how to devise or select the right signifiers remains open (kaptelinin, 2014). at the same time, such a view of considering affordances as perceived properties is challenged by other scholars who argue that it confuses the affordances of an artifact with the information which specifies the affordances (flach, 1995). 2.3 affordances as interactions according to mark et al. (1990), affordances are “those actions which the particular arrangement of environmental substances and surfaces will support” (cited in amant, 1998, p. 135). gaver (1991) puts forward the notion that “affordances are properties of the world defined with respect to people’s interaction with it” (p. 80). he particularly investigated the affordances of technologies, focusing on the strengths and weaknesses of technologies regarding the possibilities they provide the users for using them and deeming the concept of affordances as a useful tool for user-oriented analyses of technologies. according to gaver (1991), when it comes to affordances we should “focus not on technologies or users alone, but on the fundamental interactions between the two” (p. 83). he argues that affordances can be perceptible but must be inferred from other information when they do not manifest themselves. he proposes the concepts of ‘sequential affordances’ and ‘nested affordances’ for further interpreting www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 4 published by scholink inc. the notion of affordance from the dimensions of time and space (gaver, 1991). the former refers to situations in which acting upon a perceptible affordance generates information suggesting new affordances such that affordances can be revealed over time; whereas the latter means affordances grouped in space in which one affordance serves as context for another one. for instance, the affordance of sharing a saved file via wechat can be perceived as an affordance of saving files that is nested within an affordance of resource sharing. therefore, “nested affordance offers itself both as an end in itself, and as a means towards realizing another affordance” (gaver, 1991, p. 82). as a teacher shares multiple forms of teaching and learning materials with students through the app, a sequential pedagogical affordance of wechat may emerge such as supporting flipped classroom teaching. moreover, gaver attaches importance to active exploration in identifying and using affordances of complex objects (kaptelinin, 2014) as affordances are not only passively perceived but explored (gaver, 1991). he also puts forward the concept of ‘false affordance’ to describe a nonexistent affordance indicated by information upon which an actor may mistakenly try to act (gaver, 1991). however, this term is considered to be problematic as “it is not the affordance that is false; rather, it is the information that is false” (mcgrenere & ho, 2000, p. 183). although gaver agrees with the gibsonian view that affordances imply the complementarity of the actor and the acted-upon environment, he emphasizes more on the interaction between the two. meanwhile, according to gaver (1991), apart from ‘perceptible affordances’ that consist with norman’s (1988, 1999) notion, there are also ‘hidden affordances’ that must be inferred from other evidence (p. 80). 3. a framework for conceptualizing educational affordances of technology 3.1 defining affordances in the domain of education to date, there are few definitions associated with affordances in the context of education. however, as technology provides critical opportunities for and exerts strong impacts on teaching and learning, it is essential to conceptualize the educational affordances of technology to better leverage them for educational ends. some interpretations of educational affordances are mainly based on the original definition of affordances although it seems controversial and even ambiguous (mcgrenere & ho, 2000). by norman’s sense of affordance, kirschner (2002) defined educational affordances as “those characteristics of an artifact that determine if and how a particular learning behavior could be enacted within a given context” (p. 19). however, he claims that educational affordances could also refer to “the relationships between the properties of an educational intervention and the characteristics of the learner that enable particular kinds of learning by him or her” (p. 19). this point of view on affordance is more consistent with the gibsonian definition. it can be noted that kirschner focuses mainly on the characteristics of an object in a learning context corresponding with norman’s (1988) perspectives on affordances. even though he also mentions the relational properties from a gibsonian stance, he does not explicate what an educational intervention means. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 5 published by scholink inc. affordances are opportunities for actions (sanders, 1997). in terms of educational affordances, what can be accomplished by a teacher or a learner with the features of a technology tool or an environment should be centered. therefore, based on the interpretation of affordances theorized by different scholars, educational affordances can be defined as opportunities for an educational activity that are determined and supported by perceived and actual features of a technology tool or an environment (xue & churchill, 2019). the educational activity includes any teaching and learning activity that takes place in an educational context. environment refers to the space where an educational activity occurs such as an institute or an online forum. however, affordances are neither just a technology tool nor features of the technology as features are stable whereas affordances are dynamic, emerging from the relationship between the user, the technology, and its features (evans et al., 2017). hence, regarding educational affordances, what should be focused on is the interactivity between the user and the technology within a learning environment. furthermore, an affordance has ‘range’, which means individuals utilizing the same features of technology may accomplish different outcomes (evans et al., 2017). therefore, the interpretation of affordances is relative to a frame of reference (turvey, 1992). 3.2 conceptualizing affordances of an educational technology while no consent has been reached on the conceptual definition of affordance, it has resulted in the analytical value of the concept (evans et al., 2017). as noted above, gibson looks at utility by focusing on the basic features of an artifact in relation to the user whereas norman focuses more on usability than on utility by emphasizing how an artifact is perceived (kirschner et al., 2004). although no explicit definition was provided by norman (1999) about what perceived affordances mean, it was assumed to indicate a similar meaning to gaver’s (1991) false affordances (kaptelinin, 2014). however, such a view conflicts with the gibsonian definition in which there is no distinction between different affordances of an artifact (mcgrenere & ho, 2000). further, norman (1988) also deviates from gibson in that the former believes that the interpretation of affordances is based on an actor’s past knowledge and experience. by contrast, gibson (1977, 1979) argues that affordances exist independently of the actor’s experience and culture, no matter whether he possesses the ability to perceive (kaptelinin, 2014). in other words, what gibson highlights is the action capabilities of the observer whereas norman stresses the perceptual and mental capabilities of the user (mcgrenere & ho, 2000). however, both scholars agree that the perception of an affordance depends on an actor’s ‘picking up’ the information that specifies the affordance (kaptelinin, 2014) even though gibson focuses on direct perception of affordances that requires no mediation or internal processing by an actor (mcgrenere & ho, 2000). comparatively speaking, gaver’s (1991) view on affordances aligns with gibson’s (1977, 1979) original meaning of the notion in interpreting the relationship between affordances and perceptual information, which asserts that affordances are independent of perception but need to be perceived from perceptual information. however, this notion differentiates from norman’s (1988) interpretation that couples affordances with their perception (kaptelinin, 2014). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 6 published by scholink inc. based on the comparison of different conceptualizations of affordance, this study argues similarly to sanders (1997) that “affordances are opportunities for action in the environment of some animal” (p. 99). however, this study adds that three aspects should be considered when interpreting the affordances of technology in the domain of education, including technology, user, and environment (see figure 1). to start with, the usability of a technology tool within an environment should be made clear to a user, which may be perceived based on either the user’s previous experiences and knowledge or external information (such as design) available for revealing the affordances of the technology. the user behaves under particular physical or sociocultural contexts with particular norms taking advantage of the utility of a technology tool to achieve individual goals. the actions of a user may be influenced by individual intentions and capabilities that vary from one to another. real affordances can only be realized through the attunement of all these three aspects. figure 1. a framework for conceptualizing educational affordances of technology 3.2.1 technology the first aspect that needs to be considered for conceptualizing the educational affordances of technology is the technology per se. gibson (1977, 1979) assumes that all objects have a surface to reflect light, which is referred to as an ambient optic array, for animals to pick up the information that specifies affordances. norman (1988) emphasizes the visibility of an object, which indicates “the mapping between intended actions and actual operations” (p. 8). it can be presumed that the properties of a technology tool within an educational environment to large extent determine what it could afford to a user and what a user could do with it. as reed (1996) points out, objects of an environment can cause changes in the behavior of an animal for adaptation to that environment. although it is speculated that all objects possess properties (turvey, 1992), the affordances of an artifact do not necessarily come from inherent features of its materiality because affordances can also be designed into the artifact (hutchby, 2001). for example, a screen-touch mobile phone may afford a different user experience than a keypad mobile phone does for learners of mobile learning. according to hutchby (2001), www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 7 published by scholink inc. affordances are functional aspects that shape the action possibilities of a user in relation to a tool. similarly, markus and silver (2008) also focus on what a specified user can do with a tool, particularly a technical tool, to accomplish his or her goals, which is defined as ‘functional affordances’ (p. 622). hence, the features of a technology tool may determine what it could afford for its users. norman (1988) claims that affordances indicate how an object could be operated. therefore, he believes that the design of a tool is crucial for manifesting and perceiving its affordances. by contrast, mcgrenere and ho (2000) suggest that affordances should be separated from perception, to clearly distinguish the design of the utility of a tool (an affordance) from the design of usability (perceptual information specifying the affordance). according to mcgrenere and ho (2000), a useful design involves the right functions required for users to accomplish their work and achieve their goals; and a usable design contains information specifying affordances that allow for users’ cultural conventions and knowledge. again, take wechat for example, the popularity of the app is not only due to its useful functions similar to those of other mobile social media apps but also for its usable design that considers the cultural context of its users, particularly those from mainland china. while different scholars view objects in relation to affordances from different angles, what they hold in common is that objects with particular properties within an environment are crucial for presenting, perceiving, and actualizing affordances. this is even more important in the human environment which is a selected and transformed environment, in which objects can be modified and constructed with special affordances to meet our needs (reed, 1996). in the domain of education, a technology tool with particular features that is used in a specified teaching and learning context is also important for the realization of affordances for its users. 3.2.2 user while gibson (1977, 1979) emphasizes the contributions of a physical system to the actualization of interaction between the environment and an actor, he also talks about the action capabilities of the actor. thus, properties of the user that contribute to the occurrence of the interaction should also be allowed for when conceptualizing affordances. the properties of a user have been termed as either abilities (greeno, 1994), effectivities (shaw et al., 1982; turvey, 1992), or aptitudes (snow, 1992), which are inherently relative to affordances. according to greeno (1994), “an affordance relates attributes of something in the environment to an interactive activity by an agent who has some ability, and an ability relates attributes of an agent to an interactive activity with something in the environment that has some affordance. neither an affordance nor an ability is specifiable in the absence of specifying the other” (p. 338). for stoffregen (2003), the user aspect is an important part of the affordance notion and it is pointless to discuss affordances without considering to whom it refers. for example, the same mobile social media app may afford different things for a teacher from what it affords a student. even teachers may use it in different ways for different purposes and needs. this is because users of an artifact may possess different effectivity, which refers to the “prediction, disposition, tendency, even bodily-embedded ability” to utilize an affordance (sanders, 1997, p. 103). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 8 published by scholink inc. stoffregen (2003) suggests that affordances should be specific to animals with different effectivities. likewise, michaels (2003) maintains that “actions afforded by the environment depend on the actions in which an animal can engage” (p. 142). as he further explicates, the actualization of an affordance requires effectivity and the perception of an affordance is specific to the perceiver, which refers to the actor himself (michaels, 2003). kaptelinin (2014) denies gibson’s view that affordances are independent of an actor’s general ability to perceive, arguing that the affordances of an object may change with the users’ perceptual capabilities. the perceptual activity of a user that is dynamic, interactive, and manipulative plays a vital role in the user’s total activity (sanders, 1997). as a teacher grows from a novice user to an expert user of educational technology, not only the teacher’s abilities to use the technology may improve but also his or her perceptual capabilities of affordances. therefore, when it comes to affordances, the users’ aspects such as their perception and effectiveness should be considered. as mcgrenere and ho (2000) claim, “the degree of an affordance exists relative to a particular user” (p. 186). 3.2.3 environment the third component for the conceptualization of educational affordances of technology is the environment in which the technology is used. in gibsonian theory of affordance, there is only one world in which all animals live despite that we human animals have changed it to suit ourselves. therefore, it is not correct to separate the cultural environment from the natural environment to distinguish the world of mental products from the world of material products (gibson, 1979). this view has been challenged by other theorists (greeno, 1994; heft, 2003), who believe that the perception of affordances requires a cognitive process with inferences of norms and values. costall (1995) disputes that the gibsonian sense of affordance fails to explore the sociality of the material as nature has become artificial and social through various interrelated processes. likewise, sanders (1997) argues that the environment in which affordances manifest themselves to human beings is much more complex and thus an environment should encompass the whole realm of possible activity for an actor. as heft (2003) explains, early experiences of encountering an object repeatedly in a uniform context may lead to considering it as possessing a fixed affordance, which is independent of any context. however, with the changes in the environment, affordance possibilities may also change and thus should be interpreted from sociocultural perspectives. for example, in an institution with conservative teaching concepts and policies, mobile devices may never be allowed in classrooms where even the internet connection is not available. by contrast, in an institution in which innovative teaching approaches are advocated, not only the use of mobile technologies will be encouraged but also free wireless internet access is offered. when a teacher changes his or her working place from the first institution to the second, he/she may identify more affordances of the same technology such as mobile social media for teaching and learning. thus, the physical conditions as well as norms and values in a given environment affect the perception and realization of affordances. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 9 published by scholink inc. norman (1999) argues that what an actor can do and how he may behave with the affordances of an object may be affected by different types of constraints such as cultural constraints or conventions that are shared by a cultural group. for gaver, affordances “exist not just for individual action, but for social interaction as well” (1996, p. 114). in light of this, schmidt (2007) introduces the concept of social affordances developing the notion of affordances from the perspective of relations between human perceivers and the social environment. therefore, although affordances are widely acknowledged as action possibilities offered by the environment, specific interpretations of this general understanding should be based on different contexts (kaptelinin, 2014). as zheng and yu (2016) point out, “affordances are relational and situated, and contingent upon the purpose of human agency as well as historical and socio-institutional settings” (p. 292). hence, the adoption of affordances should account for the characteristics of the environment in which potential actions take place. these characteristics are not constrained only to physical components, but may also include social, cultural, and even conceptual components. 4. implications the proposed framework has two implications. on the one hand, the framework conceptualizes the educational affordances of technology from the perspectives of technology, user, and environment such that practitioners could consider these aspects while utilizing technology for educational purposes to better understand how learning could be supported with the affordances of technology. specifically, the features of the technology including both its usability and utility should be allowed first to make it better accommodate educational needs. at the same time, the shortcomings of technology such as the privacy issues involved in the utilization of social media for teaching and learning should also be considered as these issues may affect the acceptance and use of social media by both students and teachers for educational aims (nicolai et al., 2017). thus, specific features of technology should be noted and appropriated when educators intend to adopt the affordances of technology to achieve their personal goals in teaching practice. moreover, the effectivity of the user should be considered, which may refer to the capabilities as well as experiences of using the technology of a teacher or a learner. these features of a user may affect the degree of affordance. for instance, the pedagogical knowledge regarding technology integration of a teacher may affect his or her designs of student-centered technology-based learning. furthermore, various components of the environment in which the technology is used should be taken into consideration as affordances are context-based. for example, different policies, as well as conditions for technology integration in different institutions can provide different environments for teachers to utilize educational technology in their teaching practice. as brown (2012) points out, teachers’ perceptions of technology are specific to the contexts in which they work. only when these aspects are coordinated can educational technology be employed as an effective mediating tool for learning activity. on the other hand, the framework proposed provides novel dimensions for educational research on affordances particularly when there is no explicit definition of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 10 published by scholink inc. affordance in the domain of education. future researchers could focus on the educational affordances of technology from these three aspects included in the framework and examine how these aspects interact with each other to impact the adoption of the affordances of technology. 5. conclusion to conclude, while no consent has been reached on the definition of affordance, the understanding of the notion needs to recognize the multidimensionality and relational nature of affordances. as hutchby (2001) postulates, there exist different types of affordances. these affordances may be “interrelated or compounded on any given occasion of action” (p. 448). the conceptualization and adoption of educational affordances of a technology tool involve not only the properties of the technology but also the capabilities of the user. besides, the physical and sociocultural components of the environment in which teaching and learning activities occur should also be allowed. however, any definition of affordance should be deemed tentative before it can be proved to be compatible with a general theory of direct perception (stoffregen, 2003). thus, empirical studies need to be conducted to examine how the framework proposed in this study can be used for understanding the affordances of educational technology in teaching practice. acknowledgment this study was 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(2019). a review of empirical studies of affordances and development of a framework for educational application of mobile social media. educational technology research & development, 67(5), 1231-1257. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-019-09679-y zheng, y., & yu, a. (2016). affordances of social media in collective action: the case of free lunch for children in china. information systems journal, 26(3), 289-313. https://doi.org/10.1111/isj.12096 https://doi.org/10.2196/jmir.7990 https://doi.org/10.1145/301153.301168 https://doi.org/10.1016/s0166-4115(05)80023-8 microsoft word fet-v2n4-p225 frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 225 original paper demographics of students in their perspectives on examination cheating in basic education in kenya millicent adhiambo ojwan’g1* 1 department of education, university of eastern africa, baraton, kenya * millicent adhiambo ojwan’g, department of education, university of eastern africa, baraton, kenya received: october 11, 2019 accepted: october 21, 2019 online published: october 28, 2019 doi:10.22158/fet.v2n4p225 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v2n4p225 abstract this study sought to find out in depth the demographics of students in their perspectives on examination cheating in basic education in kenya. the target population was 838 university freshmen of 2018/2019 academic year in a selected faith-based university in kenya. the sample was 272 students. this study was guided by kohlberg’s theory of moral development and ajzen’s theory of planned behavior. descriptive survey research design was used. questionnaires comprising both closed and open-ended questions were administered. data was analyzed by the use of descriptive statistics. findings reveal that lack of preparedness and an excessive emphasis on grades are the main causes of cheating, while punishment is a critical deterrent to cheating in examinations. the study recommends that schools should ensure that students are adequately prepared for examinations; emphasize mastery of content as opposed to grades; and subject examination offenders to more severe punishment. keywords examination cheating, students’ perspectives, basic education, demographics, kenya 1. introduction “the greatest want of the world is the want of men-men who will not be bought or sold, men who in their inmost souls are true and honest, men who do not fear to call sin by its right name, men whose conscience is as true to duty as the needle to the pole, men who will stand for the right though the heavens fall” (white, 1903, p. 57). the above quotation echoes the need for students of sound moral character resulting from both positive perspectives in judgement and self-discipline. it is rejecting examination cheating, which stands out as a big challenge in the education sector in the twenty-first century. taylor (2014) opines that preventing www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 226 published by scholink inc. and detecting academic dishonesty has always been a challenge, which now escalates due to the presence of internet and computers. examination cheating occurs globally at all levels of education, and kenya is not excluded. british broadcasting corporation (bbc) news (2018, january 5) reports that more students were cheating in gcse and a-level exams in england. anderman (2018, february 15) also reports that  in general, cheating increased as students moved into high school in usa. voice of america (voa) news (2017, nov. 11) reports rettinger as saying that cheating is difficult to prevent as it is deeply ingrained in the people’s culture. quintos (2017) reveals a 94% rate of prevalence of academic dishonesty in the philippines. according to agiresaasi (2018, may 4), cheating is a very common practice at all educational levels, and both students and teachers are guilty of leaking questions and answers in uganda. in kenya, the most outstanding thing in the education sector in 2015 was the rising cases of examination cheating, with reported incidents rising to 2,709 candidates in 111 centers compared to 1,702 in 93 centers in 2014 (aduda, 2015, dec. 31). 2. statement of the problem according to section 10 of the kenya national examinations council (knec) act no. 29 of 2012; knec is mandated to: (i) set and maintain examination standards; and (ii) conduct public academic, technical and other national examinations within kenya at basic and tertiary levels, among other functions. in order for knec to effectively perform its stipulated functions, it has powers to cancel or withhold the results of candidates involved in examination irregularities or malpractices. in view of the stipulated mandate of knec by the republic of kenya on the one hand, against the reported cases of cheating on the other hand, the researcher recognizes the need to redeem and salvage the dwindling integrity and dignity of certification, examination practices and its administration in basic education. this survey embarked on investigating in depth the demographics of students in their perspectives on examination cheating in basic education in kenya. 3. research question this study sought to answer the question: “what are the demographics of students in their perspectives on examination cheating in basic education in kenya?” 4. significance of the study the findings of this study will benefit all stakeholders in education and the general publics by creating awareness on the demographics of students’ perspectives on examination cheating in basic education in kenya for better practices. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 227 published by scholink inc. 5. justification of the study related studies done by nyamwange, ondima and onderi (2013) on factors influencing examination cheating among secondary school students in kenya; muchai (2014) on factors that contribute to cheating in examinations in technical institutions in kenya; adow, alio, and thinguri (2015) on the management of kcse examination and its influence on irregularities among students in kenya; and owenga, aloka, and raburu (2018) on the relationship between selected personal determinants and examination cheating among kenyan secondary school students. however, little has been done to investigate in depth the demographics of students in their perspectives on examination cheating in basic education in kenya. the researcher, therefore, contends that there was need to fill the lacuna by conducting and documenting this study as a contribution to the body of knowledge and for use in the basic education sector. 6. theoretical framework this study was informed and guided by kohlberg’s (1958) theory of moral development, which states that morality can be developed either negatively or positively, depending on how an individual accomplishes the tasks assigned him/her during each stage of moral development across his lifespan. in this study, it is clear that an individual’s morality influences their choice to cheat or not to cheat in examinations. this study was further guided by ajzen’s (1991) theory of planned behavior, which states that expectations such as motivation and behavioral reactions are not always spontaneous but are planned. in this study, actions of students such as writing short notes on body parts and carrying unauthorized materials in to the examination room are planned ahead of time in an attempt to cheat in examinations in basic education in kenya. 7. research design this study used descriptive survey research design for analyzing in depth the demographics of respondents in their perspectives on examination cheating in basic education in kenya. 8. population and sampling techniques purposive sampling technique was used to sample one faith-based university in kenya because it holds academic honesty, personal integrity, and moral values in very high esteem. the population was 838 first year students joining in the first semester of 2018/2019 academic year because they had just graduated from basic education, had not fully adjusted into higher education, and had the most current information which this study sought. this study used purposive sampling to select all first year students registered for the courses: introduction to sociology and introduction to psychology. it was established that all freshmen, except bachelor of education (b ed) students must register for either of the two courses during their first academic year in the selected faith-based university in this study. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 228 published by scholink inc. table 1. population and sample size category target population sample size sample (%) university freshmen 838 272 33% neuman (2011) suggests that for descriptive studies, a minimum of 30% of the target population is adequate. this study used 33% of the target population as shown on table 1. 9. research instruments this study employed the use of a self-constructed questionnaires which had both closed and open-ended questions on the demographics of students in their perspectives on examination cheating in basic education in kenya. two hundred and seventy two questionnaires were distributed and all were returned to the researcher. hence there was 100% response rate. 10. ethical considerations the purpose of this study was explained to the respondents, who were assured of confidentiality in the handling of information gathered. participation was voluntary and consent was signed. there were no sensitive questions that could harm the respondents psychologically. data was reported honestly. 11. research findings demographic profile of respondents question 1 stated: “what is your gender”?   figure 1. gender description figure 1 shows that 187 (69%) respondents were males while 83 (31%) were females in this study. question 2 (a) stated: are there situations where examination cheating is acceptable? www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 229 published by scholink inc. figure 2. situations where examination cheating is acceptable thirty (11%) respondents affirmed, while 241 (88.6%) rejected that there are situations where examination cheating is acceptable. only one (0.4%) respondent did not answer this question. question 2 (b) stated: if yes, please specify the situations. table 2 shows situations with the highest frequencies where examination cheating is acceptable as follows: when one has nothing to write and he/she must pass (60%); people believe knec examinations will define their life (13.4%); when institutions agree with examination officials to cheat (6.7%); and when everyone cheats, you also need to cheat in order to compete favorably (6.7%). table 2. situations where cheating in examinations is acceptable responses f % when one has nothing to write and he/she must pass 18 60.0 people believe knec examinations will define their life 4 13.4 when institutions agree with examination officials to cheat 2 6.7 when everyone cheats, you also need to cheat in order to compete favorably 2 6.7 in order not to let my parents down 1 3.3 wide syllabus coverage, the content is too much for students to master in a short period of time 1 3.3 when one realizes that the examination brought is outside of class work 1 3.3 high school especially national schools 1 3.3 total 30 100 when one has nothing to write and he/she must pass. two respondents said: “if it is the only way to pass” and “when one has nothing to write and he/she must pass”. these responses imply that cheating is acceptable when students are not adequately prepared for examinations. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 230 published by scholink inc. people believe knec examinations will define their life. a respondent said: “in knec exams where people believe these exams will define their life and teachers help out”. this implies that a student’s fate is determined by his/her performance in national examinations. when institutions agree with examination officials to cheat. a respondent said:” when the institution agrees with the officials offering exams to do so”. this response implies that some examination officers collude with school authorities in facilitating students to cheat. when everyone cheats, you also need to cheat in order to compete favorably. two respondents said: “when everyone cheats you also need to cheat in order to compete” and “when you realize your competitors are also cheating”. this finding implies that students cheat in examinations so as to create a level ground. question 2 (c) stated: if no, please state why not. table 3. there are no situations where examination cheating is acceptable responses f % examinations test capabilities of what one knows and can remember 71 31.1 examination cheating is wrong morally and ethically 54 23.7 examination cheating is not acceptable by knec 33 14.5 examination cheating will produce incompetent graduates in the society 21 9.2 students are meant to go through proper teaching and serious studying 14 6.1 i am honest 11 4.8 examination cheating encourages laziness among students 9 4 cheating makes exam results not credible 8 3.5 all students should have a fair/level ground in examinations 7 3.1 total 228 100 table 3 shows statements denying that there are situations where examination cheating is acceptable. although 241 respondents indicated that there were no situations whatsoever where examination cheating is acceptable (see figure 2), only 228 of them gave reasons why not. the reasons rated the highest were: examinations test capabilities of what one knows and can remember (31.1%); examination cheating is wrong morally and ethically (23.7%); it is not acceptable by kenya national examination council (14.5%); examination cheating will produce incompetent graduates in the society (9.2%); and students are meant to go through proper teaching and serious studying (6.1%). examinations test capabilities of what one knows and can remember. some respondents said “because by cheating one cannot know where they lay academically”; “examination tests understanding of the student” and “exam is meant to test the knowledge you have gained in a particular www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 231 published by scholink inc. area of study”. this finding implies that cheating in examinations beats the core purpose of exams, which is to assess learners’ capability, knowledge and understanding. examination cheating is wrong morally and ethically. some respondents said, “it is wrong ethically” and “it is not morally right”, which implies that students do not cheat because it is morally and ethically wrong. examination cheating is not acceptable by knec. one respondent said, “it is against rules and regulations of examination council”. this implies that students are aware that cheating in examinations is illegal. examination cheating will produce incompetent graduates in the society. two respondents said: “students who cheat in exams, when they find jobs they are not able to pursue them properly” and “this will not help the student … will produce bad manpower … not competent”. this finding implies that cheating ultimately leads to incompetence. students are meant to go through proper teaching and serious studies. three respondents said, “students should prepare appropriately for the exam and avoid cheating”; “students are given time to prepare themselves for examination so there is no need to cheat”; and “students are meant to go through proper teaching and study”. these responses imply that there is no need to cheat if there are adequate teaching-learning processes. i am honest. some students said, “exams should be honest work a person has done within the period of study”; “honesty in exams should be upheld”; and “honesty is needed in examination”. these responses imply that examination cheating is incompatible with honesty. question 3 (a) stated: have you ever cheated in a test or examination? figure 3. ever cheated in a test or an examination figure 3 shows that 96 (36%) respondents accepted while 174 (64%) denied that they had ever cheated in a test/examination. two did not respond to this question. question 3(b) stated: if no, please explain why not. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 232 published by scholink inc. table 4. reasons for not cheating in tests or examinations responses f % cheating in exams is illegal/unethical 38 21 i am confident because i am always adequately prepared for exams 38 21 i am an honest student/cheating is against my principles 36 19.9 cheating in examinations can never help one to test his/her ability, understanding, the capacity to remember and even know weak areas for improvement 34 18.9 the repercussions when caught are not friendly 10 5.5 cheating does not help in academic progress and is a waste of time 7 3.9 i love owning my result, that i have worked for, so as to celebrate 7 3.9 we were under maximum/strict supervision 4 2.2 i have never gotten the courage/opportunity to do so 3 1.7 cheating brings a false pass which may cause incompetency in employment 2 1 examination cheating leads to laziness 2 1 total 181 100 table 4 shows reasons for not cheating in tests or examinations. one hundred and seventy four (174) respondents generated 181 reasons as to why they had never cheated in a test or an examination, with few respondents giving more than one reason. the reasons with the highest frequencies were: cheating in exams is illegal/unethical (21%); i am confident because i am always adequately prepared for exams (21%); i am an honest student/cheating is against my principles (19.9%); cheating in examinations can never help one to test his/her ability, understanding, the capacity to remember and even know weak areas for improvement (18.9%) and students feared the repercussions when caught (5.5%). cheating in exams is illegal/unethical. two respondents said, “because it is illegal to engage”; and “cheating in exam is unethical”. these responses imply that students are aware of the illegality of cheating in examinations. i am confident because i am always adequately prepared for exams. two respondents said, “i am always prepared for exams”; and “i adequately prepare enough for the exam”. this implies that there is no reason to cheat when there is adequate preparation for examinations. i am an honest student. two respondents said, “it is against my principles as a student”; and “i choose to be faithful enough”. this response connects with level 3 of kohlberg’s (1958) theory of moral development, which is concerned with the universal principles that are in relation to the action done, in this case rejecting to cheat in examinations. cheating in examinations can never help one to test his/her ability, understanding, the capacity to remember and even know weak areas for improvement. two respondents said: “i am supposed to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 233 published by scholink inc. measure myself and know where to improve”; and “…for a better understanding of my capability”. this finding implies that cheating undermines the core purpose of examinations. the repercussions when caught are not friendly. two respondents said, “fear of the consequences”; “it leads to canceling of my exam”. the reasoning here connects with stage 1: punishment-obedience orientation of kohlberg’s theory of moral development where an individual follows the law for fear of punishment. question 3 (c) stated: if yes, when did you cheat in the test/exam? figure 4. education level at which examination cheating occurred figure 4 shows that 10 (27%) respondents had cheated in primary while 27 (73%) had cheated in secondary school. question 3 (d) stated: if yes, please explain why you cheated in the test/exam. table 5. reasons for cheating in the test/examination responses f % i had not prepared adequately for the examination but wanted to pass 68 70.8 everyone else cheated/peer pressure 11 11.5 there was need because i was going to be expelled/repeat the class if i failed 7 7.3 teachers provided us with some leaked exam papers 5 5.2 pressure from the school and parents 3 3.2 one invigilator pointed a mistake on my paper and i wrote the correct answer 1 1 there was no supervisor 1 1 total 96 100 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 234 published by scholink inc. table 5 shows reasons for cheating in examinations. reasons with the highest frequencies were: i had not prepared adequately for the examination but wanted to pass (70.8%); everyone else cheated/peer pressure (11.5%); there was need because i was going to be expelled/repeat the class if i failed (7.3%); teachers provided us with some leaked exam papers (5.2%) and pressure from school and parents (3.2%). i had not prepared adequately for the examination but wanted to pass. some respondents said: “so as to pass the exam”; “i was not ready for the test but wanted to pass”; and “i stayed long without attending classes due to lack of fees”. these responses imply that students resort to cheating as a quick way out when they are not adequately prepared for exams. everyone else cheated/peer pressure. some respondents said: “everyone else cheated so why not”; “everyone in class was cheating and i did not want to fail either”; and “influence having seen others practicing it”. these responses imply that peer pressure is a driving force to cheating in examination. there was need because i was going to be expelled/repeat the class if i failed. some respondents said: “there was need because i was going to be expelled if i failed”; “we were supposed to help each other i did not want to see my friend repeat the class”; and “i had not been in school for almost a whole term i feared repeating”. fear of failure leads to cheating in examinations. teachers provided us with some leaked exam papers. some students cheat in exams when they are pressurized by their teachers. some respondents said: “teachers provided us with some exam papers” and “it was provided by the subject teacher”. this finding implicates teachers. pressure from school and parents. some respondents said: “…the pressure from the school and parents”; “i had failed in most exams and i needed a good grade to take home” and “pressure so as not to disappoint my sponsors”. this finding implies that school and parental pressure for good grades leads to cheating. question 3 (e) stated: if yes, in which course(s)/subject(s) did you cheat? table 6. courses/subjects in which cheating occurred courses/subjects f percent sciences and math 51 18.8 humanities 25 9.2 languages 11 4.0 arts 6 2.2 total 93 34.2 missing system 34.2 65.8 total 272 100.0 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 235 published by scholink inc. table 6 shows the courses/subjects in which cheating occurred. it appears that respondents were more vulnerable to cheat in exams in the sciences and math than in the other subjects. question 3 (f) stated: if yes, where did you get the cheat exam materials from? table 7. sources of cheat examination materials responses f % from a fellow student/friend 42 43.8 from books and small sheets of paper which were hidden in my pocket 40 41.8 from teachers 6 6.2 from a paper that had leaked on social media and it was all over 6 6.2 from the lab technician 1 1 from an invigilator 1 1 total 96 100 table 7 shows the sources of cheat examination materials. ninety six respondents revealed fellow students and friends (43.8%); books and small sheets of paper hidden in candidates’ pockets (41.8%) which were sneaked in to the examination rooms; teachers (6.2%), and social media (6.2%) as sources of cheat examination materials with highest frequencies. from fellow students and friends. some respondents said: “my desk mate”; “from fellow student”; “classmate”; “a friend of mine…” and “from a friend”. these responses implicate peers as an avenue of accessing cheat examination materials. from books and small sheets of paper hidden in candidates’ pockets. some respondents said: “from a text book”; “note book”; “the cheating materials were my summarized notes” and “i prepared a small sheet, had it in my pocket”. these responses imply that laxity in invigilation/supervision motivates students to cheat in examinations. from teachers. some respondents said: “from teachers” and “teachers and friends”. teachers who should safeguard a high conduct of examinations are culprits. from a paper that had leaked on social media and it was all over. some responses were: “from the internet”; “from online materials…” and “the paper had leaked on social media and it was all over”. this finding implies that social media is an avenue of examination leakage. question 3 (g) stated: if yes, how did you get the cheat materials? www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 236 published by scholink inc. table 8. means used to obtain the cheat materials responses f % i copied from my classmate/friend 42 43.8 i copied from a book/mwakenya (short notes) which was sneaked in to the examination room 40 41.8 teachers did them as revision questions in classes 7 7.3 through social media 3 3.1 i copied between my arm and also in my hand 1 1 the invigilator pointed the mistake and i corrected 1 1 through the lab technician 1 1 through phone growling method 1 1 total 96 100 table 8 shows the means used to obtain the cheat materials. the means with the highest frequencies were: i copied from my classmate/friend (43.8%); i copied from a book/mwakenya (short notes) which was sneaked in to the examination room (41.8%); teachers did them as revision questions in class (7.3%); and through social media (3.1%). these findings are similar to those of the previous question which sought to find out where the respondents got the cheat exam materials from (see table 7), except from “teachers did them as revision questions in classes”. this finding implies that teachers leak examinations in the disguise of revising. question 3 (h) stated: if yes, do you feel guilty about having cheated in the test/exam? figure 5. feeling guilty after cheating in examination although only 96 respondents had indicated that they had cheated in examinations in basic education in kenya (see figure 3), there were 97 responses to this question. while 52 (19%) respondents revealed www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 237 published by scholink inc. that they felt guilty after cheating in examinations, 45 (17%) said they did not feel guilty. one hundred and seventy five respondents did not participate in this question. question 3 (i) stated: if you feel guilty, please explain why. table 9. reasons for feeling guilty responses f % the marks earned were absolutely not mine 17 32.7 because it is a dishonest act 13 25 because i had broken the laws of exams 8 15.4 i was caught by my teacher and disciplinary measures were taken accordingly 4 7.7 i was born a winner i don’t have to cheat to be what god designed me to be 3 5.8 the cheating did not help me at all, i failed anyway 3 5.8 it is unfair to those who did not cheat in the exams 2 3.8 i managed to get into university but someone else did not due to lack of exam materials 1 1.9 it made me feel like a lazy person who cannot be ready for a test at any time 1 1.9 total 52 100 table 9 shows reasons for feeling guilty after cheating in examinations. the fifty two respondents who revealed that they felt guilty after cheating in examinations (see figure 5) explained that: the marks earned were absolutely not mine (32.7%), it is a dishonest act (25%), and i had broken the laws of exams (15.4%) as the reasons with the highest frequencies for their guilt. others (7.7%) indicated that they were guilty because they were caught by the teacher and disciplinary measures were taken accordingly. the marks earned were absolutely not mine. some respondents said: “i was awarded some marks that i did not deserve”; “it made me score grades which are not mine”; “i should not have earned the marks”; and “i did very well but it was not my effort”. the cheating student realizes that he/she has lied because the marks earned are not his/hers. he/she may have a good grade but a sense of guilt weighs heavily on him/her. it is a dishonest act. the guilt may be due to the realization that the student’s bad behavior contradicts values caught in religious homes and schools. examination cheating is not an honest act. one student said, “it is not good and it is sin and am not proud of myself”. i had broken the laws of exams. some students said: “it is not a legal act” and “because it is wrong to cheat in the first place”. when national and internal school examination regulations are publicized and explained, offending students may feel guilty when they cheat. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 238 published by scholink inc. i was caught by the teacher and disciplinary measures were taken accordingly. some students said: “it was a waste, we were identified and it was not pleasant”; and “i was caught by my teacher and disciplinary measures were taken accordingly. these responses imply that being caught and punished for cheating in examinations may lead to guilt feelings”. question 3 (j) stated: if you do not feel guilty, please explain why not. table 10. reasons for not feeling guilty responses f % i was among the best students 19 42.2 cheating was not out of my will 7 15.5 we are human beings, we have sinned a lot; it’s normal 6 13.3 it helped me continue with my studies 5 11 it was just a quick test; not main exam 3 7 i did not suffer the consequences 2 4.4 it did not add anything to my grade 2 4.4 i completed that level and i read enough after cheating 1 2.2 total 45 100 table 10 presents reasons for not feeling guilty. reasons with highest frequencies were: i was among the best students (42.2%); cheating was not out of my will (15.5%); we are human beings, we …sinned a lot; it’s normal (13.3%); and it helped me continue with my studies (11%) as the four main reasons for not feeling guilty. others belittled the immoral act by stating: it was just a quick test (7%). i was among the best students. some respondents said: “it is one way of passing exams”; “i saw its benefits”; “i was able to secure a chance for an outing as top ten students in kiswahili” and “its better helping myself in passing than fail in exams”. these responses imply that the end justifies the means. what matters is to be among excelling students. cheating was not out of my will. some respondents said: “because it was not out of my will”; “i was under pressure” and “what has passed has passed… was not my desire to do so. i was forced by circumstances”. these responses imply that cheating in unique circumstances is acceptable and does not lead to guilty feelings. we are human beings, we have sinned a lot; it’s normal. some respondents said: “it’s part of life”; “it was the norm of the days” and “to me it seems like something normal”. these responses suggest that the conscience no longer bothers students who cheat persistently. it helped me continue with my studies. some respondents said: “it helped me continue with my studies”; “it helped me relieve my pressure” and “i completed that level”. these responses imply that www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 239 published by scholink inc. the end justifies the means. the students were not guilty after cheating because it helped them complete that level of education and continue with higher education. it was just a quick test. some respondents said: “it was just a quick test, not the main exam”; “the exams were not that serious” and “it was just a five mark exam”. this implies that cheating in a test or a short exam is inconsequential. question 4 (a) stated: can you report a fellow student who is cheating in a test/exam? figure 6 shows that 75 (28%) respondents affirmed that they could report a cheating fellow student, while 193 (71%) refused. only four (1%) did not respond to this question. the percentage (71%) of those who cannot report a cheating student reflects the magnitude of the problem facing basic education in kenya. this finding implies that majority of students do not provide support to the education system by reporting cheating culprits. figure 6. reporting a fellow student who is cheating in examinations question 4 (b) stated: if yes, please explain why you can report a fellow student who is cheating. table 11. reasons for reporting a fellow student who is cheating responses f % to ensure that i am honest and my responsibility to assist in what is right even for the future 23 30.7 cheating is illegal and is not worthy before god 19 25.3 the student is getting marks for nothing and could lead the whole class to a risk 13 17.3 it is a christian virtue to ensure honesty in everyday activities 9 12 i will feel jealous if the student tops in class yet he/she cheated; it is unfair 6 8 we learn in order to become professionals in our areas of study 2 2.7 cheating in exams create laziness 2 2.7 cheating means he/she is ruining his/her own life unknowingly 1 1.3 total 75 100 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 240 published by scholink inc. table 11 shows reasons for reporting a fellow student who is cheating. those with the highest frequencies are: to ensure that i am honest and my responsibility to assist in what is right even for the future (30.7%); cheating is illegal and is not worthy before god (25.3%); the student is getting marks for nothing and could lead the whole class to a risk (17.3%); and it is a christian virtue to ensure honesty in everyday activities (12%). to ensure that i am honest and my responsibility to assist in what is right even for the future. some respondents said: “to ensure that i am honest and my responsibility to assist in what is right”; “we should always help each other and for that reason reporting him/her would help the student” and “it is my responsibility”. this finding implies that some students take personal responsibility to ensure that examination cheating is curbed by a willingness to report offenders. it connects with stage 4: law and order orientation of kohlberg’s (1958) theory of moral development where one respects the authorities, follows the rules, and does their duty. cheating is illegal and is not worthy before god. some respondents said: “cheating is not allowed and even it is not worth before god” and “it’s not acceptable … therefore, cheating in exams is illegal”. some students will report examination cheats because cheating is illegal. it is a christian virtue to ensure honesty in everyday activities. some respondents said: “it is not integrity”; “it is a christian virtue to ensure honesty in everyday activities”; “i want to help my fellow student to be honest in his/her life” and “integrity should be upheld to the letter”. this finding implies that some students aspire to maintain integrity in examinations. the student is getting marks for nothing and could lead the whole class to a risk. some respondents said: “the student is getting marks for nothing and could lead the whole class to a risk”; “if that will lead to a universal disciplinary action where i will be affected” and “he/she may cause disruption to the entire students”. this finding implies that reporting examination cheats would benefit the whole class. question 4 (c) stated: if no, please explain why not. table 12. reasons for not reporting a fellow student who is cheating responses f % it is none of my business 60 31.1 i really think its one’s life and you are the one who is accountable for your own deeds 44 22.8 the person might have not adequately prepared for the exam 25 13 it would lead to an academic punishment that may ruin his/her future life 24 12.5 it may bring hatred/enmity among your peers 17 8.8 i can only advise him/her after the exam 11 5.7 because he wants a good future for himself 7 3.6 cheating does not express any faithfulness and i view it as a crime 2 1 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 241 published by scholink inc. sometimes you may think it is the right thing to do but it ends up being wrong 2 1 i may not have enough evidence 1 0.5 total 193 100 table 12 shows reasons for not reporting a fellow student who is cheating with those with the highest frequencies being: it is none of my business (31.1%); i really think its one’s life and you are the one who is accountable for your own deeds (22.8%); the person might have not adequately prepared for the exam (13%); because it would lead to an academic punishment that may ruin his/her future life (12.5%) and it may bring hatred/enmity among your peers (8.8%). it is none of my business. some respondents said: “i don’t want problems”; “it is not my business”; “it is the role of the invigilators to catch cheaters” and “it’s the role of those in authority”. these responses imply that students expect examination invigilators, being in positions of authority, to do their work diligently. i really think its one’s life and you are the one who is accountable for your own deeds. some respondents said: “it’s there life”; “it’s his/her choice” and “everybody’s life is in his/her hand, why should i follow after someone’s decision”? these responses imply that each student should be held accountable for their actions in examinations. the person might have not adequately prepared for the exam. some respondents said: “the person might have not prepared for the exam”; “maybe he/she doesn’t understand the test”; and “i understand how it feels to be blank when doing a test”. these responses imply that students go in to examinations unprepared one time or another. it would lead to an academic punishment that may ruin his/her future life. some respondents said: “there might be some serious consequences on the student”; “it can lead to his/her expulsion or exam cancellation” and “i don’t want to be responsible of destroying someone’s life”. these responses imply that students would rather be quiet at wrong doing than report an examination culprit who may be punished. it may bring hatred/enmity among your peers. some respondents said: “enmity will arise…”; “because it is my friend” and “the student might harm you or say that may be you don’t want him/her to pass”. these responses connect with stage 3: good boy-nice girl orientation of kohlberg’s (1958) theory of moral development in which interpersonal relationships carries the day despite wrong doing. question 5 (a) stated: is cheating in tests/exams justifiable? www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 242 published by scholink inc. figure 7. cheating in tests/exams is justifiable while 47 (17%) respondents accepted, 204 (75%) denied that cheating in examinations is justifiable. twenty one (8%) did not respond to this question. question 5 (b) stated: if yes, please explain why. table 13. reasons why cheating in tests/examinations is justifiable responses f % lack of preparedness for examinations 22 46.8 so that students can have good grades and become successful 9 19.1 under some special circumstances 8 17 pressure from parents and peers 7 15 some knec officials have been leaking the examination for profit 1 2.1 total 47 100 table 13 shows reasons why cheating in tests/examinations is justifiable with those with the highest frequencies being: lack of preparedness for examination (46.8%); so that students can have good grades and become successful (19.1%); under some special circumstances (17%); and pressure from parents and peers (15%). lack of preparedness for examinations. some respondents said: “you may have an idea of what to write but you don’t know how to phrase…looking on your friend’s paper you get the answer”; “content given in class may not be sufficient”; “the instructor may somehow not deliver to the students as required” and “when the exams are so difficult”. this finding implies that examination cheating is justifiable when students are ill-prepared. so that students can have good grades and become successful. a respondent said, “some have cheated and become successful”. this response implies that the end justifies the means. under some special circumstances. some respondents said: “you may be in deep issues like repeating that test which will be harder… i better cheat”; “one might have spent time studying but the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 243 published by scholink inc. test doesn’t favor him/her”; “sometimes it may come in handy at a very desperate time” and “may be under some circumstances”. this finding implies that cheating is justifiable in unique circumstances. pressure from parents and peers. some respondents said: “if it is a result of peer influence”; “pressure from the parents”; “pressure from parents and peers” and “students can cheat so as to please the parents out of pressure from them”. students cheat due to the overwhelming parental and peer pressure. question 5 (c) stated: if no, please explain why not. table 14. reasons why examination cheating is not justifiable responses f 100 rules and regulations should not be compromised 58 29 you should have adequately prepared before exams so that you do not cheat 44 22 it is dishonesty/a vice 28 12 it defeats the purpose of assessing levels of capability/understanding 22 11 it will affect/ruin the competence of professionals in the society 15 7.5 it is unfair to those who are working hard 12 6 it promotes laziness 8 4 after cheating there will be nothing one would have gained 6 3 it lowers the value/quality of education in the country 6 3 one should face the consequences 5 2.5 total 204 100 table 14 presents reasons why examination cheating is not justifiable. those with the highest frequencies are: rules and regulations should not be compromised (29%); you should have adequately prepared before exams so that you do not cheat (22%); it is dishonesty/a vice (12%); it defeats the purpose of assessing levels of capability/understanding (11%) and it will affect/ruin the competence of professionals in the society (7.5%). rules and regulations should not be compromised. some respondents said: “it is the rules and regulations…rules should not be compromised”; “because it is against examination rules”; “everybody knows that cheating is prohibited in exams so there is no justification” and “no matter how hard the exam is, it is not right to cheat”. these responses imply that students are aware of rules and regulations safeguarding examination practices. you should have adequately prepared before exams so that you do not cheat. some respondents said: “you should have already prepared yourself before exams so that you are unable to cheat” and “the examination is a fair test and those who work hard should receive the best result”. this finding implies that there is no need to cheat with good preparations for examinations. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 244 published by scholink inc. it is dishonesty/a vice. some respondents said: “it is dishonesty”; “it is not an honest exercise to practice“; “it is not a good way of passing because it encourages dishonesty”; “it is against the christian ethics” and “shows you are not trustworthy”. these responses connect with level 2: conventional morality of kohlberg’s (1958) theory of moral development which includes the society in judging the morality of an action. religion places negative judgement on examination cheating. it defeats the purpose of assessing levels of capability/understanding. some respondents said: “exams are what determine who we are according to whatever we have been taught”; “so that one knows his/her scale of understanding”; “it defeats the purpose of assessing levels of understanding” and “then there is no need of exams, one may not be able to gauge him/herself where they stand academically”. this finding implies that cheating curtails the purpose of examinations. it will affect/ruin the competence of professionals in the society. some respondents said: “it will undermine the society, those in engineering and nursing courses will not offer quality services”; “others get a higher grade that they have not worked for…leads to getting unqualified workers”; “it leads to unqualified personnel in work form” and “it causes incompetence in various fields…” this finding implies that examination cheating undermines competence and professionalism. question 6 (a) stated: is cheating in tests/exams necessary? figure 8. examination cheating is not necessary figure 8 shows that 32 (12%) respondents accepted, while 233 (86%) rejected examination cheating as necessary. two respondents did not answer this question. question 6 (b) stated: if yes, please explain why. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 245 published by scholink inc. table 15. reasons why examination cheating is necessary responses f % for the sake of passing exams and securing a university admission 19 59.4 when one has not prepared for the examinations adequately 12 37.5 if all students cheat and by luck they have correct answers you will lose your position to students who did not deserve 1 3.1 total 32 100 table 15 shows reasons why examination cheating is necessary. those with the highest frequencies are: for the sake of passing exams and securing a university admission (59.4%) and when one has not prepared adequately for the examinations (37.5%). for the sake of passing exams and securing a university admission. some respondents said: “for the sake of passing the exams”; “for getting good grades so as to get bursaries to university” and “sometimes one is forced to cheat to move to the next level”. this finding implies that examination cheating is necessary for promotion to the next level. when one has not prepared adequately for the examinations. some respondents said: “when one does not have an idea on the subject”; “sometimes when you forget some answers but you really need to pass the test”; “it is necessary only if one doesn’t know what to answer and must pass”; and “when you have little content”. this finding implies that unpreparedness necessitates examination cheating. question 6 (c) stated: if no, please explain why not. table 16. reasons why examination cheating is not necessary responses f % if one has prepared adequately for the examination then it is not necessary to cheat 68 29.1 one will not be able to test his ability/knowledge and work to improve in weak areas 67 28.8 when one gets into employment, it will be clear the grades are not his/hers 27 11.6 cheating in examinations will give you grades that are not yours 20 8.6 you could end up being punished if caught 12 5.2 students should seek to be honest 10 4.3 students ought to believe in themselves/be confident 10 4.3 it promotes/encourages laziness 8 3.4 it is not right 7 3 it is letting others have an unfair advantage over those who work hard 4 1.7 total 233 100 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 246 published by scholink inc. table 16 shows ten reasons why examination cheating is not necessary of which the most highly rated were: if one has prepared adequately for the examination then it is not necessary to cheat (29.1%); one will not be able to test his ability/knowledge and work to improve in weak areas (28.8%); when one gets into employment, it will be clear the grades are not his/hers (11.6%); cheating in examinations will give you grades that are not yours (8.6%); and you could end up punished if caught (5.2%). if one has prepared adequately for the examination then it is not necessary to cheat. some respondents said: “if a student prepares well he/she won’t have to cheat”; “adequate preparation would create confidence and cheating wouldn’t be necessary” and “once the student is well prepared the exam will not intimidate him/her”. this finding implies that cheating is not a necessity when there is preparedness for examinations. one will not be able to test his ability/knowledge and work to improve in weak areas. some respondents said: “it is a way to measure yourself: if one is not able he/she should improve”; “tests and exams are supposed to be done to improve ourselves academically” and “one will not be able to test his ability in his area of study”. this finding implies that cheating beats the core purpose of examinations. when one gets into employment, it will be clear the grades are not his/hers. some respondents said: “when one gets into career objectives it will be clear the grades are not his/hers”; “this will bring about poor performance even when employed”; “it can make one end up in trouble in professionalism” and “it leads to fake professionals”. this finding implies that examination cheating results in incompetence. cheating in examinations will give you grades that are not yours. some respondents said: “when you cheat you will be cheating yourself to be clever and intelligent”; “cheating fakes someone’s result” and “results are not the reality”. it implies that cheating yields fake results. you could end up punished if caught. some respondents said: “it may lead to suspension”; “you might be caught and penalized for it”; “you could end up disqualified when caught” and “it can make you expelled when caught”. examination cheating has severe consequences. question 7 (a) stated: is examination cheating worth the risk?   figure 9. examination cheating is worth the risk www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 247 published by scholink inc. figure 9 shows 53 (20%) respondents affirming cheating in examinations as worth the risk, while 197(72%) rejecting the act as worthy of the risk. twenty two (8%) respondents did not answer this question. question 7 (b) stated: if yes, please explain why. table 17. reasons why examination cheating is worth the risk responses f % better grades lead to greatness/determine one’s future 32 60.4 most students are not prepared for exams but they do not want to fail 21 39.6 total 53 100 table 17 shows two reasons why examination cheating is worth the risk as given by 53 respondents as follows: better grades lead to greatness/determine one’s future (60.4%) and most students are not prepared for exams but they do not want to fail (39.6%). better grades lead to greatness/determine one’s future. some respondents said: “some grades determine the future”; “that’s what education system wants us to believe that passing exams and having good grades is everything”; “exams determine your future especially kcse, you have to pass” and “the exam will be determining your whole life”. these responses imply that good grades lead to a successful future. most students are not prepared for exams but they do not want to fail. some respondents said: “you may not have been reading so the only way to pass is by cheating”; “how will i explain back home to my sponsors if i don’t make it” and “most students are not prepared for exams and they do not want to fail”. these responses imply that cheating provides a way out for unprepared students. question 7 (c) stated: if no, please explain why not. table 18. reasons why examination cheating is not worth the risk responses f % if you are caught the consequences are harsh 150 76.1 it will cause problems while offering poor quality services to the community 17 8.6 you risk but in the end you gain nothing 13 6.6 it is not right 10 5.1 students should prepare adequately for exams 7 3.6 total 197 100 table 18 above shows reasons why examination cheating is not worth the risk. the reasons with the highest frequencies are: if you are caught the consequences are harsh (76.1%); it will cause problems www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 248 published by scholink inc. while offering poor quality services to the community (8.6%) and you risk but in the end you gain nothing (6.6%). if you are caught the consequences are harsh. this response is similar to those of questions 3b, 3i, 4c and 6c where respondents cited harsh consequences as a major reason for not cheating; cheating students feel guilty when caught and punishment follows; students would not report a cheating student because it leads to harsh repercussions, and cheating is not acceptable because you could end up punished if caught respectively. this finding implies that punishment is a major deterrent. it will cause problems while offering poor quality services to the community. respondents said: “it may seem enjoyable to cheat, but it will cause problems while offering poor quality services to those who are in need”; “if students cheat and get employed in a special field he/she will not work efficiently…have no required knowledge” and “you won’t be competent enough”. this finding implies that examination cheating leads to incompetence. you risk but in the end you gain nothing. some respondents said: “it can lead to higher chances of failing more so when the targeted exam was wayward”; “you can fail or have bad grades”; “you may end up scoring poorly as well as ruining your future experience” and “a person may end up losing job when identified”. these responses imply that examination cheating does not guarantee success. question 8 (a) as long as i am not caught, it is alright to cheat. figure 10 shows 43 (16%) respondents stating that it is alright to cheat as long as i am not caught, while 211 (77%) stating that it is not alright. eighteen (7%) respondents abstained from answering this question. figure 10. alright to cheat as long as i am not caught question 8 (b) stated: if yes, please explain why. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 249 published by scholink inc. table 19. reasons why it is alright to cheat as long as i am not caught responses f % what matters is that i pass in the exam 13 30.2 cheating may help me improve my grades 12 27.9 cheating is profitable when i am unprepared 8 18.6 because i was not caught, i was lucky 6 14 to make work easier 4 9.3 total 43 100 table 19 shows reasons why it is alright to cheat as long as one is not caught. reasons with the highest frequencies were: what matters is that i pass in the exam (30.2%); cheating may help me improve my grades (27.9%); and cheating is profitable when i am unprepared (18.6%). what matters is that i pass in the exam. some respondents said: “just to be sure to succeed”; “what matters is that i pass in the exam”; “cos i will always pass with good grades. remember that cheating is propelled by fear of failure and if you fail, you will appear as a person who is good for nothing”. this finding implies that the end justifies the means. cheating may help me improve my grades. some respondents said: “it will lead to increase in grade”; “because it may help me improve my grades”; “i would have gotten a high grade for free”; “why not? you should get better grades”; “it boosts grades” and “you only need smart grades to have opportunity to access many institutions or job opportunities…” this finding implies that an excessive emphasis on grades is a motivator to cheat. cheating is profitable when i am unprepared. some respondents said: “it is ok if you … did not get enough time to study for that examination”; “it is profitable where i am not prepared well”; and “a drowning man clutches at a straw… if it is the only option”. this finding implies that cheating is alright when unprepared for examinations. question 8 (c) stated: if no, please explain why not. table 20 shows reasons why it is not alright to cheat in examinations. those with the highest frequencies are: it is against such moral values as integrity (33.2%); exams are meant to evaluate you honestly (17.1%); i will always be guilty (11.8%); and i would be deceiving myself with fake grades (11%). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 250 published by scholink inc. table 20. reasons why it is not alright to cheat in examinations responses f % it is against such moral values as integrity 70 33.2 exams are meant to evaluate you honestly 36 17.1 i will always be guilty 25 11.8 i would be deceiving myself with fake grades 23 11 you may get good grades but will not perform well in higher education/ employment 18 8.5 you may be caught and suspended/jailed/results cancelled 18 8.5 the act develops into a habit/poor practice that cannot be controlled 14 6.6 i should not cheat if i prepared adequately for the examinations 7 3.3 total 211 100 it is against such moral values as integrity. some respondents said: “moral values teach about honesty”; “it is against christian values like honesty, integrity…”; “honesty and faithfulness should be employed”. this finding implies that cheating is incompatible with integrity. exams are meant to evaluate you honestly. some respondents said: “because cheating…does not allow you to test yourself on what you understood”; “…exams usually test our understanding…” and “we should be honest in examinations so that we can examine ourselves if we can remember what we have been taught”. this finding implies that cheating beats the purpose of examinations. i will always be guilty. two respondents said: “guilt will always haunt you and self judgement that you know that you are not up to a task” and “you will remain guilty for the rest of time”. this finding implies that perennial guilt feelings are a deterrent to examination cheating. i would be deceiving myself with fake grades. some respondents said: “it is not right because i’d be lying to myself with fake grades” and “because i will be cheating myself and not testing my potential”. this finding implies that cheating in examinations is self-deceit. 12. discussion lack of preparedness for examinations is a leading situation in which cheating is considered acceptable, justifiable, necessary, alright, and worth the risk. either the student did not take sufficient time to study for mastery of content, or the teacher did not provide the required content and/or did not fully explain the content to the learner. some students may delay at home for a long period of time to search for school fees. additionally, there are cases where students do not have access to the required teaching-learning resources and educational facilities for adequate preparation. such resources and facilities include textbooks, well-equipped libraries and laboratories. previous studies reveal that poor preparations lead to cheating in examinations among secondary school students (nyamwange, ondima, & onderi, 2013; folson & awuah, 2014; adow, alio, & thinguri, 2015). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 251 published by scholink inc. students cheat so as to get good grades. nyamwange, ondima and onderi (2013) found out that secondary school students experience excessive pressure to produce good grades. ali’s (2016) survey also revealed that pressure from family to do well motivate some students to cheat in examinations. owenga, aloka, and raburu (2018) also found out that teachers facilitated students in examination cheating practices in secondary schools in kenya. it is commonly believed that a’s lead to successful careers in india, hence, the strong urge to cheat in examinations (bbc news, 2018, april 17). exam leakage may occur in the process of preparations for practical in the sciences. voa news (2017, nov. 11) reported anderman’s study in two large universities in the usa, which revealed that to students, it is acceptable to cheat in courses they disliked, which were often mathematics and sciences. anderman (2018, february 15) also observes that cheating increased especially when students moved into classrooms where mathematics teachers did not emphasize mastery but grades and test scores, and those highly impulsive students, who are particularly vulnerable to cheat, are less likely to do so when their teachers emphasize mastery of content. in kenya’s 8-4-4 educational system summative evaluation carries the day. when students do not meet the higher/tertiary education cut-off points, they may not move to the next educational level or be absorbed in a career of their choice. the urge to cheat is high as they want to pass and move on. folson and awuah (2014) reveal that some west african examination council officers collude with school administrators and police officers who accompany them to the examination centers to facilitate cheating for profit. students carry unauthorized materials and write short notes on their body parts into the examination rooms. a similar study by maheka (2015) found out that students carried already answered scripts in to the examination room in zambia. this finding connects with ajzen’s (1991) theory of planned behavior which states that expectations such as motivation and behavioral reactions are not always spontaneous but are planned. in this case pressure to pass is the motivator and students do what it takes in planning to cheat in examinations. examination cheating beats the core purpose of the exams, which is to assess students’ capabilities, knowledge and understanding. cheating produces incompetent graduates and yet one of the key indicators of a good system of education is the quality of people needed in terms of their competencies (ndalichako, 2009). additionally, agiresaasi (2018, may 4) postulates that examination cheating deters professionalism and service delivery. students cannot report cheats for fear that they would be punished. additionally, some students do not cheat for fear of punishment. punishment is identified as a key measure of curbing examination cheating (nyamwange, ondima, & onderi, 2013; adow, alio, & thinguri, 2015). repercussions include cancellation and withholding of exam results and suspension/expulsion of students from school. some schools in kenya make offending students walk around in reflector jackets with the label “i am an exam cheat” for a period of time, which deters prospective cheats. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 252 published by scholink inc. 13. conclusions 1) lack of adequate preparedness for examinations and an over emphasis on good grades lead to cheating. 2) students carry unauthorized materials and write short notes on their body parts into examination rooms. 3) there is laxity in invigilation/supervision of examinations. 4) punishment is a critical deterrent to cheating in examinations. 14. recommendations 1) schools should ensure that students are adequately prepared for examinations. 2) teachers should emphasize mastery of content as opposed to grades and test scores. 3) invigilators/supervisors should tighten their act by conducting thorough search on every student before entry into the examination room. they should also be alert in the examination rooms throughout the exam period as students must not be left unattended. 4) schools should provide continuous guidance and dialogue with students about acceptable examination practices and create awareness on the dangers of cheating. 5) ministry of education should subject examination offenders to more severe punishments. references adow, i. m., alio, a. a., & thinguri, r. (2015). an assessment of the management of kcse examination and its influence on irregularities among students: a case of secondary schools in mandera county, kenya. journal of education and practice, 2(28). retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ej1081189.pdf aduda, d. (2015, december 31). west boy tops kcpe. daily nation, 1-2. agiresaasi, a. (2018, may 4). uganda struggles with widespread exam fraud, as pupils and teachers perpetuate cheating. global press journal. retrieved from https://globalpressjournal.com/africa/uganda/uganda-combats-widespread-cheating ajzen, i. (1991). the theory of planned behavior. organizational behavior and human decision processes, 50, 179-211. https://doi.org/10.1016/0749-5978(91)90020-t ali, a. (2016, july 22). exam cheating: a third of students admit to doing so this year alone, as survey reveals the most unusual methods used. independent. retrieved from https://www.independent.co.uk/student/student-life/studies/exam-cheating anderman, e. m. (2018, february 15). why students at prestigious high schools still cheat on exams. the conversation. retrieved from https://theconversation.com/why students-at-prestigious-high-schools-still-cheat-on-exams bbc news. (2018, january 5). more students found cheating in gcse and a-level exams. retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/news/education-42578874 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 253 published by scholink inc. bbc news. (2018, april 17). singapore uncovers “high-tech” exam cheating plot. retrieved from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-43110226 folson, d., & awuah, f. k. (2014). combating examination malpractices in the basic education certificate examination (bece) in ghana. international journal of computer applications, 100(7), 12-23. https://doi.org/10.5120/17536-8113 kohlberg, l. (1958). theory of moral development. retrieved from https://explorable.com/theory-of-moral-development maheka, g. (2015). nature and causes of examination malpractices in selected secondary schools in kitwe district, zambia (unpublished master’s dissertation). the university of zambia. retrieved from http://dspace.unza.zm:8080/xmlui/beatsream/handle/123456789/4202/main document.pdf? muchai, j. (2014). an investigation into factors that contribute to cheating in examinations in technical institutions in central province, kenya (unpublished master’s thesis). university of south africa. retrieved from http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.832.5105&rep=rep1&type=pdf ndalichako, j. (2009, march). evaluation of the conduct of primary school leaving examination (psle) in tanzania mainland. the national examination council of tanzania (necta). neuman, l. (2011). social research methods: qualitative and quantitative approaches. pearson. retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/235342123_social_research_methods_qualitative_and _quantitative_approaches nyamwange, c., ondima, p., & onderi, p. o. (2013). factors influencing examination cheating among secondary school students: a case of masaba south district in kisii county, kenya. elixir psychology, 56(2013) 13519-13524. retrieved from www.elixirpublishers.com/articles/1363584927_56 (3013)13519-13524.pdf owenga, j. t. o., aloka, p. j. o., & raburu, p. a. (2018). relationship between selected personal determinants and examination cheating among kenyan secondary school students. academic journal of interdisciplinary studies, 7(1), 73-82. https://doi.org/10.2478/ajis-2018-0007 quintos, m. a. m. (2017). a study on the prevalence and correlates of academic dishonesty in four undergraduate degree programs. asia pacific journal of multidisciplinary research, 5(1), 135-154. retrieved from http://www.apjmr.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/apjmr-2017.5.1.2.15.pdf republic of kenya. (2012). kenya national examinations council act no. 29. nairobi: kenya, government press. ruto, d. k., kipkoech, l. c., & rambaei, d. k. (2011). student factors influencing cheating in undergraduate examinations in universities in kenya. problems in management in the 21st century, 2, 1-9. retrieved from http://oaji.net/articles/2014/450-1391946818.pdf taylor, s. m. (2014, february-march). term papers for hire: how to deter academic dishonesty. the journal of adventist education. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 254 published by scholink inc. voa news. (2017, nov. 11). why us college students cheat and how to fight it. retrieved from https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/cheating-news-us-collegesand-universities/40 white, e. g. (1903). education. mountain view, ca: pacific press publishing association. frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no.2, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 101 original paper research on the role transformation and duty extension of college student counselors xie xiaojun1 1 sichuan minzu college, kangding city, china received: march 28, 2023 accepted: april 12, 2023 online published: april 25, 2023 doi:10.22158/fet.v6n2p101 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v6n2p101 abstract college student counselors are indispensable and important roles in the higher education system, whose responsibilities cover aspects such as psychological health services, academic guidance, career planning, and social adaptation. however, problems such as vague professional role positioning, unclear job scope, and inadequate professional image and quality level have limited the quality and effectiveness of their work. therefore, it is necessary to explore scientific ways to transform the professional role, improve professional quality, and innovate service models, in order to expand the scope of responsibilities for college student counselors, improve their professional image and quality, and provide more comprehensive, in-depth, and personalized services and support to students, promoting their overall development. keywords college student counselor, role transformation, responsibility expansion 1. analysis of the professional role and responsibilities of college student counselors in the new situation with the continuous development of society, the professional role and responsibilities of college student counselors have undergone certain changes in the new situation. in this era, college student counselors are no longer just “psychological teachers” in the traditional sense, but play a more comprehensive professional role. 1.1 analysis of the current professional role of college student counselors college student counselors are important professionals in higher education, responsible for students’ mental health, academic guidance, social adaptation, and other aspects of work. the professional role of college student counselors is no longer limited to psychological counseling and education, but has become more diverse. they also need to be responsible for students’ life management, course planning, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 102 published by scholink inc. career guidance, academic guidance, and other aspects of work. college student counselors’ work is no longer just about providing single counseling and guidance services, but rather places more emphasis on service quality and effectiveness. they need to develop personalized service plans and programs based on students’ actual situations, providing more professional and attentive services to students. college student counselors are no longer isolated individuals fighting alone, but rather need to collaborate with other professionals. they need to work closely with teachers, student affairs officials, career counselors, and other professionals to provide more comprehensive services to students. college student counselors’ work is also influenced by information technology. they need to master certain information technology skills and use various information technology tools to provide more efficient services to students. with the increasing social competition and the diversification of student issues, the work pressure of college student counselors is also increasing. they need to take on more workload and responsibilities, while also facing students’ psychological issues and pressures, bearing psychological burdens. 1.2 analysis of responsibilities of college counselors college counselors are professionals responsible for student mental health, academic guidance, social adaptation, and other aspects of higher education. college counselors are responsible for providing students with mental health guidance, including psychological counseling, psychological guidance, psychological testing, and other services, to help students solve psychological problems and improve their mental health. college counselors are also responsible for providing students with academic guidance services, including personalized learning plans, course planning, professional selection, and other guidance to help students improve their academic performance and develop career plans. in addition, college counselors need to actively carry out student mental health education and psychological counseling work, organizing mental health lectures, psychological guidance activities, etc., to improve students’ awareness of mental health and psychological coping abilities. furthermore, college counselors need to work with other departments of the school to jointly maintain the comprehensive development and healthy growth of students. college counselors are responsible for providing students with social adaptation guidance, including interpersonal communication, social skills, professional qualities, and other aspects of guidance, to help students better adapt to the social environment. college counselors are responsible for managing and handling students’ daily affairs, including student file management, student status management, scholarship evaluation, and financial aid distribution. college counselors also need to organize and carry out various student activities, such as student unions, clubs, volunteers, etc., to provide students with a wider range of development platforms and opportunities. college counselors also need to provide students with career planning guidance, including career counseling, employment guidance, internship arrangements, and other related services, to help students better plan and develop their careers. college counselors also need to be responsible for student safety management, including maintaining students’ personal safety, property security, and other related work. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 103 published by scholink inc. 2. analysis of problems in the transformation of the role and responsibilities of counselors 2.1 ambiguous positioning of professional roles the role of college counselors may not be clearly defined, and their responsibilities and tasks may not be explicitly stated, leading to ambiguity in their actual work. different student groups in different colleges may have different needs, requiring counselors to assume different professional roles and responsibilities. this difference may result in an ambiguous positioning of the professional role of college counselors. 2.2 conflicts in professional roles the target of service for college counselors is students, and their tasks include psychological counseling, academic guidance, career planning, and other aspects. in practical work, conflicts may arise between student needs and tasks. college counselors need to maintain a balance between individual and collective interests in their work, but conflicts may arise at times. the professional role of college counselors requires a variety of abilities and skills, such as psychological counseling, academic guidance, career planning, etc., but there may be situations in which they lack certain abilities or skills in practical work. 2.3 unclear job scope the work tasks of college counselors may not have been properly assigned or may not be clear enough, resulting in an unclear job scope in practical work. the work tasks of college counselors may overlap, making it difficult to determine their job scope in practical work. with the diversification of student needs, the responsibilities that college counselors need to undertake are also increasing, making it difficult to clarify their job scope in practical work. 2.4 insufficient professional image and quality level some college counselors may have issues with their professional image in terms of clothing, language, behavior, etc., which affects their professional image. the professional quality level of college counselors in areas such as psychological counseling, academic guidance, and career planning may not be high enough, which affects their work effectiveness and service quality. college counselors may have insufficient service awareness and may not handle student needs and problems in a timely and effective manner. 3. the transformation of the professional role and the expansion of responsibilities for college counselors in the new era 3.1 responsibilities of college counselors in china in the new era college counselors in china are responsible for providing mental health services to students, including psychological counseling, psychotherapy, psychological testing, and other services to help students solve psychological problems and improve their mental health. college counselors are also responsible for providing academic guidance services to students, including personalized study plans, course planning, and career development guidance to help students improve their academic performance and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 104 published by scholink inc. develop career plans. college counselors are responsible for providing career planning services to students, including career counseling, job guidance, internship arrangements, and other services to help students better plan and develop their careers. college counselors are also responsible for providing social adaptation services to students, including guidance on interpersonal communication, social skills, and professional qualities to help students better adapt to the social environment. college counselors are responsible for managing and handling students’ daily affairs, including student record management, academic management, scholarship evaluation, and financial assistance distribution for students in need. college counselors are responsible for organizing and carrying out various student activities, such as student unions, clubs, and volunteer work, to provide students with a broader platform and opportunities for development. college counselors are also responsible for student safety management, including work to maintain student personal safety and property security. 3.2 the scientific transformation of the role of counselors the professional role of college counselors has evolved with the continuous development of higher education and society. therefore, college counselors need to undergo a scientific transformation of their professional roles to better meet the needs of the new era. college counselors need to transition from a single professional role to a diverse and comprehensive role, emphasizing the use of multiple abilities and skills in their work, such as psychological counseling, academic guidance, and career planning. college counselors need to continuously improve their professional abilities and skills by participating in various training, seminars, and learning opportunities to meet the needs of the new era. college counselors need to innovate their service models, focusing on personalized and accurate services to provide students with more comprehensive and in-depth services. college counselors need to engage in career planning, clarify their own career goals and development directions, while also paying attention to students’ career planning and providing them with better guidance and support. college counselors need to continuously conduct scientific transformation of their professional roles to adapt to the needs of the new era, improve their professional abilities and quality, and provide better services and support for students. at the same time, universities and society should also provide better working environments and training opportunities for college counselors, providing them with more support and assistance for their development. 3.3 implementing research on expanding the professional responsibilities of college counselors implementing research on expanding the professional responsibilities of college counselors refers to exploring how to expand the professional responsibilities of college counselors through research and practice, in order to better meet the needs and development requirements of students, and improve the quality and effectiveness of services. research on expanding the professional responsibilities of college counselors includes providing more comprehensive services and support in academic guidance, career planning, social adaptation, and other aspects, to meet the diverse needs of students’ development. research on innovative service models for college counselors includes achieving personalized and accurate services, and utilizing new technologies and media to improve service quality and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 105 published by scholink inc. effectiveness. research also focuses on enhancing the professional capabilities and quality of college counselors through training and development. additionally, research explores ways to strengthen collaboration between college counselors and subject teachers, establish effective linkage mechanisms, promote the integration of teaching and counseling work, and improve the quality and effectiveness of services. research on strengthening the construction of college counselor teams includes developing comprehensive talent training plans, and enhancing counselor’s professional identity and job satisfaction. implementing research on expanding the professional responsibilities of college counselors requires attention to the actual needs of counselors and the developmental requirements of students. it also involves exploring new models, technologies, and concepts suitable for the current era, to improve the quality and effectiveness of college counselors’ services. 3.4 establish a good professional image and improve one’s professional quality as a college counselor, one should pay attention to one’s appearance and image, including clothing, demeanor, speech, and behavior. one should appear in front of students with a professional, friendly, and approachable image. as a college counselor, one should have good communication skills, be able to communicate effectively with students, and understand their needs and problems. one can improve their communication skills by participating in training, seminars, and other activities. college counselors need to continuously improve their professional quality, including knowledge and skills in areas such as mental health, academic guidance, and career planning, in order to better serve students. college counselors need to focus on service quality, pay attention to students’ individualized needs, provide accurate, meticulous, and thoughtful services and support, and help students solve problems and develop. college counselors need to constantly learn new knowledge and skills, pay attention to industry trends and development trends, update their knowledge and skills in a timely manner, in order to adapt to changes in the times and students’ needs. establishing a good professional image and improving one’s professional quality are a must for college counselors, who need to pay attention to their own image and quality improvement in order to better serve and support students. at the same time, universities should also strengthen the construction of the counselor team, provide them with training and learning opportunities, and help them improve their professional quality and service quality. 4. conclusion the importance of being a college counselor goes without saying. they not only need to provide support and assistance to students in areas such as psychological health services, academic guidance, career planning, and social adaptation, but also need to constantly improve their own professional quality and service quality. with the continuous development of the times and the changing social needs, the responsibilities and roles of college counselors are also constantly expanding and changing, requiring continuous learning and adaptation. we need to give more attention and support to college www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 106 published by scholink inc. counselors, helping them to better play their roles and improve students’ psychological health and development abilities. at the same time, college counselors should also pay attention to improving their own professional quality and image, constantly learning and making progress, and providing students with better services and support. we hope that college counselors can continue to grow and make progress in their work, contributing their own strength to the growth and development of students. references jia, s. n., ren, l. w., & cao, y. (2021). research on the function and role transformation of college counselors based on the background of moral education——review of “research on the role image of college counselors”. science and technology management research, 41(17), 1. ou, c. x. (2021). role positioning and responsibility definition of college counselors. 2021(2013-11), 75-76. wei, x. t., & li, x. l. (2021). analysis of the transformation of job responsibilities and capability enhancement of college counselors in the era of great craftsmen. frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no.2, 2021 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) original paper reasons for students’ absenteeism from lectures in selected tertiary institutions in delta and edo states of nigeria: the students’ views egede bernadette amukahara joy1* & asabor mary bivwiere1* 1 college of education, agbor, delta state, nigeria * egede bernadette amukahara joy, bajegede@yahoo.com *asabor mary bivwiere, mbivwiere@yahoo.com received: march 24, 2021 accepted: april 10, 2021 online published: april 22, 2021 doi:10.22158/fet.v4n2p68 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v4n2p68 abstract students’ absenteeism from lectures in tertiary institutions is a universal phenomenon which apparently transcends beyond countries, institutions and course disciplines. this study explored the views of 156 students from colleges of education, polytechnic and universities from delta and edo states on the reasons for their absenteeism from lectures. a survey research design and a 20-item likert questionnaire were used to collect data. data was analyzed using spss-23 computer package. the results showed the following, as strong reasons for absenteeism from lectures. • poor students’ personal dispositions (e.g., laziness/lack of self-motivation to study, x = 3.13: emotional trauma, x = 3.13). • societal problems (e.g. dependence on examination mal-practice and bribery for success in examinations, x = 3.12). • health issues (e.g., sickness/weakness, x = 3.09). • lecturer-factors (e.g., boring teaching methods x = 3.04). • peer pressure, (e.g., distracting peer influences x = 3.03).  poverty related factors (e.g., hunger and lack of food x = 2.80).  environmental factors (e.g., availability of the course materials in the library/internet sources x = 2.64). the results further suggested that gender and age-range of students had no influence on their views. recommendations are based on comprehensive ideas that are humanistic, technical and employ digital technology. 68 mailto:bajegede@yahoo.com mailto:mbivwiere@yahoo.com www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 keywords absenteeism from lectures, tertiary institutions, students’ views, students’ absenteeism, lecture attendance 1. introduction students’ absenteeism from lectures in tertiary institutions is increasingly becoming a universal phenomenon which apparently transcends beyond countries, institutions and course disciplines. it has also attracted a wide range of studies in which stakeholders have sought explanations to the challenging trend by describing the factors responsible for it in various academic environments and possible solutions to it using various approaches. (edwards & clinton, 2019; khan et al., 2019; ada et al., 2019; qutub et al., 2018; dommeryer, 2017; ezeji, 2017). attendance to lectures in tertiary institutions in nigeria is a policy issue and its importance is specified in the students’ information handbooks which is made available to all bona-fide students, as they complete their registration exercise. at times, the information on the importance of lecture attendance is included in the lectures delivered to fresh students during orientation programmes. an excerpt of such statements on lecture attendance, from the students’ information handbook of the college of education (c.o.e), agbor is as follows: “a registered student for nce (nigeria certificate in education) programme must attain 75% attendance to be allowed to write the end of semester examination” c.o.e., agbor, 2011, p. 34. a similar statement in the students’ information handbook of the faculty of education of delta state university (delsu), abraka is as follows. “to be eligible for any examination, a student is required to have attained 80% minimum contact hours before he/she is allowed to take the examination for the particular course” delsu, 2018, p. 16. in the same vein, fayombo et al. (2012) reported that the minimum attendance which students must attain to qualify to write examination in the university of ibadan is 75%. this policy makes the keeping and use of records of students’ attendance to lectures a mandatory activity, so as to implement it during examinations. however, some lecturers have noted that the policy has not been strictly implemented in all situations, due to various challenges involved in the ways that attendance is taken, which is mainly manual with paper and pens. where the students’ populations are large, taking attendance manually reduced the actual lecture period from the normal (shoewu & idowu, 2012). at times impersonation at lectures could occur if the lecturer was not be able to recognize all students facially (akinnuwesi & agagu, 2012). hence, students easily skip lectures unnoticed. at present a record of average attendance ranging from 50% to 70% is a common phenomenon observed in tertiary institutions. consequently, overall performances of students in various courses are adversely affected (wiji et al., 2019; khan et al., 2019; dommeryer, 2017). 69 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 absenteeism is simply the absence of a student from the classroom when he/she is scheduled to be present at school. research has shown that there exists inverse relationship between absenteeism and students’ academic performance (wadesang et al., 2011; kottasz, 2005), while attendance to lectures has direct positive relationship with continuous assessment scores and the total examination score (egede & omiegbe, 2014). absenteeism is viewed as a poor motivation for learning which has adverse impact on students’ final academic performance. consequently, it poses a serious challenge to the successful implementation of the curriculum of tertiary institutions which is a tool for the production of highlevel manpower in the society. with such adverse effect on the human capacity development, it has the potential to obstruct sustainable development of any country, being served by tertiary institutions. therefore, absenteeism from lectures in tertiary institutions is a cankerworm which must be eliminated. exploring the reasons for absenteeism from students is a step to obtaining the solution to the problem. researchers have studied the reasons for absenteeism from lectures in various countries, institutions and courses disciplines and came up with a gamut of results which included socio-economic factors, student values and attitudes, lecturers’ teaching and attitudinal variables, factors in the learning environment and society at large (kahya et al., 2019; gumbuz et al., 2016; desalagn et al., 2014; fayombo et al., 2012, wadesango & severino, 2011; moore et al., 2008; kottasz, 2005). the phenomenon of absenteeism is still rampant in our tertiary institutions. in fact, situations are experienced where lecturers sought the whereabouts of their students, so as to teach them. in some worse situations, students could use social media, (such as whatsapp groups) to control, inform and stop themselves from attending some lectures. it is therefore pertinent to find out from students themselves, in various learning environments, the reasons for this malady. this study is aimed at surveying the reasons for absenteeism from lectures in selected tertiary institutions in delta and edo states. the selection of these institutions is based on the authors’ experience which showed that colleagues in these institutions were beset with the problem of absenteeism from lectures also. it is expected that exploring students’ views on the reasons for absenteeism as done in this study, will yield a more valid data which could be used by stake holders in solving the problem. 2. methodology 2.1 research design in this study, a mixed methodology using two approaches in a survey research design was adopted. in the first stage, a qualitative approach was used to obtain reasons for students’ absenteeism from lectures. seventy (70) students from a tertiary institution were asked to write ten reasons for their absenteeism from lectures. their responses in their own words were contentanalyzed and used to design a structured questionnaire (likert type) on reasons for absenteeism from lectures. in the second stage, quantitative approach using the four-point likert questionnaire was used to assess the students’ reasons (from the main sample of the study) for their absenteeism from lectures. 70 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 2.2 population the target population were students in public tertiary institutions in delta and edo states. these institutions included 6 colleges of education, 3 polytechnics and 3 universities in december, 2019. one of the colleges was used to generate the qualitative data for the questionnaire. hence the total student population in the remaining eight institutions was not less than eight thousand (8,000). 2.3 sample and sampling procedure a stratified and purposive sample of 156 students from eight tertiary institutions was used for the study. the strata were used to include students from each of the institutions as follows. 1) college of education agbor – delta state – 60 students. 2) delta state university abraka – delta state – 28 students. 3) university of benin, benin city – edo state – 20 students. 4) ambrose alli university, ekpoma – edo state – 18 students. 5) auchi polytechnic, auchi – edo state – 10 students. 6) ogwashi-uku polytechnic – delta state – 10 students. 7) federal college of education, asaba – delta state – 5 students. 8) college of education, warri – delta state – 5 students. 9) college of education, igueben, edo state (students were used for the qualitative approach) the purposive sample was based on the availability of the students on campus at the time of data collection, who are willing to participate in the research. 2.4 instrument and data collection students’ responses were collected using a questionnaire on reasons for absenteeism from lectures (quoral) which was constructed and validated by the authors. it is made up of a first part a which called for the gender and age-range of the respondents. then part b is made up of 20-items 19 of which are structured items while one is open-ended, free response item. the structured questionnaire was constructed from the free responses of the students during the first stage of the research. in this first stage, a class of 70 final year students from college of education, igueben was asked to state ten reasons for students’ absenteeism from lectures, based on their experience or that of their friends and colleagues which is known to them. they were free to write it as truly as they observed or experienced it without bias. the 700 responses were content-analyzed using coding and frequency counts. the 19 most frequent responses constituted the items for the structured questionnaire (quoral) which was administered to the sample of 156 students in this study. the questionnaire was administered to 50 students from college of education, agbor, who were not in the sample used for this study and their responses were analyzed to find the reliability index of the questionnaire using a computer package. the questionnaire is a 4-point likert type, hence the coefficient alpha reliability index was computed. the value of the reliability index is 0.812. it is considered high enough to use the questionnaire as a reliable instrument for this study. 71 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 2.5 data collection procedure the questionnaires were personally administered by the researchers so as to engage only the students who were willing to give their honest views on the reasons for absenteeism from lectures. 2.6 analysis of data the responses to the questionnaire were analyzed using spss computer package to obtain descriptive statistics; (the weighted mean for each reason, the percentage of the respondents which are in each age range and gender), to perform t-test for independent groups and one-way anova to determine the influence of gender and age range on absenteeism. the likert scale points are assigned weights of 4 (strongly agree), 3 (agree), 2 (disagree), 1 (strongly disagree). if the computed weighted mean is greater than 2.50, then, the respondents agreed to the reason, but if it is less than 2.50, then they disagreed to the reason according to the likert scale usage by jonald (2019). the responses of the students in the open-ended item are also collated qualitatively by coding some of their statements while presenting a few of them as quotes by the students so as to give insight into their real expression of their experiences relating to absenteeism from lectures. 3. results table 1. students’ views on the reasons for absenteeism from lectures s/no reasons total weight mean(x) significance . 1. laziness and lack of self-motivation. 489 3.13 * 2. frustrations and emotional-trauma. 488 3.13 * 3. dependence on examination mal-practice and bribing of lecturers for success in examination. 487 3.12 * 4. sickness and weakness. 482 3.09 * 5. lecturers’ boring, uninteresting and discouraging teaching method. 474 3.04 * 6. peer groups’ distracting influences. 473 3.03 * 7. banning late comers from lectures by lecturer. 473 3.03 * 8. giving undue priority to students’ politics, associations, clubs and parties. 462 2.96 * 9. unfriendliness harassments and intimidation by lecturers. 460 2.95 * 10. apathy due to difficult courses 451 2.89 * 11. lack of interest in studying. 445 2.87 * 12. hunger and lack of food 437 2.80 * 13. discouragement due to past poor performance in the course 427 2.74 * 72 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 14. lack of money for transport to and from far away students’ residences 420 2.69 * 15. distractions from part time /full time work. 417 2.67 * 16. lack of encouragement from parents/guardian. 412 2.64 * 17. availability of course materials in the library, textbooks or other sources. 412 2.64 * 18. tight and inconvenient lecture periods without break periods 409 2.62 * 19. no money to buy textbooks or other materials used during lectures. 393 2.52 • n = 156; * mean is greater than the criterion value mean is not greater than the criterion value. the results in table 1 above show that 18 out of the 19 reasons had mean values which are more than the criterion value 2.50. the 19th reason, (no money to buy textbooks or other materials used during lectures), had a mean value of 2.52 which is not significantly greater than 2.50. hence, the results showed eighteen (18) reasons representing the views of the sample of students used in the study. table 2. t-test for the difference between the views of male and female students on students’ absenteeism from lectures s/n reasons group mean standard and error of mean t-value significance significance at 0.05 level 1. laziness and lack of self-confidence. 1 2 3.23 3.06 0.129 0.158 0.813 0.419 • 2. frustration and emotional trauma. 1 2 3.06 3.17 0.123 0.129 -0.593 0.555 • 3. dependence on malpractice for success in examination. 1 2 3.03 3.25 0.177 0.151 -0.953 0.344 • 4. sickness and weakness. 1 2 3.06 3.08 0.133 0.140 -0.127 0.900 • 5. lecturers’ boring method of teaching. 1 2 3.00 3.00 0.135 0.128 0.000 1.000 • 6. peer group distracting influence. 1 2 3.06 3.00 0.133 0.164 -0.276 0.783 • 7. distractions from part time/full time work. 1 2 3.15 3.00 0.131 0.144 -0.286 0.774 • 73 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 8. unfriendly lecturers who intimidate students during lectures. 1 2 3.94 3.00 0.162 0.126 -0.309 0.759 9. hatred for difficult courses. 1 2 3.09 3.72 0.107 0.136 2.105 0.039 * 10. giving undue priority to social activities and politics. 1 2 3.03 2.92 0.149 0.156 0.521 0.604 • 11. hunger and lack of food 1 2 2.79 2.72 0.152 0.144 0.301 0.767 • 12. tight and inconvenient lecture periods without break period 1 2 2.69 3.00 0.162 0.143 -0.346 0.730 • 13. no interest in studying 1 2 3.10 2.71 0.139 0.167 1.743 0.086 • 14. banning late comers from lectures by lecturers 1 2 2.64 2.61 0.168 0.145 0.114 0.909 • 15. lack of money for transport to and from far away students’ residences 1 2 2.68 2.63 0.136 0.168 0.222 0.825 • 16. availability of course materials in the library or other sources 1 2 2.66 2.59 0.183 0.169 0.273 0.789 • code: female-1. male-2; df = 148, * significant at 0.05 level, not significant at 0.05 level. number of males-78; number of females-72. table 2 above showed that the male and female students did not differ significantly in their views on sixteen (16) out of the nineteen (19) reasons. both male and female students agreed on the sixteen reasons for absenteeism from lectures. in fact, the male and female students have the same mean value 3.00 for the reason of lecturers’ boring/uninteresting teaching method. 74 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 table 3. reasons in which male and female students differed in their views s/n reasons group mean sig. error mean t-value significance 1. no encouragement from parents/guardians. 1 2 2.44 2.86 0.165 0.150 -1.890 0.063 2. discouragement due to past poor performance in exam. 1 2 2.55 2.91 0.131 0.148 -1.845 0.070 number of females n (1) = 72, df = 148. number of males n (2) = 78. the three reasons where there were relatively different views between the male and female students are shown in table 3 above. the female students disagreed that “no encouragement from parents/guardians” is a reason, while the male student viewed it as a reason. the strength of agreement on the item “discouragement due to past poor performance in the examination” was higher for males (2.91) than the females (2.55). however, the t-values (t = -1.89 and -1.845) were not statistically significant at 0.05 level. (see table 3). table 4a. t-test for the difference in the views of students by age-range s/n reasons group mean s e. of mean t-value significance 1. no money to purchase textbook or other materials used during lectures 1 3 3.33 2.38 0.494. 0.167 2.036 0.048* 2. lack of money for transport to and from distant students’ residence 1 3 3.50 2.54 0.342 0.132 2.661 0.011* 3. distraction from full time/part time work 1 3 3.25 2.98 0.479 0.110 0.729 0.470∙ 4. banning late comers from lectures by lecturers’ 1 3 3.50 2.53 0.342 0.139 2.553 0.014* 5. lecturers boring/uninteresting teaching methods 1 3 3.67 3.03 0.211 0.131 1.827 0.074∙ 6. unfriendliness, harassment and intimidation by lecturers 1 3 3.67 2.90 0.211 0.136 2.139 0.038* 7. peer group distracting influences 1 3 2.67 3.03 0.422 0.127 -0.986 0.329∙ 8. giving undue priority to students, politics, associations etc. 1 3 3.50 2.83 0.342 0.151 1.632 0.110∙ 75 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 9. lack of interest in studying 1 3 3.00 2.78 0.365 0.165 0.516 0.609∙ 10. dependence on malpractice and bribing lecturers to pass examination 1 3 3.50 3.10 0.342 0.155 0.945 0.350∙ 11. hunger and lack of food 1 3 2.83 2.65 0.477 0.154 0.419 0.677∙ 12. sickness and weakness 1 3 3.33 3.03 0.333 0.136 0.822 0.416∙ 13. laziness and lack of self-motivation 1 3 3.20 3.05 0.583 0.146 0.327 0.745∙ 14. frustration and emotional trauma 1 3 3.33 3.08 0.333 0124 0.750 0.457∙ 15. lack of encouragement from parents/guardian 1 3 2.67 2.68 0.333 0.154 -0.020 0.984∙ 16. discouragement due to past poor performance in the course 1 3 2.80 2.76 0.374 0.148 0.085 0.932∙ 17. availability of course materials in the library, textbook or others sources 1 3 3.67 2.39 0.211 0.166 3.059 0.004* 18. apathy due to difficult courses 1 3 3.50 2.78 0.342 0.116 2.220 0.032* 19. tight and inconvenient lecture periods without break periods 1 3 3.33 2.51 0.422 0.146 2.015 0.050* table 4b. t-test for differences in the means for students’ views by age-range(indicating significant differences) s/n reasons group mean s.e. of the mean t-value significance 1. availability of course materials in the library, textbook or other sources 1 3 3.67 2.39 0.211 0.166 2.036 0.048 * 2. lack of money for transport fare from very distant students’ residences to campus 1 3 3.50 2.54 0.342 0.132 2.661 0.011 * 3. banning late comers from lectures by lecturers’ 1 3 3.50 2.53 0.342 0.139 2.553 0.014 * 4. hatred for difficult courses 1 3 3.67 2.90 0.211 0.136 2.139 0.004* 76 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 5. unfriendly lecturers’ who intimidate students during lectures 1 3 3.67 2.96 0.211 0.166 3.059 0.004 * 6. lack of money to purchase materials used for lecture 1 3 3.50 2.78 0.342 0.116 2.220 0.032 * 7. tight lecture period without break period. 1 3 3.33 2.51 0.422 0.146 2.015 0.05 * number of students in the age range below 18yrs (1) = 12 number of students in the age range above 22yrs (3) = 78; df = 88 * significant at 0.05 level. in tables 4a and 4b above, the results of the t-test for the difference in the views of the students grouped with respect to the age range they belong was shown. the extreme age ranges of “below 18years” (1) and above 22years (3) were compared. the students from both age ranges agreed on 14 out of the 19 as reasons for absenteeism of students from lectures. although the mean value of the views of students from both ranges of age were statistically and significantly different for seven items, it is only in one of them that both groups disagreed on the reasons (i.e. 1). in table 4 while the students in the lower age range (less than 18years) agreed that availability of resource materials in the library is a reason for absenteeism, those in the upper range (above 22years) viewed it as no reason. table 4b makes the items 1 and 6 for which there is sharp disagreement very vivid. generally, these results suggested that age-ranges made no significant difference in their view the one-way anova analysis is performed to show how different or similar the group-means for the three age-ranges are for each of the reasons. table 5. one way anova for testing the differences in the views of the students by age-range s/n reasons between groups within groups total mean square f significance 1. lack of money for transport to and from distant students’ residence 4.811 df=2 48.410 df=65 53.22 df=67 2.405 .745 3.230 0.046 2. banning late comers from lectures by lecturers 5.015 df=2 50.793 df=65 55.809 df=67 2.508 .781 3.209 0.047 3. availability of course materials in the library text books or other sources 8.626 df=2 56.758 df=62 65.385 df=64 4.313 .915 4.711 0.012 *f-ratio is significant at 0.05 level (1)—below 18years; (2) —18-2years; (3)—above 22years. 77 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 table 5 above shows that the students in the three age ranges differed in three (3) out of the 19 reasons. the younger students considered lack of money for transport, banning of late-comers from lectures and availability of lecture materials in the library as strong reasons (see table 4b) while the older ones did not see them as strong reasons. however, the agreement of the younger students for the last two reasons is not very strong with the means of 2.54 and 2.53 see table 4b). responses to the open-ended questionnaire items: the students were required to provide more reasons for absenteeism, if any. some wrote none or nil. but some wrote one or two reasons in addition to the 19 reasons stated in the structured part of the questionnaire. these were collated and grouped according to some common factors identified, but statements are quotes from the students. lecturers-related reasons:  “lecturers not teaching well, not allowing students to ask questions”.  “lecturers adjusting lecture periods to suit their time”.  “lecturers who make working so difficult for students”.  “lecturers who fail students because of not sleeping with them”.  “lecturers sharing students (their friends) for sex, mostly the female ones”.  “lack of encouragement from lecturers”. continuous assessment-related reasons:  “no assignment and feedback”.  “no feedback from assignment/tests”.  “no feedback from assignment and corrections”. infrastructure-related reasons:  “no enough lecture hall”.  “congested and uncomfortable lecture hall”. curriculum-related reasons:  “too many courses for nce students”. others:  “no school fees and financial support from their parents”.  “poor learning atmosphere, distractions from handsets and movies”.  “unemployment”.  “personal frustration and depression”. these further elucidated the views of the students in a qualitative form and gives clues to what they expect in a school system to motivate them to attend lectures. 78 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 table 6. description of the sample of the study s/no groups total <18yrs % 18-22 yrs.% >22yrs % 1. age range 12 5% 60 40% 78 52% 150* 100% 2. gender female % male % % 76 49% 80 51% 156 100% *some students did not fill their age-range. 4. discussion of results the reasons for absenteeism from lectures obtained from the study are valid views of the sample of students of this study which are described in table 6 above. firstly, these views validate the reasons obtained from the unstructured questionnaire from students in one of the tertiary institutions. secondly, they include the range of reasons, which students who attempt to obtain permission for absenteeism present to us lecturers. they often take excuses because of sickness, associations’ meetings, students’ “government” matters, traveling for family issues and to do some part time work to get money. at times they complain among themselves or openly about difficulty of some courses and lecturers. thirdly, the anonymous nature of the instrument made them free to give their honest views on the reasons presented in this study. the reasons obtained in this study corroborated those obtained in various studies on absenteeism. studying the declining attendance to lectures at a uk medical school, edward, et al. (2016) found that access to power-point presentation prior to lecture correlated positively with declining attendance (see reason, number 17 in table 1). kahya, et al. (2017) found that difficulties, lack of interest in engaging classes, teachers who are critical and have very high expectations of students, teachers who have authoritarian attitudes and lack communication with students and poor teaching strategies as causes of absenteeism (see numbers 5,7,9 and 11 in table 1.). desalegn, et al. (2014) obtained similar reasons in addition to poor students’ habit (see number 1 in table 1.) which gurbuz, et al. (2017) termed psychological reasons. wadesango and severino (2011) studying students’ absenteeism in south african university found similar reasons including unfavorable learning environment, part-time jobs, too much socialization and lack of interest in a subject (see numbers 8, 10 and 15 in table 1). in an analytical study using uk university, kottasz (2005) also found competing assessment pressures, timing of lecture and lack of intrinsic motivation as reasons among others mentioned earlier in this report (see numbers 1 and 18 in table 1). in a comprehensive study on absenteeism among college students, shalini (2009) provided an exhaustive list of reasons for this phenomenon as follows: 79 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021  lack of subject interest; lack of personal interest in studies; available opportunity for entertainment, e.g., malls, movie hall, etc.; the mental capacity of students does not match with course opted; too much pampered from family; poor teaching skills of lecturers; lack of confidence ragging; lack of allied activities such as sports, welcome/farewell parties; excess homework; fear from examination; preparation for participation in tv shows/acting dance/music; preparation for examination; college very far from the residence of students; over expectation from parents; too much socialization especially among teenagers who form groups to freak out; too comfortable, especially being car owners, big phone owner, too much money to spend; inferiority complex within the student. p-10-11. the reasons obtained in this study are therefore real in tertiary institutions and especially to the students of the population of the study. the reasons spanned the whole wide range of factors such as psychological, parental, academic, social, environmental, socio-economic to include survival needs such as hunger and lack of food for a student. reasons for absenteeism and gender: in this study there is a general harmony in the views of male and female students except in few items like “no encouragement from parents/guardians”. this result is expected because parents tend to pay more attention to female children more than the male counterpart especially in the nigerian environment. hence the females will hardly see it as a reason for absenteeism as confirmed in this study. reasons for absenteeism and students’ age: the students provided their views based on their experiences and that of their colleagues. few of the issues the younger students considered as strong enough to cause absenteeism (e.g., banning late-comers from participating in lectures and availability of course materials textbooks and internet) were not seen by the older and more matured students as reasons. this is in line with the finding of shalini (2009) that the adolescents are affected more by socialization because they want to freak out, hence tight lecture time-table and anything which reduces their freedom would be strong reasons to them unlike the more matured ones who are above 22years. students’ views on absenteeism from open responses: these responses confirm the various factors which combine to influence absenteeism such as socio-economic (no school fees financial support), curricular/academic (too much courses for nce); teaching strategies and lecturers’ attitudes (such as “no feedback for their assignments). these responses portray the expectations of the students from the educational system contrary to their experiences, (such as sexual harassment by lecturers), which would motivate them to attend classes. extrinsic factors like unemployment after studies, which is very high in nigeria at present could engage the mind of a student so adversely that he/she will lose the interest to study. these responses, though related to the ones in the structured part of the questionnaire revealed other dimensions (e.g. unemployment) of causes of absenteeism in the nigerian setting. 80 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 although learning takes place outside the lecture-classroom setting, it is achieved in desirable ways through planned and well-structured teaching environment of the lecture room/classroom. the ability, discipline and motivation of a student to go to the classroom to learn are what should be aimed at in solving the problem of absenteeism. sick, weak and hungry students who lack basic needs are unable to attend lectures. on the other hand, students who have no justification to be absent from lecture, except for lack of motivation will also be absent. absenteeism indicates a poor motivation to learn and has been shown to result in poor learning also kottasz (2009). strong desire to learn is the best state a student should be in. efforts of all stakeholders in the formal education system should be combined to launch every student in the tertiary institution into this state by enhancing their ability and motivation (physically and morally) to attend lectures. the following recommendations could help in motivating students to attend lectures, based on the results of this study. 5. recommendations 1) records of lecture attendance should not only be used to allow students to write (or not to write) examinations, but to identify, regular absentees, interact with them so as to help them through planned counselling. 2) consequently, institutions’ counseling units could use, lecture attendance records to identify, chronic absentees, interact with them to help them especially when lecturers are involved in their problem. 3) lecturers could give short written quiz during the lecture which is assessed and counts as part of their continuous assessment scores. this has proved very effective in our experience. 4) attendance to lectures should be managed using technology as designed by some concerned computer engineers, so as to ensure its effectiveness (akinnuwesi & agagu, 2012). 5) the institutions’ policy on attendance to lectures should be implemented and updates should be given to students so as to sensitize and motivate them to comply. 6) through counselling, students should be helped to choose or change to courses or subjects which they are interested in, and are able to study. 7) in the case of mere truancy on the part of the students, the parents could be informed and involved so as to help the student. 8) lecturers should be required to and rewarded for maintaining professionalism in their teaching and employing the aspect of salesmanship of creating and maintaining favorable attention of their students that will inspire them to desire to learn. 9) every necessary infrastructure should be provided to make lecture rooms convenient and comfortable for all students. 10) efforts should be made by concerned departments, individuals and agents in the tertiary institutions to be overtly humanistic to address the needs of students which could cause absenteeism through appropriate interventions. 81 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 one of the goals of tertiary institutions should be to make use of informed researches to solve problems. hence researches on absenteeism should be carried out in various institutions so as to make use of the results to provide appropriate remedies. 6. conclusion in this study the views of students on the reasons of absenteeism were obtained and they corroborated reasons obtained from past studies on absenteeism. through their responses in an open-response item some of the students in this study freely provided more reasons for absenteeism which are reported in their own words. this implies that absenteeism from lectures is a reality in their tertiary institutions and consequently the attention of all stake holders is required to provide remedies. since the reasons for absenteeism from lectures have societal, environmental, academic/curricular, learner and teacher-factors, more studies are required in various institutions so as to describe the problem more succinctly as it manifests within them. it is expected that the results of this study will sensitize all stake holders on the need to enhance lecture attendance in tertiary institutions, since absenteeism is already a phenomenon in campuses. references ada, m. j., arop, p. o., & okute, a. l. (2019). a study of the management of learners’ absenteeism in school organizations in nigeria. research on humanities and soc. sc., 9(18) akinnuwesi, b. a., & agagu, t. t. (2012). automated students’ attendance taking in tertiary institutions using hybridized facial recognitions algorithm. the journal of computer science and its application, 19(12). https://doi.org/10.4314/jcsia.v19i2.1 college of education, agbor. (2011). student information handbook (2009)-2011), agbor, nicho printing works. delta state university, abraka. (2018). faculty of education students’ information handbook. boji-boji owa, sky press ltd. desalegn, a. a., berhen, a., & berhan, y. (2014). absenteeism among medical and health science undergraduate students at hawassa university ethiopia bmc. medical education, 14(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/1472-6920-14-81 dommeryer, c. j. (2017). lecture capturing: it’s effects on students’ absenteeism, performance and impressions in a traditional marketing research course. journal of edu, bus., 388-395. https://doi.org/10.1080/08832323.2017.1398129 edwards, n. j., moori, p., alexander, l., richards, b., & sharma, k. a. (2016). could attendance at medical school be improved? a prospective study of medical education at the university of liverpool. study of attendance at uk medical school. retrieved from https://www.researchgate,net/publication308089066 82 published by scholink inc. https://doi.org/10.4314/jcsia.v19i2.1 https://doi.org/10.1186/1472-6920-14-81 https://doi.org/10.1080/08832323.2017.1398129 https://www.researchgate,net/publication308089066 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 edwards, m. r., & clinton, m. e. (2019). a study exploring the impact of lecture capture availability & lecture capture usage on student attendance and attainment. higher education, 77, 403-421. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-018-0275-9 egede, b. a. j., & omiegbe, o. (2014). correlation between continuous assessment and examination scores a case for enhancing the predictions of students’ performance in colleges of education. inted 2014 proceedings. spain valencia iated academy, gomez-chova, i, i. lopez matine &candel t.i. eds (2014). ezeji, k. (2017). absenteeism amongst undergraduate students: a study of department of architecture, anambra state university. journal of multidisciplinary studies, 1(1). fayombo, g. a., olaleye, y. l., & ogunkola, b. j. (2012). cross institutional study of the causes of absenteeism among university students in barbados and nigeria. australian journal of educational and developmental psychology, 2(1), 122-136. https://doi.org/10.5539/jedp.v2n1p122 gurbuz, o., ijilal, o., & emine, a. b. (2017). causes of absenteeism of high school students. retrieved from http://www.researchgate.net/publication315076112 jonald, l. p. (2019). some biases in likert scaling usage and its correction. international journal of sciences, basic & applied research (ijsbar), 45(1), 183-191. kahya, o., saricaoglu, h., & yaka, a. (2019). a mixed research on cheating and absenteeism behaviors of teacher certificate program students. https://doi.org/10.12973/eu-jer.8.1.267 khan, y. i., lodhi, s. k., bhatti, s., & ali, w. (2019). does absenteeism affect academic performance among undergraduate medical students? evidence from rashid latif medical college (rlmc). advanced medical educational practice.doi.10.2147/ampe.s226255. european journal of educational research, 8(1), 267-284. kottasz, r. (2005). reasons for students’ non-attendance at lectures and tutorials an analysis. investigations in university teaching and learning, 2(2). moore, s., armstrong, c., & pearson, j. (2008). lecture absenteeism among students in higher education, a valuable tool for understanding student motivation. journal of higher education, policy and management, 30(7), 15-24. https://doi.org/10.1080/13600800701457848 qutub, m. f. et al. (2018). absenteeism among saudi medical students. egypt j. hosp. medi. https://doi.org/10.12816/0044631 shalini, j. (2009). a qualitative research study on school absenteeism among college students. retrieved from https://www.academia.edu/3307957/ shoewu, & idowu, o. a. (2012). development of attendance management system using biometrics. the pacific journal of science and technology, 13(1). wadesango, n., & severino, m. (2011). causes and structural effects of students’ absenteeism. a case study of three south african universities. journal of social sciences, 19(12). 83 published by scholink inc. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-018-0275-9 https://doi.org/10.5539/jedp.v2n1p122 http://www.researchgate.net/publication315076112 https://doi.org/10.12973/eu-jer.8.1.267 https://doi.org/10.1080/13600800701457848 https://doi.org/10.12816/0044631 https://www.academia.edu/3307957/ www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 wiik, r. (2017). systematic causes behind attendance and non-attendance at lectures. retrieved from https://sites.artveldehogeschool.be/efye/sites/default/files/paperattendancefyewilk.pdf wiji, a., robin, n., & jeremy, s. (2019). class attendance: the impact in students’ performance. retrieved from http://www.warwick.ac.uk/go/economic/research/papers/twerp.820.pdf 84 published by scholink inc. https://sites.artveldehogeschool.be/efye/sites/default/files/paperattendancefyewilk.pdf http://www.warwick.ac.uk/go/economic/research/papers/twerp.820.pdf original paper frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no.1, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 26 original paper classic experiments in education technology steven b. oppenheimer1 1 department of biology and center for cancer and developmental biology, california state university, northridge, northridge, ca 91330-8303, usa received: february 18, 2023 accepted: march 3, 2023 online published: march 11, 2023 doi:10.22158/fet.v6n1p26 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v6n1p26 abstract classic experiments in biomedicine are presented that inspire students to enthusiastically continue in this field, written by a u.s. presidential award winning, american association for the advancement of science fellow. four experiments are selected: the structure of dna, the structure of the cell membrane, sugars in cell adhesion, and unconventional dealing with a deadly cancer problem. papers, written mostly by students, from the author’s lab are also included that support the concept that students will enter a science research field if they are introduced to it by easy to read, enjoyable, papers. some of the author’s papers strongly support one of the classics presented, the role of sugars in cell adhesion. using these classics to teach students at all levels is presented, as the author has used them for decades, helping him win a us presidential award for mentoring and supporting his election as fellow, american association for the advancement of science (aaas) (note 1). this approach helps students to understand the personalities involved in great discoveries, making them unforgettable. 1. introduction the author has decades of experience in the 4 selected classics and is therefore qualified to show how they are used and can be used by many folks to excite and inspire students in today’s classrooms, pre-college and college. 2. the structure of dna “what mad pursuit” is the title of a short book (note 2, note 3) written by the late francis crick, co-discoverer of the molecular structure of dna, that won a nobel prize in 1962, and has been cited as the greatest advance in life science of the 20th century. francis crick was honorary chair of a program led by me, steve oppenheimer, at california state university, northridge. he visited the university for about 10 years, working with students, colleagues www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 27 published by scholink inc. and staff. he signed autographs and spent hours taking photos with the hundreds of individuals in attendance. what an inspiration! in one of his visits francis crick showed the movie race for the double helix (note 2) before presenting his personal insights into this great discovery. i suggest that everyone see this film. it is the most inspiring movie that i’ve seen in 50 years. it can be shown in two 50 min parts. it was developed for bbc. it was released initially by studio hamburg enterprises and stars, among others, jeff goldblum. what is so important about this movie is that gives us a glimpse of the personalities of the scientists involved. it shows that the structure of dna was developed by crick and watson with the help of others such as rosalind franklin. the interplay of watson and franklin, for example, is fantastic and unforgettable. there is little doubt that franklin would have shared the nobel prize if she did not pass away before it was awarded. her x-ray crystallography pattern of dna was key evidence that led to the concept of dna as a double helix, an idea developed by crick before franklin’s x-ray crystallography provided solid evidence. as for the base pairing, a key clue was provided by edwin chargaff, when he told watson and crick, that his studies indicated that there was a rough equivalence of the bases a and t and also c and g in cells. this suggested to watson and crick that a and t might pair and c and g might pair. the chemical structures of a, t, c and g were drawn and modeled leading to the discovery of how the bases actually paired. the video is a masterpiece but reading crick’s memoir, what mad pursuit, only 182 pages long, gives even more detail, what mad pursuit was originally published by basic books, a division of harper collins publishers and the alfred p. sloan foundation (isbn 0-465-09137-7, cloth, isbn 0-465-09138, paper, sells for $10) (note 3) by seeing the film and/or reading the book, students will never forget how the dna double helix model was developed. without the film or book, the flavor of the discovery will be hard to understand. drawings of the double helix dna model showing base pairing will help. but, of course great teachers can make the dna story come alive. a purpose of this section is to entice educators to try to get a hold of the movie/and or book. i’ve used the video in my classes for decades. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 28 published by scholink inc. 3. the structure of the cell membrane the cell membrane was thought to consist of a lipid bilayer with a protein coating on its outside and inside. the exciting story of the discovery of the modern version of cell membrane structure is another exciting classic. the story begins with experiments by larry frye and mike edidin at johns hopkins that started around 1970. this was larry’s ph.d. thesis project. they used mouse cells and human cells and antibodies that bound to membrane proteins in each cell type. then they used green and red fluorescent dyes to visualize the proteins that were embedded in the cell membranes of each cell type. they then fused the mouse and human cells with sendai virus (or no virus in some experiments). right after applying the antibodies and fluorescent stains, the mouse cells were of one color and the human cells fused with the mouse cells were of the other color. but by 40 minutes after fusion the protein antigens of both cell types intermixed (note 4). s.j. singer’s and garth nicolson’s analysis of this intermixing indicated that intermixing of the proteins in the cell surfaces was consistent with lateral diffusion of the proteins in a sea of lipid they presented this analysis in their paper appearing in science titled the fluid mosaic model of the structure of the cell membrane (note 5). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 29 published by scholink inc. these sets of simple experiments are classics. this is easy to teach. have the students draw the fluid-mosaic model of the cell membrane and the frye and edidin fusion experiment as shown below. 4. sugars in cell adhesion when larry frye was doing the human/mouse fusion experiments at johns hopkins, steve oppenheimer, also at johns hopkins, was doing his ph.d. thesis project with saul roseman, mike edidin and charlie orr that became arguably the first solid evidence for a role of sugars in cell adhesion. this was also a set of classic experiments of importance in many areas such as cancer spread. steve found that a group of cells (mouse ascites teratoma cells) adhered to each other when l-glutamine was added to the culture medium, while no other medium component including other amino acids, sugars, vitamins and co-factors caused the cells to adhere (note 6). other cell types also responded by adhering with l-glutamine (note 7). as glutamine is an amino acid, did glutamine act in the formation of adhesive proteins? no. a complex series of experiments showed that l-glutamine donated its amino group to fructose-6-phosphate, forming glucoasamine-6-phosphate. glucosamine-6-phosphate was the key intermediate in the formation of cell surface sugars in polysaccharides, glycolipids and glycoproteins. this work was published in the proceedings of the national academy of sciences (pnas) (note 6). this classic finding provides an important target in cancer cells, that often possess altered cell adhesion. experiments from the author’s lab are very simple www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 30 published by scholink inc. and will excite students’ interest in research science (notes 1-91). and many experiments from the author’s lab support the role of sugars in cell adhesion and cell surface behavioral properties (notes 5, 6, 7,8, 9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16 16,18 19, 20, 21, 22, 23,24,25, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37 38, 40,41, 42, 43, 44,47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 67, 69, 71, 73, 74, 75, 77, 79, 81, 83, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89). see the pnas paper for details of the biochemistry involved in the glutamine reaction (note 6). teaching this classic can be at different levels from simply showing that l-glutamine causes cells to adhere, to the complex biochemistry, using specific inhibitors, that show how glutamine is acting. 5. classic approach to a cancer problem i’ve used the nova video, the cancer detectives of lin xian, october 7, 1980 (note 90) for decades in my classes. it, like the race for the double helix, described in part 1 of this paper, is a true classic but almost nobody knows about the cancer detectives video. this video showcases what was done in china to deal with a cancer that affected the people in lin xian in epidemic proportions. the chinese approached esophageal cancer in a way so different than done in western nations. this video can inspire new generations of students to tackle big problems, not only by spending billions of dollars on molecular biology, but by a focus on prevention that worked well. first, the health workers carefully examined the food and drink of the people. they found high levels of nitrite, nitrate, nitrosamines and mold, as well as too low levels of vitamin c in the food that the people ate. they improved food storage and increased vitamin c in food and broadcast the new information to the people. they checked the temperature of the drink and found it was no hotter than what was consumed by people in neighboring regions without high rates of esophageal cancer. the chickens owned by people with high rates of esophageal cancer also had tumors in their gullets. it was believed that the table scraps fed to the chickens might be a cause of the cancer. it will take years to see if any of these dietary improvements lower the rate of esophageal cancer, so the health workers and scientists did not stop at the dietary improvements. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 31 published by scholink inc. they developed an abrasive balloon that was swallowed by the people and pulled up gently scraping the esophagus. they wiped the balloon on slides that were examined by technicians to see if the scrapings contained cells that were pre-cancerous or cancerous. medicines were given to people who had pre-cancerous cells to reduce the advance of the cancer. such people were examined regularly. those with advanced cancer were offered standard operations with standard anesthesia. in such operations, the cancer in the esophagus was removed and the ends of the esophagus were sewn together. today, in the west, smoking and heavy alcohol consumption have been added as causes of this cancer. but in the west, little attention is given to early detection strategies, unlike what is done for breast cancer, where frequent checks are made. china has been doing relatively well in dealing with esophageal cancer. one hospital in china reports an 82.4% decrease in mortality from this cancer from the 1970s to 2018, five year survival is reported at 92.7%. this report was published by science/aaas custom publishing office and presented on page 1 in the december 10, 2021 issue of science (374, 6573) (note 91). this nova program is as relevant today as it was decades ago. it is a classic teaching tool. while smoking and heavy alcohol consumption, particularly smoking, have been reduced in the west, nothing like the chinese multi-factor approach that focuses on prevention has been implemented for esophageal cancer in western societies. very few people have seen the nova video, which is a model for cancer prevention. while billions of dollars spent by the west on molecular biology of cancer, has improved the cancer picture, more effort should be focused on cancer prevention strategies. the cancer detectives of lin xian is a classic that should be viewed by all. 6. conclusions this paper gives students a depth of understanding of fundamental biology experiments that can not be obtained from standard textbooks or from the usual classroom presentations. the 4 classic sets of experiments presented have been used in my classes for up to 50 years and have helped me win a u.s. presidential award for mentoring and election as fellow of the american association for the advancement of science (aaas). the election as fellow of the aaas recognized my contributions to the sugars in cell adhesion classic that began with the pnas paper (note 6). the video race for the double helix (note 2) and the book what mad pursuit (note 3) present the personal insights into the nobel prize winning discovery of the double helix/base pairing structure of dna. students will find that these personal insights give life to the monumental discovery. they will learn that this great discovery included the work of others in addition to crick and watson and that the contributions of the scientists involved were instrumental in this major breakthrough. with this approach using classics students will never forget what went into this major discovery. the discovery of the fluid-mosaic model of the cell membrane was also a collaboration of more than one group and illustrates how a great new model was developed. the nova program, the cancer detectives of lin xian (note 90) is a seminal journey into unconventional approaches to a deadly cancer. finally, the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 32 published by scholink inc. scores of mostly student co-authored papers cited here, from the author’s lab, make for readings that could inspire new generations of students to enter science research fields. this paper provides new thoughts about areas of study that can be inspirational to students in science and technology. many of the cited papers deal with the classic finding of a role of sugars in cell interactions, an area that has not been thought of as a classic in the past. i believe that election as fellow aaas supports the notion that this indeed is a classic. hundreds of students took part in the experiments cited here and this contributed to the u.s. presidential award for mentoring received by steve in addition to the aaas fellow designation. acknowledgements thanks to carolyn oppenheimer for expert insertion of the figures into this manuscript. my colleagues, the dean, chair, associate chair, provost and president provided over 50 years of great support. notes note 1. oppenheimer, s, a model for enhancing the science workforce, frontiers in education technology, vol. 5, no 1, pp. 29-60 (2022). note 2. studio hamburg enterprises, bbc video, race for the double helix, april 27, 1987. note 3. crick, f., what mad pursuit, basic books, 1988, 182 pages. note 4. frye, l.d., m. edidin, the rapid intermixing of cell surface antigens after formation of mouse-human heterokaryons, j. cell sci 7, pp. 319-335 (1970). note 5. singer, s.j., g.l. nicolson, the fluid mosaic model of the structure of the cell membrane, science 175, pp. 720-731 (1972). note 6. oppenheimer, s. b., m. edidin, c.w. orr, and s. roseman, an l-glutamine requirement for intercellular adhesion, proc, nat. acad. sci. u.s., 63: pp. 1395-1402 (1969). note 7. oppenheimer, s. utilization of l-glutamine in intercellular adhesion: ascites tumor and embryonic cells, exp. cell res. 77, pp. 175-182 (1983). note 8. smith, t., oppenheimer, s.b., involvement of l-rhamnose in sea urchin gastrulation: a live embryo assay, zygote, doi:10.1017/s0967199413000452 (2013) note 9. singh, s., karabidian, e., kandel, a., metzenberg, s., carroll, jr.e., oppenheimer, s.b., a role for polyglucans in a model sea urchin embryo cellular interaction, zygote doi:10.1017/s0967199413000038 (2013) note 10. ghazarian, h, b.idoni, s.oppenheimer. . a glycobiology review: carbohydrates, lectins, and implications in cancer therapeutics). acta histochemica, vol. 113, pages 236-247 (2011) pmcid pmc3027850. on the order of 10,000 downloads. one of the most of all time. note 11. dreyfuss, j. and s. oppenheimer. cyclodextrins and cellular interactions in e. bilensoy, ed., cyclodextrins in pharmaceutics, cosmetics, and biomedicine, current and future industrial applications, john wiley and sons, hoboken, n.j., chapter 15, pp. 287-295. (2010) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 33 published by scholink inc. note 12. idoni, b. h.ghazarian, s.metzenberg, v.hutchins-carroll, s.oppenheimer, and e.carroll jr. use of specific glycosidases to probe cellular interactions in the sea urchin embryo. experimental cell research, vol. 316, pp. 2204-2211 (2010) pmcid pmc2921930 note 13. alvarez, m., nnoli, j., carroll, e.j., jr., hutchins-carroll, v., razinia, z., oppenheimer, s.b., exogenous hyalin and sea urchin gastrulation, part ii: hyalin, an interspecies cell adhesion molecule, zygote 16: 73-78 (2008). pmcid pmc2557437 note 14. carroll, e.j., jr., hutchins-carroll, v., coyle-thompson, c., oppenheimer, s.b., hyalin is a cell adhesion molecule involved in mediating archenteron-blastocoel roof attachment, acta histochemica 110: 265-275 (2008). pmid 18262230 note 15. contreras, a., vitale, j., hutchins-carroll, v., carroll, e.j., oppenheimer, s.b., exogenous hyalin and sea urchin gastrulation. part iii: biological activity of hyalin isolated from lytechinus pictus embryos, zygote 16: 355-361 (2008). pmcid pmc2586997 note 16. oppenheimer,s.b., alvarez, m., nnoli, j.,carbohydrate-based experimental therapeutics for cancer, hiv/aids and other diseases, acta histochemica 110: 6-13 (2008). pmcid pmc2278011 note 17. oppenheimer, s.b., cellular basis of cancer metastasis: a review of fundamentals and new advances, acta histochemica, 108: 327-334 (2007). this paper garnered the most downloads of all papers in this elsevier journal, august 06-march 07 (813 downloads). pmid16730054 note 18. petrossian, k., banner, l., oppenheimer, s.b., lectin binding and lectin effects on human cancer and non-cancer cell lines: examination of issues of interest in drug design strategies, acta histochemica 109: 491-500 (2007). note 19. razinia, z., carroll, jr., e.j., oppenheimer, s.b., microplate assay for quantifying developmental morphologies: effects of exogenous hyalin on sea urchin gastrulation, zygote 15: 1-6 (2007). note 20. sajadi, s., rojas, p., oppenheimer, s.b., cyclodextrin, a probe for studying adhesive interactions, acta histochemica 109: 338-342 (2007). pmcid pmc 1988679 note 21. zem, g.c., badali, o., gaytan, m. hekmatjou, h., alvarez, m., nnoli, j., katus, e., oppenheimer, s.b., microbead analysis of cell binding to immobilized lectin: an alternative to microarrays in the development of carbohydrate drugs and diagnostic tests, acta histochemica 108: 311-317 (2006). note 22. ghazarian, h.,coyle-thompson, c., dalrymple, w., hutchins-carroll, v., metzenberg, s., razinia, z., carroll, jr., e.j., oppenheimer, s.b., exogenous hyalin and sea urchin gastrulation, part iv: a direct adhesion assayprogress in identifying hyalin’s active sites, zygote 18: 17-26 (2010). pmcid pmc2817981 note 23. oppenheimer, s. & meyer, j. (1982). carbohydrate specificity of sea urchin blastula adhesion component, experimental cell research, 139, 451-456. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 34 published by scholink inc. note 24. idoni, b., ghazarian, h., metzenberg, s., hutchins-carroll, v, carroll, jr., e., & oppenheimer, s. (2010). use of specific glycosidases to probe cellular interactions in the sea urchin embryo. experimental cell research, 316, 2204-2211. note 25. liang, j., aleksanyan, h., metzenberg, s., & oppenheimer, s. (2016). involvement of l-rhamnose in sea urchin gastrulation. part ii: alpha rhamnosidase, zygote 24, 37-377. note 26. k. crocker, j. deleon, l. telliyan, k.aprelian, a. rosenberg, n. pouri, g. beltran, v. ramirez, d. kaufman, a. petrosyan, d. nazarian, m. magistrado, s. matinian, d. hanna, s. eskandari, f. atanante, a. nerses, g. zem, s. oppenheimer, a kinetic assay for drug discovery: part 2, sodium sulfate american journal of applied scientific research 2020; 6(2): 39-42 http://www.sciencepublishinggroup.com/j/ajasr
doi: 10.11648/j.ajasr.20200602.12
issn: 2471-9722 (print); issn: 2471-9730 (online) note 27. v. nahapetyan, s. delos santos, k. crocker, d.tobar, d.nazarian, h. chirishyan, g.beltran, r. dubin, l. reque, p. singh, b. cardona, g. royce bachinela, l. sarkisyan, g. zem, s. oppenheimer, a manual kinetic assay in a fixed yeast model for drug discovery american journal of applied scientific research 5, no1: 28-35. doi 10.11648/j.ajasr.20190501.15 (2019). note 28. aleksanyan, h., liang, j., metzenberg, s., oppenheimer, s. b., terminal alpha-d-mannosides are critical during sea urchin gastrulation, zygote doi: 10.1017/so967199416000113 (2016). note 29. a. ghazarian, oppenheimer, s, microbead analysis of cell binding to immobilized lectin. part ii: quantitative kinetic profile assay for possible identification of anti-infectivity and anti-cancer reagents http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.acthis.2014.07.015, acta histochemica 116 (2014) 1514-1518. note 30. singh, e. karabidian, a. kandel, s. metzenberg, e. carroll, jr,. s. oppenheimer, a role for polyglucans in a model sea urchin embryo cellular interaction, zygote (cambridge university press), (2013), doi.10.1017/s096719943000038 (2013). note 31. h. ghazarian, c. coyle-thompson, dalrymple, v. hutchins-carroll, s. metzenberg, z. razinia, e. carroll, jr., s. oppenheimer, exogenous hyalin and sea urchin gastrulation, part iv: a direct adhesion assay – progress in identifying hyalin’s active sites zygote 18: 17-26 (2010). note 32. a. contreras, vitale, v. hutchins-carroll, e. carroll, jr, s. oppenheimer, exogenous hyalin and sea urchin gastrulation, part iii: biological activity of hyalin extracted from lytechinus pictus embryos zygote, vol. 16, pp. 355-361 (2008). note 33. e. carroll, jr., v. hutchins-carroll, c.coyle thompson, s. oppenheimer, hyalin is a cell adhesion molecule involved in mediating archenteron blastocoel roof attachment, acta histochemica, vol. 110, pp. 265-275 (2008). note 34. m. alvarez, j. nnoli, e. carroll, jr., v. hutchins-carroll, z. razinia, s. oppenheimer, exogenous hyalin and sea urchin gastrulation, part ii: hyalin, an interspecies cell adhesion molecule, zygote, vol. 16, pp. 73-78 (2008). note 35. m. alvarez, j. nnoli, s. oppenheimer, carbohydrate-based experimental therapeutics for cancer, hiv/aids and other diseases, acta histochemica, vol. 110, pp. 6-13 (2008). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.acthis.2014.07.015 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 35 published by scholink inc. note 36. k. petrossian, l.banner, s.oppenheimer, lectin binding and effects in culture on human cancer and non-cancer cell lines: examination of issues of interest in drug design strategies, acta histochemica, vol 109, pp. 491-500 (2007). note 37. z. razinia, e. carroll, jr, s. oppenheimer, microplate assay for quantifying developmental morphologies: effects of exogenous hyalin on sea urchin gastrulation, zygote, vol 15, pp. 1-6 (2007). note 38. s. sajadi, rojas, s. oppenheimer cyclodextrin, a probe for studying adhesive interactions, acta histochemica, vol. 109, pp. 338-342 (2007). note 39. s. oppenheimer, cellular basis of cancer metastasis: a review of fundamentals and new advances acta histochemica, vol. 108, pp. 327-334 (2006). note 40. g. zem, o. badali, gaytan, hekmatjou, m. alvarez, j. nnoli, katus, s. oppenheimer, microbead analysis of cell binding to immobilized lectin: an alternative to microarrays in the development of carbohydrate drugs and diagnostic tests, acta histochemica, vol. 108, pp. 311-317 (2006). note 41. l. welty, e. heinrich, c. garcia, l. banner, m. summers, l. baresi, s. metzenberg, c coyle-thompson, s. oppenheimer, analysis of unconventional approaches for the rapid detection of surface lectin binding ligands on human cell lines acta histochemica, vol. 107, pp. 411-420 (2006). note 42. c. coyle-thompson, s. oppenheimer, a novel approach to study adhesion mechanisms by isolation of the interacting system, acta histochemica, vol. 107, pp. 243-251 (2005). note 43. e.heinrich, l. welty, l. banner, s. oppenheimer, direct targeting of cancer cells: a multiparameter approach, acta histochemica, vol. 107, pp. 335-344 (2005). note 44. m. khurrum, hernandez, eskalaei, o. badali, c. coyle-thompson, s. oppenheimer, carbohydrate involvement in sea urchin gastrula cellular interactions acta histochemica, vol. 106, pp. 97-106 (2004). note 45. m.maldonado, g. weerasinghe, f.ambroise, yamoah, m. londono, j. pelayo, grigorian, s. oppenheimer, the charged milieu: a major player in fertilization reactions, acta histochemica, vol. 106, pp. 3-10 (2004). note 46. l. ngo, m. barajas, g. weerasinghe, g. zem, s. oppenheimer, a new histochemical approach for studying sperm cell surfaces, acta histochemica, vol. 105, pp. 21-28 (2003). note 47. m. khurrum, g. weerasinghe, e. soriano, r. riman, o. badali, s. gipson, medina, alfaro, v. navarro, c. harieg, l. ngo, t. sakhakorn, l. kirszenbaum, khatibi, abedi, m. barajas, g. zem, a. kirszenbaum, razi, s. oppenheimer, analysis of surface properties of human cancer cells using derivatized beads, acta histochemica, vol. 104, pp. 217-223 (2002). note 48. v. navarro, s. walker, o. badali, abundis l. ngo, g. weerasinghe, m. barajas, g. zem, s. oppenheimer, analysis of surface properties of fixed and live cells using derivatized agarose beads, acta histochemica, vol. 104, pp. 99-106 (2002). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 36 published by scholink inc. note 49. b. salbilla, h. vaghefi, chhabra, hall, bworn, sadoughi, e.francisco, l. attas, s. walker, nguyen, s. oppenheimer, analysis of cell surface properties using derivatized agarose beads acta histochemica, vol. 101, pp. 271-279 (1999). note 50. v. latham, s. oppenheimer a simple image analysis method for evaluating cell binding to derivatized beads acta histochemica, vol. 101, pp. 263-270 (1999). note 51. v. latham, m. tully, s. oppenheimer a putative role for carbohydrates in sea urchin gastrulation acta histochemica, vol. 101, pp. 293-303 (1999). note 52. v.latham, l. latham, s. oppenheimer, desktop computer-based image analysis of cell surface fluorescence patterning from a photographic source acta histochemica, vol. 98, pp. 295-300 (1996). note 53. j. philip, rodriguez, r.bada, f. ambroise and hernandez, s. oppenheimer, charge interactions in sperm-egg recognition , acta histochemica, vol. 99, pp. 401-410 (1997). note 54. ghoneum, vojdani, a. banionis, lagos and gill, s. oppenheimer, the effects of carcinogenic methylcholanthrene on carbohydrate residues of nk cells toxicology and industrial health, vol. 13, no. 6, pp. 727-741, 1997. note 55. v. latham, martinez, l. cazares, hamburger m. tully, s. oppenheimer, accessing the embryo interior without microinjection, acta histochemica, vol. 100, pp. 193-200 (1998). note 56. r. roque, s. herrera,yeh,. j. philip,t. borisavljevic,l. brunick, miles, haritunians, c. addy, r. bada, h. vaghfi, s. matsumoto, g. picionelli and rodriquez, s. oppenheimer, cell adhesion mechanisms: modeling using derivatized beads and sea urchin cell systems, acta histochemica, vol. 98, pp. 441-451 (1996). note 57. m. daily,v. latham,c. garcia, c. hockman, h. chun, m. oppenheimer, s. west, k. rostamiani, r.chao, e. pollock, s. oppenheimer, producing exposed coat-free embryos, zygote, vol. 2, pp. 221-225 (1994). note 58. m. spiegler, s. oppenheimer, extending the viability of sea urchin gametes, cryobiology, vol. 32, pp. 168-174 (1995). note 59. v. latham, j. ducut, k. rostamiani, h. chun, lopez, s. herrera, s. oppenheimer, a rapid lectin receptor binding assay: comparative evaluation of sea urchin embryo cell surface lectin receptors, acta histochemica, vol. 97, p. 89-97 (1995). note 60.v. latham, s. herrera, k. rostamiani, h. chun, s. oppenheimer, rapid identification of lectin receptors and their possible function in sea urchin cell systems, acta histochemica, vol.97, pp. 373-382 (1995). note 61. m. ghoneum, a. banionis, gill and romero, s. oppenheimer, demonstration of involvement of mannose residues on nk cell cytotoxicity using lectin coupled beads, natural immunity and cell growth regulation, 10:132(1991). note 62. s. oppenheimer, biology and cultivation of teratoma cells, in tests of teratogenicity in vitro, north holland, amsterdam, pp. 261-274. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 37 published by scholink inc. note 63. s. oppenheimer, human made carcinogens vs. natural food carcinogens: which post the greatest cancer risk? american clinical products review, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 16-19, february 1985. note 64. s. oppenheimer, cancer and stress, longevity letter, 2(6): 3, 1984. note 65. s. oppenheimer, carcinogens in food and water, longevity letter, 2(9): 2-3, 1984. note 66. s. oppenheimer carcinogens in the home, longevity letter, 3(5), 2-4, may 1985. note 67. s. oppenheimer, preventing cancer, american longevity 1 (no.1), pp. 1-5, 1983. note 68. meyer, p. thompson, r. behringer, r. steiner, saxton, s. oppenheimer, protease activity associated with loss of adhesiveness in mouse teratocarcinoma exp. cell res., 143, pp. 63-70, 1983. note 69. meyer, s. oppenheimer, carbohydrate specificity of sea urchin blastula adhesion component, exp. cell. res., 139, pp. 451-456. 1982. note 70. s. oppenheimer causes of cancer: gene alteration versus gene activation, amer. lab., pp. 40-46, november 1982. note 71. j. meyer, s. oppenheimer isolation of species-specific and stage-specific adhesion promoting component by disaggregation of intact sea urchin embryo cells, exp. cell res., 137, pp. 471-476, 1982. note 72. c. capelle, j. meyer, s. sorensen, s. oppenheimer isolation of aggregation inhibitory factor from non-adhesive mouse teratoma cells, exp. cell res., 131, pp. 470-476, 1981. note 73. w. childress, freedman, c. koprowski, doolittle and p. sheeler, s. oppenheiimer, surface characteristics of separated subpopulations of mouse teratocarcinoma cells, exp. cell res., 122, pp. 39-45, 1979. note 74. m. grodin, nystrom, j. scordato, m. cantor, s. oppenheimer, relationship of adhesiveness of cells in culture with specific enzyme activity, exp. cell res., 122, pp. 149-157, 1979. note 75. m. asao, s. oppenheimer, inhibitor of cell aggregation by specific carbohydrates, exp. cell. res., 120, pp. 149-157, 1979. note 76. s. oppenheimer introduction to the symposium and studies on the surfaces of separated and synchronized tumor and embryonic cell populations. american zoologist, 19, pp. 801-808, 1979. note 77. s. oppenheimer, cell surface carbohydrates in adhesion and migration. american zoologist, 18, pp. 12-23, 1978. note 78. b. bales, brenneman, l. knapp, lesin, a.neri , e.pollock, s. oppenheimer, modulation of agglutinability by alteration of the surface topography in mouse ascites tumor cells exp. cell res., 105, pp. 291-300, 1977. note 79. b. bales, lesin, s. oppenheimer on cell membrane lipid fluidity and plant lectin agglutinability: a spin label study of mouse ascites tumor cells, biochemica et biophysica acta, 465, pp. 400-407, 1977. note 80. j. meyer, s. oppenheimer, the multicomponent nature of teratoma cell adhesion factor, exp. cell res., 102, pp. 359-364, 1976. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 38 published by scholink inc. note 81. a. neri, m. roberson, d. connolly, s. oppenheimer quantitative evaluation of concanavalin a receptor site distributions on the surfaces of specific populations of embryonic cells, nature, 258, pp. 342-344, 1975. note 82. r. potter m. barber, s. oppenheimer alteration of sea urchin embryo cell surface properties by mycostatin, a sterol binding antibiotic, developmental biology, 33, pp. 218-223. note 83. s. oppenheimer j. odencrantz, a quantitative assay for measuring cell agglutination: agglutination of sea urchin embryo and mouse teratoma cells by concanavalin a, exp. cell res., 73, pp. 475-480, 1972. note 84. s. oppenheimer, t.humphreys isolation of specific macromolecules required for adhesion of mouse tumor cells, nature, 232, pp. 125-127, 1971. note 85. d. connolly, s. oppenheimer, cell density-dependent stimulation of glutamine synthetase activity in cultured mouse teratoma cells, exp. cell res., 94, pp. 459-464, 1975. note 86. m. roberson, a.neri, s. oppenheimer), distribution of concanavalin a receptor sites on specific populations of embryonic cells, science, 189, pp. 639-640, 1975. note 87. s. oppenheimer functional involvement of specific carbohydrates in teratoma cell adhesion factor, exp. cell res., 92, pp. 122-126, 1975. note 88. m. roberson, s. oppenheimer quantitative agglutination of specific populations of sea urchin embryo cells with concanavalin a exp. cell res. 91, pp. 263-268, 1975. note 89. k. krach, a. green g. nicolson, s. oppenheimer, cell surface changes occurring during sea urchin embryonic development monitored by quantitative agglutination with plant lectins, exp. cell res., 84, pp. 191-198, 1974. note 90. nova, the cancer detectives of lin xian, october 7, 1980. note 91. fourth hospital of hebei medical university 2021, esophageal cancer report, science/aaas custom publishing office, science 374 (6573), dec 10, 2021, p. 1. frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no.4, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 54 original paper the impact of music education on the academic achievement of chinese primary school students zuo anqi1 1 institute of environment, education and developement, the university of manchester, greater manchester, england received: september 29, 2023 accepted: october 21, 2023 online published: november 4, 2023 doi:10.22158/fet.v6n4p54 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v6n4p54 abstract nowadays, it is widely acknowledged worldwide that music education is a beneficial activity for students’ cognitive, social, and emotional development (ho, 2021). however, there is limited empirical evidence on how music education affects academic achievement in primary schools, especially in china. the aim of this literature review is to examine the existing research on the impact of music education on the academic achievement of primary school students in china, focusing on three aspects of music education: instrument-vocal training, music composition and music appreciation. the review synthesised the results of different research approaches and highlighted the importance of music education in enhancing chinese primary school students’ motivation, creativity, and self-esteem, as well as in promoting cultural diversity and social harmony (bao, 2020; wang, 2021). limitations of the current literature are then discussed and directions for future research are suggested, concluding that the main conclusion that music education has a relatively positive impact on academic achievement in chinese primary schools requires more rigorous and comprehensive research to explore the underlying mechanisms and contextual factors that influence this relationship. 1. introduction for many years, researchers and educators have focused on music education, and there is growing evidence that music education can have a significant impact on the academic performance of elementary school students (ho, 2021). this literature review seeks to investigate the effect of music education on the academic performance of chinese elementary school students. examining the impact of music education on the cognitive, social, and emotional development of chinese primary school students, as well as the potential impact of music education on the promotion of academic achievement in subjects such as mathematics, language, and science. this article explores the underlying www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 55 published by scholink inc. mechanisms and contextual factors that contribute to the relationship between music education and academic achievement among chinese primary school students. understanding how music education affects various aspects of the academic performance of chinese primary school students from multiple perspectives by examining how different aspects of music education affect academic performance in different subjects. the context of the research review is china’s primary school system, which consists of six grades for students aged 6 to 12 years old. china’s education system is distinctive in that it emphasises academic achievement, and students are under pressure to pursue higher education. in recent years, the ministry of education has sought to alleviate academic pressure on students by promoting a more holistic approach to education, with an emphasis on music education at the elementary school level. nevertheless, research indicates that only 6 percent of china’s 190,000 primary schools have qualified music teachers, indicating a lack of resources and support for music education in chinese primary education (xiong, 2020). in the current educational climate, where education systems around the world are challenged by academic pressures, mental health issues, and social inequalities, it is essential to investigate alternative approaches to education that can help address these issues. in such a context, this study is valuable because it provides the opportunity to investigate whether music education can address the various challenges facing education systems by influencing the academic performance of chinese primary school students in a more relaxed and inclusive manner. based on this research topic, the author has extensive experience working in primary school music education and has a strong desire to investigate this topic. this literature review is part of the author’s professional development, and it is hoped that it will contribute to the discussion on “music education and the academic achievement and overall development of primary school students”. 2. scope of the literature search this literature search will search eric, jstor, manchester university library, google scholar, and china knowledge network for relevant research. “music education”, “academic achievement”, “primary school students”, “china”, and “academic achievement” will be used to search. to ensure the literature review’s comprehensiveness, studies published between 2000 and 2023 in english and chinese with a focus on contexts conducted in china will be included, as will selected studies from other contexts assessing the impact of music education on primary school students’ academic achievement in china. the literature review excluded studies on music therapy or music interventions for specific conditions (e.g., adhd) and studies on adult populations that were not directly related to the research questions to ensure generalisability and relevance. non-peer-reviewed and small-sample studies will be excluded. to better understand how music education affects academic performance, reference studies will include a mix of qualitative and quantitative studies. the authors will choose the most representative and authoritative literature, paying attention to research method diversity and innovation and retaining some of the best relevant literature from outside china for comparison, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 56 published by scholink inc. reflection, and field gaps. the research review covers china’s six-grade primary school system from 6 to 12. in china’s unique education system, students are pressured to go to college. the ministry of education has emphasised primary school music education in recent years to reduce academic pressure on students. according to research, only 6% of china’s 190,000 primary schools have qualified music teachers, indicating a lack of resources and support for music education (xiong, 2020). in a world where academic pressures, mental health issues, and social inequalities plague education systems, alternative approaches to education are crucial. this study examines whether music education can help education systems by influencing chinese primary school students’ academic performance in a more relaxed and inclusive way. the author has extensive experience teaching primary school music and is interested in this research topic. this literature review is part of the author’s professional development and hopes to contribute to the discussion on “music education and primary school students’ academic achievement and overall development”. 3. critical analysis of the literature 3.1 the importance of and challenges for the development of music education at primary level in china music education is increasingly valued by students, parents, and educators in china’s primary schools because it improves students’ musical and artistic skills, overall development, and physical and mental health. academics have found that students enjoy music the most. most students enjoy music classes, singing, dancing, developing their own hobbies, and participating in school music clubs. they can learn, relax, gain self-confidence, and be happy by attending club rehearsals, performances, and competitions (xie, 2017; liu, 2020). some parents supported music education in schools because their children’s life experiences and outlook on life were enriched by music education and school activities (wu, 2020; zhou, 2020). teachers of different subjects say music education isn’t detrimental to other subjects and expect students to engage in additional artwork to develop creative thinking (duan et al., 2018). the ministry of education found that primary school children’s music education improves mental health and promotes cultural diversity and social cohesion (jiang, 2020). despite most studies showing the importance and benefits of primary music education, music education development is still challenging. parents prefer their children to attend more prestigious junior high schools based on their primary exam score rather than a nearby school due to china’s unique educational pressures (huang, 2021). music, which is not included in primary school examination rankings, is marginalized. some primary school music teachers reported that their classes are often used by other subjects to give students exam practice (yang, 2019). schools may ignore this behaviour if it improves students’ primary school exam scores (yang, 2019). some students avoid music lessons, do homework on other subjects in class and ignore class participation due to schoolwork pressure. they preferred doing homework and doing what they liked to do instead of music lessons. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 57 published by scholink inc. parents sometimes ask schools not to let their children participate in non-academic music activities and rehearsals, worried that music education will distract students and take up a lot of study time, affecting academic performance and competitiveness (bian, 2022; huang, 2021). to understand how music education affects primary school academic achievement in china, one must first understand their relationship. thus, this study examines music education’s impact on primary school students’ academic performance in the next section. 4. the link between music education and academic achievement of primary school students 4.1 under certain conditions, music education can have a significant and relatively positive impact on the academic performance of chinese primary school students the academic results of chinese primary school students are mainly made up of chinese, mathematics, english, and the total score of these three subjects is used to rank them in the primary school entrance examination. many factors influence academic achievement in primary school, starting with the internal factors such as intelligence, self-discipline and learning methods (banner & cannon, 2008). 4.2 internal factors—intelligence, self-discipline and learning methods intelligence is the organic combination of cognitive abilities necessary to enable a person to successfully perform certain activities, and it includes components such as observation, memory, attention, imagination and thinking, with thinking as the core. american scholars have found that music education can promote the development of the right brain and the coordination of the left and right brains, which has a significant impact on students’ intellectual development (battro et al., 2014). at the same time, the brain contains numerous nerve cells and music teaching is a specific technique for training students in observation, listening, memory, rhythm, expression, and mastery of performance methods. therefore, in terms of human physiological functions, music education not only develops the right brain and promotes the development of the whole brain, but also improves the brain’s reaction speed and promotes all types of cognitive levels thus enabling the development of human intelligence to a great extent (thaut, 2008). even though research has shown that the causal relationship between intelligence and academic performance is positive and significant, the effect of intelligence on academic performance is only about 20% (campbell & ramey, 1994). these findings do not prove that music education can absolutely improve the intelligence of all students, as music education is only one of the ways in which intelligence development is affected, and there is no research to prove an absolute causal relationship between the two. self-discipline is also an internal factor that affects academic performance. studies have found that students with high self-discipline are more likely to control their emotions, concentrate on their studies, and complete their tasks more easily, thus achieving better results. in addition, students with high self-discipline are more likely to develop good study habits, such as completing homework on time and reviewing lessons, which can help improve academic performance (banner & cannon, 2008). music education, in turn, can facilitate the development of self-discipline, whereby students are able to reduce www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 58 published by scholink inc. anxiety and stress by playing music, which can enhance their emotional management skills (hallam, 2010). as learning music takes time and effort, it can help students to set and work towards goals and develop good study habits, thus increasing their self-discipline. however, there is no research that can demonstrate a clear positive relationship between music education and self-regulation, and most of these studies have focused on music appreciation and instrumental practice in music education as the main subjects of research. in addition to intelligence and self-discipline factors, learning methods are also important in helping students to better master their independent learning skills. for example, methods such as identifying appropriate learning styles, self-monitoring and self-adjustment can help students to better master their learning skills (arnold, 2023). in this regard, students use multiple senses to perceive, understand and express music in the process of music education, including auditory, visual and tactile senses, and develop self-awareness by using diverse learning styles to identify problems and deficiencies through continuous practice and reflection (hallam, 2010). in addition, good learning methods can help students gain more in-depth understanding of learning content. for example, asking questions, exploring the principles behind the learning content and seeking practical applications of the learning content may help students to fundamentally understand the learning content (leonard, 2022). in this regard, students are taught music in the same way, and it is only through deep exploration and perception of the musical context and emotions that they can complete their understanding of the work, and then be able to reflect this understanding in the performance of musical tempo, notation, and musical terminology, which in part promotes the ability to learn systematically and facilitate deeper learning in the future. it is worth noting, however, that proven good learning methods may not be applicable to everyone and are influenced by a variety of factors, both from within and outside the individual, so it is important to actively explore the appropriate learning methods in the process (banner & cannon, 2008). besides this, external factors can also affect academic performance, such as environmental factors and the quality of schooling, with environmental factors being mainly dominated by the family environment and to a lesser extent by the social environment (in china only) and therefore only briefly described here. 4.3 external factors—environment and quality of schooling research shows that primary school student’s academic performance is significantly affected by their home environment. primary school students’ academic performance is affected by their parents’ education, income, and family environment (habibullah & ashraf, 2013). high-educated parents support their children’s education more, motivating and monitoring their children’s learning attitudes and academic progress. however, the lower family economic status may affect primary school students’ learning opportunities and resources, making it harder for them to get support for their hobbies and participate in practical activities, preventing them from exercising and expressing themselves (abitew, 2019). due to regional disparities in educational resources and social factors, some students will have www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 59 published by scholink inc. poor learning opportunities. these can cause students to lose perspective and self-confidence, which hurts academic performance. to allow all primary school students to develop their interests, music education is compulsory. statistics show that many governments fund music competitions, performances, training, summer camps, and international exchanges. the national music education programme will receive £79 million in 2022 from the uk government (gu, 2022). beijing alone spends 60 million yuan on school music education (liu & chen, 2010). most students reported positive gains, developing their interests through music education, gaining courage and confidence in competitions and performance exchanges, becoming more motivated to study, and improving their learning attitudes and academic performance (wang, 2019). music education is just one way to use practical activities like speech, debate, sport, and dance to achieve the same developmental goals and produce positive results (moss et al., 2018). lastly, the quality of education and teaching in a school significantly impacts the academic performance of primary school students, particularly in terms of teaching methods and teacher quality, as well as school resources and administration (banner & cannon, 2008). good resources allow the school to offer a wider range of facilities and options, such as science laboratories, music rehearsal halls, and gymnasiums, giving students a deeper education and an academic advantage. good management also improves teacher training and learning, which boosts student achievement (aronson, 2002). studies have shown that chinese primary schools have innovated by integrating music education into their curricula (chao, 2020; chen, 2022; chi, 2020). it motivates students, enhances knowledge, and improves academic performance. however, due to regional differences in the quality of education and teaching levels of schools, this type of innovative curriculum that incorporates music education is still in its infancy and requires time to develop into a fully mature teaching system. this paper concludes that, under certain conditions, music education can have a significant and positive impact on the academic performance of primary school students in china, by analysing the effect of music education on both internal and external factors affecting the academic performance of primary school students. this is illustrated in figure 1. figure 1. relationship between music education and factors affecting academic achievement www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 60 published by scholink inc. 5. how different aspects of music education affect academic performance in different subjects chinese primary school music education includes music appreciation, vocal/instrumental training, and music composition, which can affect academic performance in different subjects. research shows that students learn music theory, analyse music structure, and understand composers’ emotions and motivations in context when music appreciation is the main teaching objective. this process of calculating and analysing intervals and chords can help students understand mathematical concepts like equivalence, proportionality, addition, and subtraction, and students are more motivated to learn music in a way that helps them solve mathematical problems in practise, which can improve their math performance (ding, 2018). students must understand the composer’s personal experiences, family, and social environment to analyse the music’s emotions. this approach and learning mindset helps students connect with the work and its context in reading comprehension and writing, improving comprehension and chinese and english performance (chen, 2022). however, some primary school music teachers report that music appreciation lessons receive the least attention and love from students in music education and that students are often inert and lack motivation to learn music appreciation due to the mathematical issues involved in learning about music theory and pattern analysis as well as comprehension issues (li, 2021). thus, music appreciation lessons may not improve academic performance for most primary school students. when vocal and instrumental training is the main teaching objective, it can help students to understand scientific concepts, such as experiencing and understanding the concepts of sound waves, resonance, and frequency in the process of learning an instrument. learning to play an instrument can also enhance students’ spatial perception and hand-eye coordination, which are useful for scientific experiments and diagram analysis to positively impact on students’ performance in science (zhang, 2010). in vocal training, students learn to use breath and placement better to sing and develop oral expression skills such as clear bite and fluency in speech (chen, 2012). it has a positive impact on students’ performance in chinese and english. however, some parents are eager to achieve certain goals through music education in a utilitarian manner, which can be counterproductive. because music education is a gradual process, it is mainly through the artistic temperament of the student under the influence of the arts that the student will be able to influence various aspects of their abilities and thus achieve the purpose of human development. the immediate effects on academic achievement are not obvious (beach et al., 2011). students are encouraged to be creative with new ideas and express their individuality when music composition is the main teaching objective (veloso, 2017). students create their own music through the arrangement of notes as well as chords, and this creativity and self-expression can be translated into learning in other subjects and may make students more willing to engage in learning and try new approaches (luo, 2020). in addition, music composition requires students to memorise the melody, lyrics and chords of a piece of music. such exercises may facilitate students’ memory and apply it to memory tasks in other subjects. the training of creative skills described above has a positive impact on www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 61 published by scholink inc. students’ performance in mathematics and science to some extent, while the training and enhancement of memory plays an important role in the accumulation of general knowledge and memorisation skills required for chinese learning, which has a positive impact on chinese performance. these effects may not be directly causal, but rather because the training and experience students have in music composition transfers to other aspects of their learning. in addition, music composition may not represent a strength for all students; each student has their own talents and interests and the decision to engage in music composition activities needs to be made on an individual basis. it is worth noting that there is no clear research to prove a causal relationship between these influences and academic performance per se, and that most of the positive influences described in this study stem from the various types of learning skills and experiences that students acquire through their training in music education and translate these to other subjects, thus contributing to academic progress. 6. conclusion the purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of music education on the academic achievement of primary school students in china. through analysis and interpretation of the literature, it summarises the importance and challenges of music education development for the primary school level in china, explores the links between music education and primary school students’ academic achievement, and summarises how different aspects of music education affect academic achievement in different subjects. the main conclusion drawn is that music education has a relatively positive impact on the academic performance of chinese primary school students and that more rigorous and comprehensive research is needed to explore the underlying mechanisms and contextual factors that influence this relationship. the main limitation of this study is that it has not found a perfect model to explain and prove the causal relationship between music education and primary school students’ academic achievement. therefore, a model of this topic will be further explored from the perspective of the teacher in future research. references abitew, e. b. (2019). factors affecting female students’ academic performance in second cycle of primary schools in bahir dar, ethiopia. international journal of educational research review, 4(3), 403-419. https://doi.org/10.24331/ijere.573898 arnold, m. (2023). handbook of applied teaching and learning in social work management education: theories, methods, and practices in higher education. m. arnold, ed. cham: springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18038-5 aronson, j. (2002). improving academic achievement: impact of psychological factors on education. amsterdam: academic press. banner, j. m., & cannon, h. c. (2008). the elements of learning. new haven, ct: yale university press. https://doi.org/10.24331/ijere.573898 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18038-5 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 62 published by scholink inc. bao, d. w. (2020). talking about the role of primary school music education in developing students’ creative thinking. journal of intelligence, 33, 25-27. battro, a. m., fischer, k. w., & lena, p. (2008). the educated brain: essays inneuroeducation. a. m. battro, k. w. fischer, & p. lena (eds.). cambridge: cambridge university press. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511489907 beach, n., evans, j., & spruce, g. (2011). making music in the primary school: whole class instrumental and vocal teaching (1st ed.). london: routledge. bian, j. w. (2022). a brief discussion of the current problems of primary school music education in china and countermeasures to solve them. proceedings of the 2022 education and teaching modernization and precision management summit (primary education chapter) (pp. 14-19). retrieved may 15, 2023, from http://www.cnki.net campbell, f. a., & ramey, c. t. (1994). effects of early intervention on intellectual and academic achievement: a follow-up study of children from low-income families. child development, 65(2), 684-698. https://doi.org/10.2307/1131410 chao, r. y. (2020). exploring the integration of “curriculum civics” in the primary school music classroom. inner mongolia normal university. retrieved may 15, 2023, from https://kns.cnki.net/kcms/detail/detail.aspx?dbname=cmfd202002&filename=1020635405.nh chen, l. f. (2022). exploring the integration of music and language teaching in primary schools in the context of curriculum integration. introduction to the new curriculum, 20, 38-40. chen, s. m. (2012). experimenting with the role of chorus in primary school music education. voices of the yellow river, 8, 52-53. chi, s. j. (2020). practices and reflections on integrating music teaching into mathematics lessons. educational practice and research (a), 5, 53-55. ding, z. f. (2018). a musical approach to teaching and learning in the primary school mathematics classroom. examiner journal, 99, 83. duan, y. l. et al. (2018). a study on the impact of music education on students’ personal literacy development. research management office of “the 13th five-year plan”. in compilation of scientific research results of“the 13th five-year plan ” (volume 5, pp. 93-99). retrieved may 15, 2023, from http://www.cnki.net griffin, d. (2014). education reform: the unwinding of intelligence and creativity. cham: springer international publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-01994-9 gu, y. f. (2022). with £79 million a year allocated over the next three years, the uk national music education plan is formally enacted. music weekly. 17 july. retrieved may 15, 2023, from https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/cxfnlidikrfwjwywf4vzqw habibullah, s., & ashraf, j. (2013). factors affecting academic performance of primary school children. pakistanjournal of medical research, 52(2), 47-61. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511489907 https://doi.org/10.2307/1131410 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-01994-9 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 63 published by scholink inc. hallam, s. (2010). the power of music: its impact on the intellectual, social and personal development of children and young people. international journal of music education, 28(3), 269-289. https://doi.org/10.1177/0255761410370658 ho, w. (2021). globalization, nationalism, and music education in the twenty-first century in greater china. amsterdam: amsterdam university press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1htpfc4 huang, q. (2020). a study on the problems and countermeasures of parental involvement in home-school cooperation in primary school education. huazhong normal university. retrieved may 15, 2023, from https://kns.cnki.net/kcms/detail/detail.aspx?dbname=cmfd202202&filename=102 jiang, c. y. (2020). the important role of primary school music education in “building moral character”. in proceedings of the workshop on “integration of regional quality education resources” in 2020 (pp. 1074-1076). retrieved may 15, 2023, from http://www.cnki.net leonard, d. c. (2002). learning theories. ato z. westport, conn: oryx press. li, n. (2021). problems and solutions in primary school music appreciation classes. in proceedings of the 2021 symposium on educational reform in classroom teaching (pp. 1703-1704). liu, j. t., & cheng, c. (2010). beijing invests 60 million yuan a year in music education in schools. xinhua daily news. 4 agust. retrieved may 15, 2023, from http://wap.177liuxue.cn/info/2010-8/136301.html liu, y. b. (2020). a study on the impact of music education on students’ development. think tank times journal, 5, 166-167. luo, y. x. (2020). exploring the importance of music composition in the primary music classroom. hwa hsia teachers, 10, 43-44. moss, t. e., benus, m. j., & tucker, e. a. (2018). impacting urban students’ academic achievement and executive function through school-based arts integration programs. sage open, 8(2), 215824401877313. https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244018773131 thaut, m. h. (2008). rhythm, music, and the brain: scientificfoundations and clinical applications (1st in paperback edition). new york: routledge. veloso, a. l. (2017). composing music, developing dialogues: an enactive perspective on children’s collaborative creativity. british journal of music education, 34(3), 259-276. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0265051717000055 wang, y. (2019). summer camp for young people in civilization and arts. in beijing entougou almanac. chinese communist party history press. wang, z. m. (2021). the important role of primary school music education in the establishment of moral education. knowledge window (teacher ‘s edition), 1, 56. wu, q. x. (2020). the important role of primary school music education in establishing moral education. contemporary family education, 27, 162-163. https://doi.org/10.1177/0255761410370658 https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1htpfc4 http://wap.177liuxue.cn/info/2010-8/136301.html https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244018773131 https://doi.org/10.1017/s0265051717000055 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 64 published by scholink inc. xie, x. h. (2017). experimenting with the impact of primary school music education on students. northern music, 19, 188. xiong, x. w. (2020). a study on the current situation and development strategies of music education in primary schools. jiangxi normal university. retrieved may 15, 2023, from https://kns.cnki.net/kcms/detail/detail.aspx.dbname=cmfd202101&filename=1020637984.nh yang, t. j. (2019). a study of the emotional labour of primary school music teachers. northeast normal university. retrieved may 15, 2023, from https://kns.cnki.net/kcms/detail/detail.aspx?dbname=cdfdlast2020&filename=1020617313.n h zhang, b. (2010). analysis of the role of keyboard instruments in brain development. popular literature and arts, 21, 278. zhou, x. r. (2020). an introduction to the importance of family education in primary school music education. contemporary family education, 4, 35. https://kns.cnki.net/kcms/detail/detail.aspx.dbname=cmfd202101&filename=1020 frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no.1, 2021 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) original paper an assessment of final year pre-service teachers’ readiness to use ict to teach: implication for covid-19 education response bernadette amukahara joy egede (ph.d)1 1 department of primary education, college of education, agbor, delta state, nigeria received: february 5, 2021 accepted: february 20, 2021 online published: march 16, 2021 doi:10.22158/fet.v4n1p66 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v4n1p66 abstract readiness of teachers to use information and communication technology (ict) to teach is currently a significant issue due to its relationship to online teaching/learning which is a global covid-19 education response. preparing future teachers to ict effectively to facilitate variety of online learning modes is a huge challenge for teacher training institutions, especially in developing nations like nigeria. in this study, the ict readiness of final year pre-service teachers in the degree programme of college of education, agbor, delta state, nigeria was assessed. the data gathered using a likert questionnaire was computer-analyzed. the findings suggest that the pre-service teachers were ready with respect to the following indicators. • awareness and motivation to use ict to teach. • confidence to use ict to teach. • availability of internet/mobile network facilities in their environments. • they were very ready with respect to perception on the benefits of ict in teaching and learning. they did not express readiness in terms of the following indicators. *acquisition of adequate knowledge and skills on the use of ict devices during training. *personal ownership of ict devices (e.g., computers/laptops). it is therefore recommended that compulsory personal ownership of laptops and relevant ict devices by pre-service teachers could help them practice and acquire necessary ict skills more adequately during their training. keywords assessment, pre-service teachers, ict readiness, covid-19 education response, ict trained teachers, online teaching 66 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 1. introduction the recognition of the prominent role of information and communication technology (ict) in advancing knowledge and skills necessary for effective functioning in a knowledge-driven world is well embraced in nigeria as in other nations of the world. consequently, the reviews of the policies on education and teacher education in the past two decades, have specified the integration of ict into all levels of the educational system. the national policy on education states that: “in order to fully realize the goals of education in nigeria … government shall take necessary measures to ensure that teaching shall be practical, activity-based, experimental and it supported” p-2. federal republic of nigeria, frn (2013). at the basic education level, information technology (it) is a major theme in the core subject, “basic science and technology” while it—training is incorporated into all teacher-training programmes (frn, 2013). in addition, the national teacher education policy emphasized the inclusion of compulsory courses in computer literacy and application of ict and other media in the curriculum of all teacher-training programmes (federal ministry of education, fme (2009). the teacher training institutions comprised of colleges of education (coe) which offer the nigeria certificate in education (nce) and faculties of education in the universities which offer first degree in education, to graduands. in implementing the policies stated earlier, the curricula of all universities and colleges of education are respectively harmonized to include courses in computer literacy such as “introduction to computer studies i & ii”, and the use of ict and media to teach (e.g., “educational technology: theory and practice” frn (2012). in the same vein, the mission statements of teacher-training institutions portray the emphasis on the production of it-trained teachers. the mission statement of the institution used in this study is as follows. “to produce well-motivated teachers—that are capable of adoption of appreciable expertise in pedagogy and ict to develop the intellectual capacity of students at the basic education, level” [coe, agbor, 2005]. hence, it is expected that the learners who have gone through the basic education to the tertiary level in nigeria should constitute a generation of individuals who shall function successfully in a dynamic economy and adapt to the technological changes of the 21st century. in addition, the use of ict to support the teaching of various subjects and courses in the classrooms should be very obvious if the policy goals are achieved. however, research results suggest that the implementation of ict teaching/learning is not satisfactory at the basic education because only very few teachers and students can operate computer (arop. owan & akan, 2018; jimoh, osunkunle, & musbahu, 2017; abubakar, 2016). there exists the prevalence of low adoption and use of ict in the schools as found in various studies (nwosu, daud, & kamaruddin, 2018; adomi & emperor, 2010; obakhume, 2012; hosanna, 2015). 67 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 furthermore, results of studies have consistently shown that teachers are positively disposed to the use of ict to teach but they face a lot of hindrances in the school setting (tella, tella, toyebo, adika, & adeyinka, 2007; mndzebelle, 2013; mohammed, 2017). major hindrances observed included the lack of expertise in using ict facilities during lessons, lack of technical support and lack of ict facilities in schools. researchers and stakeholders have recommended among others the ict-training (and re-training of serving teachers) in teacher training institutions (bakare, 2017; fatimayin, 2014; okebukola, 2013). prior to the covid-19 pandemic experience, okebukola (2013) had recommended the mounting of variety of online courses for re-training serving teachers on the use of ict to teach. the covid-19 experience has projected the potential of online teaching/learning and more especially its necessity in a successful education response. consequently, this study focuses on the perceptions of the pre-service teachers who are currently undergoing the ict-training, on their preparedness to use ict to teach. this study is expected to provide insight into the readiness of the new entrants into the teaching profession to use ict to teach. specifically, this study aims at assessing the readiness of final year pre-service, (first degree graduate teachers to use ict to teach, as they join the profession. it is expected that the pre-service teachers who are on the verge of completing their training will possess (and express) vivid and reliable perceptions of their ict-training. 1.1 statement of the problem through appropriate policies, teacher-training institutions have been set up to produce teachers who are adequately skilled to use ict to teach in nigeria. the current covid-19 pandemic which has resulted in the official closure of schools in nigeria for about six months, indicates the necessity of using the option of ict to sustain schooling in the global covid-19 education response. it is therefore considered pertinent in this study to assess the level of readiness of would-be entrants into teaching profession, to use ict to teach. 1.2 the background of the study 1.2.1 the concept of ict and ict training in tertiary institution ict consists of technologies used to manipulate, convey and store data. ict gadgets range from simple modern ones (e.g., mobile phones, computer, digital camera, flash drive, etc.) to older ones (e.g., landline phones, radios, broadcast tv) and more complex ones (e.g., atm—automated teller machine; fax machines, biometric scanners, etc.) aibara (2017). a gadget is a device that is designed for specific function. ict gadgets are mainly electronic and help in the performance of functions which include sms, email, audio or video calls and chats, typing, photocopying, scanning and using the internet among many others (aibara, 2017). in this 21st century, the use of ict in education has grown at an exponential rate globally and its advantages have been widely acknowledged this paper focuses on the use of the gadgets which are pertinent to the level of education considered. at the tertiary education level in nigeria, the following ict gadgets should be available in the educational technology laboratory of teacher-training 68 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 institutions (frn, 2012). the hard wares include closed circuit television (cctv), cctv monitors, with remote control, video camera with accessories, video player/recorder, editing/dubbing machines, slide projectors, opaque projectors, overhead projectors, audio projectors, amplifiers, microphones, speakers, digital camera, projection screens, photocopying/duplicating machines, printers and computers and interactive white boards. the soft wares include word processors, (ms word, ms excel, corel draw, word perfect), multi-media soft wares, (windows media players) and web browsers (e.g., google, chrome, mozilla firefox, internet explorer, opera, safari, etc.): free ware (e.g., adobe reader, yahoo messenger, skype), various utility soft wares (norton antivirus and mcaffee antivirus). in addition, there should be available active network and other enabling infrastructure in the tertiary institutions. the pre-service teachers are also required to learn the following basic ict skills. * using computer for word processing; * accessing the internet for instructional purposes * computer-based teaching and learning * use of multimedia and design of educational medias * educational broadcasting, etc. it is expected that the student-teachers who have been exposed to these gadgets and have acquired these basic ict skills shall be able to use ict to teach at the basic education level. the assessment of the pre-service teachers’ readiness to use ict to teach, done in this study was based on these levels of gadgets and skills described herein. 1.2.2 readiness to use ict to teach as important as the concept of ict is to humanity in the modern society, its usage and acceptance by everybody is not guaranteed. hence technology acceptance and usage are issues which have attracted the formulation of variety of theories. alaa, mamoun and shadi (2017). teachers must accept and be ready to use ict to teach, and their training programme must be geared toward achieving this. generally e-readiness—measuring tool is used to evaluate the ability of consumers in any organization to utilize ict for their own benefit. when it is applied to education, teachers’ readiness can be seen as their perceptions of their capabilities to integrate ict into their classroom instruction (inan & lowther, 2010). a teacher should be mentally and physically prepared to use ict to teach in the real classroom because it is a paradigm shift from the traditional method which has been in use in teaching. the teacher should be prepared for the following orientations. • replacing chalkboards with interactive digital white boards. • using students’ own smartphones or similar devices for learning during lessons. • using the flipped classroom model where students can watch lessons. • providing a purely learner—centered environment. • connecting learners to variety of information sources. • performing the role of a facilitator, able to use basic ict devices to facilitate learning. 69 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 preparing future teachers to use ict to teach is a huge challenge for teacher-training institutions because many environmental factors influence its success. researchers have identified these factors and used them to construct various models for measuring readiness to use ict in organizations. the factors and models used by mohammed (2017), hossain, salam, shilpi and officer (2016) and francisca and samsudin (2018) are adapted in this study. readiness of teachers to use ict was considered at two levels. the internal level consists of the teachers’ skills and attitudes while the external level is made up of available ict resources and administrative support (mohammed, 2017). four main factors which influence teachers’ readiness to use ict to teach are derived from these levels. 1). beliefs: these are personal ideas/perceptions about the contribution of ict to teaching and learning and classroom management. 2). experiences: these consist of personal training on ict, ability to control ict use in the classroom and cope with associated technical failures. 3). resources: these involve the availability of relevant ict devices in schools, at homes, ownership of computers at home, etc. 4). community/environment: these include support from colleagues, encouragement from e-learning community, appropriate infrastructure (e.g., electricity and network) in the environment. hussain et al. (2016). furthermore, the teacher needs sufficient awareness of the necessity of using ict in the classroom and be motivated to use it. these factors are also explored in terms of psychological constructs and behaviour patterns involved in the teachers’ readiness to use ict to teach. these constructs; awareness and motivation, perceptions on their confidence, training, knowledge (and skills) and equipment emerged from the considerations (francisca & samsudin, 2018). 1.2.3 teachers’ readiness to integrate ict into teaching: theoretical model considering a teacher training institution (like college of education, agbor, used in this study), with a mission to produce highly motivated teachers capable of adopting ict to teach their students, the following model was adapted to assess the readiness of the final year pre-service teachers to use ict. 70 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 figure 1. adapted ict readiness model the variables for the research question and the consequent questionnaire statements were drawn from this model (see figure 1). 1.3 empirical background e-readiness measures the extent to which consumers utilize ict to their benefit. teachers could use ict for various purposes such as personal online activities (e.g., sending and receiving mails), but educational researchers are interested in the extent to which teachers are willing to use ict for teaching and learning purposes. research has proved that teachers’ belief in the usefulness of computer in teaching/learning and the ease of use of computer, training in the use of computer and possession of laptops were significant factors influencing them to use computer to teach (naresh, raduan, & jeffery, 2008). hence this study focused on indicators such as teachers’ awareness and motivation to use ict to teach, perception of acquisition of ict skills during their training and personal ownership of computers. in a recent study, rea, dewi and diah (2019), found that the most influencing factors in the teachers’ readiness to use ict in the classroom were skill in using ict, their belief, trainings in ict skills and availability of ict (soft wares and hard wares) equipment to them. these factors are considered as indicators in the construction of the instrument for data collection in this study. palmavathi (2015) studied student-teachers’ readiness to use technology to teach and found that they had positive attitude towards the use of ict to teach. using a likert-type questionnaire, he also surveyed the influence of subject area of the student teachers. a likert questionnaire is used in this study. 71 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 norizan, hussein and yasmin (2018) found that english language teachers were not ready to use ict to teach. the qualitative study was carried out on a sample of arab teachers using a structured and semi-structured interview. this study is strictly quantitative and teachers in training formed the sample. in abu dhabi, in the united arab emirate (uae), badri, al rashedi, yang, mohaidata and hammadi (2014) used a technology readiness index (tri) to determine the ict readiness of public-school teachers. they found no difference in the readiness of the teachers across subject areas but found a difference across gender. in israel, baya ‘a and daher (2013) studied mathematics teachers’ readiness to integrate ict into the classroom, in elementary and middle schools. their findings suggested that, in terms of positive attitude, competence in ict skills and comportment in teaching with ict, they were ready. data was collected by questionnaires filled by the teachers as done in this study. surveying the challenges facing the integration of ict in teaching and learning in south african rural secondary schools, mathevula and uwizeyeman (2014) found that scarcity of ict resources, ineffective ict training and a consequent lack of ict usage in schools hindered the teachers’ readiness to use ict. data was collected using a structured questionnaire as done in this study. in nigeria, aremu and adeniran (2011) studied the readiness of secondary school teachers to integrate information technology (it) into teaching and learning process. they found that the teachers had positive attitude towards the use of ict, although they did not have adequate it skills. similarly, enemali, aliyu and bulama (2016) studied the readiness of pre-service business education teachers for web-based-e-learning in colleges of education in the north-east of nigeria. they obtained results which indicated that the final year pre-service teachers’ perceived level of readiness for the use of web-based-e-learning was low. they concluded that adequate attention was not given to the use of web-based-e-learning in the preparation of the pre-service teachers. in this study, the ict readiness of final year pre-service teachers in the degree programme of a similar institution, to those used by enemali et al. (2016), in the south-south nigeria is surveyed. guided by technology acceptance model, mohammed (2017) found that teachers’ readiness to use ict to teach was adversely affected by insufficient ict resources in their schools, and lack of competence in using ict, although their perception of ict in teaching was positive. this study was carried out in nigeria using serving biology teachers but the target population of the present study is the pre-service teachers. more recently francisca and samsudin (2018) surveyed the readiness of biology teachers to use ict to teach in kaduna state, nigeria. their findings showed that the pre-service teachers were ready in terms of confidence, awareness and motivation, perceptions, knowledge and training, but not ready in terms of equipment. the model for this study was adapted in the present study. all the variables on the readiness to use ict to teach surveyed in the past studies which are reviewed, revolved around the ones in the readiness model (see figure 1) used in this study. respondents in the reviewed studies were either serving or pre-service teachers who were interviewed or who completed questionnaires. however, the peculiarity of this study hinges on its timing which coincided with the 72 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 covid-19 pandemic period, when the necessity to use ict to teach as a means of overcoming its adverse effect on education became glaring, especially in developing nations like nigeria. 1.4 research questions 1). what is the level of readiness of the pre-service teachers to use ict to teach in terms of their: (i) awareness and motivation; (ii) perceptions about ict in teaching/learning; (iii) confidence to use ict; (iv) acquisition of ict skills during training; (v) access to ict enabling environment and infrastructure? 2. method 2.1 research design a descriptive survey design is used for this study because the researcher had no control of the variables on the pre-service teachers’ readiness to use ict to teach. their attitudes, beliefs, motivation, awareness, ict skills, etc., which they had as a result of their training programme and experience had already occurred before the study period. 2.2 population and sampling procedure the population of this study is made up of all final year pre-service teachers in the degree programme of the college of education, agbor, in the 2019/2020 session. this comprises of (350) students from nine different departments. cluster sampling procedure was used to include the pre-service teachers from all the nine departments. a representative sample of three hundred and fifteen (315) of the pre-service teachers who were present in their lecture theatres at the time of data collection, and completed the questionnaires reasonably formed the final participants in this study. 2.3 research instrument the instrument for data collection is the pre-service teachers’ questionnaire on the use of information and communication technology to teach (ptquictt), which was constructed by the researcher based on the model described in figure 1. ptquictt is structured along a four-point likert scale of strongly agree (sa), agree (a), disagree (d) and strongly disagree (sd) and used to obtain the ratings of the respondents on their readiness to use ict to teach. it is a 14-item questionnaire with statements adapted from the instrument used by francisca and samsudin (op cit). the pre-service teachers were required to rate their level of agreement to each questionnaire statement. ptquictt was trial-tested using 197 similar pre-service teachers and their responses were analyzed using cronbach alpha and a reliability coefficient of 0.74 was obtained. this is judged as high enough for the instrument to be used for this study (field, 2013). the range of the total reliabilities of the scale if any of the 14 items was removed ranged from 0.71 to 0.74, hence all the items were retained after the trial-testing. 73 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 2.4 data collection the questionnaires were administered to the students in their lecture theatres by the researcher and collected back from the students after they have completed it, within the same period. 2.5 statistical analysis the four-point scale was chosen in this study to exclude the “undecided” or “not sure” option, so as to avoid central tendency bias. the following weights were assigned to the scale options. s.a-4; a-3; d-2; s.d-1. in the case where the readiness indicator is represented by only one item, the mean value of the ratings for the item was computed, while a weighted mean is computed in the case where more than one item represents a readiness indicator. the criterion value of 2.50 was set using the likert scaling usage provided by jonald (2019), in order to answer the research questions. table 1(a) shows the adaptation of the likert scale for the analysis in this study. table 1a. description of the likert scale for readiness to use ict to teach scale mean range (interval) difference description interpretation 4 3.26-4.0 0.74 s. a very ready 3 2.52-3.27 0.75 a ready 2 1.76-2.51 0.75 d not ready 1 1.00-1.75 0.75 s. d not ready at all table 1(b) showed the scaling down of the options to two intervals for agree-disagree options, and the interpretation in terms of readiness. table 1b. scale for agree and disagree options scale mean range (interval) difference description interpretation 2 2.51 – 4.00 1.49 agree ready 1 1.00 – 2.50 1.49 disagree not ready a mean value lower or equal to 2.50 is considered to be in the “disagree range” (i.e., not ready) while mean values higher than 2.50 is in the agree range (i.e., ready) according to the scaling provided by jonald (op cit.). additionally, the likert scale is considered as purely ordinal and frequencies of students for the “disagree” and “agree” options are used to compute chi-square statistics to answer the questions. the bar charts are used to support the statistics pictorially. statistical package for social sciences (spss), 23 was used to perform the analysis. the statistical tools employed to answer the research question are frequencies, percentages, means and standard deviation. 74 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 3. results research question 1: what is the level of readiness of the pre-service teachers to use ict to teach with respect to the following indicator (i) being aware and motivated to use ict to teach. table 2. awareness and motivation of pre-service teachers to use ict to teach statements number mean s. d sig. 1. i am aware of the current emphasis on the use of ict to teach 313 3.50 .557 * 2. i am willing to use ict to teach my subject. 314 3.29 .701 * average 315 3.40 .457 * the mean values and the weighted mean of the responses of the pre-service teachers are greater than the criterion value of the 2.50. in line with the interpretation in table 1a, the results indicate they are very ready to use ict to teach in terms of awareness and motivation. table 3. perception about the use of ict in teaching and learning statements number mean s. d sig. 1. the use of ict makes teaching and learning more effective 310 3.64 .612 * 2. using ict improves interactions among students and between students and teachers 308 3.40 .786 * 3. using ict makes teaching and learning easier 303 3.54 .660 * average 315 3.55 .522 * all the mean values and the weighted mean are greater than the criterion value 2.50 and are therefore significant. the result indicate that the pre-service teachers perceive that ict is useful in improving teaching and learning. they are very ready in terms of positive perception of ict in teaching and learning. table 4. confidence to use ict to teach statements number mean s. d sig. 1. i have sufficient skills to use ict gadgets to teach 312 3.01 .790 * 2. generally i can use computer, phones or other ict gadgets to teach 313 3.54 .688 * average 315 3.17 .549 * 75 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 the mean values and the weighted mean in table 4 above are all significant indicating that the pre-service expressed confidence to use ict to teach. table 5. training on ict skills statements number mean s. d sig. 1. the courses i offered helped me develop ict skills 308 2.49 .987 • 2. i am trained to use ict to teach 308 2.41 .935 • average 315 2.45 .800 • • not significant from table 5, it is seen that the mean values and the weighted mean are less than 2.50 and are therefore not significant. the results indicate that the pre-service teachers did not perceive that their training helped them to acquire ict skills required in teaching. table 6. personal ownership of ict equipment statements number mean s. d sig. 1. i own a personal computer, laptop or i-pad 299 2.51 1.112 * 2. i have access to a printer at home 311 1.96 .948 • 3. i have access to photocopier or scanner at home 296 1.79 .826 • average 315 2.08 .725 • apart from personal ownership of computer, laptop or i-pad, the mean values for other items and the average are not significant (see table 6). this implies that on the average many of the pre-service teachers lack personal ict equipment which help in teaching and learning. table 7. environmental support/internet access and overall mean statements number mean s.d sig. 1. i have access to internet/network at home 306 3.14 .956 * overall mean for all items 315 2.97 * the mean value for internet access shown in table 7 is significant, indicating that majority of the respondents can access the internet in their homes. table 7 also shows that the overall mean for the scale is significant implying that, taking all the indicators together, the pre-service teachers are just ready to use ict to teach. these results are also strengthened by using frequencies/percentages to compute the chi-square ( 2), goodness of fit to ascertain the significance of the differences in the frequencies for the agree and disagree options (see table 1b), for each indicator. 76 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 table 8. chi-square test for goodness of fit indicator frequency percentage (%) 2 sig. awareness & motivation 1.00-2.50 33 10.5 . * 2.51-4 .00 282 89.5 62.4 * perception about ict 1.00-2.50 .11 3.6 2.51.4.00 304 96.4 86.1 * confidence to use ict 1.00-2.50 .38 12.0 2.51-4.00 277 88.0 57.8 * training in ict skills 1.00-2.50 .195 66.0 2.51-4.00 120 34.0 10.2 * ownership of ict equipment 1.00-2.50 .232 73.6 2.51-4.00 .83 26.4 22.3 * internet access 1.00-2.50 73 23.9 2.51-4.00 233 76.1 27.2 * c = 3.84, df = 1 * significant at 0.05 level. the weighted means of each respondents on each of the indicators were used to obtain the frequencies in the agree and disagree ranges (see table 1b). the chi-square values for all the indicators shown in table 8 are significant, implying that they did not occur by chance. the results indicate that percentages of the pre-service teachers who are ready to use ict in terms of the following indicators are significantly more than the percentage of those who are not ready. (i) awareness and motivation to use ict (ii) perception about ict (iii) confidence to use ict (iv) internet access however, the percentage of those who are not ready to use ict in terms of the following indicators are significantly higher than the percentages of those that are ready. (i) ict skills acquired during training (ii) personal ownership of ict gadgets. 77 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 the bar chart (figure 2) gives a pictorial display of the numerical results. figure 2. bar chart indicators: 1). awareness and motivation to use ict, 2). perception about ict, 3). confidence to use ict, 4). training in ict, 5). ownership of ict equipment, 6). availability of internet access 4. discussion of results readiness to use ict to teach: the results of this study suggest that the pre-service teachers used in this study are ready to use ict to teach in terms of their awareness and motivation, positive perception about ict, and confidence to use ict to teach. the results further suggest that they have internet access in the various residential locations. however, they did not possess personal computers and laptops/i-pad and did not perceive that their training offered them enough ict skills to use it to teach. these results are similar to the ones of padmavathi (2016), that student teachers possessed positive attitude towards the use of computers for classroom teaching. similarly, aremu and adeniran (2011) found that although teachers have positive attitude towards the use of ict to teach, majority of them possess very low ict skills. these results demarcated clearly the factors of beliefs, awareness and motivation from the acquisition of ict skills required to use it to teach. the results were also related to those of francisca and samsudin (2018), mohammed (2017), baya ‘a and daher (2013) and mathevula and uwizeyim (2014). the results of these studies showed that the teachers possessed positive attitude 78 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 towards the use of ict to teach but possessed inadequate ict skills. the results contradics those of enemali et al. (2016) who found that final year pre-service teachers of their study were not ready. it is expected that the readiness of pre-service teachers should be related to their perceived ict training they received from their institution contrary to the result obtained in this study. 4.1 training and the acquisition of ict skills unlike the case of the study by francisca and samsudin (2018), the pre-service teachers of this study did not perceive that they acquired enough ict skills during their training. however, they have confidence to use ict to teach. how did they acquire confidence to use ict to teach? this question can be answered by considering the findings from earlier studies (hosanna, 2015) which showed that the teachers had high interest to learn computer skills. they resorted to the acquisition of the skills from private settings since there were poor ict facilities in their schools. since there exist internet access in the environment, as found in this study, the pre-service teachers who could not acquire enough ict skills from their formal training could do so from the private settings. consequently, they will be confident to use ict to teach. ownership of ict tools: the results corroborate that of francisca and samsudin (2018), that the pre-service biology teachers in a similar institution in nigeria, are not ready in terms of ownership of ict tools. this result is also related to that of acquisition of ict skills during their training. generally, acquisition of practical skills in a school system requires the possession of relevant tools for practice both at school and at home; for effectiveness. as an example, pre-service home economics teachers must possess, personal sewing machine, while medical students must have personal stethoscopes and law school students have personal laptops compulsorily for acquisition of relevant practical skills. these results indicate that there is the need for compulsory ownership of affordable ict equipment by pre-service teachers to enable them acquire basic ict skills adequately during their training. this will enhance their readiness to use ict to teach. 5. conclusion it can be concluded that the degree students used in this study were ready to use technology to teach in terms of their awareness and motivation, perception about ict, confidence to use ict and access to the internet, in their environment. they were not ready in terms of their training in ict skills and personal ownership/access to ict equipment. these findings portray some hope that the expectation of getting teachers who could teach online from the training institution could be realized. however, it is recommended that there should be improvement in the institution by the provision of more ict equipment to enable students acquire ict skills at school. in addition, teacher trainees should have personal computers, printers and photocopiers to enable them gain more opportunity to acquire ict skills by practicing both at school and at home. 79 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 6. limitations of this study and future research the single institution used in this study limits the generalization of the results of this study. future research on this issued could include more institutions and larger sample sizes. in addition, the influence of factors, like, age, teaching experience, gender and teaching subjects could be surveyed. references abubakar, m. a. 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(2016). readiness and challenges of using information & communication technology (ict) in higher education of bangladesh. the online journal of new horizons in education, 6(1), 123-132. inan, f. a., & lowther, d. (2010). laptops in the k-12 classrooms: exploring factors imparting instructional use. computers & education, 55(3), 937-944. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2010.04.004 ismail, s. a., almekhlafi, a. g., & al-mekhlafy, m. h. (2010). teachers’ perceptions of the use of technology in teaching languages in united arab emirates schools. international journal or research in education (ijre), 27, 37-56. jimoh, a. a., osunkunle, a. a., & mushbahu, b. a. (2017). assessment of ict infrastructure for computer education in secondary schools: katagum. education zone, bauchi state, nigeria. international journal of innovative research in technology, basic & applied sciences, 4(1), 45-50. jonald, l. p. (2019). some biases in likert scaling usage and its correction. international journal of sciences, basic & applied research (ijsbar), 45(1), 183-191. mathevula, m. d., &uwizeyimana, d. e. (2014). the challenges facing the integration of ict in teaching and learning activities in south african rural secondary schools. mediterranean journal of social sciences, 5(20), 1087-1097. https://doi.org/10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n20p1087 mndzebele, n. (2013). teachers readiness in using ict in the classroom: the case of a developing country. international journal of information and education technology, 3(4), 409-412. https://doi.org/10.7763/ijiet.2013.v3.309 81 published by scholink inc. https://doi.org/10.6007/ijarped/v7-i3/4429 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2010.04.004 https://doi.org/10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n20p1087 https://doi.org/10.7763/ijiet.2013.v3.309 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 mohammed, b. (2017). teachers’ readiness for integration of information and communication technology in the teaching of biology in secondary schools in bauchi state, nigeria. naresh, k., raduan, c. r., & jeffery, l. d. (2008). teachers’ readiness to use technology in the classroom: an empirical study. european journal of scientific research, 21(4), 603-616. norizan, a. r., hussein, a., & yasmin s. s. (2018). english language teachers’ readiness for the application of technology towards fourth industrial revolution demands. asian-pacific journal of information technology and multimedia, 7(2), 89-98. https://doi.org/10.17576/apjitm-2018-0702(02)-08 nwosu, a., daud, s. m., & kamaruddin, n. s. (2018). teachers’ use of ict in teaching and learning in aba north district secondary schools. iosr journal of humanities and social science, 23(4), 30-40. obakhume, a. a. (2012). assessment of secondary school teachers’ use of information and communication technology (ict) in oyo, metropolis, nigeria. journal of plus education, viii(1), 179-185. padmavathi, m. (2016). a study of student teachers’ readiness to use computers in teaching: an empirical study. 1-manager’s journal on school educational technology, ii(3), 29-39. https://doi.org/10.26634/jsch.11.3.4788 rea, a. c., dewi, r., & diah, k. (2019). teachers’ readiness indicators on ict integration into their teaching. birle-journal, 2(4), 195-203. https://doi.org/10.33258/birle.v2i4.508 tella, a. et al (2007). an assessment of secondary school teachers uses of ict’s implications for further development of ict’s use in nigerian secondary schools. the turkish online journal of educational technology, 6(3), 1-13. unesco. (2020). global education coalition #learningneverstops, covid-19 education response. united nations. (2020). policy brief: education during covid-19 and beyond. world economic forum. (2020). covid-19 has exposed the education divide in nigeria. this is how we can close it. world economic forum. (2020). the covid-19 pandemic has changed education forever. this is how. 82 published by scholink inc. https://doi.org/10.17576/apjitm-2018-0702(02)-08 https://doi.org/10.26634/jsch.11.3.4788 https://doi.org/10.33258/birle.v2i4.508 original paper frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 40 original paper fractal learning: a minimum viable instruction approach to democratizing and accelerating education john reaves received: january 7, 2025 accepted: january 26, 2025 online published: february 25, 2025 doi:10.22158/fet.v8n1p40 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v8n1p40 abstract in an era of radical and accelerating change, traditional discipline-specific curricula and institutions are increasingly ill-suited to address the life goals of diverse learners. we suggest that equally radical approaches need to be taken in redesigning education. this paper describes a proof-of-concept workshop—termed “fractal learning”—that embodies a minimum viable instruction (mvi) approach. fractal learning replaces rigid curricula with a flexible, repeatable, goal-oriented framework, leveraging technology, cloud-based resources, and metacognitive scaffolding to accelerate learning and problem-solving skills. the design elements, workshop framework, and iterative cycle are intended to be a provocative suggestion for a more democratized and personalized educational paradigm. keywords fractal learning, minimum viable instruction, self-learning, heutagogy, iterative learning, metacognition, innovation in education 1. introduction the rapid transformation of work and societal structures demands that individuals be equipped to learn and adapt quickly and continuously. conventional curricula, often rooted in discipline-specific silos, struggle to meet the demand for timeliness and agility. this paper proposes a shift in educational practice: replacing comprehensive, pre-defined curricula with a brief, goal-oriented “launch workshop” designed to initiate a learner’s journey toward self-directed problem solving and innovation. the concept of fractal learning—where iterative cycles of learning, reflection, and application build upon one another—is introduced as a framework to democratize and accelerate learning for a wide range of populations, from high school and college students to professionals and retirees. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 41 published by scholink inc. 2. goals and rationales the primary goals of this educational methodology are: • universal preparedness: equip individuals with the skills needed to navigate a rapidly changing world. • goal-driven learning: shift the focus from content mastery to achieving personalized, meaningful objectives. • accelerated and democratized learning: utilize technology and cloud-based resources to break down traditional knowledge hierarchies and departmental silos. • flexibility and affordability: create learning experiences that are adaptable, cost-effective, and radically accessible. by engaging learners with their own goals from the outset, the instructional design fosters intrinsic motivation and iterative refinement of both learning processes and outcomes. 3. “minimum viable” approach central to this approach is identifying the briefest possible teaching timeline that enables learners to begin their journey. minimum viable product (mvp) is a concept rooted in lean startup and product design methodologies, radically accelerating development by generating designs with just enough core features to satisfy early adopters and provide feedback for future iterations. the mvp approach encourages rapid prototyping, iterative development, and continuous refinement based on user interactions and real-world testing. rather than investing extensive time and resources in a full-featured product from the outset, the mvp strategy allows creators to quickly validate assumptions, learn from user behaviors, and gradually evolve a more robust solution. this lean method not only reduces waste by preventing the overdevelopment of unnecessary features but also aligns product offerings more closely with actual market needs. similarly, the concept of minimum viable instruction (mvi) in this proposal takes inspiration from the mvp framework by focusing on the essential instructional elements needed to kickstart a learner’s journey. instead of delivering an exhaustive, pre-determined curriculum, mvi emphasizes providing a lean, goal-oriented launch workshop that equips learners with the core skills and methodologies required to begin addressing their personal objectives, intelligently leveraging an obvious resource: a massive and constantly expanding networked library of both content and methodological guidance. this approach promotes iterative learning, where participants continuously refine their strategies and expand their knowledge based on real-world discovery and reflective practice. just as the mvp allows for continuous product improvement through user engagement, mvi supports a dynamic, learner-centered model that adapts to individual needs and evolving goals. both concepts advocate for starting small, learning quickly, and iterating towards greater complexity and personalization over time. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 42 published by scholink inc. 4. method 4.1 the fractal learning workshop the workshop is conceived as a “launch” mechanism—an initial, minimum viable instruction package that kickstarts the learner’s journey. it consists of a series of steps that help learners build a personalized toolbox of learning and problem-solving skills, structured as the first cycle in an iterative series. the design intentionally minimizes pre-created content, using instead a scaffolding approach to connect participants to diverse, cloud-based resources. we assume that the learner is able to productively self-teach in following cycles, although such a workshop can be repeated with a coaching or tutor-directed component. 4.2 workshop framework and iterative cycle the workshop unfolds over approximately three hours and comprises a brief intro plus a series of seven iterative steps, each designed to focus on distinct aspects of learning and goal achievement: 1) what do i want to do? objective: encourage participants to articulate a personal goal. activity: participants generate alternatives and then select one primary goal, diagramming their thoughts to visualize the idea. 2) what do i need to know to do it? objective: identify knowledge gaps and establish learning priorities. activity: participants list required knowledge items, prioritize and order them based on urgency, timeline or foundational need. 3) where can i learn that? objective: map out accessible learning resources. activity: through web searches (including ai dialogues if useful) and resource mapping, learners identify where to acquire the necessary knowledge. 4) what ideas does that give me? objective: stimulate ideation by integrating new information. activity: using large poster paper and post-it notes, participants rapidly generate ideas for action items and adjust their initial goal based on insights gained. 5) what can i try out? objective: develop actionable, short-term experiments. activity: participants choose one idea to prototype, considering criteria such as ease of implementation and potential impact. 6) how would it work? objective: design a prototype and evaluation metrics. activity: learners sketch out a prototype, simulate its implementation, and establish criteria for assessing its success. 7) what do i want to do (next)? www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 43 published by scholink inc. objective: reflect on the process and plan the next steps. activity: participants revisit their goal, exploring options to narrow focus, expand ambition, or pivot entirely, while continuing to reflect on the process itself, learning and designing their own learning / problem solving methodologies as they learn. each step is punctuated with brief individual work, journaling, group sharing, and the introduction of related frameworks and methodologies (e.g., ikigai, systems thinking, agile mindset, design thinking, lean startup). this multi-modal approach reinforces learning through repetition and adapts to the evolving goals of each participant. 5. discussion the fractal learning workshop exemplifies a shift from traditional instruction to an agile, learner-centered model. by centering the process around individual goals and iterative cycles of learning, the methodology addresses key challenges in modern education: • customization and relevance: the process begins with learners’ intrinsic interests, ensuring that the content remains relevant and engaging. • cognitive flexibility: the incorporation of metacognitive tools encourages self-awareness, enabling learners to adjust their approaches dynamically. • scalability: with minimal new curriculum development and maximum support from up-to-date cloud-based resources, the model is highly adaptable across diverse settings and populations. 6. prototype launch workshop design below is a prototype design for a fractal-style launch workshop, consisting of the minimum viable instructional framework required to empower a user or users to design and redesign their own curricula over successive self-guided iterations. the framework itself is based on common problem-solving and design thinking methodologies. 6.1 structure and timeline seven steps, described below, each approximately 20 minutes, plus 30 minutes for introduction (about 3 hours total). four activities in each step, roughly 5 minutes each (some variations from step to step): a) individual work b) journal (how did it feel / work?) c) share observations d) introduce related frameworks and methodologies 6.2 introduction a) discuss goals of the workshop: make real progress on a real-world goal you choose. introduce you to important theories and methodologies for accomplishing goals. help you develop your own style and toolbox of methods. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 44 published by scholink inc. help you develop your own curriculum and learning strategy. b) describe activities: we’ll be doing a series of activities based on a basic “launch method”. along the way, we’ll be pointing out other methods, tools, and ways of thinking that might be useful. you’ll also be thinking about the process as you go … analyzing your own thinking about thinking and asking questions to help you be more conscious of your own processes. c) describe meta tools: part of the experience is finding what search/research and meta/journaling tools help you be productive and creative. here are example tools with built-in prompts (links or key words). we encourage you to switch tools periodically to change your frame of reference and give you a new perspective, e.g. switch from paper journal with notes, to google doc with links, to a mind mapping platform, to an artist sketchbook with doodles or images, to a notes app on your phone. d) scaffolding resources: includes complete workbook available physically and online; resource links to key topics; example journaling tool(s); example queries and keywords; search engine(s) including ai search and assistant tools; media channels (e.g. youtube); common content aggregation sites. 6.3 step one: what do i want to do? a) individual work: pick something you want to do. it can be large or small, personal or work-oriented, but should be something you care about and want to work on. write it down on a napkin. pick two other things you might want to do, write them down on two other napkins. do you want to change your choice? do a quick diagram of what you want to do on the back of the napkin. b) prompts for journaling: how do you think of what you want to do? as an idea, a goal, a vision, a future state? was it easier to come up with one thing to do, or three? why did you choose what you did? what’s a better representation of it, the words or the diagram? did you learn anything from doing the diagram? c) introduce related frameworks and methodologies: ikigai (personal goal setting) visioning (visualizing future state) scenario planning (from future studies) smart criteria (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, time-bound) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 45 published by scholink inc. 6.4 step two: what do i need to know to do that? a) individual work: make a list of what you think you need to know to do what you want to do. push yourself a bit, we want at least 10 things on the list … what else might be useful? put 3 stars by what you think are the 3 most important things. is there an order you need to learn them in? put a 1, 2, and 3 to indicate the order. b) prompts for journaling: what do you think of the list? are you surprised by how much you don’t know? does it make what you want to do seem easier or harder? do you think you have to learn everything on the list to get started? c) introduce related frameworks and methodologies: systems thinking (what systems are involved in what you want to do) mind mapping (cluster analysis, pattern recognition) critical path method (defining dependencies in projects) agile mindset (iterative vs. waterfall; moving forward with partial knowledge) 6.5 step three: where can i learn that? a) individual work: start doing a web search to find sources related to your learning priorities. collect links in a web document (e.g. google doc) draw a quick map on paper of the different categories of sources / topical areas. what’s the least i can do in terms of research to get started? annotate on the map. a learning break of 5 to 30 minutes allows participants to do preliminary research, based on the map above. b) prompts for journaling: how do i prefer to find resources? how do i prefer to learn? (text, graphics, video, book, lecture, practice, etc.) what’s available online vs. what might need a more structured approach or commitment (e.g. primary research, a formal course, degree or certification) how much of what i want to do requires practice in addition to learning? c) introduce related frameworks and methodologies: research methods (observation, induction and deduction, primary and secondary research, experience and intuition, experimental method) search (techniques, query methods, knowledge theory) evaluating information (author, purpose, accuracy, currency, relevance, etc.) 6.6 step 4: what ideas does that give me? a) individual work: www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 46 published by scholink inc. on large poster paper, quickly redo your “do” statement and diagram from the napkin. make any changes you want. think about what you’ve learned, look at different parts of the diagram, … any ideas about what might move you forward, get a piece of it done? write some ideas down on post-its and put them on the diagram where they are relevant. push yourself, come up with 5-10 ideas as quickly as possible. b) prompts for journaling: was it hard to come up with ideas? did being pushed, doing it quickly, help or hurt? how do you normally generate ideas? do you have a technique or process? c) introduce related frameworks and methodologies: creativity theory (e.g. divergent/convergent thinking) creative thinking techniques (e.g. thinkertoys) arts-based creative techniques (surrealist exercises) group creativity (e.g. brainstorming) 6.7 step 5: what can i try out? a) individual work: go over your ideas on the diagram and think about which ones you could try out relatively soon, let’s say in the next month. you can modify the idea so it’s easier to do sooner rather than later. if you have more than one idea in that category, think of some other criteria, so you can pick one to try out. for example, which idea is the easiest (least effort) to do? which would show results faster? take another large piece of poster paper and write the idea in the middle. b) prompts for journaling: was it hard to break it down into short-term goals? what kind of criteria do you normally use to select from a group of ideas or things to do? do you have a process or system that you practice regularly? c) introduce related frameworks and methodologies: agile (review iterative, etc.) design thinking (prototyping, what’s a prototype) lean startup (minimum viable product) 6.8 step 6: how would it work? a) individual work: on the poster paper with your idea, sketch out what a “prototype” version of this would be. how would you actually try it out in the real world, asap with the least effort? take a minute to imagine that you implemented your prototype. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 47 published by scholink inc. now that it’s done, what do i think about it? was it a success? did i learn anything from what i tried? what about the real world, how did it react? write down 3 possible metrics for how you would evaluate the prototype. b) prompts for journaling: was it hard to break it down into short-term goals? what kind of criteria do you normally use to select from a group of ideas or things to do? do you have a process or system that you practice regularly? c) introduce related frameworks and methodologies: user feedback (formal and informal techniques from product testing, user design, etc.) mvp launch (e.g. lean startup / agile market testing concepts) 6.9 step 7: what do i want to do (next)? a) individual work: on a third piece of poster paper, write your latest statement of what you want to do, right in the middle. draw 3 lines in different directions from there. on one line write “focus down”, on another “focus up”, on another “pivot” if you were to focus down your effort, pick just one aspect to concentrate on, what would that be? if you were to focus up, make it a more ambitious or big picture goal, what would that be? if you were to pivot to something entirely different, what would that be? pick one of the three, just for a moment. think about the process we used to get here, and also the other processes and methods we talked about. how is this process working for you? think about redesigning it. what method do you think would be appropriate to your new goal? b) review related frameworks and methodologies show list / collage of methodologies discuss iterative / cyclical model 7. summary in a world of accelerating change, education must evolve to become more flexible, accessible, and tailored to individual needs. the fractal learning workshop provides a promising proof-of-concept for a minimum viable instruction approach that can democratize learning and promote rapid, iterative skill development. future research should focus on empirical evaluations of this model across different cohorts and contexts, as well as on the long-term impacts of such iterative, goal-directed learning practices. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 48 published by scholink inc. references broza, g. (2019). agile for non-software teams: a practical guide for your journey. ontario: 3p vantage media. garcía, h., & miralles, f. (2017). ikigai: the japanese secret to a long and happy life. new york: penguin books. lewrick, m. & link, p., et al. (2020) the design thinking toolbox: a guide to mastering the most popular and valuable innovation methods. new york: wiley. meadows, d., & wright, d. (2009). thinking in systems. new york: chelsea green publishing. michalko, m. (2010). thinkertoys: a handbook of creative-thinking techniques. berkeley: ten speed press. olsen, d. (2015). the lean product playbook: how to innovate with minimum viable products and rapid customer feedback. new york: wiley. ries, e. (2011). the lean startup: how today’s entrepreneurs use continuous innovation to create radically successful businesses. new york: crown business. schwaber, k., & sutherland, j. (2020). the scrum guide: the definitive guide to scrum: the rules of the game. scrumguides.org. wade, w. (2012) scenario planning: a field guide to the future. new york: wiley. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 49 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 50 published by scholink inc. microsoft word fet-v2n1-p44 frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 44 original paper theme: teaching gender, class and race in the classroom mušić lejla1* 1 department of sociology, faculty of political sciences sarajevo, bosnia and herzegovina * mušić lejla, department of sociology, faculty of political sciences sarajevo, skenderija 72, bosnia and herzegovina. e-mail: musiclejla1@gmail.com received: october 30, 2018 accepted: december 4, 2018 online published: february 26, 2019 doi:10.22158/fet.v2n1p44 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v2n1p44 abstract race and ethnicity represent the constructs that are political and used in order to make distinctions in between the human into ethnic groups (turner, 2006, p. 490). according to turner (2006, p. 490) there is difference in between the race and ethnicity. race represents: “genetically transmitted characteristics popularly associated with different human groups, such as skin color, facial features, hair texture, and body type”. ethnicity distinguishes groups through the language, nationality and religion as distinctive characteristics. racial and ethnical relations are interactions in between the humans to which different racial and ethnical differences are ascribed at their birth. this paper analyses gender dimension of racial and national emotions. empirical part of the paper focuses onto the analyses of racial emotions and behaviors, in order to examine the emotions towards the gender dimension of race in the group of students. the emotions towards the races and ethnicities are complex and represent one of the greatest problems of the contemporary since they produce racial and ethnical violence. gender dimension of these emotions involve the marginalization, and discrimination against women giving the notion into the real position of the women in society as a group, and their vulnerability to racial and ethnical violence. in order to analyze the way in which, the race can be thought in the classroom, it is necessary to examine the opinion of the students, on the race. the main hypothesis of this paper is that the fight against racial and gender discrimination can unite all persons regardless of gender or color of their skin. postcolonial and multicultural feminisms unite all the women and feminist in order to stop discrimination on the basis of the race, class, ethnicity, gender. key terms: race, ethnicity, violence, women’s movement. keywords racial differences, black feminist movement, aryans www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 45 published by scholink inc. 1. nira yuval davis: malthusianism, eugenic discourse, and the degradation of women women are the simplest synonym for bio-national reproduction of the nation, they represent important segments of the renewal of the nation and the national spirit, and in war conditions they are the place of the greatest discrimination. subordinating, and discriminating women, men perpetuate, destroy and degrade men as opponents, especially making his nation impurity, which is the greatest degradation of moral and cultural dignity. woman, and the biological reproduction of a nation that is conceived through the analysis of blood as a symbol of the nation, people as power, and of particular interest in understanding the biological reproduction of the nation is the distinction of the eugenic and malthusian discourse, focusing on the meaning and significance of the rights contained in the feminist movement in terms of the struggle for control of reproduction, as well as the national need for reproduction of identity. why then do women have no deserved place in society, and why the biological dimension of the reproduction of a nation is glorified on the one hand, and on the other hand it represents the place of its deepest humiliation, because in public discourse there is still no equal rights as a man while in civil laws, they promote equal rights for all. famous black feminist bell hooks (1996, p. 181), in her book bone black, memories of girlhood, describes her feelings of her own race: “loneliness brings me to the edge of what i know. my soul is dark like the inner world of the cave-bone black. i have been drowning in the blackness. like quick-sand it sucks me in and keeps me there in the space of all my pain. i never say out loud that i could die in this space of loneliness, of outsiderness. i never say out loud i want to kill myself-to go away from all of this. i never tell anyone how much i want to belong. the priest i met saw me standing on the edge of the cliff, about to jump off and pulled me back. it was not a real cliff, just one inside myself. before anyone goes to that real place where we leap to our death, the dying has to be imagined. and so he finds me, there in that bone black place within myself, where i am dreaming my escape”. entering the national collective is an essential component of the further development of the national identity, and the identity of the personality, where a particularly big problem arises if a change occurs in the national, religious identity. the question arises what if one identity turns out to be totally contradictory, it grows into the conditions of the opposite national culture. nira yuval davis cites the example of arab, who grew up in the jewish community, who was an adaptive child, and only after seeing the documentation, only when he was growing up, he saw the data about his origins. he sought to acquire kuwait citizenship, which was impossible, because the laws were so strict that the biological mother and surrogate mother had to be the same religious traditions (nira yuval davis, 2002, p. 44).  whether the rapid development of the genetic industry, the advancement of technology and technology makes such laws absurd is one of the issues on which it wants to respond by focusing on malthusian and eugenic discourses. the first principle of building a national discourse is the belief in the potential of supporting the increase in the country’s nationality. an example of this is the rate of decline in birth rates in japan due to the conditions of children’s lives, which has led to the need to deliver monetary rewards for firstborn children in order to become fertile. in australia, the population, who settled in, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 46 published by scholink inc. tied up for increased fertility, where their country and workplace were insured. the relationship between palestine and the israelis also caused the need for increased reproduction of the nation, due to land ownership. similar examples are found in slovenia, northern ireland (nira yuval davis, 2002, p. 46). the higher the birth rate of national minorities in some countries, such as bulgaria, also required the need to strengthen national identity, and the same case was recorded by america at the beginning of the twentieth century when roosevelt condemned the sterilization of women by linking the act to the suicide of the nation (nira yuval davis, 2002, p. 46). the most radical and the most rigorous procedure for forcing jews not to carry out abortions was to compel to watch the murders of children and women in detention camps. the most legitimate possible concept of the need for the reproduction of the nation was achieved in nazi germany, where hitler’s main goal is an ideological explanation of the need for children to be born pure, blue, aryan blood, but exclusively with representatives of pure aryan blood as a chosen nation. on hitler’s ideology, i explored more explicitly in the work of fromm. it is necessary to distinguish between the first approach, the eugenic discourse and the malthusian discourse. eugenic discourse, as in the case of the aryan race, is focused on the biological value, in the quality of the genetic material, and not on the number of nations (davis, 2002, p. 47). the aryans forced one to sterilize, others to reproduce in order to strengthen the nation’s genetic potential. it is important to emphasize and eliminate elemental delusion, that quality relates only to the vitality and physical health of the organism, in this way the concept of quality includes the customs and traditions of a particular nation. an example of this was promoted by thatcher with powell in the usa, fearing that immigrants would swim america, a new racism concept emerged, where there is a difference in the interweaving of culture and tradition. the emotion towards her own race described by bell hooks (1996, p. 183) in bone black, follows: “at the night when everyone is silent and everything is still, i lie in the darkness of my windowless room, the place where they exile me from the community of their hearth, and search the unmoving blackness to see if i can find my way home. i tell myself stories, write poems, record my dreams. in my journal i write: i belong in this place of words. this is my home. this dark, bone black inner cave where i am making a world for myself.” according to thompson and armato (2012, p. 217), sociologists patricia hill collins, the author of black feminist thought: knowledge, consciousness and politics of the empowerment, writes that “african-american women were historically presented in ‘controlling images’—in narrow range of roles in films rotted in sexist, racist and class narratives”. in singapore, the birth of children with the educated population structure was encouraged, and davis cites an example of kansas, and then australia in a similar analogy (davis, 2002, pp. 48-49). the second conception advocates the primacy of malthusianism. thomas malthus, an english priest who spoke about the rapid growth of the population, highlighting the discrepancy between population growth whose geometric growth is growing, while food needs arise arithmetically, which means that arithmetic progression can be conditioned by increased poverty, but also the lack of elementary living space, which results in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 47 published by scholink inc. overpopulation. according to some authors, this theory is too apocalyptic because there are natural reasons for preventing population growth, and on the other hand, nature in some parts of the country is so fruitful that food hyper production occurs, so it is possible to make even distribution through the projects. the malthusian concept was supported by paul ehrlich, who in his work the population bomb lists the same statistics, countries such as china and america, africa and third world countries. in this respect, china made a significant effort in introducing ban on marriages, forced sterilization, abortion, in order to provide better quality of life for the population, and in the united states, reagan invested $ 3 billion to combat displacement (davis, 2002, pp. 50-51).  the malthusian concept nevertheless realized its own profit goal and warned that changes in population growth should be controlled. therefore, it is clear why important women are, however, in social traditional contexts, the woman’s vastness depends on her reproduction of the nation, and on the fact that she has given birth to sons for the state, which in recent times is a concept that gradually overcomes strengthened by legislative legislation. simply stated, if women are biological representatives of reproductive behavior, whose only function is to reproduce sons, what happens if this function is not able to achieve, are materially or biologically disabled for it, whether they are less valuable citizens, and what about the children of women who, as a national team, received the children of opposing soldiers. a large number of dilemmas, which the intersection of the nation and the genus carries with them and the biggest burden in all this, are carried by women. 2. gender dimension of nation and race nira yuval davis in her book gender and nations emphasizes the dual nature of nature, on the one hand identity and the affiliation of men and women to the collectivity is the same, and on the other hand, the rules that are specific exclusively apply to women, who is discriminatory and what needs to be changed legally. culture is not homogeneous, but a heterogeneous principle, so culture should treat equal rights that are attributed to everyone, ethnic minorities, and the majority population. it is important that the attitude and view of women change in a way that women become equal and equal citizens who will have the right to choose independently when they are born. these two perspectives focus on pointing out the contribution of feminist authors to the discourse of biologist in sociology, and society in general. sociologist vjeran katunaric will analyze the theory of nira yuval davis, pointing out that there are “five ways women learn in the biological reproduction of the nation, the bearer of the biological reproduction of the nation, the signs of maintaining the boundaries between ethno national identities, educators who convey the symbols of national affiliation and identity, the fourth embodies ethnic diversity (nation-mother), and as fifth as representatives of various professions, they are struggling for the affirmation of their nation” (2003, pp. 272-273), and yet they are exclusively used as an instrument for creating and realizing the ideas of the nation, in which they have a subordinate and devalued role, where the emphasis is clearly placed on the woman as a citizen. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 48 published by scholink inc. when retelling her personal feelings of being black bell hooks (1996, pp. 155-156) writes on relations in between black and whites in the school: “some of us are chosen. we are allowed to sit in the classes with the white students. we are told that we are smart. we are good servants who will be looked to. … although black and white attend the same school, blacks sit with blacks, white sit with whites. in the cafeteria there is no racial mixing. when hands reach out to touch across these boundaries whites protest, black protest as well. school is place where we came face to face with racism”. left liberal black women’s club, were important in organization of women suffrage, and after 1890-ties this clubs from different cities formed national association of colored women (nacw), with over hundred local women’s clubs (archer mann, 2012, p. 47). hundreds of thousands of blacks migrated from rural south to the more developed north, and ida wells barnett, famous sociologist, called “jane addams among the negroes”, helped migrants and formed settlement house for them (archer mann, 2012, p. 48). lydia sklevicky (1996, p. 79) dealt with the problem of the representation of the body of women and the discourse of gender and nation on the territory of the balkans, emphasizing the importance of the antifascist front of women in the aim of radical emancipation of women in general, in the form of a civil feminist movement developed according to the principle of “philanthropic feudalism”, and the emergence of women’s organizations leads to the “socialization of women’s roles (care for others, helpers, and careers of vulnerable, guardians and transmitters of national identities)” towards active involvement in the public and political sphere. 3. empirical investigation on theme race, and racial emotions this survey is conducted among the ma students at faculty of political sciences sarajevo, in the period of october to november 2017, during the 2017/2018 academic year. sample of the survey involves following information (gender, age, and race): i.) gender www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 49 published by scholink inc. 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 students males females figure 1. gender of students 66% of the students were males, and 34% of the students were females. ii.) age 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 20 21 22 23 figure 2. age the age of the students is from 20 to 23, since they are mainly at first year of ma studies. more than half of the students are 21-22 years old. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 50 published by scholink inc. iii) race 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 black white undefined figure 3. race inside the sample, the students were mostly whites (90%), with only one black student, and one that did not want to give an answer to that question. probably it is somebody that was of roma people, origin. question 1.) when thinking of racial differences, what kind of the emotions you feel? 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 exstremely positive ekstremely negative undetermined figure 4. racial differences www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 51 published by scholink inc. more than 52% students do feel extremely positive emotions when they think on racial differences. around 10% of students feel extremely negative emotions towards the racial differences, and the rest of them, around 38% of students remained undetermined or did not want to give response to the question. question 2.) would you rather hang out with people of the same skin color than those of other skin color? 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 yes no undefined figure 5. race vs. gatherings more than 71% of the students stated they did not want to rather hang out with people of the same skin color; around 15% would not like to hang out with people of other skin color. the rest of them did not answer to the question. question 3.) is there a race that you find less valuable than your own? www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 52 published by scholink inc. 0 5 10 15 20 25 yes no figure 6. racial value the whole sample and whole group of the examinees had responded that they do not think any other race less important than their own. question 4.) if you think there is some race or more races that are superior to your, please circle? 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 black yellow red white no, my race is superior latino no response figure 7. racial superiority www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 53 published by scholink inc. more than 52% of the students, since they were mainly whites, responded that theirs race is superior, the 38% left no response to the question. 10% of the examinees believe that white race is superior. question 5.) is racial discrimination justified? 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 yes no no response figure 8. justification of racial discrimination 95% of the examinees had responded that racial discrimination is not justified, around 5% of the students left no response to the question. there was no answer yes to this question. question 6.) have you developed “white feelings” in your area, or do you prefer a white race? www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 54 published by scholink inc. 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 yes no no response figure 9. development of “white feelings” around 71% of the students had responded that they do not prefer the white race and that they did not develop the white feelings. 19% stated that they prefer white race, and have white feelings. and 10% of the students had not responded to the question. question 7.) do you feel the fear of staying in the black/chinese/mexican neighborhoods of the big cities? www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 55 published by scholink inc. 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 yes no figure 10. racial fear 90% of the students had responded that they do not feel a fear from of staying in the black/chinese/mexican neighborhoods of the big cities, while as 10 % do feel fear. question 8.) do people of other skin color have the right to racial pride, happiness, empathy, comfort, solidarity and satisfaction? www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 56 published by scholink inc. 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 yes no no response figure 11. human rights for different races 76% of the examinees think that people of other skin color have the right to racial pride, happiness, empathy, comfort, solidarity and satisfaction while as 19% even think that they do not have the right to that. around 5% of the examinees did not respond. question 9.) do you think that the position of black women/chinese/latino/indian is more difficult than the situation of white women in the world today? www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 57 published by scholink inc. 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 yes no figure 12. white women position vs. women of other race position the position of black women/chinese/latino/indian is more difficult than the situation of white women in the world today thinks 66% of the examinees, while as 34% of them do not think so. question 10.) do you think that the situation of some white women is more difficult than the position of negro/indians/latino/chinese? 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 yes no figure 13. the position of white women www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 58 published by scholink inc. the situation of some white women is not more difficult than the position of negro/indians/latino/chinese women thinks 76% of the examinee, while as 24% of them thinks that it is. question 11.) can gender-based discrimination affect all women internationally regardless of skin color in a group that fights for the equality of women? 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 yes no figure 14. influence of gender based discrimination gender-based discrimination affects all women internationally regardless of skin color in a group that fights for the equality of women, thinks 80% of the examinees, while as 20% of them do not agree. question 12.) can the fight against racial discrimination associate all persons regardless of gender or color of the skin? www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 59 published by scholink inc. 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 yes no figure 15. fight against racial discrimination influence the fight against racial discrimination can associate all persons regardless of gender or color of the skin thinks 80% of the examinees, the rest of them think that it does not. 4. conclusion nira yuval davis in the analyses of gender and nations explains the difficult position of women in traditional society, therefore showing that it is clear why important women are, however, in social traditional contexts, the woman’s vastness depends on her reproduction of the nation, and on the fact that she has given birth to sons for the state, which in recent times is a concept that gradually overcomes strengthened by legislative legislation. the main hypothesis of this paper that the fight against racial and gender discrimination can unite all persons regardless of gender or color of their skin proved to be right practically in the survey result. the fight against racial discrimination can associate all persons regardless of gender or color of the skin thinks 80% of the examinees. the survey had shown that the examinees have positive feelings towards the racial differences, they would rather spend time with people of other skin color, and they (all of them100%) do not think that there is a race that is inferior to their race. but on the question if theirs race is inferior to others race, more than 52% of the students, /since they were mainly whites, responded that theirs race is superior/, the 38% left no response to the question, and 10% of the examinees believe that white race is superior. around 71% of the students had responded that they do not prefer the white race and that they did not develop the white feelings. 19% stated that they prefer white race, and have white feelings. and 10% of the students had not responded to the question. therefore, even though they do not feel national and racial www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 60 published by scholink inc. hatreds, there is feeling of racial proud and white feeling inside the group, especially when faced with discussion of their race being inferior in comparison to other races. but, students 90% of them do not feel a fear from of staying in the black/chinese/mexican neighborhoods of the big cities, while as 10% do feel fear. the position of women and marginalization of women of other color proved to be present since the position of black women/chinese/latino/indian is more difficult than the situation of white women in the world today thinks (66% of the examinees) while as the situation of some white women is not more difficult than the position of negro/indians/latino/chinese women (thinks 76% of the examinee). therefore, the notion of postcolonial and multicultural feminism on the necessity of the space for the women of other colors and nations proved to be right. the conclusion of the investigation is in line with the idea of multicultural and postcolonial feminism: gender-based discrimination affects all women internationally regardless of skin color in a group that fights for the equality of women, (thinks 80% of the examinees). teaching the gender, race, and class, in the classroom, needs to include the feminist ideas on transversal politics of identities. ecological problems of contemporary age unified all nations and perspectives, in need for the best possible solution. gunnel cederlöf, and kalayanakrishnan šivaramakrishnan advocate the idea of ecological nationalism. cosmopolitan democracy, suggested by daniel archibugi is radical idea of ecological nationalism, in which the supranational expert team, working on the regulation of climate changes, represents the paradigm for future society. multicultural feminism, and its representatives such gayatri cahravorty spivak, nira yuval davis, and uma narayan in idea of transversal politics of identity, promote supranational identity, over the old concept of nation-states. therefore, the ecological literacy, eco ethics, bioethics, social reflexivity can be the agents of change in future. references archer, m. s. (2012). doing feminist theory; from modernity to post modernity. new york/oxford: oxford university press. hooks, b. (1996). bone black: memories of girlhood. new york: henry holt company. thompson, m. e., & michael, a. (2012). investigating gender: developing feminist sociological imagination. cambridge: polity press. turner, s. b. (2006). the cambridge dictionary of sociology. cambridge/new york/melbourne: cambridge university press. davis, y. n. (2005). gender and nation/rod i nacija. zagreb: ženska infoteka/female infotech. sklevicky, l. (1996). horses, women and wars/konji, žene i ratovi. zagreb: druga. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 61 published by scholink inc. appendix interviewing is an anonymous/please be honest! anketa skin color: ...............; gender: .....................; age: .................................................... anquette 1.) when thinking of racial differences, what kind of the emotions you feel? a) extremely positive b) extremely negative c) undetermined 2.) would you rather hang out with people of the same skin color than those of other skin color? a) yes b) no 3.) is there a race that you find less valuable than your own? a) yes b) no if so, write what and explain the answer............................................................................................ .................................................. .......... ........................................ .................................................. 4.) if you think there is some race or more races that are superior to your, please circle? a) black b) yellow c) red d) white e) no, i think my race is superior f) latino 5.) is racial discrimination justified? a) yes b) no 6.) have you developed “white feelings” in your area, or do you prefer a white race? a) yes b) no 7.) do you feel the fear of staying in the black/chinese/mexican neighborhoods of the big cities? a) yes b) no 8.) do people of other skin color have the right to racial pride, happiness, empathy, comfort, solidarity and satisfaction? a) yes b) no 9.) do you think that the position of black women/chinese/latino/indian is more difficult than the situation of white women in the world today? a) yes b) no 10.) do you think that the situation of some white women is more difficult than the position of negro/indians/latino/chinese? www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 62 published by scholink inc. a) yes b) no 11.) can gender-based discrimination affect all women internationally regardless of skin color in a group that fights for the equality of women? a) yes b) no 12.) can the fight against racial discrimination associate all persons regardless of gender or color of the skin? a) yes b) no frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no.1, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 50 original paper research on key influencing factors and willingness of “slow employment” of college students zhou jun1 & zhong ming-rong1* 1 shiyuan college, nanning normal university, nanning, china * corresponding author, zhong ming-rong, shiyuan college, nanning normal university, nanning, china received: march 9, 2023 accepted: march 22, 2023 online published: march 31, 2023 doi:10.22158/fet.v6n1p50 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v6n1p50 abstract after years of expanding the enrollment of college students in china, a large number of college students graduate every year. starting from 2022, the number of college graduates will exceed 10 million, and both the society and universities are faced with the problem of how to arrange the employment of college graduates. the phenomenon of delayed employment of college graduates has gradually become a “slow employment” problem studied by scholars. through the investigation of internal and external influencing factors such as society, school, family and individual, this paper finds that the external factors of family and internal factors of income expectation are the key factors leading to the “slow employment” intention of undergraduate college graduates. the corresponding discussion and suggestions are given. keywords college students, slow employment, the key factor, willingness 1. introduction according to the ministry of education of china, the number of college graduates in the class of 2023 is expected to reach 11.58 million, an increase of 820,000 year-on-year (people’s daily, 2022). the employment of college students has become a hot concern of the society. the ministry of education and relevant departments have held various job fairs for this purpose. education departments at all levels and colleges and universities will continue to hold various job fairs and online recruitment in the spring and summer of 2023, focusing on solving the employment problem of graduated college students. but there will still be a lot of college students will not be able to find a job, forced to postpone employment. how difficult is it for college students to find jobs now? in 2021, the employment rate is www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 51 published by scholink inc. 30%; in 2022, 10.76 million college students will be employed, with only 4 million employed, and the employment rate is only 37% and less than 40%. in 2023, 11.58 million college graduates are expected (tencent, 2023), and it is not known how much the employment rate is. college graduates outside the statistics of employment rate will inevitably become an active or passive group of college graduates with slow employment. therefore, many university scholars pay attention to the slow employment of college students. in the research, the attribution of “slow employment” is generally analyzed from the perspective of society, school, family and individual. in the specific representative analysis, li ning believed that it was the influence of factors such as employment situation, career evaluation, career planning and job search expectation (li, 2019). through factor analysis, zheng dong et al. found that the reasons for college students to choose “slow employment” include further study, career planning, self-efficacy, employment quality, peer influence, network media and family support (zheng & pan, 2019). most studies have explored the influencing factors of delayed employment in view of the phenomenon of “slow employment,” and discussed from the aspects of government, society, school, family and individual factors, and put forward corresponding solutions. however, there is no focus on the root cause of the formation of “slow employment,” and the most critical “slow employment” factor is not found. therefore, this paper will seek the most critical factors for the “slow employment” of application-oriented undergraduate college graduates through investigation, and provide effective traceability support for the employment guidance of college graduates. 2. theoretical basis and research hypothesis 2.1 theoretical basis 2.1.1 theoretical model of rational action the theory of reasoned action proposed by fishibein and ajzen (1975) believes that a person’s performance on a particular behavior is determined by his behavioral intention to perform the behavior, which is determined by an individual’s attitude toward the behavior and subjective norms. this theory holds that individual behavior can be inferred from their behavioral intention, so many scholars use this model to analyze the relationship between individual attitude, behavioral intention and individual behavior. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 52 published by scholink inc. figure 1. tra (theory of reasoned action) model 2.1.2 lutz’s relational model (lutz, 1981) this model lists the possible factors that affect attitudes and the relationship between attitudes and actions. key factors influencing certain behaviors can be sought through analysis. figure 2. lutz’s relational model diagram 2.2 research hypothesis and model as an intellectual who has received higher education and has certain rational choice ability, college graduates should have rational cognition and choice in the choice of employment or not. therefore, the theoretical research model and hypotheses of this paper are set by referring to lutz’s relational model and combining with tra’s rational behavior model. 2.2.1 research hypothesis there are many factors that affect the employment of college graduates, but they can be classified according to the individual perspective, and such factors can be divided into external factors and internal factors. external factors refer to all kinds of objective factors that affect individuals externally, including society, school and family, while internal factors mainly refer to individuals’ subjective factors beliefs informational accident attitude cognitive emotional behavioral behavior behavioral intention actual behavior beliefs and evaluations attitude toward behavior normative beliefs and motivation to comply subjective norm javascript:; javascript:; www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 53 published by scholink inc. perception factors. these factors also include many subdivided factors, so the following assumptions are made according to the influencing factors. first of all, for external factors, we distinguish social, school and family factors. therefore, the influence of external influencing factors on the employment intention of college graduates is assumed as follows: h1: social influencing factors have a significant impact on college graduates’ slow employment intention h2: school influencing factors have a significant impact on college graduates’ slow employment intention h3: family influencing factors have a significant impact on college graduates’ slow employment intention secondly, the internal factors affecting the employment of college graduates are mainly the perceived factors of personal requirements, which can be divided into unit requirements, position requirements, ability improvement requirements and income requirements. therefore, the hypothesis is as follows: h4: the influencing factors of unit requirements have a significant impact on the slow employment intention of college graduates h5: the influencing factors of position requirements have a significant impact on the slow employment intention of college graduates h6: the influencing factors of ability improvement requirements have a significant impact on the willingness of college graduates to slow employment h7: the influencing factors of income requirements have a significant impact on the slow employment intention of college graduates the above internal and external factors will directly or indirectly affect the attitude and willingness of college graduates for employment, and affect their behavior of postponing employment. therefore, it is assumed that: h8: college graduates’ slow employment intention significantly affects their employment behavior. 2.2.2 theoretical model the theoretical model of the relationship between the key influencing factors of college graduates’ employment and their employment intention and their impact on employment behavior is constructed as follows in figure 3. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 54 published by scholink inc. figure 3. research model of key influencing factors of slow employment intention behavior 3. questionnaire design and data sources 3.1 questionnaire design 3.1.1 in this paper, the 5-level likerts scale is adopted, with 1-5 indicating strong disapproval, disapproval, general, approval and strong approval respectively. the specific measured variables and contents are shown in table 1. 3.1.2 for the measurement of slow employment behavior, only two measures are selected, that is, yes or no. specific variable design: is the interval between your graduation and employment more than 6 months? no yes. 3.2 data sources and sample characteristics 3.2.1 source of datas from the end of 2022 to march 2023, a survey was conducted on students who had graduated from a number of undergraduate universities in nanning, guangxi, china, with students who had recently graduated more than one year as the respondents. through the graduate group of the school, the questionnaire is set up on the questionnaire star survey website, and the way of network remote survey is carried out. a total of 577 questionnaires were collected, 120 questionnaires from junior college students were sorted out and removed, and 457 valid questionnaires from undergraduate students or above were obtained. the effective rate of the questionnaire on slow employment of undergraduate students is 79.2%, which generally meets the requirements of the questionnaire survey. social factors school factors family factors income requirement factor unit requirement factor job requirement factor capacity improvement requirement factors slow employment intention slow employment behavior external influencing factors in tern al in flu en cin g facto rs h4 h7 h5 h6 h3 h2 h1 h8 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 55 published by scholink inc. table 1. design of variables and measurement index variable number of entry number of entry external influence factors social factors (so) 3 the state’s graduate employment policy affects timely employment. impact of social and economic development. the impact of intense competition for jobs. school factors (sc) 3 the curriculum meets the employment requirements. good pre-employment training is provided. provide appropriate employment channels and information recommendations. family factor (fa) 3 the family has a good economic foundation to support not to rush to employment. parents support deferred employment for good reasons. family and friends can provide employment assistance to support postponing employment. internal influencing factors unit requirement factor (un) 3 hope to stay in economically developed areas or cities to work. hope to find administrative institutions or state-owned enterprises. so can high-income private firms. job requirement factor (jo) 3 i hope the job position is established. hope the work is easy. easy promotion and promotion. capacity improvement requirement factors (ca) 3 i hope i can learn new knowledge at work. i hope my work ability will be improved. have the opportunity to exercise and study outside. income requirement factor (in) 3 want to earn more than the average income level. the benefits are good. it’s better to have hidden income. slow employment intention (si) 3 willing to take an examination of public or study, support teaching and other not anxious employment. willing to wait for better employment opportunities. willing to work with classmates or friends to find better employment opportunities. javascript:; javascript:; javascript:; www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 56 published by scholink inc. 3.2.2 basic characteristics of the sample among the respondents, gender distribution: 66.74% were female; age distribution: 18-30 years old accounted for 95.40%, others accounted for less than 5%; education level: all of them are undergraduates or above, accounting for 98.47% of the total. in line with the survey object for undergraduate staff mainly requirements. table 2. basic structural characteristics of the valid samples basic feature class number of people scale(%) gender male. 152 33.26% female 305 66.74% age under 18 years old 11 2.41% 18-30 years old 436 95.40% over 30 years old 10 2.19% level of education undergraduate degree 450 98.47% master and doctor 7 1.53% 4. data analysis and results 4.1 reliability and validity test 4.1.1 firstly, the reliability and validity of variables such as internal and external influencing factors and the willingness to slow employment are analyzed. the test was carried out using spss23.0 software. through the test, the results show that the lowest α coefficient is 0.817, which is higher than the acceptable standard of 0.7, indicating that the scale has good reliability. the lowest kmo test value is 0.650, which is greater than the acceptable standard of 0.5, and the significance of bartlett test value is p=0.000. therefore, the questionnaire in this paper has good reliability and validity, which is suitable for further test and analysis. table 3. the reliability and validity test results measurand number of terms cronbach’s α kmo bartlett’ test so 3 0.911 0.696 0.000 sc 3 0.921 0.751 0.000 fa 3 0.915 0.760 0.000 un 3 0.855 0.734 0.000 jo 3 0.817 0.650 0.000 ca 3 0.910 0.718 0.000 in 3 0.908 0.724 0.000 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 57 published by scholink inc. sa 3 0.863 0.727 0.000 si 3 0.836 0.686 0.000 4.1.2 exploratory factor analysis was conducted this paper conducts exploratory factor analysis on external and internal influencing factors. the test results show that except for the factor loadings of jo1 and ca3, which are 0.550 and 0.648 respectively, the factor loadings of other tests are greater than 0.7, and the explained variance is greater than 80%. it shows that the scale of internal and external factors has good structural validity (table 4). table 4. exploratory factor analysis variable item factor loading explained variance % 1 2 3 4 external influencing factors fa fa1 0.922 30.16 fa2 0.900 fa3 0.899 sc sc2 0.888 29.27 sc1 0.865 sc3 0.862 so so3 0.897 29.15 so2 0.893 so1 0.839 internal influencing factors in in3 0.801 23.50 in2 0.790 in1 0.763 un un2 0.836 23.10 un1 0.778 un3 0.731 jo jo2 0.851 19.62 jo3 0.781 jo1 0.550 ca ca2 0.761 18.77 ca1 0.728 ca3 0.648 the second is a confirmatory factor analysis of each factor. the analysis uses amos21.0 to verify model fit, and selects indicators such as absolute fit index, relative fit index and parsimonious fit index www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 58 published by scholink inc. for evaluation. the results are shown in table 5: the test values all meet the standards, so the proposed reference model meets the requirements of model adaptation. table 5. model fit tests specific indicators bear fruit recommended value cmin/df 3.353 <5 rmsea 0.072 <0.08 rfi 0.913 >0.90 nfi 0.929 >0.90 tli 0.937 >0.90 cfi 0.949 >0.90 ifi 0.949 >0.90 pnfi 0.754 >0.50 pcfi 0.770 >0.50 4.2 data analysis and results therefore, the path test can be carried out, and the model analysis results are as follows: as shown in table 6, only si←fa and si←in path correlation test results are significant, while other path relationship tests are not significant. table 6. test table of the impact of internal and external influencing factors on slow employment intention path estimate t p hypothesis testing si←so 0.047 1.260 0.208 reject si←sc 0.056 1.153 0.249 reject si←fa 0.402 8.364 *** accept si←un 0.099 1.140 0.255 reject si←jo 0.080 0.360 0.719 reject si←ca -0.019 1.362 0.174 reject si←in 0.300 3.538 *** accept note. *, **, *** indicate the significance levels of 0.1, 0.05 and 0.01, respectively. therefore, the test shows that the influence of external factors so and sc on employment intention is not significant, h1 and h2 are not valid, while fa has a significant influence on employment intention, and h3 is valid. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 59 published by scholink inc. among the internal influencing factors, un, jo and ca are all rejected, and only in has a significant effect. therefore, hypotheses h4, h5 and h6 are not valid, and h7 is verified. since ae only has the option of whether or not, the regression analysis is conducted directly with the effect of si on ae. the test result is: the standardized coefficient b=0.069, t=1.474, p=0.141, and the result is not significant. in other words, there is no significant influence relationship between employment intention and employment action, and h8 fails the test. 5. conclusion and discussion 5.1 conclusions the results show that among the external influencing factors that affect the slow employment behavior of college graduates, the influence of society and school is not significant. the family influence factor is the key factor affecting the employment intention of college graduates, which has a significant impact on the employment intention of college graduates. therefore, family plays an extremely important role in influencing students’ various behaviors and ideas, no matter from primary school, middle school or university. giving full play to the important role of family in education is to guide college graduates to treat employment correctly and play an important role in promoting active employment. among the internal influencing factors, among the internal needs of college graduates for job hunting, the needs of unit, position and ability improvement are not significant for college graduates’ willingness to job hunting. only the requirement of income has a significant effect on the job search of college graduates. the direct pursuit of income requirements is the cognitive change of the whole young generation and the cognitive embodiment of the economy and society. the income issue is the first consideration for the employment of college graduates. if the income is up to expectations, then the requirements for the organization, the position, and the ability to improve are not a problem. therefore, increasing the salary of college graduates is the key factor to improve the employment rate and solve the problem of slow employment. the relationship between employment intention and positive employment behavior is not significant. this shows that even if college graduates are willing to be employed, they may choose different slow employment behaviors due to various other reasons. as a result, there are many college graduates who may be forced to delay employment even if they have strong employment intentions because they do not have family support or for personal reasons. in other words, only employment intention cannot achieve the purpose of positive employment, but also need to have employment channels to achieve the purpose. 5.2 discussion and suggestions the number of college graduates is increasing every year. employment has become an important topic in society, and it is also a difficult problem for many families and college graduates. therefore, finding www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 60 published by scholink inc. an effective way of employment is the ultimate goal of our research. in the study, the conclusions we obtained through the survey also prompted us to further discuss this. first of all, in the process of employment education and training for college graduates, we have not considered the corresponding training and education for family members. if we continue to correct the employment concept of family members, it may improve or promote the employment situation of college graduates, and whether the problem of slow employment can also be better solved. secondly, the direct pursuit of income by college graduates is, of course, the inevitable result of economic and social development. however, whether this perception of excessive pursuit of economic interests reflects the emergence of collective social cognition problems in university education. employment solely for economic benefits may deviate from the general perception of the public. this may require university administrators and teachers to think carefully about the impact of this cognition on the country and society. third, this study only focuses on students who have graduated from bachelor’s degree or above, and students from junior college and secondary vocational schools are not analyzed. this can be refined again in future research to have a deeper understanding of the employment status of students graduating from all types of schools. fund item guangxi education science “14th five-year plan” 2022 special project “research on the root cause and solution path of the phenomenon of ‘slow employment’ for graduates of application-oriented undergraduate colleges (no.2022zjy1645)” references fishbein, m., & ajzen, i. (1975). belief, attitude, intention, and behavior: an introduction to theory and research. reading, ma:addison-wesley. li, n. (2019). reasons and countermeasures for “slow employment” of college graduates. people’s forum, 2019(5), 116-117. lutz, r. j. (1981). the role of attitude theory in marketing, in harold h. kassarjian and thomas robertson, perspectives. in consumer behavior (3rd ed., p. 235). foresman. people’s daily. (2022). the number of college graduates in the class of 2023 is expected to reach 11.58 million. retrieved november 18, 2022, from http://www.moe.gov.cn/jyb_xwfb/s5147/202211/t20221118_995344.html tencent. (2023). how difficult is it for college students to find jobs now? it can be seen from the employment rate in these years! retrieved from https://new.qq.com/rain/a/20230322a072q400 zheng, d., & pan, c. c. (2019). service strategy of accelerating “slow employment” for college students. jiangsu higher education, 2019(2), 81-84. https://new.qq.com/rain/a/ frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no.3, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 14 original paper the relationship between business intelligence and organizational agility with emphasis on the mediating role of it infrastructure flexibility (case study: active companies in rasht industrial city) mohammad taleghani1* & shahram gilaninia1 1 department of industrial management, rasht branch, islamic azad university, rasht, iran * mohammad taleghani, department of industrial management, rasht branch, islamic azad university, rasht, iran received: april 3, 2023 accepted: may 1, 2023 online published: may 23, 2023 doi:10.22158/fet.v6n3p14 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v6n3p14 abstract the purpose of this research was to investigate the relationship between business intelligence and organizational agility, emphasizing the mediating role of it infrastructure flexibility in companies operating in rasht industrial city. the current research is a cross-sectional and correlational research, and its statistical population consists of all managers of active companies in rasht industrial city, and 255 samples that were selected based on morgan’s table and by random sampling were used for analysis. descriptive analyses were performed using spss 22 statistical software and final analysis was performed using smart pls 2 statistical software. the results of the research showed that business intelligence has a significant relationship with organization agility and it infrastructure flexibility, and it infrastructure flexibility has a significant relationship with organization agility. also, the analysis results confirmed the mediating role of it infrastructure flexibility in the relationship between business intelligence and organization agility, but the moderating role of it infrastructure flexibility in the relationship between business intelligence and organization agility was not confirmed. based on the results of the research, in addition to analysing key information and optimizing strategic decisions, company managers can use business intelligence as a tool to master new technologies for the development and prosperity of it infrastructures. keywords business intelligence, organizational agility, it infrastructure flexibility www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 15 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction organizational agility is defined as a set of abilities of an organization in identifying and quickly responding to opportunities and threats. theoretically, organizational agility is defined as three interrelated capabilities: customer agility, partner agility, and operational agility (chen & siau, 2020). due to the rapid and extensive changes in the world around organizations, organizational agility is not considered an organizational choice, but rather an undeniable necessity and the factor that distinguishes successful and efficient organizations from ineffective ones; because more agile organizations are always more successful in responding to the external environment (harraf et al., 2015). organizational agility includes the organization’s capacity to change or adapt in response to environmental changes. also, organizational agility involves controlling and responding to continuous and rapid changes in complex environments (darvishmotevali et al., 2020). business intelligence is defined as a set of mathematical and methodological models for analysis that are used to extract useful information and knowledge from raw data for use in complex decision-making processes (danesh ghalichkhani & hakkak, 2016). the word business intelligence was first used in 1958 in an article by an ibm researcher. he considered the means of communication to guide a business as requiring the existence of an intelligent system and defined intelligence as the ability to understand the mutual relationship of the presented facts in a way that leads to the direction of action towards the desired goal (zarei & zarei, 2018). a business intelligence system is capable of covering the full spectrum of a business intelligence process, including the core components of data management and integration, analysis, presentation, delivery, and domain applications. the main purpose of business intelligence is to provide information effectively so that the organization achieves the proposed goals and strategies based on decision-making that leads to a competitive advantage in the market. in addition, the business strategy facilitates the acquisition of information from the grouping of data (gilaninia et al., 2022). flexibility is broadly defined as the degree to which something is flexible and malleable; it refers to the ability to quickly and economically adapt information systems applications to changing business conditions within the system framework. information technology infrastructure is a complex nature, because it includes both human and technical dimensions and their combination (jaafarinia & javanmard, 2014). information technology provides a flow of information that makes the supply chain more resilient and improvable, without undermining its efficiency. the flexibility of information technology has a major impact on performance and the company must be able to use its information output. therefore, information technology should be applied in the company and supply chain to create a distinct competitive personality (bavarsad et al., 2018). the term business intelligence is considered with a broader concept of competitive intelligence, which includes all the concepts of intelligence, including the external environment such as markets, competitors, suppliers and customers, and the internal environment such as strategy, culture, technology and employees (bakhshandeh & rahmati, 2016). the emphasis is on fostering a common organizational culture, so that people and technological tools are www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 16 published by scholink inc. directed in line with the same strategic vision (azvine et al., 2005). it is possible that there is a relationship between an independent variable and its mediating variable so that it can affect the dependent variable (preacher et al., 2007). thus, in this research, information technology infrastructure plays both the role of a mediating variable and the role of a moderating variable. business intelligence technologies facilitate analysis, data collection, analysis and distribution of information and are designed to support organizational decisions. business intelligence tools provide past, present and future perspectives for employee use, as today’s competition is driven by business intelligence, thus companies will achieve high competition by using business intelligence tools. business intelligence must use vast amounts of data and help achieve competitive advantages such as better customer relationships and effective resource planning (gilaninia et al., 2022). the basis of the current research is the model used in the research conducted by chen and siau (2020) and the findings indicate that according to the 255 investigated companies, the results show that business intelligence is associated with organizational agility and flexibility. the it infrastructure has a significant relationship and the flexibility of the it infrastructure has a significant relationship with the agility of the organization. also, the analysis results confirmed the mediating role of it infrastructure flexibility in the relationship between business intelligence and organization agility, but the moderating role of it infrastructure flexibility in the relationship between business intelligence and organization agility was not confirmed. figure 1. the conceptual model of the research taken from the research of chen & siau (2020) chen and siau (2020) conducted a research titled business intelligence and business analysis and it infrastructure: impact on organizational agility. the results of this research have shown a significant relationship between the use of business intelligence and the flexibility of information technology infrastructure with organizational agility and cooperation to create a flexible information technology infrastructure. however, the results of this research did not show the suggested interaction between two organizational drivers for organizational agility. cheng et al. (2020) conducted a research entitled facilitating the speed of internationalization: the role of business intelligence and organizational agility among 258 chinese companies. in this research, they concluded that business intelligence has a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 17 published by scholink inc. significant effect on the speed of internationalization and organizational agility is a positive mediator of this causal relationship. also, the findings indicated that negative cultural distance moderates the relationship between organizational agility and speed of internationalization. darvishmutoli et al. (2020) conducted a study on the relationship between environmental uncertainty, organizational agility and organizational creativity in the hotel industry among 174 managers of five-star hotels. the findings of this research showed that organizational agility has a negative moderating role between competitive uncertainty and technology on organizational creativity. also, these results showed that in highly dynamic and complex environments, organizations should reduce bureaucracy to manage challenges related to uncertainty. melián-alzola et al. (2020) conducted a research titled information technology capability and organizational agility. the results of this study indicate the mediating role of it capability, which is the ability to manage technological resources, not only directly but also indirectly using information technology. however, the role of it capability as a moderator was not confirmed in this research. danesh ghalichkhani and hakkak (2016) conducted a research under the title of a model for measuring the direct and indirect effect of business intelligence on organizational agility with the role of mediating empowerment. the results of this research showed that business intelligence has a direct and indirect effect on organizational agility through empowerment. also, the effect of business intelligence on organizational agility, business intelligence on capability and the impact of capability on organizational agility were confirmed. chen and siau (2012) conducted a research titled the impact of business intelligence and flexibility of it infrastructure on competitive advantage: organizational landscape agility and investigated the impact of it infrastructure on competitive advantage through agility. the results of this research indicated that by using the flexibility of the technology infrastructure, it is possible to respond to environmental opportunities and threats faster and achieve a competitive advantage. hashemi et al. (2017) conducted a research titled designing a model to evaluate the development of an organizational dashboard with business intelligence logic in organizations in iran khodro engineering and parts supply company. the results of this research showed that due to the existence of the strategic planning process, organizational performance evaluation and procedures based on the quality management system, as well as the existence of oracle software, system and software platforms are available in this company; however, due to the low priority of business intelligence issues in sapco, the process of developing a dashboard with business intelligence logic is not a high-priority organizational project and needs more work in this area. bavarsad et al. (2018) conducted a research titled the effect of information technology infrastructure flexibility and organizational learning on performance with the mediating role of supply chain performance in manufacturing companies of khuzestan province. the results also showed that supply chain performance had a positive and significant effect on organizational performance and its mediating role in the impact of information technology infrastructure flexibility and organizational learning on organizational performance was confirmed. ahmadyan and mohajeran (2019) conducted a research on the structural model of relationships of organizational intelligence, organizational agility and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 18 published by scholink inc. innovation in higher education among employees of urmia university. the results of this research show the direct effect of organizational intelligence on innovation, organizational agility on innovation, and the effect of organizational intelligence on agility, as well as the indirect effect of organizational intelligence on innovation through the mediation of organizational agility. jafarzadeh zarandi et al. (2019) conducted a research titled presenting an organizational agility model based on information technology in iranian sports organizations. the findings revealed that technology knowledge, network communication, architecture and data services, technology management, technology foundations, compatibility and speed of technology were considered among the main axes of this infrastructure, and the assumption of organizational agility was also strengthened. ebrahimpour azbari et al. (2016) conducted a research on the effect of supplier integration capability on company performance with the role of organizational agility among 80 companies located in rasht industrial city. the results of this research showed that the ability to integrate with suppliers directly and indirectly has a significant positive effect on the performance of companies. jafarinia and javanmard (2014) conducted a research on the effect of information technology infrastructure flexibility and supply chain management operations on competitive advantage and financial performance in manufacturing and industrial companies in ahvaz city. the results of this research showed that a high level of supply chain management operations leads to an increase in competitive advantage and financial performance, and a high level of flexibility of information technology infrastructure leads to an increase in competitive advantage, but does not lead to an increase in financial performance, and competitive advantage has a positive effect. and has a direct effect on financial performance. as the study of the theoretical foundations and background of the research shows, it can be seen that different researches have addressed the variables considered in the current research from different aspects, but so far in iran, there is no research on the relationship between business intelligence and organizational agility, emphasizing the mediating role of flexibility. the construction of it among the ceos of active companies has not been paid, therefore, considering that limited research has been done in this field, the present study aims to answer the question of whether there is a relationship between business intelligence and organizational agility, emphasizing the role of a mediator. is there a relationship between the flexibility of it infrastructure in companies operating in rasht industrial town? and if there is a connection, how will the process be? 2. methodology the research method of the current study is descriptive-correlational and analytical, which was conducted in the field. the statistical population of the research was 726 active units from the companies in rasht industrial city, and based on cochran’s formula, 255 companies were selected for the research sample. to achieve the goals of the research, chen and lin (2020) questionnaire for the business intelligence component; talon and pinsonlet (2011) questionnaire was used for the it www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 19 published by scholink inc. flexibility component, and zhang and sharifi (2000) questionnaire was used for the organizational agility component. the formal and content validity of the questionnaires was approved by the experts and their reliability was calculated in a preliminary test with cronbach’s alpha of 0.867 for organizational agility questionnaire, 0.919 for business intelligence and 0.806 for it infrastructure. to analyze the collected data, descriptive statistical methods of mean, standard deviation, frequency distribution table and percentage were used from spss version 22 software and for inferential statistical methods including confirmatory factor analysis with the help of smart-pls software. 3. result table 1. demographic information of the samples abundance % gender female 249 97.6 man 6 2.4 education bs 140 54.9 master’s degree 103 40.4 phd 12 4.7 age up to 40 years 13 5.1 41 to 45 years 85 33.3 46 to 50 years 90 35.3 over 51 years old 67 26.3 work experience under 10 years old 27 10.6 11-15 years 137 53.7 16-20 years 53 20.8 over 20 years old 38 14.9 the results of table 1 show the demographic information of the samples. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 20 published by scholink inc. figure 2. the initial research model in pls2 software table 2. cronbach’s alpha, ave, cr, r2 and q2 indexes variable cronbach’s alpha> 0/7 ave> 0/4 cr> 0/7 r2 q2 organizational agility 0.867 0.604 0.901 0.688 0.408 business intelligence 0.919 0.617 0.934 it infrastructure 0.806 0.635 0.873 0.873 0.366 according to the results of table 2, cronbach’s alpha, ave, cr, r2 and q2 reported are consistent with the standard value of the test criteria, so it can be said that the assumption of normality of the data is established. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 21 published by scholink inc. 4. communality criteria the quality of the measurement models in the pls method is evaluated using the communality criterion. this criterion shows how much of the variability of the indicators (questions) is explained by the self-related construct. communality criteria related to each index is obtained through the average of the second-order values of the relationship between that index and its related structure, which are the factor loadings (davari & rezazadeh, 2014). 5. redundancy criterion the redundancy criterion is obtained from the product of the communality values of the structures in their respective r2 values, and it indicates the amount of variability of the indices of an endogenous structure that is affected by one or more exogenous structures. accepted (davari & rezazadeh, 2014). table 3 shows the results of the variability of the endogenous structure index: table 3. communality and redundancy criteria variable communality redudancy organizational agility 0.604 0.284 business intelligence 0.617 it infrastructure 0.635 0.367 factor loadings are calculated by calculating the correlation value of the indicators of a structure with that structure. if this value is equal to or greater than 0.4, it confirms that the variance between the structure and its indicators is the variance of the size error. the measurement of that structure is more and the reliability of that measurement model is acceptable. in the present study, questions no. 14, 21 and 22 were removed from the model due to their low factor load and the model was implemented again. table 4 shows the results of factor loading: table 4. results of factor loadings business intelligence it infrastructure organizational agility q1 0.859 q2 0.877 q3 0.831 q4 0.844 q5 0.871 q6 0.657 q7 0.837 q8 0.583 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 22 published by scholink inc. q9 0.647 q10 0.891 q11 0.871 q12 0.685 q13 0.721 q15 0.744 q16 0.726 q17 0.839 q18 0.857 q19 0.730 q20 0.779 also, table 5 presents the correlation values between research variables. in divergent validity, it is acceptable when the ave for each construct is greater than the shared variance between that construct and other constructs in the model. in pls, this is checked by means of a matrix, the houses of this matrix contain the values of the correlation coefficients between the constructs and the square root of the ave values of each construct, so it can be concluded that the relationships between the variables are meaningful. now we can fit the proposed structural model in figure 3 assuming normality. table 5. internal correlation between research variables variable organizational agility it infrastructure business intelligence organizational agility 0.777 business intelligence 0.773 0.785 it infrastructure 0.772 0.767 0.796 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 23 published by scholink inc. figure 3. structural equation model in path coefficient mode after the theoretical formulation of the model and checking the related assumptions, the model fitting should be done, the general information about which is presented below, and then the details of the model are presented. the overall model includes both measurement and structural model parts, and by confirming its fit, the fit check is completed in a model. to check the fit of the overall model, only one criterion called gof (goodness of fit) is used. the gof criterion is related to the general part of structural equation models. this means that with this criterion, the researcher can control the overall fit after checking the fit of the measurement part and the structural part of the overall research model. wetzels et al. (2009) introduced three values of 0.01, 0.25 and 0.36 as weak, medium and strong values for gof (davari & rezazadeh, 2014). the gof criterion is obtained through the following formula: gof= it can be seen that the value of 0.627 was obtained for the gof criterion in the present study, thus it can be said that the model of this study has a strong fit. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 24 published by scholink inc. figure 4. the model of structural equations in the state of significance after checking the fit of the measurement models, structural model and general model, according to the data analysis algorithm in the pls method, the researcher is allowed to examine and test his research hypotheses and reach the research findings. this section consists of two parts: 1) examining the significance coefficients of z; that the coefficients higher than 1.96 indicate the significance of the effect of one variable on another variable at the 95% confidence level and confirm the hypothesis, and 2) checking the standardized factor load coefficients related to the paths of each of the hypotheses. table 6. general results of research assumptions theories t statistic path coefficient sobel test effect intensity moderation test confirm or reject business intelligence flexibility of it infrastructures  organizational agility 29.245 0.674 7.468 6.700 0.768 0.065 0.442 0.418 reject business intelligence organizational agility 6.700 0.418 verification by direct contact www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 25 published by scholink inc. business intelligence → flexibility of it infrastructure 29.245 0.768 verification by direct contact flexibility of it infrastructure → organization agility 7.468 0.442 verification by direct contact business intelligence → with it infrastructure flexibility → organization agility 7.600 0.447 verification by direct contact business intelligence → with it infrastructure flexibility → organization agility -0.065 0.674 reject 4. discussion there is a significant relationship between business intelligence and organizational agility, emphasizing the mediating role of it infrastructure flexibility. business intelligence is basically the same human intelligence that is applied in affairs and activities. this is the use of artificial intelligence in the business system. by accessing and analyzing data, it helps the users of the organization to make better business decisions (dinesh, 2021). organizational agility is the ability to quickly understand and respond to market opportunities and threats, and business intelligence can help measure the role of organizational agility. since business intelligence can increase awareness of product trends and customer changes, it can contribute to organizational agility by providing timely information to detect changing trends. (chen et al., 2012). the obtained results show the rejection of the above hypothesis and this result is inconsistent with the results of chen & siau (2020) and chang et al. (2020) business intelligence has a significant relationship with organizational agility. some of the reasons and the necessity of moving towards organizational agility can be seen as fierce competition in the business environment, increasing customer expectations, globalization, cultural and social issues, limited skilled manpower, information technology, innovation and initiative, and changes. information technology in its different forms (internet, intranet, e-commerce, e-business, etc.) is an effective facilitator that can support the concept of agility. the use of information technology is an organizational advantage that the success of the organization depends to a large extent on its optimal use (jafarzadeh zarandi et al., 2019). the results of the analysis for this hypothesis showed that business www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 26 published by scholink inc. intelligence has a significant relationship with organizational agility and the type of this relationship is direct and positive. this result is consistent with the research results of chen and siau (2020), danesh ghalichkhani and hakkak, (2016), ahmadyan and mohajeran (2019). business intelligence has a significant relationship with it infrastructure flexibility. evaluation and impact of the use of information technology and its relationship with the organization’s agility and determination of the organization’s agility level according to this impact, organizations to know solutions to increase the profit of their investments and more use of information technology to achieve and improve agility and gaining a competitive advantage will enable. the adoption of information technology in private and public organizations can be a suitable platform for the growth of the concept of organizational agility (jafarzadeh zarandi et al., 2019). the results of the analysis for this hypothesis showed that business intelligence has a significant relationship with the flexibility of it infrastructure and the type of this relationship is positive and direct. this result is consistent with the research results of chen and siau (2020), chen and siau (2012). the flexibility of the it infrastructure has a significant relationship with the agility of the organization. since companies are facing a changing environment, fierce competition and rapid technological development, how to survive these challenges is an important question. of course, for small and medium enterprises and large enterprises, responding to change and exploiting market opportunities is the main capability of survival and success. therefore, companies should use their resources in innovative ways to create a competitive advantage. resources include all the assets, capabilities, organizational processes, firm characteristics, information and knowledge controlled by a firm that enable that firm to understand and implement its efficiency and effectiveness strategies. in fact, information technology infrastructures are an important part of the company’s resources and capabilities and support operational and strategic activities (masa’deh, 2013). the results of the research showed that the flexibility of the it infrastructure has a significant relationship with the organization’s agility, and this relationship is positive and direct, and this result is in line with the results of the research by chen and siau (2020), jafarzadeh zarandi et al. (2019). the flexibility of it infrastructure plays a mediating role in the relationship between business intelligence and organizational agility. the results of the sobel test for this hypothesis showed that the flexibility of it infrastructure plays a mediating role in the relationship between business intelligence and organizational agility, and the type of this relationship is positive and direct. the results show that the research is in line with the research of chen and siau (2020), melián-alzola et al. (2020) and ahmadyan and mohajeran (2019). the flexibility of it infrastructure plays a moderating role in the relationship between business intelligence and organizational agility. since the results of the analysis for this hypothesis show the rejection of the above hypothesis, this result is consistent with the research of melián-alzola et al. (2020). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 27 published by scholink inc. the limitation in this research is related to the inherent limitations of the questionnaire, which can cause problems in the results of the research due to reasons such as people’s lack of correct understanding of the questionnaire questions or their unwillingness to answer the questions correctly. also, sometimes there are differences between people’s beliefs and what they say, which causes people not to express their true opinion, and this issue can cause a decrease in the accuracy of the obtained results. come from research. based on the results of the research, it can be suggested to the companies and managers, considering the confirmation of the positive relationship between business intelligence and organizational agility, it is suggested to the managers of industrial companies active in rasht city, and also considering the issue that business intelligence causes that information related to product trends and customer changes will increase, so managers can contribute to their organizational agility by providing relevant information in time to recognize the trends of these changes. also, taking into account the confirmation of the positive relationship between business intelligence and the flexibility of it infrastructure, the managers of these companies should increase the areas of flexibility in their it infrastructure by applying artificial intelligence and thus improving business intelligence in their organization. considering the fact that in the current research, the positive relationship between the flexibility of the it infrastructure and the agility of the organization has been confirmed, the managers of these companies can provide the grounds for making their organizations more agile by making the it infrastructure flexible. and finally, considering the confirmation of the mediating role of it infrastructure flexibility in the relationship between business intelligence and organizational agility, and since information technology is one of the strategic factors that can affect the business performance of organizations, the need for the attention of company managers active in the city of rasht, issues related to technology are emphasized so that they can ultimately improve their agility and organizational performance. references ahmadyan, z., & mohajeran, b. (2019). investigating the structural pattern of relationships among organizational intelligence, organizational agility and organizational innovation in higher education (case study: urmia university). higher education letter, 11(44), 33-63. azvine, b., cui, z., & nauck, d. d. (2005). towards real-time business intelligence. bt technology journal, 23(3), 214-225. bakhshandeh, s., & rahmati, m. h. (2016). the investigation of alignment of business intelligence capabilities and components in conjunction with creating business intelligence benefits (case: smes of tehran). journal of information technology management, 8(1), 27-46. bavarsad, b., zare, h., & feli, r. (2018). the effect of it infrastructure flexibility and organizational learning on performance with the mediating role of supply chain performance in manufacturing companies in khuzestan province. innovation management in defensive organizations, 1(1), 69-96. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 28 published by scholink inc. chen, h., chiang, r. h., & storey, v. c. (2012). business intelligence and analytics: from big data to big impact. mis quarterly, 1165-1188. chen, x. (2012). impact of business intelligence and it infrastructure flexibility on competitive advantage: an organizational agility perspective. the university of nebraska-lincoln. chen, x., & siau, k. (2012). effect of business intelligence and it infrastructure flexibility on organizational agility. chen, x., & siau, k. (2020). business analytics/business intelligence and it infrastructure: impact on organizational agility. journal of organizational and end user computing (joeuc), 32(4), 138-161. chen, y., & lin, z. (2020). business intelligence capabilities and firm performance: a study in china. international journal of information management, 57, 102232. cheng, c., zhong, h., & cao, l. (2020). facilitating speed of internationalization: the roles of business intelligence and organizational agility. journal of business research, 110, 95-103. danesh ghalichkhani, r., & hakkak, m. (2016). a model for measuring the direct and indirect impact of business intelligence on organizational agility with partial mediatory role of empowerment (case study: tehran construction engineering organization (tceo) and etka organization industries.co). procedia social and behavioral sciences, 230, 413-421. darvishmotevali, m., altinay, l., & köseoglu, m. a. 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(2014). structural equation modeling with pls software. zarei, b., & zarei, z. (2018). the effect of business intelligence on financial performance of iranian banks. j appl econ stud iran, 7(25), 111-130. frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no.2, 2022 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 1 original paper utilization of e-learning media the independence learning of elementary school students iswan1*, ismah1, linda astriani1 & mimah1 1 universitas muhammadiyah jakarta, south jakarta, indonesia * iswan, iswanfipumj@gmail.com received: february 19, 2022 accepted: march 1, 2022 online published: march 30, 2022 doi:10.22158/fet.v5n2p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v5n2p1 abstract research with the title utilization of e-learning media the independence learning of elementary school students. this study aims to determine the relationship between the effectiveness of e-learning learning on the learning independence of elementary school students. this research was conducted in grade v of elementary school, which consist of school, namely: mi ahmad dahlan cipanas, sd aisyiyah islamic center cianjur, and sd islamic creative cianjur indonesia. the research method used in this study is a quantitative descriptive approach with a correlation method. the results showed that the variable utilization of e-learning learning media had a significant effect on the learning independence of elementary school students. based on the statistical test results, the partial t test shows that the significance value of the effect of learning effectiveness (x1) on independence (y) is 0.003<0.5 and the value of tcount>ttable=3,089>1,980 then ho1 is rejected and ha1 is accepted which is means that there is an influence on the use of e-learning learning media (x1) on students learning independence (y). and the results of the t-test (partial) show that the significance value has the effect of e-learning (x2) on student learning independence (y) is 0.000<0.05 and the value of tcount>ttable =7,687>1,980 then ho2 is rejected and ha2 is accepted which can be concluded that there is an influence on the use of e-learning learning media (x2) on the learning independence of elementary school students (y). according to the results of the regression significance test (f-test) which shows that the value of sig. f-test of 0.000<0.05, so that all independent variable consisting of the use of e-learning learning media have a simultaneous effect on the learning independence of elementary school students at mi ahmad dahlan students of sd aisyiyah islamic center, and students of sd islamic creative cianjur indonesia. keywords utilization of learning media, e-learning, independent learning www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 2 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction along with the modernization of science and technology, the specifics of growth in terms of information technology, have contributed a lot and supported growth in all fields, especially the education aspect. many problems and problems are easy to find or overcome through the use of information technology, educational mechanisms through the use of information technology can facilities an effective teaching and learning process, according to munir, 2009 in setiawan, et al., (2019, p. 52). the evolution of information and communication technology has renewed the view of the population, the capacity of knowledge is very influential which requires human resources to master human resources to master high intelligence and shrewdness in participating in technological and information changes (agustina et al., 2013, p. 8). the evolution of technology cannot be separated from changes in the habits of the local population, where technology describes the impact of individual behavior, both the power of thought or action muntaqo (2017, p. 13). so that there match between changes in information technology and human resources because technology is the result of high abilities and skills in accordance with the cultural conditions of the community. one of the creations of information technology updates in the educational environment is e-learning or electric learning. e-learning is an abbreviation of the word “electronic”, it will combine all educational activities carried out by individuals or groups working online or offline, and synchronously or asynchronously through networked or standalone computers and other electronic devices, according to chitra and raj (2018, p. 11). e-learning is education based on modern communication methods, including computers and their networks, various audio-visual materials, search engines, electronic libraries, and website, which are delivered through the world wide web. sotiriou, et al. (2020, p. 4). in individual teachers, mastery and knowledge of technology (technological knowledge) is an ability that should be mastered to support the development of teaching and learning. while for individual students, technological abilities able to support the way of thinking and the ability of science and technology, irwan, et al. (2019, p. 96). however, there are still many educators in schools who feel indecisive in implementing e-learning due to lack of understanding of technology, so educators only send assignment material without explaining the material. this matter causes ineffective education which results in student learning outcomes. sibuea, et al. (2020, p. 74). in the learning process in it to produce goods and quality educational conditions, teachers are required to be able to manage education that can provide stimulation to students so that they are willing and able to explore online and offline education. quality education is what makes students interact with student, which makes education fun and education efficient by delivering lesson modules with syllabus that are suitable for learning objectives and students are able to master what educators are informed about (rachmat, et al., 2019, p. 39). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 3 published by scholink inc. 2. research methodology the research method used in this study with a correlational approach is different from experimental research which cannot causality, although it can be used to study complex causal relationship. duli, (2019, p. 8). in this study, researchers took samples of fifth grade students in 3 schools namely: mi ahmad dahlan, sd aisyiyah islamic center cianjur and sd islam creative cianjur indonesia. table 1. the number of students no. school amount 1 mi ahmad dahlan cipanas cianjur 27 2 sd aisyiyah islamic centre cianjur 84 3 sd islam creative cianjur 84 grand total 195 the sampling technique in this study is a random sampling technique. the random sampling sample is simple because the sampling of population members is done randomly, without considering the stratification that exists in the population, sugiyono (2016, p. 82). this research uses an instrument in the form of a closed questionnaire, a questionnaire that is prepared by providing answer options from which respondents can only choose one answer. the instrument uses a likert scale, the following is a reflection of the vulnerability of the scale on the likert scale model, the data analysis techniques used in this study are as follows: instrument validity and reliability test, analysis prerequisite test, hypothesis testing. data processing is carried out with tools such as computers, the programs for data processing are: microsoft excel and statistical for social science 25 (spss 25). 2.1 theoretical review 2.1.1 learning effectiveness learning effectiveness is a comprehensive assessment carried out by students after learning, the main purpose of which is to learn about students reactions to a lesson, provide a model for educators to understand the psychological role of students in the independent learning process, and play an important role in improving teacher innovation, tu and chu (2020, p. 7). learning effectiveness is one of the benchmarks that can be used as a measuring tool to see whether the goals achieved have reached the maximum number or not, learning effectiveness is seen as the level or degree where a problem or process succeeds in producing pleasant and expected results by determining action, choosing appropriate goals and methods to achieve goals hendarman, et al. (2020, p. 366). effective learning is active and strategic, expanding collaboration, conversation, and knowledge contribution with fellow students, developing the ability to achieve goals and plans, finally monitoring their own learning in all contexts, jeyaraj (2019, p. 7). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 4 published by scholink inc. independence is one way in which individuals learn to be responsible for learning activities and have the initiative in learning and to manage their own study time (bus & alviolenta, 2020, p. 5). independence is the ability to think, feel and students do everything on their own without depending on others, both those who are bound by carrying out their own activities (self-help) and carrying out daily activities (iswan et al., 2020, p. 102). one of the preferences that can be used to increase independence in the educational process is a learning process developed by teachers tailored to educational goals, as teachers must use learning methods students must participate in teaching and learning activities, develop a learning atmosphere, presentation of learning time. in addition, e-learning is a source of interactive, innovative, and interesting dynamic participation material of the attention of student participation in the learning process. through some of the explanations above, it can be said that the effectiveness of learning is a measuring tool to see the learning objectives in the educational process, where the success of a learning process is seen from a comprehensive assessment carried out by students after learning, where educators increase innovation in teaching, and the contribution of students to the learning process, and learners are active in their own learning in all contexts. according to widodo (2015, p. 191), if an education is said to be efficient if it meets the main provisions for the effectiveness of education, namely: a. the presentation of a large student learning period is given to learning activities, b. generally behavior does a great job among learners, the determination between the content of the teaching module and the expertise of the students is prioritized, d. promote a friendly and positive learning atmosphere. meanwhile, according to slameto (2003, pp. 95-96), to carry out the learning process effectively requires the following conditions. mastering the subject matter, love of being taught, professionalism and knowledge that students already have, modification of methods, educators are aware of the limitations that he cannot master all the subject matter, the preparation of educators in teaching must provide actual knowledge, educators must be able to grow the spirit of learning individually for each student. 2.1.2 e-learning understanding e-learning, e-learning is an abbreviation of the word “electronic”, it will combine all educational activities carried out by individuals or groups working online or offline and synchronously or asynchronously through networked or standalone computers and other electronic devices, according to chitra and raj (2018, p. 11). e-learning is the use of the internet and new multimedia technologies to improve the quality of learning by facilitating access to facilities and services, besides that e-learning can also increase collaboration between students, educators and administrators, according to arkorful in ayele and birhanie (2018, p. 1). e-learning is education based on modern communication methods including computers and their networks, various audio-visual materials, search engines, electronics libraries, and websites, which are delivered through the world wide web media sotiriou, et al. (2020, p. 4). the characteristics of e-learning according to sodiqovich, et al. (2020, p. 7) are divided into five of them, namely: a. each interactive e-learning course describes a specific starting and ending level of the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 5 published by scholink inc. learning process; b. learning using demonstration equipped with animations, hyperlinks, videos, and multimedia technology, c. provides versatility, multi-level and diversity of test assignments, allowing all assignments and test to be interactive and given to educators in the usual way; d. the system is open in its structure, as long as using online learning can be replenished and improved, e. the approach to learning methods is more than offline learning. meanwhile, according to nursalam, et al. (2008, p. 135), the characteristics of e-learning are divided into four basic categories, including: using the contribution of electronic technology. where educators and students, students and students, as well as teachers and teachers are able to relate because it is relatively simple, there are no limitations due to formal situations, the main feature of computers (digital devices and computer networks). applying teaching materials that are independent (self-learning) learning materials) are then stored on the computer, fully accessible for teachers and students anywhere and anytime if interested parties need it, and using the educational program, syllabus, the effect of increasing learning, and conditions related to learning management can be turned off at any time, all the time on the computer. furthermore, according to clark and mayer, 2008: in herayati, et al. (2017, p. 211), e-learning has five characteristics, including: having relevant information based on learning objectives, outcomes, learning designs, such as parenting patterns and education to improve learning outcomes, learning process, applying media elements such as pictures and words to present teaching material, making direct learning centered on educators (synchronous e-learning) composed of independent learning (asynchronous e-learning), shaping perceptions and related skills for the purpose of learning either individually or in groups. according to supuwiningsih, (2021, pp. 9-10) based on the explanation on astd e-learning can be divided into 3types, namely: a. web-based learning (web based learning). when learning to teach based on the web, students carry out online activities on the internet with websites. they can also connect with students and educators with the structure shared by the website; b. virtual education (virtual education). the teacher uses several methods such as lms (learning management system) applications, multimedia materials, internet utilization, and video conferencing. students obtain these learning materials and interact with educators on using technology; c. digital collaboration (digital collaboration). an-the activity where students from different categories (classes and schools) are together during a project/task exchanging ideas and information optimally using internet technology. meanwhile, according to alqahtani and rajkhan (2020, p. 4), e-learning is divided into five, including: blended learning, a. mixed learning process between traditional and online classes, flipped classroom, a learner-centered approach to learning with online subject matter provided to students before class, ict supported face to face learning, traditional learning supported by information and communication technology, synchronous, real-time interaction distance learning, asynchronous, real-time interaction distance learning. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 6 published by scholink inc. based on some of the vies of the experts mentioned above, that e-learning is a learning process that is carried out offline and online by modifying digital media to improve the quality of learning by facilitating access to facilities and services, so as to increase collaboration in learning with modern multimedia. 2.1.3 characteristics of e-learning according to rusli, et al. (2020, p. 10), there are three characteristics of e-learning on learning activities in the classroom (classroom instruction), including: a. supplement. if students have the flexibility to determine whether they want to use e-learning materials or not? this does not have a necessity or need for students in relation to accessing e-learning materials. although it is no optional, students who use it should use additional knowledge and intuition, b. complement (complementary). as a complement to the use of learning materials, they are designed to be teaching materials for strengthening or improving students in participation in conventional learning activities; c. substitution (substitute). if alternative training is used for students, the goal is that students can quickly adjust to being managed, proportional to the time other daily activities of students. according to chitra and raj (2018, p. 12), e-learning has seven benefits, including: online learning accommodates everyone’s needs. the learning process can be done several times, with online learning students can access an unlimited number of content, offers access to updated content, ensuring that educators are in tune with modern lessons. 2.1.4 understanding google classroom google classroom is an internet-based service provided by google in an e-learning system based on virtual classes as from distance education, virtually tested in cyberspace through online means, hakim, (2016, p. 2). google classroom is an application that is devoted to online learning facilities, making it easier for educators to create, classify and group each assignment without using paper anymore, soni, et al. (2018, p. 18). google classroom is a platform to assist educators in creating and controlling class assignments skillfully and easily, providing direct feedback to students efficiently, and communicating with students without being limited by distance and time, latif, (2016, p. 8). the explanation that has been responded to by the experts above, then it can be concluded that google classroom is a virtual class-based platform in the form of a distance learning system that can make it easier for educators to create, share and group each task and can simplify giving feedback to students efficiently and connections with students without being fixated on space and time. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 7 published by scholink inc. picture 1. platform sub material google classroom google classroom functions google classroom has various benefits that are very beneficial for educators and students. the use of google classroom can be via multiplatform, namely via pcs and mobile phones, educators and students can download applications via the play store application on android or the app store on ios, google classroom is connected to all other google for education services, so educators can use google mail, google calendar google drive, and so on in the educational process prada, et al. (2017, p. 60). therefore, google classroom is able to contribute to educators and students when carrying out the learning process through the help of the existing platform in google classroom. 2.1.5 disadvantages of google classroom janzen m., et al., 2014, in iftakhar, et al. (2016, p. 13) stated the advantages of google classroom include: easy to use, time saving, cloud based flexible free and mobile friendly. another opinion about the advantages of google classroom is that it can interact with other students in the ongoing learning, by delivering educator learning materials in the form of power points, videos, and instructions in google classroom, susanti, et al. (2016, p. 254). thus, it can be concluded that the advantages of using google classroom are that it is easier for educators to monitor more than one class, easy to provide information, and easy access for educators and students to communicate. the disadvantage of google classroom is that when accessing existing materials or assignments you need the internet, so what needs to be done by the school is to complete infrastructure and facilities with a stable connection such as the provision of wifi, as well as students who are at home susanti, et al. (2016, p. 254). another disadvantage of google classroom is that the learning process is individual so that there is a lack of social learning between students, when the teacher conveys the wrong subject matter to students it has a major impact on students knowledge, so there is a need for revision or two way delivery of material between students and educators. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 8 published by scholink inc. 2.1.6 definition of independence independence is state that is manifested in the behavior of individuals who are free, responsible and do not depend on others in achieving learning goals wulanningtyas and fauzan (2022, p. 197). independence is one of the efforts in which the individual learns to be responsible for learning activities and has the initiative in learning and to manage their own study time bus and alviolenta (2020, p. 5). independence is the ability to think, feel, and students do everything on their own without depending on others, both those who are bound by carrying out their own activities (self-help) and carrying out daily activities. iswan, et al. (2020, p. 102). in some of the interpretation that have been expressed by the experts above, therefore it can be interpreted that independence is the ability of each individual to solve problems that occur autonomously, each individual is able to solve the problem, can show the ability to be creative, independent, and have self confidence in solving the problem. so that each individual can be creative, competitive, and collaborate with each individual so that they can fulfill their desires in solving the problems they face. 2.1.7 independence independence has certain characteristics that have been used by sumbawati. munoto, et al. (2020, p. 344) as follows: a. independent in learning, able to take full responsibility in analyzing, planning, implementing, and evaluating learning activities independently; b. management is able to identify what they need, set individual learning goals, control their own time and effort for learning, and manage feedback for their work: c. have a desire to learn for the purpose of gaining knowledge, motivation to learn; d. problem solving to achieve the best learning outcomes. 2.1.8 form of independence according to sumbawati, et al. (2020, p. 344) independence can be distinguished into three forms of independence, including: behavioral independence, which is independence that focuses on tasks, emotional and motivational independence, through aligning motivation for learning purposes and avoiding emotional state that can hinder task completion. social independence, is the ability to control will power when placing discussion efforts to achieve goals. according to streigberg (1992), in dipl. (2016, p. 186), the characteristics of independence are distinguished from 3 personalities, including: a. emotional independence, is independence that suggests the development of intimate emotional bonds between people; b. behavioral independence is something that is independent in order to produce an attitude without being related to other people and carry it out and be responsible; c. value independence, is the ability to use a set of precepts about right and wrong, which are primary and common; d. has the characteristics of each individual. meanwhile, according to suprayitno et al. (2020, p. 54), someone who has all the following independence abilities: has the ability to think in all things in completing his responsibilities, has the ability to complete the tasks that are his responsibility, receives satisfaction through the activities provided. has the skills in overcoming obstacles in achieving success, has the ability to be honest and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 9 published by scholink inc. right in accordance with rights and obligations, has a habit of helping others or doing activities that are beneficial to the surrounding environment, having critical, imaginative and productive thinking skills about everything. not feeling low yours self if you have different thoughts from others. 3. research finding analysis of the data based on the description of the respondents was obtained from 3 schools studied, with a sample of 195 students then the research data was processed, first tested the validity and reliability of the questionnaire instrument. the following is the data on the characteristics of the respondents as shown in the following table: table 2. respondent characteristics no. school absolute frequency procentage 1 madrasah ibtidaiyah ahmad dahlan 27 14% 2 sd aisyiyah islamic center cianjur 84 43% 3 sd islam kreatif cianjur 84 43% total 195 100% the results of testing the validity of the instrument obtained showed that the validity test of the variable indicators of utilization of e-learning media, and learning independence of elementary school students resulted in a person r significance value below 0.05 (α=5%), from these results it can be concluded that every indicators statements and questions can be declared valid. in addition, the results of reliability testing on the three variables resulted in a cronbach alpha value >0.60, so from that it can be concluded that the three variable were declared reliable. 3.1 normality test the normality test carried out in this study used the kolmogorov-smirnov test. table 3. normality test one sample kolmogorov-smirnov test n 117 normal parametersa.b mean .0000000 std. deviation 7.21480606 most extreme differences absolute .053 positive .036 negative -.053 test statistic .053 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 10 published by scholink inc. asymp.sig.(2-tailed) .200c.d test distribution is normal calculated from data lilliefors significance correction this is a lower bound of the true significance regarding the value of the normality test results, it can be seen in the significant value of asymp. sig (2-tailed) of 0.200>0.05, so it can be concluded that according to the basis for decision making in the kolmogorov-smirnov test normality test that the information taken for research is normally distributed. 3.2 linearity test the linearity test was carried out in this study by looking at the deviation from linearity value. table 4. linearity test anova table sum of square df mean square f sig u n st an d ar id iz ed r es id u al * u n st an d ar d iz ed p re d ic te d v al u e b et w ee n g ro u p s (combined) 5297.031 99 53.505 1.227 .327 linearity .000 1 .000 .000 1.000 deviation from linearity 5297.031 98 54.051 1.240 .318 within groups 741.167 17 43.598 total 60.38.197 116 based on the results of the calculations in the table above, the deviation from linearity value is significant 0.318>0.05, so it can be interpreted that there is a significant linear relationship between the variables of learning media utilization (x1), e-learning (x2), and the learning independence variable of elementary school students (y). 3.3 homogeneity test homogeneity test was conducted to see the value of sig. in the test of homogeneity of variances table. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 11 published by scholink inc. graph 1. learning homogeneity test based on the results of the analysis in the best of homogeneity of variances table above, it is known that the sig value results. the variable of learning independence of elementary school students (y) on the use of learning media (x1) is 0.130. because the value of sig. 0.130>0.05, it can be concluded that the homogeneity test of the student learning independence variable (y) on the use of learning media (x1) is the same or homogeneous. table 5. e-learning variable homogeneity test test of homogeneity of variances levene statistic df1 df2 sig. independence based on mean 1.454 15 100 .138 based on median 1.073 15 100 .319 based on median and with adjusted df 1.073 15 74.838 .396 based on trimmed mean 1.446 15 100 .141 based on the results of the analysis in the test of homogeneity of variances table above, it is known that the sig value results. student learning independence variable (y) in e-learning (x2) is 0.138. because the value of sig. 0.138>0.05, it can be concluded that the homogeneity test of the student learning independence variable (y) in e-learning (x2) is the same or homogeneous. 3.4 multicollinearity test multicollinearity test was carried out to see the value of vif. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 12 published by scholink inc. table 6. multilinearity test coefficientsa model unstandardized coefficients standardized coefficients t sig. collinearity statistics b std.error beta tolerance vif 1 (constant) 7.635 5.403 1.413 .160 use of learning media .432 .140 .236 3.089 .003 .665 1.50 4 e-learning 1.533 .199 .586 7.687 .000 .665 1.50 4 a. dependent variable : student learning independence the results of the analysis in table 6 above show that the vif value on the variable x1 and x2 is 0.665>0.10, it can be concluded that there is no indication of multicollinearity. 3.5 heteroscedasticity test the heterogeneity test was carried out by using the spearman correlation test. table 7. heterogeneity test coefficientsa model unstandardized coefficients standardized coefficients t sig. collinearity statistics b std.error beta tolerance vif 1 (constant) 1.128 3.281 .344 .732 student learning independence .125 .085 .168 1.477 .142 .665 1.504 e-learning -.033 .121 -.031 -.271 .787 .665 1.504 a. dependent variable: abs_res based on the statistical test results table above, it can be seen that the significant value of the learning effectiveness variable (x1)=0.142 and e-learning (x2)=0.787, caused by the significant value of the two variable>0.05 so it can be concluded that the two variable are not intertwined indications heterogeneity. 3.6 autocorrelation test tests for the presence or absence of autocorrelation in research conducted using the durbin-watson test. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 13 published by scholink inc. table 8. autocorrelation test model summaryb model r r square adjusted r square std. error of the estimate durbin-watson 1 .748a .559 .551 7.278 2.153 a. predictors: (constant), e-learning, utilization of learning media b. dependent variable: independent learning of students based on the output table of the summary model above, it is known that the value of d=2.153 with a significance value of 5%, so that the results of the durbin-watson autocorrelation test are as follows: d=2.153 sig=5% (kn)=2.117) d1=1.6638 du=1.7332 4-d1=4-1.6638=2.2668 4-du=4-1.7332=2.3362 du <d<4-du=1.7332<2.153<2.3362 so it can be concluded that in the durbin-watson autocorrelation test above, it can be interpreted that there is no indication of autocorrelation. partial significance test (t-test) a partial significance test was conducted to determine how much influence the independent variable had. table 9. partial significance test coefficientsa model unstandardized coefficients standardized coefficients t sig. b std.error beta 1 (constant) 7.635 5.403 1.413 .160 student learning independence .432 .140 .236 3.089 .003 e-learning 1.533 .199 .586 7.687 .000 a. dependent variable: independent the output table above is the results of the t test (partial) showing that the significance value of the influence of the use of learning media (x1) on student learning independence (y) is 0.003<0.05 and the value of tcount>ttable=3.089>1.980 then (ho1) is rejected and ha1 is accepted independence (y) and the results of the t-test (partial) show that the significance value has the effect of e-learning (x2) on student www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 14 published by scholink inc. learning independence (y) is 0.000<0.05 and the value of ttable>ttable=7,687>1,980 then ho2 is rejected and ha2 is accepted which can be concluded that there is an influence on e-learning (x2) on student learning independence (y). 3.7 regression significance test (f-test) regression significance test was conducted to determine the effect of a variable which can be seen in the anova table. table 10. regression significance test (ftest) anovaa model sum of squares df mean square f sig. 1 regression 7660.384 2 3830.192 72.313 .000b residual 6038.197 114 52.967 total 13698.581 116 a. dependent variable : independent b. predictors : (constant) e-learning, use of learning media based on the results of the output table above, it can be seen that the significance value for the use of learning (x1) and e-learning (x2) on student learning independence (y) is 0.000<0.05 and f(count)>ftable=72.313>3.08, it proves that ho3 is rejected (ha3) is accepted. 3.8 partial correlation coefficient the partial correlation coefficient carried out in this study can be seen from the value of r table 11. partial correlation coefficient model summaryb model r r square adjuste d r square std. error of the estimate change statistics r square change f change df 1 df2 sig. f chang e 1 .748a .559 .551 7.278 .559 72.313 2 114 .000 a. predictors : (constant) e-learning, use of learning media b. dependent variable : student learning independence based on the output table above, it is known that the significant value is <0.000, so it can be said that the correlation between the variables of the value r=0.748 means that the relationship between the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 15 published by scholink inc. variable of using learning media (x1) and e-learning (x2) on student learning independence (y) is close or strong is 74.8%. 3.9 coefficient of determination the coefficient of determination carried out in this study can be seen from the value of r square. table 12. coefficient of determination model summary model r r square adjusted r square std. error of the estimate 1 .748a .559 .551 7.278 a. predictors: (constant), e-learning, use of learning media based on the table above, there is an r2 value (coefficient of determination) of 0.559 which means that there is an influence between the variable of learning utilization (x1) and e-learning (x2) on student learning independence (y) of 55.9%. based on the results of the analysis of hypothesis testing using a partial significant test (t-test), the results obtained if the learning utilization variable (x1) has a significant influence on student learning independence (y). this can be seen from the significant value in the t-test of the learning media utilization variable (x1) of 0.003<0.05, and the value of tcount>ttable=3.089>1.980, then ho1 is rejected and ha1 is accepted. based on this until the first hypothesis which reads that there is a positive relationship between the use of learning media (x1) and students learning independence (y), has been tested for truth and can be accepted. the relationship between e-learning (x2) and the independence of students (y). based on the results of the analysis of hypothesis testing using a partial significant test (t-test) the results obtained if the e-learning variable (x2) has a significant influence on student learning independence (y). this can be seen from the significant value in the t-test of the e-learning variable (x2) of 0.000<0.05 and the value of tcount>ttable =7,687>1,980, then ho2 rejected and ha2 is accepted. based on this, the second hypothesis which read. there is positive relationship between e-learning (x2) and student learning independence (y), has been verified and can be accepted. the relationship between the use of learning media (x1) and e-learning (x2) with student learning independence (y). the results of the analysis show that the variable of the use of learning media (x1) and e-learning (x2), simultaneously have a significant effect on student learning independence (y). this can be seen from the results of the regression significance test (f-test) which shows that the value of sig. in the f-test of 0.000<0.05, so that all independent variable consisting of the use of learning media (x1) and e-learning (x2) have a simultaneous effect on student learning independence (y) in students at mi ahmad dahlan, sd aisyiyah islamic center, and sd creative isamic. cianjur indonesia, thus the third hypothesis of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 16 published by scholink inc. the research which states that there is a positive relationship between the use of e-learning learning media and student learning independence is proven to be true. 4. conclusion based on the results of research and discussions that have been carried out and several conclusions can be drawn, including: a. the relationship between the use of learning media (x1) on student learning independence (y) is indicated by a significant value on the t-test of the variable use of learning media (x1) of 0.003<0.05, and the value of tcount>ttable =3.089>1.908 then ho1 is rejected and ha1 accepted. based on the results of the statistical data analysis above, the use of learning media (x1) has a positive relationship with student learning independence (y) in class v at mi ahmad dahlan, sd aisyiyah islamic center cianjur, and sd islam creative cianjur indonesia. b. the relationship between e-learning (x2) and student learning independence (y) is indicated by a significant value on the t-test of the e-learning variable (x2) of 0.000<0.05 and the value of tcount>ttable=7,687>1,908, then ho2 is rejected and ha2 accepted. from the above analysis, e-learning (x2) has a positive relationship with student learning independence (y) in grade v at mi ahmad dahlan cipanas, sd aisyiyah islamic center, and sd creative islamic, cianjur indonesia. c. the relationship between the use of learning media (x1) and e-learning (x2) simultaneously with student learning independence (y) is indicated by a significant value on the f-test of 0.000<0.05. so that all independent variables consisting of the use of learning media (x1) and e-learning (x2), simultaneously affect the learning independence of students (y) in class v at mi ahmad dahlan, sd aisyiyah islamic center cianjur and sd creative 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(2020). inquiry-based learning and e-learning: now to serve high and low achievers. smart learning environments, 7(29), 1-15. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40561-020-00130-x https://doi.org/10.21070/pedagogia.v8i1.1866 https://doi.org/10.17509/edukids.v17i2.27486 https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3486348 https://ojs.unsiq.ac.id/index.php/ppkm https://doi.org/10.17509/jpm.v4i1.14953 http://jurnal.fkip.unila.ac.id/index.php/jpvti/index http://jurnal.goretanpena.com/index.php/jssr https://doi.org/10.1186/s40561-020-00130-x microsoft word fet-v2n4-p255 frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 255 original paper relationship between conflict management styles and job satisfaction of private islamic secondary school teachers hareesol khun-inkeeree1*, maisarah jamaluddin2, m. s. omar-fauzee2, muhammad dzahir kasa2, fauzi husin2, fatimah noor rashidah mohd sofian3 & singha tulyakul4 1 walailak university, nakhon si thammarat province, thailand 2 universiti utara malaysia, kuala lumpur, malaysia 3 international islamic universiti, kuala lumpur, malaysia 4 thaksin university, songkhla province, thailand * hareesol khun-inkeeree, walailak university, changwat nakhon si thammarat, thailand received: september 17, 2019 accepted: october 8, 2019 online published: november 7, 2019 doi:10.22158/fet.v2n4p255 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v2n4p255 abstract study aims to investigate about conflict management style and the job satisfaction among private islamic school teachers. the data consisted of 136 samples from private secondary school teachers at alor setar district in kedah. for acquiring the conflict management style, rahim organizational conflict inventory (roci-ii) had been used and to gain the job satisfaction datum, the teaching satisfaction scale (tss) developed by ho and au in 2006 was used. the findings of this research revealed that style of compromising (r = 0.299, p < .01), obliging (r = 0.244, p < .05) and integrating (r = 0.208, p < .05) have a significant relationship with job satisfaction. all these styles give positive outcomes for both parties that lead to positive school outcomes and also to maintain the good relationship with the other parties. when school administrator implemented these three styles will keeps teachers happy and satisfied without any kinds of negative impact on their relations at school. thus, school administrator must be knowledgeable and aware about the best style of conflict at school to lead more satisfaction because teachers like to be more compromise when handling conflict. this finding suggests that the conflict management affects job satisfaction but excessive and wrong in handling it is associated with diminishing job satisfaction. keywords private islamic school, conflict, conflict management style, job satisfaction www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 256 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction the profession of teaching is a career that is very close to the life of each individual. this is because almost all of us have many experiences in interaction with teachers. interaction between individual is one of the important aspect that should to take into account in social life (madalina, 2016). teachers give a big impact toward many parties. in school setting, public or private sector, higher student achievement was related to the great role of the teacher (benerjee et al., 2017; khun-inkeeree, omar-fauzee, & othman, 2017) and study from bolam, mcmahon, stoll, thomas and wallace (2005) believe having a strong professional community also give impact to it and this had been agree by study from zheng, yin and li (2018). so, to retain teachers and decrease turnover become a concern among school leaders. according to skaalvik and skaalvik (2011) saying that by increasing a teachers’ job satisfaction can help to minimize the problem of turnover among teachers. besides, to increase performance in schools will never succeed if teachers’ job satisfaction is being ignored (ngimbudzi, 2009; banerjee et al., 2017). it means job satisfaction can contributes to teacher retention at school. furthermore, there is a critical need for school administrator to acknowledge about the fact of educational quality is largely connected to teachers’ job satisfaction (demirtaş, 2010). job satisfaction can be refers to the employee feeling toward their job and workplace that is affected by internal and external factors and formed by these factors at distinct level (ahsan et al., 2009). one of the key elements that contribute to job satisfaction among workers is management styles (mehrad, 2015). by using an accurate styles can be effective in forming the job satisfaction and one of it is conflict management styles that should be carried out by managers (mehrad, 2015) as well as school administrators. it is because relationship between conflict and some variables can give impact to organization and cannot be deny because it will give productive and innovative competition among the member in organization (hussein et al., 2017). moreover, if poor in managing conflict can create many consequences such as in terms of disappointment, employer turnover, discouragement and lower in productivity. it is so urgent to identify the conflict and its dimension so that it can be handled wisely and then to enhance and lead the organization to achieve its goal (ford, 2007; hussien et al., 2017). study from khaled (2015) shows there is a significant relationship between conflict management styles and job satisfaction in public and private sector. this study focuses upon the respondents from public and private industry. while the study from chen, zhao and liu (2012) shows there is a significant relationship for integrating and compromising styles with job satisfaction and the respondents were from companies in china. apart from that, research from lee (2008) found that the styles of integrating, compromising and obliging styles had positive relationship with job satisfaction that involving malaysian companies. although all past studies show relationship between conflict management and job satisfaction, research from alzahrani (2013) show no significant correlations between any of the conflict management styles and job satisfaction. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 257 published by scholink inc. from the previous studies, they show a relationship between conflict management styles and job satisfaction among workers in the industrial sector and there is still lack of research on it especially in private school setting. from deprato and chudgar (2018) saying that private school report facing many conflict alongside greater levels of autonomy in decisions concerning staffing, instructional policies and budgeting compared to public school. also, private often do better in terms of supporting theirs teachers. by taking care of teachers will lead to job satisfaction. so, from the multiple results from this study, that make the researcher want to know further and identify the relationship between conflict management styles and job satisfaction of private school teachers in the district of alor setar at kedah darul aman. findings from this study can be used to increase job satisfaction and minimise employee turnover. when conflict can be manage, it can help in strengthen one’s relationship. 2. literature review 2.1 conflict management style a common theory used in conflict management studies is the dual concern theory (camgoz & karapinar, 2010). conflict management styles can be categorized as high or low concern for self and high or low concern for others. continuously, conflict management style has been measured by a variety of different taxonomies. first conceptual scheme by deutsch (1949, 1990) and tjosvold (1990), style of cooperation and competition can be placed on a single dimension ranging from competition or selfishness. however, doubt raised and theories were drawn onto three styles of non-confrontation, solution-orientation and control as suggested by putnam and wilson (1982). next pruitt (1983) found four main ways of dealing with conflict which are yielding, problem-solving, inaction and contending. for five styles of handling interpersonal conflict had been present first by blake and mouton (1964) there is forcing, withdrawing, compromising, smoothing and confrontation. these types had been classified into two dimensions, concern for production and concern for people. then, it became refined by thomas (1976). according to blake and mouton (1964) and thomas (1976), rahim (1983) categorized conflict management into two basic dimensions, we called it concern for self and concern for others. the first part tells about the degree on how people satisfy his or her concern. the second part tells about the degree on how people satisfy other concern. combination of two concerns shows in figure 1. from the two dimensions consist of five styles in handling conflict, integrating style, obliging style, avoiding style, dominating style and compromising style. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 258 published by scholink inc. figure1. a two-dimensional model of the styles of handling interpersonal conflict source: rahim (1983). 2.2 integrating style this style is involved high concern for self and others. for instance always be openness, exchange of information, and examination of differences to get an effective solution that acceptable for both parties. it also focused on problem solving in a collaborative manner. individuals with this style face conflict directly and try to find new and creative solutions to solve the problems he or she faced as well as the needs of others. integrating style produces positive outcomes for both parties that involved. when some issue happened and complex, the integrating style is the best way to be used because both parties will get win-win solution. many studies found out that integrating is the most preferred style in managing conflict (rahim, 2002; lu & wang, 2017). in research by tabassi et al. (2017) revealed that integrating style help to build the ideal positive share to team performance in multi-cultural condition in industry. thus, it showed integrating was related to many positive organizational outcomes such as productivity, job satisfaction, job performance, and effectiveness (sharma & samantara, 1994). study from williams (2011) revealed that there are significant relationship between the integrating conflict management style and overall job satisfaction among peers. 2.3 obliging style this style associates with low concern for self and high concern for others. it had been associated with attempting to play down the differences and emphasizing commonalities to satisfy the concern of the other party. it involved sacrifice her or his rights and need to satisfy other person (rahim, 2002). the main goal for those who like to oblige is to maintain the relationship with the other parties even in the crisis. this style is useful when an individual did not know about the issue, or when a person is ready to give up his rights hoping to gain something from other in the future, or when the individual is in a weak www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 259 published by scholink inc. position and feels that it is better to maintain the relationships with other parties. combination of obliging style with others can produce effective relationship and can tie to some extend (lee, 2008; momanyi, 2016). 2.4 dominating style this style is involved high concern for self and low concern for others. it is concern about win-loses orientation or with forcing behaviour to win one’s position. the dominating style relies on the use of position power, aggression, verbal dominance, and perseverance. this style is direct and uncooperative (blake & mouton, 1964) where individual who use this style normally find to goes up his own benefit and minimize the others benefit by using power. study from ayub (2017) found out an individual that believe in their capability in handling conflict usually used this style and research by yeung (2015) stated that having a goal interdependence become a factor to employ this style. this style is good in situation where it involved some issue which is important to the organization or unfavourable decision by other party will give damage to this party. it also suitable when manager always meets with competitive subordinate or deal with repetitive decisions (rahim, 2002). however, this style is not suitable when people and subordinate have the same power. 2.5 avoiding style this is associated with low concern for self and others. it has been associated with withdrawal, buck-passing, or sidestepping situations. this style of person always fails to satisfy his or her own concern and also others concern. thus, it can be used if the bad impact of conflict is worse than benefits of solving the issue (ahmed, 2015; momanyi, 2016). it can be used also to solve issues that are not important, or if an individual desires to create a space of time to feel easy about the situation. this style is inappropriate when the issues are important to a party, when a person is in charge of making decisions, or when a swift action is required to deal with a situation (rahim, 2002) but a person leaving the location without any conversation (mehrad, 2015). 2.6 compromising style this style involved moderate concern for self and others. it is associated with give-and-take whereby both parties give up something to make a mutually acceptable decision. party that involved in conflict will find a way to get a solution that can be partially satisfy for both party by reaching a middle ground. this style can be used when a general agreement did not get, the parties need a short-term solution to a complex problem, or other styles have been used and found to be ineffective in solving the issue whereas it is not suitable to handle issue with having many different parts (rahim, 2002; lee, 2008; esmaeilzadesh et al., 2015). how individuals handle any conflict in the workplace may cause to job dissatisfaction, organizational commitment, and propensity to leave the job (thakore, 2013). therefore, it is very important for employees to know the effective styles that alleviate the destructive conflict and prompt benefit for both individuals and organizations. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 260 published by scholink inc. 2.7 job satisfaction in explaining the job satisfaction, there are several theories that clarified about it. mbua (2003) stated job satisfaction is closely related to motivation and it had been support by taylor et al. (2016) because it is important in reviving workers motivation and keeping their passion alive. it shows that the theories of motivation are also regarded as theories of job satisfaction. in the principle role of job satisfaction, herzberg’s motivation-hygiene theory is one of the oldest theories about job satisfaction that telling about basic human needs that influenced by various elements (herzberg, 1964). it is also known as two-factor theory. herzberg did analysis to describe experiences in which the workers felt about their jobs and to rate their feeling. response about good feeling associated with job content (motivators) whereas response about bad feelings is related to job context (hygiene factor). these two different “need” are the need to avoid displeasing and uncomfortable and, at the other end of the motivational scale, the need for personal development. research from taylor et al. (2017) shows that job satisfaction among workers were relatively link with co-worker behaviour, relationships with their colleagues, flexibility in their work and were least satisfied with conditions of employment and research climate. yet, ho and au (2006) believed that stress, psychological stress and self-esteem also can lead to job satisfaction. thus, a shortage of the factors that positively encourage employees (the motivating factors) will cause employees to focus on other, non-job related “hygiene” factors (ball, 2003). from this theory, the manager should not in one side when considering the factors in motivate their employee but consider both factors in order to increase the motivation level and satisfy them to get the best out of them. thus, this study will emphasize on the locke’s range affect theory. locke (1976) mentioned that job satisfaction was fun or positive emotional condition resulting from the assessment of a person’s job or work experience. this statement is widely known by many people and they followed the theory (torbakadi & kheirkhah, 2013). the main things regarding to this theory is that satisfaction was determined by two different things, what one wants in a job and what one has in a job. this theory deals with how much values are assessed to be used in measuring satisfaction. when someone evaluates as aspect of the job, he will feel positive impact when expectations are met and negative impact when expectation are not met. the appearance of some factors leading to job satisfaction while the other factors can cause job dissatisfaction (dugguh & dennis, 2014). in other meaning, how important of affect (feeling) and cognition (thinking) while working. when a person thinks, she or he will feels about what her or his thinking about and conversely. thus, both affect and cognition are linked together in term of psychology and also biology (saari & judge, 2004). the most common factors of job satisfaction by kendall and smith (1969) are pay, promotions, co-workers, supervision and work itself, but locke (1976) added several factors more which are recognition, working conditions and company and management. all of these factors can lead for both satisfaction and dissatisfaction and did not been divided into intrinsic and extrinsic factor like herzberg theory. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 261 published by scholink inc. 2.8 conflict management style and job satisfaction many research findings suggest that conflict management style is related to various aspects of employee satisfaction. to begin with, style of conflicts need to be managed wisely following to the suitable situation (rahim, 2011) because it can give many effects. lu and wang (2017) make a research on the influence of conflict management style and the quality. this study had been done in the construction industry. they found out the integrating style is positively related to relationship quality and compromising is negatively significant to that. it is because when they adopt integrating style, they can find a final solution for their work and get satisfaction and maintain relationship quality. in other study by esmaeilzadesh, iravani and ghojavand (2015), they want to examine about the relationship between conflict management style and the quality of the marital status among spouses or parents of elementary school students. the result shows integrating and compromising have positive relationship with quality marital relationship. those styles are an efficient style range from win-win cooperation that leads to their maximum goals. instead of conflict management, believed on employee satisfaction is one factor that can affect the staff performance (ayodele & olorunsola, 2012) and also organization (lee, 2008). study from banerjee, stearns, moller and mickelson (2017) wanted to establish whether teacher job satisfaction and school culture can improve student performance in mathematics and also reading. this research discovered that there is positive relationship between teacher job satisfaction and student’s reading and also both teacher’s satisfaction and school culture affect student achievement in mathematics and reading. thus, to improve student achievement, teacher job satisfaction cannot be avoided and need to emphasize more. on the contrary, research from you, kim and lim (2015) wanted to examine the job satisfaction among secondary school teachers in korea. they wanted to find whether individual characteristics and contextual characteristic give influence to job satisfaction. it is because, from teacher’s satisfaction will give a positive influence to their student’s achievement (caprara et al., 2006). the result indicated teacher efficacy, support from colleagues, having a supportive principal leaderships, perceptions of academic climate had significant impact to teacher’s job satisfaction. in the same way, working in group or in team is one that must and effects job satisfaction also where style an employee uses to manage conflict can affect the way they connect with their supervisor (williams, 2011). in a study by chen, zhao and liu (2012) conducted a case study in china to explore the mechanism through which conflict management behaviour impacts job satisfaction and innovation performance. the results show how organizations handle conflict give a big influence to the employee job satisfaction (chen et al., 2012). it shows type of integrating and compromising conflict management are positively related to job satisfaction and dominating, avoiding and obliging styles do not effect significantly with job satisfaction. it is because they found that the three styles are uncooperative behaviours and give no chance to workers to do contribution which in turn influences the employee’s job satisfaction. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 262 published by scholink inc. correspondingly, in other study by lee (2008) studied about an examination between the relationships of conflict management styles and employees’ satisfaction among employee from major industries in malaysia involving service, mining, construction and manufacturing. the author wanted to identify the relationships between conflict handling styles and subordinates’ satisfaction with their supervision. the result finding showed that the style of integrating, compromising and obliging have significant relationship with employee’s satisfaction (lee, 2008). this is expected because these styles often accepted among superior and subordinate relationships (lee, 2008). rahim and buntzman (1989) also found that integrating, compromising and obliging give more satisfaction, cooperative and good relationship between superior and subordinates. a strong relationship with supervisor will produce a higher level of job satisfaction for employee (mardanov, sterrett, & baker, 2007). in addition, one of the styles that will use in handling conflict is avoiding. it has a good and bad effect when using this style. the benefit is the problem can be solved quickly and can produce a larger problem for the long term effect (starks, 2006). this style can be detected easily because employee will avoid the other, and it can make work become complicated when working in group or team (williams, 2011). research from ahmed (2015) wanted to investigate the relationship between styles of managing conflicts, job satisfaction and organizational commitment among workers that work in public and private sectors involving 329 employees. the researcher found there are significant relationships between avoiding conflict management styles and job satisfaction among public workers compared to private sector. loyalty and commitment can be reached in public organization when using avoiding style where not involved directly into conflict with each other (ahmed, 2015). similarly with study from momanyi (2016) wanted to establish whether the conflict management strategies, (namely avoidance strategy, accommodating strategy, compromising strategy, collaborating strategy and co-operating strategy) influence employee satisfaction in commercial banks in kenya. the author found the most popular used and give influence are avoiding and collaborating style. research from tabassi et al. (2017) are also agree about avoiding conflict management style give a positive result in term of team overall performance. apart from that, research shows supervisors spend about 20% from their time on deal with conflict at their workplace (chan et al., 2008). thus, supervisors must have the skill in resolving the conflict among their employees. if the conflict cannot be solved, it can cause many problems. study from de dreu et al. (2004) is about the conflict at work and individual well-beings showed employees will experience health-related complaints and feelings of burnout. according to landry and vandenberghe (2009) disagreement among employees and supervisors are because of the technical and administrative issues. moreover, they also found that interpretation of organizational policies and procedures on working conditions also can cause conflict to occur between employees and supervisors. moreover, the chance of conflict among workers and supervisor will increase when having less job satisfaction (de raeve et al., 2008). then, chan et al. (2008) suggested that conflict management styles of integrating, obliging and compromising should give for attention and can lead to a high job www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 263 published by scholink inc. satisfaction level, whereas dominating and avoiding styles can give negative result and low job satisfaction where it ignores the needs of other people. however, findings from other studies oppose those findings. study from hall (1999) showed no support for the relationship between conflict management style and job satisfaction. the researcher wanted to determine the degree to which their conflict management styles relate to their job satisfaction among community college, police chiefs and security directors. similarly with the research from alzahrani (2013) where he found no significant correlations between any of the conflict management styles and job satisfaction when he wanted to explored whether there are relationships between the five conflict management styles (integrating style, avoiding, compromising, dominating, and obliging, and job satisfaction among saudi and american universities’ faculty members. these researches showed an inconsistent findings, the results of this study has led to do research to look at the relationship of conflict management style among teacher and school administrator and their job satisfaction. level of job satisfaction among teachers gave a big impact and positive effect to make educational aims come true and teacher will give qualified education to make students become successful (demirtaş, 2010). moreover, teacher with high job satisfaction can benefit through the very important work that is balance in a triangle where it is administrators, students and parents (demirtaş, 2010). these findings show that satisfaction with supervision is one of the most important issues in the workplace that managers will face and it is the set of feelings or positive responses of the organizational members that related to the situation in work place (lee, 2008). aim of this research is on the teacher and school administrator relationships, the job factor for satisfaction to this study is the satisfaction with supervision. 3. methodology of research 3.1 sample and data collection in this research, the population of this study involved teachers from private islamic secondary schools at district of alor setar. the total numbers of population of teachers as whole are about 210 teachers from five private islamic secondary schools. 210 printed questionnaires were distributed to all teachers and 136 were useable and others were unusable because of missing data. all questionnaires had been done in both languages, english and also malay. 68.8% of the respondent involve were female and 31.2% were male. from respondents 5.1% of the teacher just had spm certificate, 14% had diploma, 70.6% had bachelor’s degree and about 10.3% had a master degree. 36.8% had an experience from 1 to 5 years, 29.4% from 6 to 10 years, follow by 17.6% at 11 to 15 years and 3.7% had an experience from 16 to 20 years. at 12.5% of total teachers had a working experience of more than 20 years. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 264 published by scholink inc. 3.2 instruments and procedure in this study, a non-experimental quantitative research design was used and the researcher used cross-sectional survey design method because this method is based on questionnaire. in the first part, there are four questionnaires to describe demography information including age, gender, working experience and academic qualification. secondly, the rahim organizational conflict inventory-ii (roci-ii, form a) was used to identify style in managing conflict at school and it was developed by rahim in 1983. it has five styles and for each style has a specific items, for integrating style has 7 items, obliging has 6 items, dominating style has 5 items, avoiding has 6 items and for compromising has 4 items. it consists of 28 items with five point likert scale as a choices for respondents to answer (1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree) regarding five styles of managing conflicts, avoiding, integrating, compromising, obliging and dominating styles. to access job satisfaction level, teaching satisfaction scale (tss) by ho and au in 2006 was used. tss offers a simple, reliable, direct and valid assessment of teaching satisfaction (ho & au, 2006). the scale has five items asking the teachers how they feel about their job satisfaction in many ways. for each item there is a five grading in form (1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree). 3.3 data analysis descriptive statistical analysis was used which include frequencies and percentages in order to provide an idea about the demographics information of the respondents. for conflict management style and job satisfaction had been analysis using mean and standard deviation. inferential statistics was performed consist of pearson correlation to look at the strength of the relationship between five styles of conflict management with job satisfaction. the level of significant was set at less than p < .05. all the information with the data will be analyses using statistical packages program (spss version 22). 4. result result for conflict management styles were ranged from 2.82 (compromising) to 3.13 (integrating). style of integrating became the most frequently style (m = 3.13, sd = 0.62) adapted by school administrator at school in the perspective among teachers but still in moderate level. this result shows that school administrator was concern with collaboration between teacher to get solution that acceptable for them and thus give benefits for both party. the second chosen style was obliging (m = 3.04, sd = 0.49) and follow by avoiding style (m = 2.90, sd = 0.48). dominating style (m = 2.84, sd = 0.49) and compromising style (m = 2.82, sd = 0.72) were the lowest style and the least preferred style. graphical representation of the result is also shown by 2-d column and pie chart in figures 2 and 3 respectively. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 265 published by scholink inc.   figure 2. graph for conflict management styles figure 3. pie chart table 1. means and standard deviation on conflict management styles variables n min max mean sd integrating obliging dominating avoiding compromising 136 136 136 136 136 2.00 2.33 1.20 1.83 1.50 5.00 4.67 4.20 4.67 5.00 3.13 3.04 2.84 2.90 2.82 0.62 0.49 0.49 0.48 0.72 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 266 published by scholink inc. relationship between five styles of conflict management styles (integrating, obliging, avoiding, dominating, and compromising) with job satisfaction among teachers had been tested and found only three styles (integrating, compromising and obliging) had relationship with job satisfaction that shown in table 1. test showed positive significant relationship between integrating style and job satisfaction (r = 0.208, p < .01), obliging style and job satisfaction is (r = 0.244, p < .01) and relationship between compromising style and job satisfaction is (r = 0.299, p < .05). positive relationship showed that teacher will feel more satisfied when using compromising, integrating and obliging style at school compared to avoiding and dominating. table 2. correlation test between conflict management and job satisfaction style (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) integrating (1) obliging (2) dominating (3) avoiding (4) compromising (5) job satisfaction (6) 1 0.382** 1 0.030 0.051 1 0.145 0.204* 0.182 1 0.393* 0.295** 0.021 0.077 1 0.208* 0.244* 0.051 0.159 0.299** 1 *p < .05 (2-tailed) **p < .01 (2-tailed) 5. discussion and conclusion conflict can occur everywhere and can give many negative and positive impacts towards organization also to ourselves (chen et al., 2012; terason, 2018). by having a good conflict management style among school administrators and teacher can help to increase job satisfaction. when teacher feel satisfied in their work, they will give fully commitment to help students (banerjee et al., 2017; crawford, 2017) and together with school. in table 2, there are relationship were found to exist in school setting between conflict management style among school administrator in perspective of teachers and job satisfaction. style of integrating, compromising and obliging have positive correlation with job satisfaction. these styles tend to produce more satisfaction, cooperation and extend the relationship among employers and employees (rahim & buntzman, 1989). in this relationship, compromising style ranked the highest among the other styles followed by obliging and integrating. compromising is associated with give and take to get a mutually acceptable decision. teachers and school administrator that involved in conflict will find a way to get solution that can cause partially satisfy for both party. even though different in workplace, the correlation of three styles with job satisfaction were similar and had been agree by the study from zaman and saif (2016) conducted on respondents from public officials employed in federal government and several provincial government. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 267 published by scholink inc. besides, this study also supported by the researches from lee (2008) proposed about the three styles focus on satisfying others and lead to a high job satisfaction level. in the study of major industries, services, manufacturing, mining and construction, employee will more satisfied with their supervisor through compromising, integrating and obliging styles. it was an expected that these three styles represented a good level of acceptance between teachers and school administrators. apart from that, in the construction industry, lu and wang (2017) conducted a research to look at the relationship of conflict. as a result, integrating and compromising had a good relationship and the more effective it is in resolving conflict and make workers satisfied. likewise the result also consistent with the findings from chen, zhao and liu (2012), they found out a positive relationship between compromising and integrating styles and job satisfaction, except for obliging style. this result shows lack in loyalty and commitment towards organization. in this study, the effect of conflict management is related to cultures and most of them use interpersonal harmony when conflict occurs. in addition, benite (2017) only figured out compromising had a positive relationship that can increase the team work and help people to feel satisfied. it had been agreed by esmaeilzadesh (2015) where compromising also can increase in quality of life. whereas study at private university from williams (2011) only found integrating style had relationship with job satisfaction. this means that workers are more collaborative and had a high level of concern for self and others. thus, in this study also showed that style of integrating had relation with satisfaction where this style at school allows teachers to be more creative ideas and give solutions to any problem when conducting any programs (guttman, 2009). contrary to findings of momanyi (2016) where she figure out avoiding style has correlation with job satisfaction. it may due to different workplace where her research had been done at bank. due to the changing environment indicated different ways of conflict management. in this study, dominating and avoiding behaviours do not effect on job satisfaction. the suitable reason is that these styles are uncooperative traits and there are no an opportunity to the individual to make any contributions using these behaviours which give effect to job satisfaction. also, for those prefer style that has a low concern for self usually avoid complaint behaviour and for those who prefer a domination style are more likely to give complain to anything regarding work chores (daly et al., 2009). as a conclusion, every individual involved in conflict uses conflict management styles. each style of conflict management had been test with job satisfaction level of the teachers because it is critical that can give a great impact to the performance of teacher and also school results. issue related to the school administrator is one of the sources of conflict in the school. at school, mostly teachers favour the integrating, compromising and obliging conflict management style compared to avoiding and dominating. teacher’s job satisfaction level will increase while working at school when the school administrator used compromising, integrating and obliging style in managing conflict. it shows that an appropriate conflict management style is crucial in each organization and school administrator need to have enough awareness to build a good atmosphere at school. apart from that, school administrator www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 268 published by scholink inc. must do situational analysis to assess the school and its community and stakeholder before making any decisions in managing conflict because it is one of the aspects in organisational socialisation (bush, 2018). thus, school need to have a good manager to improve and managing any conflict that occur and had been agreed by meng, yu, ma and yang (2018) through their research about a new perspective to manage work that had conflict. references ahmed, k. a. g. 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(2018). exploring the relationship among instructional leadership, professional learning communities and teacher self-efficacy in china. educational management administration & leadership, 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1177/1741143218764176 frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no.4, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 73 original paper research on strategies for the healthy development of teenagers’ physical fitness under the background of integrating sports and education jialu ni1 1 college of sports human science, jilin sport university, changchun, jilin, china received: october 4, 2023 accepted: october 27, 2023 online published: november 11, 2023 doi:10.22158/fet.v6n4p73 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v6n4p73 abstract the issuance and implementation of the “healthy china 2030” plan outline has pointed out the direction and provided guiding ideology for china to gradually become a sports powerhouse. youth are the fresh troops of the country, the main force and new force for achieving the great rejuvenation of the chinese nation, and shoulder the hope of the country and the nation. the physical health of teenagers is the top priority of school sports work, and the importance of improving the health level of teenagers cannot be ignored. this article uses the methods of literature review and logical analysis to discuss the significance of the healthy development of adolescents, the current situation of foreign youth physical education, and the reform of school physical education models. the aim is to analyze the current difficulties in the development of youth physical education and propose strategies to improve the physical health of adolescents. keywords integration of sports and education, teenagers, sound development 1. introduction in the 21st century, with the rapid development of china’s economy and society, people’s physical labor in daily life has been continuously reduced, and the sedentary mode has gradually become the “mainstream”. teenagers studying in school have become the main sedentary group. in the context of exam oriented education, “valuing academic achievements and neglecting sports” is still the mainstream concept, which has led to the “obese children” and “myopic children” in today’s society. the emergence of a large number of “nearsighted children” has led to a downward trend in the main physical health indicators of adolescents for more than 20 consecutive years. therefore, the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 74 published by scholink inc. significance of “integration of sports and education” is crucial. in the context of the new era, the integration of sports and education is an important measure to promote the healthy development of youth physical fitness, promote youth training, and cultivate high-quality national sports reserve talents. 2. current situation of physical health of teenagers in china the issue of adolescent physical health has become a global concern. adolescents are the future of our country and the world, and their healthy development determines china’s future development. however, adolescent health issues have not been fundamentally resolved. a few years ago, professor mao zhenming from the school of physical education at beijing normal university pointed out that the current physical characteristics of chinese teenagers are: soft (soft muscles, lack of strength), hard (hard ligaments, poor flexibility), clumsy (clumsy and uncoordinated movements), dizziness (vestibular cochlear nerve halo, poor balance). in the current lifestyle environment, the increasing pressure on academic work has led to a gradual increase in sedentary time for teenagers. the development of modern information technology has also led to an increase in screen usage time for teenagers. this series of reasons have caused a continuous decrease in their outdoor activity time, leading to a lack or even continuous decline in the basic sports ability of most teenagers nowadays. 3. the practical significance of sports for the healthy development of teenagers health is not only about being free from illness and weakness, but also maintaining a perfect state of physical, psychological, and social adaptation. sports can stimulate secretion of βendorphins from hypothalamic secretion in the human body and can create a joyful mood, alleviate anxiety and tension, and promote mental health. when conducting sports training or competitions, errors in technical movements and failures in competitions can effectively promote resilience. the deep fatigue brought about by high-intensity sports training is actually a dual exercise on individual psychology and physiology, thereby improving individual pain tolerance. sports can improve the nutritional status of the myocardium and the elasticity of blood vessels, while also making the respiratory muscles more developed, increasing lung capacity, enhancing the body’s ability to transport oxygen, and improving the function of the circulatory and respiratory systems; sports can improve the production ability of bone and muscle cells, make muscle fibers thicker and bone thicker; scientific exercise can also thicken the articular cartilage, increase its compressibility and contact area. at the same time, the nutritional hypertrophy of connective tissue and intercellular matrix promotes the volume of muscle ligaments, improves joint stability, and promotes the functional development of the human motion system. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 75 published by scholink inc. 4. development of japanese youth physical education in its early years, japanese school physical education was committed to promoting the physical health of adolescents, and relevant policies were issued to provide solid guarantees and correct guiding ideology for this purpose. the development of sports education policies in japan has gone through four stages, namely from the meiji restoration to world war ii, after world war ii, during the tokyo olympics in japan, and in the 21st century. however, the main direction and goal of the four reforms are to enhance the physical health of young students. after the 21st century, japanese school sports aimed to improve students’ physical fitness, providing opportunities for teenagers in schools and various regions to participate in sports activities. at the same time, it also emphasized the deep integration of community, family, and school sports, promoting the unity of educational influences from all aspects. 5. a study on the governance of adolescent health development under the background of integrating sports and education 5.1 strengthen the organic combination of health education and physical education teaching, establish the educational concept of “health first” physical education teaching should always adhere to the fundamental task of “cultivating morality and cultivating people” and the guiding ideology of “health first”, so that students have excellent sports abilities, develop good health behaviors, and form noble sports ethics. 5.2 actively transforming the model of physical education courses in schools 5.2.1 transformation of traditional physical education course mode to gamification mode of physical education course in the context of exam oriented education, physical education, as an exam subject, needs to be given grades. it seems that grades are used to motivate teenagers to engage in physical exercise, but the results are exactly the opposite. most schools have always maintained the idea of “preparing for the exam, practicing, not taking the exam” and “practicing what you take,” losing the “original intention” of physical education evaluation, causing students to develop a resistance towards physical exercise. after a busy academic life, teenagers need to relax and unwind outdoors, and preparing for exams can only increase their stress. humans always accept things they love to see and hear. by flexibly combining games and physical education classes, physical education classes can become more vivid and interesting, which can better enhance the participation of teenagers, improve their athletic ability, promote their personality shaping and brain development, and prepare them for future adaptation to modern society. 5.2.2 organic combination of sports music and physical education classes music has the function of cultivating sentiment and relaxing the mood. music, as the first signal, enters the brain through the auditory organs, stimulating the cerebral cortex to generate excitability and achieving co frequency resonance with the brain. the organic combination of music and physical www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 76 published by scholink inc. education can achieve a “1+1>2” effect. music can affect the rhythm of sports through rhythm, and the two complement each other, not only improving the training atmosphere, but also improving sports performance. therefore, the organic combination of sports music and physical education classes has profound practical significance. in traditional physical education classes, physical education teachers generally use short commands or whistle forms to guide and control the rhythm of students’ movements. for teenagers with a strong desire for “novelty”, this method is particularly dull. integrating sports music with physical education classes, playing music with different rhythms according to different course content, and controlling students’ movement rhythm, exercise intensity, and workload through music rhythm, allows students to gain a brand new physical exercise experience. this not only satisfies the desires of young people, but also relaxes students’ mood and alleviates exercise fatigue through music. 5.3 strengthen sports support and reduce injury risks sports require direct physical participation, and the completion of actions such as confrontations, sprints, and jumps requires the collaboration of physical qualities such as speed, strength, and balance, which determines the objectivity of injury risks in sports. 5.3.1 guarantee mechanism for campus sports injury accidents among foreign teenagers 5.3.1.1 protection mechanism for sports injury accidents among young people in the united states the sports insurance system in the united states is very comprehensive and covers an extremely wide range, including professional athletes, sports workers, sports enthusiasts, school training team members, and students, providing them with solid protection. the sports insurance in the united states, due to its rich and diverse types of insurance, allows all students on campus to choose insurance types reasonably and flexibly based on their own sports situation. thanks to the comprehensive sports insurance system and medical assistance guarantee system, sports insurance has been popularized on american campuses. the united states has also incorporated sports insurance into the national sports system and social insurance system, providing legal protection for the development of sports. these conditions effectively promote the development of school physical education. 5.3.1.2 protection mechanism for sports injury accidents among japanese teenagers the development of sports in japan has a long history and has undergone several reforms. with the improvement of sports injury protection legislation and insurance tools, parents can rest assured that their children will participate in high-intensity competitive sports competitions. firstly, japan attaches great importance to legislation in terms of ensuring the risk of sports injuries, striving to have laws to follow. the current relevant laws include the “sports revitalization law”, “sports basic law”, “japan school safety association law”, “japan sports revitalization center law”, etc. these laws have made legal planning for the risk of sports injuries among young people on campus. secondly, the organic integration of japanese youth sports with the developed domestic insurance market system has nurtured a sports insurance mechanism represented by the “commercial contract model” of japanese sports safety insurance. this mechanism clearly regulates a series of detailed rules such as the scene of sports www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 77 published by scholink inc. accidents, the strength of claims, and the division of responsible persons, which effectively protects the relevant interests of policyholders and builds a solid safety net for the development of japanese youth sports. thirdly, the coverage of campus sports insurance in japan is extensive. japanese campus sports insurance covers various sports activities for teenagers in school, including campus sports events, campus sports classes, extracurricular sports activities, and even on the way to and from school. 5.3.2 research on the protection mechanism and strategy for campus sports injury accidents in china the school sports insurance system in china is still in its early stages and needs to face many challenges. many current relevant systems and laws are unable to adapt to the diversity and specificity of sports injury risks for young people on campus, and the methods for handling sports injury accidents are not reasonable, which has a significant gap compared to foreign countries. facing the suddenness, complexity, and particularity of sports injury accidents, it is necessary to construct scientific, flexible, and implementable measures. firstly, at the national government level, it is necessary to improve the “regulations on school sports work”, provide more precise regulations on the handling of sports injuries, and combine relevant examples to establish a targeted sports insurance system on campus, increase insurance types, and expand coverage. secondly, domestic schools should learn and draw on foreign sports safety concepts and insurance systems. they should not only carry out sports safety related courses to popularize sports safety knowledge and preventive measures for students, but also provide solid material protection for policyholders in different situations, eliminating the concerns of parents and adolescents. thirdly, for physical education teachers, they not only need to learn how to teach sports skills, but also have rich theoretical reserves and proficient practical experience in preventing and handling different sports injuries. in the classroom, relevant knowledge should be taught to every student, so that they can correctly handle their own or others’ injured parts when encountering sudden sports injuries, ensuring effective treatment and avoiding secondary injuries. 5.4 strengthening the connection between schools, communities, and families, unifying the multifaceted educational impact 5.4.1 organizing sports events between schools the competitiveness of sports makes it more attractive and more satisfying to the desires of young people. in competition, sports performance can rise to new heights after continuous collisions. teenagers have strong energy and desire to win or lose. conducting inter school competitions can stimulate students’ sports potential, feel the charm of sports in competitions, and improve their competitiveness. “promoting practice through competitions and combining them” is an effective method to improve a school’s physical education teaching ability. coaches summarize and adjust strategies based on the problems that young people participate in each competition to form a new teaching system and methods, and apply them to the teaching of physical education in schools, which helps to improve the overall level of physical education teaching in schools. a healthy competitive environment is extremely beneficial for the development of campus sports, which can stimulate teenagers’ love for sports and promote their healthy physical development. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 78 published by scholink inc. 5.4.2 form a linkage between schools and society, and mobilize the enthusiasm of young people to participate in sports activities teenagers are the future of our country, and their strong physique can provide strong human resources for the national sports. nowadays, the physical and health problems of teenagers are becoming increasingly serious, and all sectors of society should attach great importance to this. if conditions permit, more good sports and exercise venues should be provided for teenagers. in addition, schools should collaborate with relevant sports associations or non-governmental organizations in society to regularly organize sports activities, promote the organic integration of social sports and school sports, raise awareness of the physical health of young people at all levels of society, encourage them to actively participate in sports, liberate their nature in sports, promote physical health, and return to the essence of sports. 5.4.3 schools actively transform parents’ inherent beliefs and promote teenagers to develop good sports habits 5.4.3.1 transforming parents’ inherent traditional beliefs about sports in the current context of exam oriented education, most parents only focus on their students’ grades and neglect their physical health issues. after completing the heavy workload of daily studies, teenagers face various tutoring classes in their extracurricular time, which directly leads to a decrease in their exercise time and a gradual decline in their physical fitness. the basic function of sports is to enable people to “build” a healthy body through exercise. in the context of the integration of sports and education, schools should establish connections with every family, so that parents can understand the relationship between physical exercise, disease prevention, and physical health, so that parents can understand and support teenagers in sports activities. only when parents deeply realize that the physical health of teenagers and the harmony and happiness of families are closely related to the future of the country, can they break down ideological barriers and enable schools and parents to work together for the development of teenagers’ physical health. 5.4.3.2 encourage parents and teenagers to participate in sports together in daily life, the influence of parents’ behavior on teenagers is subtle. if parents engage in sports activities, their sports behavior will serve as a powerful reference for teenagers and can promote them to continuously join the ranks of sports. the fundamental measure to promote the healthy development of young people’s physical fitness is to enable them to engage in physical exercise activities. in this measure, parents need to fully recognize their mission as supervisors, encouragement, and leaders. parents should learn more about sports related knowledge and frequently lead young people to participate in various forms of physical exercise activities in their spare time. while improving their physical fitness and alleviating psychological pressure, it can also cultivate their excellent qualities of bravery, hard work, and positivity, which will guide teenagers to establish the correct concept of healthy development. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 79 published by scholink inc. 5.5 vigorously cultivate a team of physical education teachers and coaches the construction of physical education teaching staff is an important factors determining the level of physical education teaching in schools and an important foundation for promoting the physical and mental health of young people. firstly, with the continuous improvement of physical education requirements and standards in schools, the selection of physical education teachers should also meet higher requirements. not only should their teaching abilities and basic knowledge be evaluated when applying for physical education teachers, but also regular professional training should be provided after employment. when the training is completed, assessments should be conducted to maintain a systematic and institutionalized assessment. secondly, schools can hire retired athletes from national and provincial teams. retired athletes receive high-level training, have high specialized skills, and have participated in various high-level competitions and won many honors during their service, which will bring a “celebrity effect” to the school and increase students’ participation in physical education classes. thirdly, strengthen the scientific research ability of physical education teachers, so that they can become course builders and developers, and promote the efficiency of physical education teaching in schools. fourthly, provide opportunities for physical education teachers and coaches to go out for training and learning, encourage physical education teachers to learn new teaching concepts, innovate their thinking, and improve the quality and effectiveness of physical education teaching. 6. conclusion “the integration of sport and education” is a lighthouse that guides china’s current society in addressing the physical health needs of young people. it requires schools at all levels in the country to establish the “health first” concept of physical education teaching in response. the complexity and difficulty of the deep integration of sports and education are manifested in the collaborative efforts of the country, government, schools, communities, families, and individuals. to achieve this goal, the public needs to abandon traditional concepts of sports, attach importance to the multifunctional role of sports, and clarify the internal connections between sports, education, and health; the government and various schools should work together to improve the protection mechanism for sports injury risks, and provide protection for young people to engage in sports activities. as the successors of a country, the physical health of young people is crucial for the future and destiny of the country. schools should pay attention to the healthy development of young people, create a good sports environment, scientifically guide them in sports, and promote their physical health. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 80 published by scholink inc. reference zhu, c. x. (2023). reflection on the integration of middle school physical education teaching and mental health education. western quality education, 9(2), 102-105. doi: 10.16681/j.cnki.wcqe.202302025 zhang, j. h., & yang, t. l. (1998). contemporary japanese physical education reform and enlightenment. sports science, 1998(3), 28-31. zhang, x. j. (2018). research on the protection mechanism of sports injury accidents in universities: theory, current situation, and countermeasures. zhejiang sports science, 40(3), 58-62+70. zhang, j. h., & yang, t. l. (1997). comparative study on the reform of physical education in the united states and japan. journal of beijing normal university of physical education, 1997(3), 31-39. chen, z. l., sun, j., & li, d. m. (2012). characteristics and enlightenment of sports insurance in the united states. sports culture guide, 2012(4), 83-87. zhang, h. (2012). analysis of the combination of music and sports training. era education (education and teaching), 2012(10), 79. frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no.4, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) original paper integrating ar and vr in teacher education: what pre-service teachers perceive jorge f. figueroa-flores1* & lisa huffman2 1 department of teacher education, texas woman’s university, denton, texas, united states 2 department of human development, family studies and counseling, texas woman’s university, denton, texas, united states * jorge f. figueroa-flores, department of teacher education, texas woman’s university, denton, texas, united states received: september 19, 2020 accepted: september 28, 2020 online published: october 6, 2020 doi:10.22158/fet.v3n4p5 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v3n4p5 abstract augmented reality (ar) and virtual reality (vr) are two of the most important technologies nowadays. both had brought significant changes to education. recognizing that these technologies have become two of the most powerful scaffolds in education is important to better train pre-service teachers with the use of these technologies. by doing so educator preparation programs provide opportunities for their candidates to practice newly learned skills, imagine new ways of thinking and teaching, and build confidence. at the same time is important to gather the pre-service teachers perceptions with the use of both technologies. this paper focuses on a research that sought to determine the perception of pre-service teachers with the use of ar and vr. it found that pre-service teachers believe in the potential of both technologies for the teaching and learning process and at the same time recognize the need to confront the lack of access and digital divide that students might face. it also showcases the need for more training, resources and research of these technologies in teacher education. keywords augmented reality, virtual reality, teacher education, immersive technologies, instructional technologies 5 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 1. introduction in education, augmented reality (ar) and virtual reality (vr) applications are rapidly changing the way we are providing k-12 and university students’ experiential learning opportunities by simulating real-world environments. according to kang and yang (2020), ar refers to a simulated, but enhanced, reality that combines both computer-generated virtual and real-world data to allow users to complete real-time interactions with computer-generated graphics, imagery, and objects, in a smooth way and with an illusion of these layers of information coexisting in the same space. in other words, is the ability to layer data and images over materials and actual spaces. on the other hand, vr is defined as a technology which allows a user to interact with a computer-simulated environment, be it a real or imagined one (guazzaroni & pillai, 2019). both technologies are particularly interesting as a tool for preparing future teachers, especially those that will support bilingual and esl students and special education students as it affords alternative modes of more traditional teaching methods (liu, salisbury, vanhabzadeh, & sahin, 2017). today, simple ar and vr applications are readily available and the needed tools already in the hands of young people, with over 80% of k-12 (mcfarland et al., 2017) and over 95% of university students either owning or having access to a smartphone or tablet (dahlstrom & bichsel, 2014). this makes ar and vr a feasible learning tool for k-12 and university students. with ar and vr learning can occur at any time and from anywhere—making it extremely flexible. research has shown that ar and vr activities and materials increase university student engagement (bursztyn, walker, shelton, & pederson, 2017; hsu, lin, & yang, 2017). additionally, using ar and vr in educator preparation allows for in-depth learning experiences not possible in the past (i.e., virtual classrooms with virtual interactive students, manipulating and rotating the solar system while developing related lesson plans, or using interactive flashcards that use sign language to work with deaf students). ar and vr provide pre-service teachers with an insight into what they will experience when they enter the actual classroom helping them be better teachers from day one. this paper showcases a qualitative study that targeted n=27 pre-service teachers’ on their perceptions of the strengths and limitations of ar and vr. to be more specific, they reflected on the following research questions: rq1. what are the strengths and limitations of integrating ar in the classroom? rq2. what are the strengths and limitations of integrating vr in the classroom? it also presents how they envisioned using both technologies as possibilities to strengthen student engagement and keep them motivated. besides, it mentions how access to these technologies continues to be the most significant limitation. 6 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 2. theoretical background the teaching and learning process has transformed dramatically since the arrival of the information and communication technologies (ict’s) and the internet. also, the increase in the use and development around the world of smartphones and other equipment with access to an internet connection has resulted in developing immersive technologies. in this group are augmented reality (ar) and virtual reality (vr). researchers like milgram et al. (1995) proposed the reality-virtuality continuum to address these concepts from fully real to entirely virtual environments. pre-service teachers have lived the transition and evolution of the web 2.0 to using immersive technologies. in this group, we find ar and vr. these technologies applied to education have proven their potential by making students feel engaged and motivated through active learning and decision making activities (kerawalla, luckin, seljeflot, & woolard, 2006; martín-gutiérrez, mora, añorbe-díaz, & gonzález-marrero, 2016). some of these include promoting individual exploration and understanding of complex concepts. also, the students have a real-time interaction that enables them to make adjustments or decisions based on results. they can explore or manipulate objects and collaborative experiences in virtual environments that would typically be difficult or impossible for them to experience in real life. also, both technologies are non-linguistic, allowing the students to use mental images and detailed knowledge. furthermore, vr promotes learning because students understand the subject matter much better than if they saw two-dimensional images (sala, 2016). due to its experiential nature, it is a multi-sensory experience, enriching learning by fostering curiosity. 3. methodology this research study followed a qualitative method and used an exploratory design. it is based on grounded theory (glaser & strauss, 1967). according to chun tie, birks, and francis (2019), grounded theory sets out to discover or construct theory from data, systematically obtained and analyzed using comparative analysis. the data collection instrument included guided reflections using the study questions, and the main categories and subcategories were classified. upon data collection, answers were coded, and a content analysis was carried out. according to krippendorf (2004), content analysis is the systematic reading of a body of texts, images, and symbolic matter, not necessarily from an author’s or user’s perspective. this approach was used to analyze and interpret the reflections written by pre-service teachers. all pre-service teachers participating in the study received 6 hours of specialized training in ar and vr educational use. it included f2f and online presentations with examples, tutorials, potential classroom activities, alignment with state standards, and exploration of ar and vr mobile applications. all students were provided with ipads and google cardboard goggles. some used their own devices (ios and android, smartphones, ipads, or android tablets). for data collection, the technique of guided reflections was used. after the 6 hours of instruction, they were given a worksheet with the two study questions for them to reflect. these questions were: 7 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 rq1. what are the strengths and limitations of integrating ar in the classroom? rq2. what are the strengths and limitations of integrating vr in the classroom? 4. results to answer rq1 the results were categorized into two groups, titled strengths of ar and limitations of ar. for strengths of ar a total of 203 entries were coded. the participants highlighted the following: enhanced classroom engagement with 46%, motivated students to learn with 28%, new and find ways to learn 11%, promotes a visual learning experience with 9%, inclusive technology with 6%. on the other hand, in the group limitations of ar, 71 entries were coded. the participant highlighted: access to technology with 46%, access to the internet 25%, access to mobile devices with 14%, teachers not familiarized with the technology with 4%. to answer rq2 the results were categorized into two groups, titled strengths of vr and limitations of vr. for strengths of vr a total of 195 items were coded with 41% for student engagement, 18% for excellent visuals, 12% for student motivation. for limitations of vr, a total of 80 items were coded with 44% indicating access to the technology, 31% costs, 15% time to integrate in the classroom. 5. discussion and conclusions this study has shown the power of ar and vr and how pre-service teachers perceive these technologies as great tools to integrate into their classrooms. both can serve as scaffolds to promote student engagement and motivation. at the same time we need to be careful on how we and when we integrate them. a very important detail is that access continues to be the most important rival to use these technologies. if students don’t have the access or school districts can’t afford them no process could be performed. more research needs to be done in this area. references bursztyn, n., walker, a., shelton, b., & pederson, j. (2017). assessment of student learning using augmented reality grand canyon field trips for mobile smart devices. geosphere, 13, 1-9. https://doi.org/10.1130/ges01404.1 chun tie, y., birks, m., & francis, k. (2019) grounded theory research: a design framework for novice researchers. journal of indexing metrics. https://doi.org/10.1177/2050312118822927 dahlstrom, e., & bichsel, j. (2014). ecar study of undergraduate students and information technology, research report. louisville, co. retrieved from http://www.educause.edu/ecar glasser, b. g., & strauss, a. l. (1967). the discovery of grounded theory: strategies for qualitative research. mill valley, ca. sociology press. guazzaroni, g., & pillai, a. s. (2019). virtual and augmented reality in education, art, and museums (advances in computational intelligence and robotics) (1st ed.). igi global. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-7998-1796-3 8 published by scholink inc. https://doi.org/10.1130/ges01404.1 http://www.educause.edu/ecar https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-7998-1796-3 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 hsu, y. s., lin, h. y., & yang, b. (2017). research and practice in technology enhanced learning. springer open, 12(2). https://doi.org/10.1186/s41039-016-0039-z kang, y., & yang, k. (2020). employing digital reality technologies in art exhibitions and museums: a global survey of best practices and implications. in guazzaroni, & pillai (eds.), virtual and augmented reality in education, art, and museums (pp. 139-162). igi global. http://doi:10.4018/978-1-7998-1796-3 kerawalla, l., luckin, r., seljeflot, s., & woolard, a. (2006). ‘making it real’: exploring the potential of augmented reality for teaching primary school science. virtual reality, 10(3-4), 163-174. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10055-006-0036-4 krippendorff, k. (2004). content analysis: an introduction to its methodology (2nd ed.). thousand oaks, ca: sage. liu, r., salisbury, j. p., vahabzadeh, a., & sahin, n. t. (2017). feasibility of an autism-focused augmented reality smartglasses system for social communication and behavioral coaching. frontiers of pediatrics, 5, 145. https://doi.org/10.3389/fped.2017.00145 mcfarland, j., hussar, b., de brey, c., snyder, t., wang, x., wilkinson-flicker, s., … hinz, s. (2017). the condition of education 2017 (nces 2017-144). u.s. department of education, washington, dc: national center for education statistics. retrieved june 29, 2018, from https://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2017144 milgram, p., takemura, h., utsumi, a., & kishino, f. (1995). augmented reality: a class of displays on the reality-virtuality continuum. proceedings spie 235—telemanipulator and telepresence technologies. https://doi.org/10.1117/12.19732 mora, c. e., martín-gutiérrez, j., añorbe-díaz, b., & gonzález-marrero, a. (2017). virtual technologies trends in education. eurasia journal of mathematics, science and technology education, 13(2), 469-486. https://doi.org/10.12973/eurasia.2017.00626a 9 published by scholink inc. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41039-016-0039-z http://doi:10.4018/978-1-7998-1796-3 https://doi.org/10.3389/fped.2017.00145 https://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2017144 original paper jorge f. figueroa-flores1* & lisa huffman2 1 department of teacher education, texas woman’s university, denton, texas, united states 2 department of human development, family studies and counseling, texas woman’s university, denton, texas, united states frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no.4, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 98 original paper research on the path of adaptation education for freshmen in higher vocational colleges xiaobo pang1 1 sichuan vocational college of information technology, guangyuan, sichuan, china received: october 19, 2023 accepted: november 11, 2023 online published: november 24, 2023 doi:10.22158/fet.v6n4p98 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v6n4p98 abstract adaptive education is not only beneficial for facilitating the successful role transition of new vocational college students and their rapid integration into university life, leading to healthy personal and professional development, but it also enhances the quality of talent cultivation in vocational institutions. considering the unique origins and developmental needs of these students, the implementation of adaptive education for new vocational college students should include timely psychological adaptation and mental health guidance. this encompasses ideological and political education as a primary approach to ideological guidance. additionally, leveraging the dormitory environment as an educational platform ensures the effectiveness of residential education. the use of online media platforms is also crucial for providing effective educational guidance in the digital realm. keywords vocational college newcomers, ideological and political education, adaptive education 1. introduction higher vocational education constitutes a significant segment of china’s higher education system, bearing the responsibility of cultivating high-skilled talents needed at the forefront of production, construction, service, and management sectors. new students in vocational colleges, originating from diverse educational backgrounds, are confronted with the immediate challenges of transitioning to and swiftly adapting to the academic and social environment of university life. the effectiveness of adaptive education for these newcomers is crucial. it directly influences their ability to smoothly transition at this new juncture in their lives, ensuring healthy personal development and the realization of their life values. the success or failure of this adaptive educational process is pivotal in determining their initial experience in higher education and their subsequent personal and professional growth. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 99 published by scholink inc. 2. analysis of the current student source structure and characteristics in vocational colleges 2.1 diversification in the composition of student sources in current vocational colleges the student base in china’s vocational colleges today is characterized by diversity and complexity, primarily comprising four categories. the first category consists of regular high school graduates who enter through the national college entrance examination. these students generally possess solid foundational knowledge in subjects like mathematics, english, and chinese, making them among the better-prepared in the new vocational college cohort. the second category is students admitted through independent recruitment, who have undergone specialized technical training during their high school years. they exhibit strong practical technical skills, but their foundational academic knowledge and self-management abilities are relatively weaker compared to regular high school graduates. the third category includes students from the ‘2+3’ system, which encompasses two years of high school and three years of specialized vocational education. these students typically have poorer academic performance, lack good study habits, and have weaker self-discipline, though their education focuses on cultivating comprehensive qualities and vocational skills. the fourth category comprises individuals from the workforce who meet the admission criteria, including young employees from enterprises, veterans, laid-off workers, and modern professional farmers. this group is often not subjected to stringent academic performance requirements for admission. 2.2 characteristics of the student base in current vocational colleges firstly, in terms of learning autonomy, the majority of vocational college students exhibit poor self-directed learning abilities. the learning environment in university differs markedly from that in high school, where students are accustomed to studying under the guidance and supervision of teachers. in contrast, university education demands a higher degree of self-motivation and initiative, often leading to a sense of confusion and disorientation during the transition phase. secondly, regarding the understanding of vocational education, most students possess limited knowledge about it. many enroll in vocational colleges due to various reasons such as not performing well in the college entrance examination, errors in choosing preferences, or family circumstances. a significant portion of these students lacks a clear understanding of vocational education, their future career paths, or even the purpose of their studies. thirdly, from the perspective of overall student quality, it tends to be on the lower side. the student body in vocational colleges is diverse and multifaceted, with most students having a weak academic foundation. their learning capabilities are limited, and they often exhibit poor life habits and low self-discipline, contributing to an overall lower quality in terms of student attributes. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 100 published by scholink inc. 3. adaptation challenges faced by new students in vocational colleges 3.1 issues of maladaptation due to changes in the learning environment young university students are at a crucial stage of physical and psychological development. confronting the new environment of university life, they are prone to various forms of psychological maladjustment. if these issues are not addressed promptly, they may lead to psychological disorders or even mental illnesses. for instance, many new university students lack clear life goals and plans. the absence of definite learning objectives and motivation can lead to feelings of confusion and disorientation. over time, this can cause a range of psychological issues among students, such as low spirits, a lack of motivation, anxiety, and depression. university students are in a phase of unstable emotional self-management. upon entering university and facing unfamiliar environments and relationships, many new students experience negative emotions like tension, anxiety, and indifference. if these emotions are not properly managed and allowed to proliferate unchecked, they can lead to severe psychological issues and potentially extreme behaviors. therefore, effective measures are urgently needed to address and guide students through these emotional challenges, helping them overcome these difficulties. 3.2 issues of maladaptation due to changes in the learning model students in vocational colleges generally face the issue of a weak academic foundation. during their time in vocational high schools or technical schools, their learning was often passive, dictated by teachers’ arrangements. to achieve good grades, besides inherent aptitude, they relied on diligently following teachers’ instructions, coupled with positive attitudes and scientific study methods. however, university learning, unlike high school, requires a shift from passive to active learning. it demands students to proactively explore and seek knowledge, a quality that many new university students lack. this deficiency in self-directed learning awareness and ability leads to their maladaptation to university life, often manifesting as confusion about ‘what to learn’ and ‘how to learn’. 3.3 issues of maladaptation due to unclear life planning during their high school years, most students have a clear objective: to achieve good grades and gain admission to a desirable university, ultimately securing a promising future. however, upon entering university, some new students struggle due to the lack of new goals and clear life planning. this leads to a state of aimlessness, with no motivation or ability to strive, resulting in a life of blind following and listlessness. many students spend their first year in university in a state of confusion. furthermore, influenced by traditional misconceptions, some university freshmen believe that university life does not require the same level of hard work and relentless effort as high school. only when they actually step into university do they realize the significant gap between their ideals and reality. while a portion of these new students can adapt to this change by setting new goals, many fail to establish new objectives, falling into a period of brief wandering and confusion (yang, 2019). this lack of direction during the first year of university is common. if vocational college freshmen are unable to smoothly transition, they risk losing their desire to learn and their motivation to strive. this can lead to truancy, a dislike of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 101 published by scholink inc. studying, and in some cases, students may even apply to drop out, abandoning their education altogether. 4. the significance of adaptive education for new students in vocational colleges 4.1 facilitating a smooth role transition and adaptation to university life for vocational college newcomers university freshmen, moving from a familiar environment to an entirely new one, are confronted with unfamiliar teachers, classmates, and novel academic and social demands. this significant change requires an adjustment in their learning approach and an update in their interpersonal relationships. such transitions often lead to psychological discomfort, panic, anxiety, and irritability among new students. many may begin the new academic term feeling a stark disconnect between their expectations and reality, leading to a lack of motivation, poor study efficiency, and a potential decline in academic performance. generally, these students lack the skills and abilities to cope with these contradictions and difficulties. this scenario underscores the need for educational institutions to actively provide guidance, assisting students in smoothly transitioning into their new roles, enhancing their adaptability, and integrating into university life as quickly as possible. 4.2 assisting vocational college newcomers in establishing new goals and realizing life values for university freshmen embarking on a new phase of life, the inability to effectively transition and establish new goals can lead to a temporary state of confusion and even adverse emotions like anxiety and aversion to study. effective adaptive education can promptly help them set new objectives in this new life stage, facilitating a smooth transition in their goals. adaptive education enables these new students to quickly adapt to their roles, understand the significance of university education, and contemplate their future paths post-graduation. it provides clear direction for the students in their journey of growth and personal development, helping them embark on a new quest for achievement. through adaptive education at the onset of university life, students are guided to establish new ambitious goals, fostering the realization that they should strive not only for personal success but also contribute societal value. this education aims to mold them into well-rounded socialist builders and successors, endowed with both talent and virtue (xiao, 2020). 4.3 enhancing self-management skills and overall abilities of vocational college newcomers university students have more freedom in managing their time, offering a broader platform for development. however, university learning differs from high school in that it relies more on self-motivated and conscientious learning. therefore, a student’s awareness and ability for self-directed learning largely determine how much knowledge they can acquire. a person’s self-discipline and self-management abilities directly impact their future development. the relatively relaxed academic environment in university does not reduce the demands on students; on the contrary, it sets higher expectations for their self-learning and self-discipline. many vocational college students struggle precisely due to a lack of initiative and learning skills, leading to aimless and unproductive university www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 102 published by scholink inc. experiences. this results in graduates lacking essential knowledge and skills, ultimately facing unemployment. hence, providing adaptive education to vocational college newcomers is crucial in developing their self-learning and self-discipline abilities, thereby enhancing their overall capacities. 5. pathways for adaptive education of new students in vocational colleges 5.1 implementing psychological adaptation education and fostering mental health awareness firstly, targeted psychological counseling should be provided to help new students adapt to the new environment and lifestyle. after first-year students enroll, a comprehensive psychological survey should be conducted promptly. this could be through individual counseling sessions or psychological interviews, aiming to establish precise and standardized mental health profiles. regular follow-ups and check-ins are essential to monitor the psychological well-being of new university students and to effectively assist them in mental health education. this helps students develop a positive mindset to adapt to university life. secondly, it’s beneficial to invite well-known mental health experts from within and outside the institution to conduct lectures on psychological health. these lectures, combining online and offline formats, aim to spread awareness about mental health and elevate the students’ understanding of psychological well-being. they equip new students with knowledge about potential or existing psychological challenges and teach them methods to manage these issues. thirdly, organizing regular or irregular thematic activities centered on mental health is crucial. activities like psychological quality development training, viewing psychological dramas, participating in group counseling games, mental health knowledge contests, and discussion sessions actively engage students. these activities aim to enhance students’ psychological adaptability and coping skills, helping them adjust more quickly to university life. fourthly, using themed class meetings or group day activities to focus on university students’ psychological adaptation is effective. these meetings can address topics such as managing interpersonal relationships, overcoming unhealthy romantic inclinations, combating internet addiction, and boosting self-confidence to overcome feelings of inferiority. inviting class advisors to teach university study methods or having upperclassmen share their study plans and techniques can significantly help new students integrate into university life. this peer-led approach is instrumental in helping newcomers adapt swiftly to their new environment. 5.2 emphasizing ideological and political education for guiding thought processes firstly, counselors should effectively utilize class and grade meetings to encourage new students to think proactively and adapt actively. for new vocational college students, it’s crucial first to understand three key questions: why attend university? what are the ultimate goals of university education? what are the prospects after graduation? during class meetings, through the guidance and questioning of counselors, students are encouraged to think proactively, plan early, face reality objectively, establish new goals, and make long-term career and future development plans. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 103 published by scholink inc. secondly, it’s important to guide new students in solidifying their beliefs and strengthening their education in ideals and convictions. ideological and political counselors and dedicated teachers should play a leading role in educating students. utilizing class meetings and political theory classes, they should teach marxist theory to reinforce the students’ belief in marxism. students should be adept at applying the principles of marxism-leninism, mao zedong thought, deng xiaoping theory, the “three represents,” the scientific outlook on development, and the ideology of socialism with chinese characteristics for a new era. this education aims to equip students with the ideological tools to guide their ideals and convictions, fostering a steadfast pursuit of the grand ideal of communism and the common ideal of socialism with chinese characteristics. in doing so, students can realize their life values in contributing to the modernization and great rejuvenation of the chinese nation (liu, 2020). thirdly, conducting research on the ideological trends of new university students and timely guiding their thought processes is essential. in an era of rapid internet information development, where online content varies greatly in quality and is influenced by misleading western social trends, new university students with limited ability to discern right from wrong may encounter problems in political stance, weak identification with mainstream ideology, diminished moral consciousness, vulgar internet language, and lack of integrity. therefore, after new students enroll, it’s vital to conduct timely research on their ideological trends. accurately grasping these trends is key to helping them resolve any ideological and behavioral issues that arise after enrollment. 5.3 leveraging the dormitory as a platform for education firstly, universities should endeavor to develop counselors, class teachers, logistics personnel, security staff, and professional instructors into new entities responsible for student education. the aim is to promote comprehensive involvement in the dormitory life, facilitating face-to-face communication, exchange, and guidance with new students, thus assisting them in swiftly adapting to university life. vocational colleges, based on their management realities, can categorize this involvement as academic tutors, life tutors, and dormitory guides. academic tutors, consisting of full-time teachers, primarily provide professional assistance and regularly enter dormitories to guide students academically. life tutors, comprising counselors, class teachers, student affairs staff, and logistics personnel, mainly offer guidance on aspects of personal growth, such as emotional intelligence training, public morality education, and habit formation. dormitory guides, including counselors, dormitory managers, and senior students, focus on peer education and mentoring to help new students overcome challenges in both their personal and academic lives, thereby maximizing the role of dormitory tutors. secondly, the involvement of university leaders, such as secretaries and principals, in dormitory life is crucial for creating a family-like atmosphere. these leaders should engage in face-to-face and close-range interactions with students, primarily addressing their ideological confusions. they should discuss topics of growth, success, and talent development that concern young students and actively participate in student community activities. by befriending students during these activities, leaders can assist students in securing a solid foundation in life, planting the seeds for their future, and building a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 104 published by scholink inc. platform for their development. this approach aims to resolve the ideological dilemmas of young university students, guiding them out of confusion and towards realizing their life values (xu, 2016). 5.4 utilizing online media platforms for educational guidance in cyberspace firstly, online media platforms can be leveraged to guide new university students in timely adjusting their mindset. before new students arrive on campus, official social media channels like wechat public accounts, weibo, or douyin can be used to deliver engaging and inspiring content. this content should aim to educate new students about facing the upcoming university life, emphasizing that their past achievements are now behind them and that entering university means facing entirely new challenges (zhou, 2013). secondly, new media platforms can be utilized for promoting campus life. employing mobile social media marketing strategies and appealing formats, new students can be introduced to various aspects of campus life through engaging graphics, texts, and videos about student events and club activities. promoting campus life helps new students understand and familiarize themselves with their new environment, aiding them in acclimatizing to the university, finding a sense of belonging, and alleviating any anxiety or unease about the unfamiliar setting. thirdly, establishing class-specific communication groups on platforms like wechat or qq can facilitate direct communication with students. through these platforms, class tutors and counselors can conduct informative sessions, offering in-depth insights into various academic disciplines. this not only helps students understand their chosen fields of study but also fosters strong student-teacher relationships and reinforces their commitment to their chosen disciplines. fourthly, online open courses can be used to provide education on career planning for new university students. hosting online lectures with career planning experts can introduce students to relevant knowledge in this area. this approach enables new students to plan their professional development early, find their life direction, objectively assess themselves, make rational career choices, and formulate career plans that align with their personal development goals, thereby motivating them to strive towards these objectives. 6. conclusion with the continuous development of higher vocational education in china and the rapid expansion in the enrollment scale of vocational colleges, the number of enrollees has been increasing, resulting in a more complex and diversified student source structure. considering the characteristics of this student structure and the psychological traits of new university students, it is essential for vocational colleges to keep pace with the times and aim precisely in their efforts. this involves continuously exploring new approaches and methods in adaptive education for new students, guiding them to swiftly integrate into university life and laying a solid foundation for their entire university journey. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 105 published by scholink inc. reference liu, d. c. (2020). three focus points in strengthening adaptive education for new university students. guide to ideological and theoretical education, 2020(3), 150-153. xiao, f. (2020). study on the difficulties and strategies in student management in vocational colleges under the background of enrolling one million more students. journal of southern vocational education, 2020(2), 59-63. xu, y. h. (2016). research on adaptive education for new students of different types in vocational colleges. guangzhou: guangdong university of technology. yang, j. (2019). research on the ideological and political education supply methods for vocational college students based on the changes in student source structure. journal of wuxi vocational and technical college, 2019(3), 88-91. zhou, z. (2013). study on the adaptation issues and countermeasures for new students in vocational colleges. vocational education forum, 2013(17), 62-64. frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no.2, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 167 original paper intersemiotic shifts in the subtitle translation of journey to the west via a multimodal framework chen xinru1 1 school of english studies, xi’an international studies university, xi’an, china received: may 20, 2023 accepted: june 11, 2023 online published: june 25, 2023 doi:10.22158/fet.v6n2p167 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v6n2p167 abstract journey to the west is one of the four famous chinese classical works and it was reproduced into tv drama both at home and abroad, which has aroused great concern. however, current studies mainly compare the english translated versions with chinese one, focusing on the translation strategies for the verbal texts or on the cultural level. therefore, this study explores different kinds of intersemiotic shifts in the subtitle translation of journey to the west and reasons that have caused these intersemiotic shifts via a multimodal analytical framework. ten episodes chosen according to the plots will be analyzed. findings show that there are mainly six kinds of intersemiotic shifts in the journey to the west. image and para-/non-verbal modes can supplement the meaning expressed in the verbal texts. keywords journey to the west, audiovisual text, subtitle translation, multimodality 1. introduction chinese classical works have been widely translated into many languages, like journey to the west (or pilgrimage to the west) (chinese pinyin: xiyou ji), which has also been reproduced as tv dramas and exported overseas. chinese tv dramas went abroad from the 1980s, which has played an important role in shaping the image of china (liang, 2018, p. 38). the first official broadcast of journey to the west was in the spring festival of 1986 with only chinese subtitles. in january 2021, china central television (cctv) remade this version into an american-sounding one with english subtitles. netflix, being regarded as the largest media service provider in the america, also released this version. audiovisual text (avt), as a semiotic construct, is made up by a series of signifying codes, which operate concurrently to produce the meaning (chaume, 2004, p. 16). subtitling, being a significant part of the avt studies, has received tremendous scholarly attention (e.g., guillot, 2020, p. 317; labarta www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 168 published by scholink inc. postigo, 2020, p. 46; brumme, 2016, p. 346). however, current studies towards journey to the west mainly focus on the chinese classical works, especially the effect of cultural transmission (cao, 2020, p. 130; feng et al., p. 117), the translation of culture-loaded words or related rhetorical devices (lu et al., 2018, p. 186) or comparison between the language of english versions and chinese one on the perspective of texts merely. due to the high translation quality from the cctv, great interests of audience both at home and abroad, and less studies on subtitle translation via multimodality, it deserves further research for the translation studies using a multimodal approach. this paper consists of five chapters. chapter 1 introduces background information and an overview of thesis structure. chapter 2, the literature review chapter, critically reviews several related studies about subtitling, current studies of journey to the west and translation via multimodality. chapter 3 proposes the research questions and a modified multimodal analytical framework. chapter 4 presents the intersemiotic shifts in the subtitles of journey to the west and discusses the functions of non-verbal modes. chapter 5, the concluding chapter, sums up the major findings, and discusses the limitations of the study. 2. literature review 2.1 avt and subtitling with the development of digital media gaming and production, translation, subtitling and dubbing have gradually been the indispensable elements from the first versions of silent movies to more latest filmography. and also under the background of the global covid-19 pandemic, the role avt and multimodality suffered greater pressures than ever, which also accelerate the development of avt and multimodality, such as online teaching (tomei & chetty, 2021, p. 55). and also as social networks and streaming platforms develop rapidly, avt has occupied an unprecedented place in the global communication of today’s society (díaz-cintas & zhang, 2022, p. 1). subtitles, can be considered as “a distinctive instantiation of cinematic discourse and a distinctive form of translation” (guillot, 2020, p. 317). in the context of global information exchange, subtitling, adding text to the screen in various languages but keeping the original soundtrack, is attached great importance to understand the meaning presented (labarta postigo, 2020, p. 47). 2.2 related translation studies on the journey to the west journey to the west, as one the four famous chinese classical works written by wu chengen, is based on a true story that a chinese monk named xuan zang to fetch back some scriptures. this fairy tale is about xuan zang and his three disciples passing eighty-one difficulties to get the true scriptures and become buddhas eventually. on the one hand, more related translation studies, as comparative studies, focus on linguistic modes of different translation versions, such as the translation strategies for the related rhetorical devices or verbal humor in the translated versions. lu et al. have explored characteristics of verbal humor between the journey to the west and its english translated version. through the establishment of a bilingual http://ss-zhizhen-com-s.webvpn.xisu.edu.cn:8118/s?sw=author(d&iacute) http://ss-zhizhen-com-s.webvpn.xisu.edu.cn:8118/s?sw=author(d&iacute) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 169 published by scholink inc. parallel corpus, findings show that there are there translation modes used to deal with the rhetorical devices during the process of translation: simile, metaphor and metonymy (p. 192). in another comparative study, ji has done a comparison of different approaches in the two major english translations, monkey by arthur waley and the monkey and the monk by anthony yu. the results reveal that yu’s translation is more faithful to the original (p. 77). on the other hand, existing studies have explored the effect of cultural transmission for the better cross-cultural communication. based on the english readers’ feedback of the journey to the west, yu and zheng have investigated into overseas reception effect through sentiment analysis and content analysis of readers’ comments. it has been found that readers’ feedback in the past decade (2011-2020) has increased a lot, showing an overall good communication effect (p. 89). similarly, since journey to the west has been translated and disseminated overseas for hundreds of years, cao have examined the spread in europe and america to get a glimpse of the dilemma for the classic chinese literary works in the west and provide reference for the chinese traditional culture “going out” strategy (p. 130). 2.3 multimodality and translation in light of the thriving of mass media, recent years have witnessed an increasingly crucial role that multimodal works play in cultural transmission. instead of the sole mode of text, multimodal works have become one of the crucial tools to powerfully convey significant messages, especially to promote traditional chinese culture in the context of globalization. multimodal translation, offering an interdisciplinary approach for the studies of translation, has attracted great interests and witnessed great development in recent years. however, there are few studies that research on translation via a multimodal approach (tomei & rajendr, 2021, p. 55). over the past years, studies on the translation often merely rely on the transfer of the verbal texts while the other modes are neglected. however, visual code is crucial to provide pragmatic inferences of meaning for the translation (sidiropoulou, 2020, p. 284). recently, scholars have begun to involve a large number of non-linguistic factors during the process of interpreting, such as tone, intonation, facial expression, gaze and body language (chen et al., 2020, p. 83). besides interpreting, children’s picture book and cartoons also can be regarded as a kind of intersemiotic translation. the relationship between the image and the texts deserve to be researched. in the cartoons, characters communicate and interact with each other not only through linguistic modes like dialogue boxes and speech bubbles signifying mental activities, but also through non-verbal elements like gestures, postures, gaze and facial expressions, with the role of visual modes being equally important with these verbal modes (p. 84). while the multimodal approach is not only used to analyze the static discourses, it can also be applied to dynamic media discourses, such as the video and film. tomei and chetty have presented multimodal tables, including thematic focus, kinesics (non-verbal communication like body movements and gestures), music and voice, and have analyzed the macro-textual modifications that result from the differences in translations (p. 57). what’s more, the functions of image and para-verbal elements for the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 170 published by scholink inc. meaning of the source text (st) conveying to the target text (tt) reader have been carefully discussed for the translation of costume drama subtitles of zhenhuan zhuan (qian & feng, p. 40). additionally, baumgarten has investigated into the relationship between visual and verbal information and found that the translations tend to be non-equivalent and use alternative structures. spoken discourse is explicitly related to physical communicative contexts while the accompanying visual information is still lexically implicit (p. 6). the studies reviewed above mostly focus on translation strategies for the verbal texts or the cultural level. although a considerable body of research has been done about translation strategies and effect for a better cross-cultural communication, little attention has been paid to the different kinds and functions of intersemiotic shifts in the subtitle translation affecting by the non-verbal elements. therefore, this study is designed to explore different kinds and functions of intersemiotic shifts in the subtitle translation via a multimodal analytical framework combining the non-verbal elements, such as gestures, body movements, tone. the study, by providing empirical evidence, aims to provide more intersemiotic translation of the journey to the west, and specially functions of non-verbal modes for the subtitle translation. findings of the study can add new insights into translation strategies in the subtitle translation. on the theoretical level, the research can promote the development of multimodal translation study and broaden the research scope of chinese traditional tv dramas. on the practical level, this study can shed some light on helping readers comprehensively understand tv dramas and providing applicable guidance for the construction of chinese traditional subtitle translation as well as other multimodal works. 3. a multimodal analytical framework the research is designed to investigate different kinds of intersemiotic shifts in the subtitle translation of journey to the west and functions of other non-verbal modes. specifically, the following three questions will be addressed. (1) what kinds of the intersemiotic shifts could be found in the subtitle translation of journey to the west? (2) what kinds of reasons cause these intersemiotic shifts to happen? (3) what functions are the non-verbal modes for the subtitle translation? the role of language is for the exchange of information (wang, 2021, p. 43). non-verbal modes bear part of the responsibility in the subtitle translation. in order to clarify and find out what kinds of intersemiotic shifts happening in the subtitle translation of journey to the west, both verbal modes and non-verbal modes should be considered, and theories from multimodal discourse and translation will be adopted. an intersemiotic shifts model proposed to study the costume drama zhenhuan zhuan will be accepted and modified (qian & feng, p. 20). in qian and feng’s model, five kinds of intersemiotic shifts have been identified. however, these five kinds of intersemiotic shifts do not contain all the intersemiotic shifts occurring in the journey to the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 171 published by scholink inc. west. and according to the data collected and clarified, a modified model is proposed trying to contain all the intersemiotic shifts occurring in the subtitle translation of journey to the west. in the modified model (see table 1), six kinds of intersemiotic shifts have been identified. compared with the model proposed by qian and feng aimed at zhenhuan zhuan, there are three kinds of differences. firstly, typographic transformation and adding addressing terms are deleted because there are no such examples in the subtitle translation of journey to the west. instead of changing the typeface, font size or color, double quotation marks are used to show the referenced texts from the speeches from the characters. secondly, a new type named conversion is added, which means the act of changing the part speech of words or phrases from the st to tt. due to the cultural differences, especially the language usage, it is unavoidable to change expressing methods. however, thanks to the para-verbal modes, the meaning contained in the verbal texts of st can be fully understood by the tt audience. lastly, substitution is added, which refers to the replacement someone or something with another person or thing. owing to the images, it will not lead to misunderstanding. table 1. modified intersemiotic shifts model aimed at journey to the west intersemiotic shifts detailed information addition adding punctuation marks for the information contained in the para-verbal modes in st adding punctuation marks to distinguish referenced text from the speeches omission omitting cultural-loaded words for the information showed by the non-verbal modes in st omitting addressing terms for the information showed by the non-verbal modes in st omission+ addition omitting modal particles and adding punctuation marks in tt omitting modal particles and adding verbal modes to clarify the meaning omitting repetition in st and adding punctuation marks in tt compensation using verbal texts to explain the cultural connotations in tt occurring in the verbal or visual modes using image to compensate the translational cultural loss conversion changing the part of speech of words or phrases in tt substitution using someone or something to replace another person or thing in tt while using this model to analyze the data, the transcription of taylor will be applied (p. 191). the screenshot and the related background information like plot will be described. four columns will be listed in sequence. the first column will use numbers to count the images. the second column is the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 172 published by scholink inc. screenshot column. the next column is the detailed information of the image. the fourth column will be used to describe the para-verbal or non-verbal modes in the screenshot. besides these four columns, the concepts in multimodal discourse analysis will be considered (kress & van leeuwen, 2006, p. 79) to indicate the interpersonal meaning, such as the angle of the shot (high, low, eye-level), the gaze and short-, medium-, or longshot to show the social distance. there are twenty-five episodes of journey to the west, ten episodes will be chosen to be analyzed according to the different stages of getting the true scriptures. episode 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 mainly tell the story of sun wukong before meeting his master xuan zang. episode 6, 7, 10, 16 are the typical difficulties they met during the journey. and episode 25 is last episode for them becoming buddhas eventually. 4. findings and discussions 4.1 addition addition refers to add some signs in the tt, such as images, sounds, and dialogues (qian & feng, p. 23). in this study, it mainly refers to the adding of punctuation marks and addressing terms. on the one hand, there is almost no punctuation marks in the chinese subtitles, namely st. in tt, exclamation marks and question marks are often added to intensify the meaning expressed in the st. for example, in the episode 10, when black fox spirit sees tang priest, he says “大喜事大喜事” in chinese in a raising voice, while in tt it is translated as “surprise. surprise!” here the usage of exclamation marks shows his joyfulness for meeting him. instead of translating it as “big surprise, big surprise.”, using an exclamation mark, raising voice and facial expressions can help tt audience understand the monster eagerness of long life after eating tang priest. on the other hand, without typographic information, double quotation marks are used to show the referenced texts from the speeches from the characters. however, this kind of intersemiotic shift is rare, only occurring three times in these ten episodes. for instance, in the episode 16, when tang monk refused the marriage proposed by the majesty of womanland of western liang, pigsy recommends himself saying “我是长得丑了点 可常言说 ‘粗柳簸箕细柳斗 世上谁嫌男人丑啊’”. it is translated “i’m a little ugly, but as the saying goes, ‘thick willow twigs make dustpans there’s no man who’s really ugly in the world.’” in case 1 (see table 2), an example is analyzed in detail. in the image, the excellency tutor is congratulating to tang monk for the marriage proposed by the majesty of womanland of western liang. while saying these words, she is laughing and her voice is raising. she is walking to the seat, preparing to talk more about this good news. they are looking at each other, and the viewer is an onlooker to the plot. tang monk is looking at the excellency tutor, trying to figure out her message. in this case, the excellency tutor is leaning towards the tang monk, intensifying that is good news especially to him. here the exclamation mark is the most suitable way to intensify and convey the feeling of joy from the excellency tutor. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 173 published by scholink inc. table 2. transcription in the episode 16 image no. screenshot detailed information para-/non verbal signs image analysis 1 the excellency tutor is congratulating to tang monk. she is laughing when saying the words. they sit face to face, looking at each other rather than the viewer. 4.2 omission on the one hand, omitting the cultural-loaded words or phrases, which are hard to be dealt with and understood by the tt audience. paraphrasing them into tt or adding footnotes seem to be possible ways, but these methods need to occupy too much space and result in long sentences, which is improper for the time and space demands of avt (qian & feng, p. 26). interestingly, the image and non-verbal modes have solved this problem. for example, in the episode 1, with the noise, monkey has born and disturbed the majesty in the heaven. he makes two celestial being to find out the origin of the noise. two celestial beings says “遵旨” in chinese, which is simply translated as “yes.” in english subtitle. “遵旨” means “agree with the decree of the emperor”, which indicates the power relationship between both sides. it does not be specified only through the “yes.”, but in the image these two have bowed to the majesty. on the other hand, omitting the addressing term mostly occurs between the superordinate and the subordinate (p. 28). for example, in the episode 1, when two celestial beings says “臣在” in chinese, english translation is simply “here.”. in the accompanying image, two are kneeling down while saying the words. thus, the tt audience can clearly figure the relationship between two sides. in case 2 (see table 3), an example of omission is provided for further demonstration. in the image, the great white planet bends his body and says the origin of monkey to the majesty, trying to stop the majesty’s plan of conquering the monkey by force of arms. he comes to the middle of the image with other celestial beings as background. no one looks at viewer and the great white planet is placed within the scene in long shot, with some distance to the majesty. the majesty cannot be seen clearly in the image. “启奏” here is omitted and it means “an official gives an opinion or reports on a matter to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 174 published by scholink inc. the emperor”. although this cultural-loaded phrases is omitted, tt audience can know the power relationship from the bending position of the great white planet. table 3. transcription in the episode 2 image no. screenshot detailed information para-/non verbal signs image analysis 1 the great white planet bends his body and says something to the majesty. he sounds humble when saying the words. nobody looks at the viewer, which is a scene in long shot. 4.3 omission+addition in chinese, modal particles always occurring in the conversion, such as “啊” “吧” and “呀”. these are unique in chinese and can rarely find the equivalents in english (p. 29). these modal particles can be interpreted as expressing of emotions, softening the tone or voice, occupying the word round and reminding the listener of the following words (yang, 2018, p. 76). in the subtitle translation of journey to the west, two ways are adopted when the modal particles are omitted. one is to add the punctuation marks, which occurs more. in the episode 1, when ordinary people see the strange looking of monkey, they cry out “妖怪呀” in chinese subtitle, which is translated as “monster!” in english. with people’s facial expression and the action of escaping, here the exclamation mark intensify the fearful feeling of ordinary people. the other way is to add the verbal modes, such as adding adverb or changing the type of sentence. in the episode 5, when sun wukong was misunderstood by the tang monk, he complains “真是气煞俺也”, which is translated as “he really pissed me off”. here the modal particle “也” is omitted, which is also expressed through the adverb “really”. what’s more, the third type is omitting repetition in st and adding punctuation marks in tt. repetition is always regarded as a kind of rhetorical device of emphasizing a certain theme or emotions through using a word (s) or phrase (s) repeatedly (zhang, 2013, p. 76). sometimes, it is flexible to omit the repeating word (s) or phrase (s) and add punctuation marks to make up the meaning. in the episode 10, pigsy has deluded by the evil spirit to eat lunch. and sandy has tried to prevent him from being swind. pigsy says “去去 你 得得得得” in chinese subtitle, which is translated into “hush! you! stop.”. in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 175 published by scholink inc. this subtitle translation, not all the repeating words is translated, but the exclamation marks is used to strengthen the emotions. table 4. transcription in the episode 5 image no. screenshot detailed information para-/non verbal signs image analysis 1 2 the bodhisattva guanyin says something to the monkey imprisoned under the mountain. she sounds compassionate when saying the words. she shakes her head slightly. she looks down at the monkey. this is a scene in close shot. two protagonists are in the middle of the image. in case 3 (see table 4), an example of omitting the modal particle and adding verbal modes is analyzed. in the episode 4, when sun wukong is imprisoned under the five element mountain for 500 years, the bodhisattva guanyin of the southern sea shakes her head slightly and says “可怜啊 可怜” with pity in chinese, which is translated into “what a poor monkey!” in english. besides adding the exclamation mark, here the sentence type is also changed into emphatic sentence. in the picture, it is a close shot, which strengthens the interaction with the tt audience. and the bodhisattva guanyin stands at the peak of the mountain. therefore, the monkey needs to look up at her. in the image 2, the foot of the mountain is the major scene, but only the head of monkey appears outside through a small hole. the contrast not only shows the power distance, but also indicates the poor situation of the monkey. accompanying the action in the image and her compassionate tone, this scene expresses the compassion of the bodhisattva guanyin. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 176 published by scholink inc. 4.4 compensation based on the above analysis, the meaning of the compensation should be twofold (qian & feng, p. 32). on the one hand, using verbal modes to explain st briefly is considered as a kind of compensation. in the episode 25, mahakasyapa and ananda asks for “我们要点人事” before giving the four scriptures. in english, it is translated as “we need some presents”. “人事”, a special term in chinese, is related to the relationships among people, so it can be referred to presents. here the english translation “presents” is based on the verbal modes to explain it. on the other hand, the accompanying information will make up the the meaning of the translational cultural loss, such as image and non-verbal modes. for instance, in the episode 1, when several celestial beings answers his majesty about the origin of the noise. in case 4 (see table 5), they say “臣 等不知” in chinese, which is translated as “we don’t know.” in the english subtitle. “臣” is the subordinate in the ancient chinese hierarchical system, opposite to the emperor. and it includes the power relationship. in the image, when these celestial beings are saying these words, they have bowed to his majesty and sound humble. this is a scene in long shot, with his majesty standing in the middle and higher than others, flanked by two rows of celestial beings and two fairy servants. viewer, as an onlooker to this scene, can see the entire figure in relation to the surroundings. thus, viewer can easily know the relationships between them although it is only translated as “we” in english. table 5. transcription in the episode 1 image no. screenshot detailed information para-/non verbal signs image analysis 1 several celestial beings bend their bodies and says something to his majesty. they sound humble when saying the words. nobody looks at the viewer, which is a scene in long shot. 4.5 conversion due to the different usage of chinese and english, there are translation examples about changing the part of speech of words or phrases from st to tt. the part of speech itself is often an obstacle, so translation should not merely focus on the part of speech of the original text (ye, 2007, p. 52). for example, in the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 177 published by scholink inc. episode 16, the majesty of womanland of western liang falls in love with tang monk and wishes to marry him. tang monk refuses her. in his refusal, he says “陛下 贫僧许身佛门 正是为了解救芸芸众 生 使世上不再有杀伐战争 使人间不再有怨女旷夫” in chinese subtitle, which is translated into “... stop the wars and conflicts and prevent men and women from being lonely in the world.” in english. in chinese, “怨女旷夫” is a noun phrase, referring to an adult man or woman without a spouse. in english, a verb phrase “prevent... from” is used to change it into adjective “lonely”. thus, changing the part of speech is a vital translation technique. moreover, in the subtitle translation, the image and non-verbal can supplement the meaning. in case 5 (see table 6), there is an example of conversion. sun wukong wants to protect tang monk from being attacked by the evil spirits when he finds food for them. he besieges them in a circle. however, pigsy complains “这猴子可真会捣鬼 画个 圈叫我们钻”, which is translated as “what a naughty monkey! he besieges us in a circle.” in english subtitle. in the image, it is a scene in short shot, and pigsy is in the central of the image. the point of view is horizontal and frontal angle. he is laughing when he says the words. “捣鬼” means use subterfuge and intrigue, which tends to be a pejorative term. but in this scene, it tends to be neutral. pigsy laughs at this action and believes it is unnecessary. “捣鬼” is a verbal phrase in chinese, but here the “naught” is a noun, a neutral word. table 6. transcription in the episode 10 image no. screenshot detailed information para-/non verbal signs image analysis 1 pigsy complains about sun wukong’s action. he laughs when he is saying the words. the point of view is horizontal and frontal angle. 4.6 substitution there are the least translational examples involving the substitution in the study. substitution means to use someone or something to replace another person or thing in tt. substitution is an effective means to improve textual cohesion and coherence and is often used to achieve the natural fluency of the translation (wang et al., 2019, p. 161). a detailed analysis is offered in case 6 (see table 7). in the episode 16, “脂粉裙钗” in chinese are all the things used by the women. so it is translated as “all of them are women.” in english. sun www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 178 published by scholink inc. wukong’s gesture has indicated the place here is womanland, and there are only women. thus, it can be translated briefly without translating the thing one by one. table 7. transcription in the episode 16 image no. screenshot detailed information para-/non verbal signs image analysis 1 sun wukong is talking about why he could not kill the women in the womanland like killing the evil spirits. pigsy laughs. sun wukong points out his hands to indicate the place. sandy looks at the viewer. pigsy looks at sun wukong. 5. conclusion this study has six kinds of intersemiotic shifts during the subtitle translation in the journey to the west. data sources include all the subtitle translation in ten episodes chosen from this tv drama. the data acquired have been analyzed through an in-depth qualitative analysis of typical translation examples via a multimodal framework, findings supplement that image and para-/non-verbal modes are significant for making up the meaning in the verbal modes. there exist some limitations of the study. first, this study has relied a lot on the multimodal semiotic resources. this way of analysis is quite subjective and static. second, this study has focused on the subtitle translation without making mention of audience’s reception. finally, more para-/non-verbal modes can be further analyzed, such as the speed of speaking. perhaps future study can explore more on these perspectives. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 179 published by scholink inc. references baumgarten, n. 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(2013). the rhetorical art of advertising language in water margin. youth journalist, 15, 75-76. http://ss-zhizhen-com-s.webvpn.xisu.edu.cn:8118/nav/mag/info?mags=3652a1337e161a9fb5be65c4fa69cbdf https://doi.org/10.2989/16073614.2021.1909486 https://doi.org/10.1080/02560046.2020.1753796 https://doi.org/10.1080/02560046.2021.1985154 frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no.2, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 159 original paper problem-oriented method selection: approaches to dealing with ideological problems among college students xiaojun su1 1 sichuan minzu college, kangding, sichuan, china received: may 9, 2023 accepted: june 1, 2023 online published: june 14, 2023 doi:10.22158/fet.v6n2p159 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v6n2p159 abstract as ideological and political education workers in universities, we have the historical mission of cultivating college students’ socialist ideology and moral character with chinese characteristics, shaping college students’ ideal personality with chinese characteristics in the new era, and guiding them to practice socialist behavior in the new era. this requires ideological and political education workers in universities to have ideals, a correct view of life, and patience. we need to do our work carefully and solidly, and ensure that our daily work is in place. we should also be good at collaborating with ideological and political workers from all walks of life and working together. universities should strictly enforce discipline, use necessary disciplinary measures in college students’ ideological and political education work (the bottom line of discipline), and cultivate college students’ compliance with laws and regulations. we can improve the education skills of ideological and political education workers through training in ideological and political work skills, etc. keywords problem-oriented, method selection, approaches, ideological problems, college students socialism with chinese characteristics has entered a new era, which is a time of youthful passion, a time for young people to shine, and a time for young people to pursue their dreams. the ideological and political education of college students in this new era bears the historic mission of cultivating the ideological and moral qualities of college students with chinese characteristics, shaping their ideal personalities, and guiding their behavior and practices in accordance with the principles of socialism with chinese characteristics. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 160 published by scholink inc. 1. the origin of the problem in recent years, research on ideological and political education for college students has mainly focused on analyzing the ideological and political education of chinese college students from theoretical and practical perspectives, based on the research results of previous studies on the mechanism of ideological and political education. therefore, in terms of research methods, systematic research, literature reading and data analysis, comparative research, in-depth understanding, and embedded research methods are mainly used. this study mainly adopts the case study method, collects cases from counselors, party and league secretaries, yiban workstation personnel, and other relevant ideological and political education workers for college students, and conducts in-depth analysis of the cases to obtain a regular understanding of solving the ideological and political work of college students in the new era. people often say that “a good start is half the battle”. indeed, college is a very important turning point in life. when high school students become college students, they face different environments and psychological pressures. college students often experience psychological conditions such as laziness, slackness, and rebellion. how to make reasonable use of college time is crucial for every college student. therefore, when facing the ideological problems of college students, general methods can be adopted, including emergency handling, peripheral research, listening, targeted guidance, and persuasion.2. general problem handling methods. 2. general approach to dealing with common issues 2.1 emergency handling when the ideological problems of college students may directly endanger the life and property safety of themselves and others, or may trigger public opinion reactions that may cause unpredictable consequences, emergency handling will be triggered. the countermeasures for each ideological problem will be different, but there are some common principles and requirements, including timely intervention, decisive prevention, suspension of external influences, and removal of deteriorating consequences. in the ideological and political work of college students, the psychological problems of college students are becoming increasingly prominent. in order to prevent and respond to emergencies caused by college students’ psychological crises, counselors should establish an emergency mechanism for college students’ anxiety psychology and strengthen humanistic care. counselors can handle problems related to emotional relationships between male and female students in a timely manner, understand the relevant situations, and considerate and effective methods in dealing with problematic students. their sense of responsibility and love for students is commendable. at the same time, this also tells us that as a college counselor, through new student orientation education, special class meetings, dormitory discussions, individual conversations, etc., we should educate and guide today’s college students to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 161 published by scholink inc. establish a healthy view of friendship, marriage and love, and pay attention to the mental health of college students. due to the fact that college students are in the stage of establishing correct values, when facing various problems, it is inevitable to have a “narrow-minded” feeling. the timely handling of this incident by counselors has avoided serious consequences. this also tells us that when dealing with online public opinion, we should fully play the role of class, group, and student cadres, discover online public opinion and report it to the functional departments in a timely manner. the functional departments should contact the secondary colleges in time and communicate with the students and their parents, while verifying the source of public opinion to reduce negative impact. 2.2 peripheral research when faced with some imminent problems, counselors use the method of peripheral research to prevent the occurrence of problems. for example, when counselors learn about the existence of “campus loans” among students, they immediately report to the college, communicate with students in a timely manner, and conduct peripheral research to discover similar situations and prevent another campus loan incident. peripheral research must carefully avoid the minefield that may hurt the students’ self-esteem and the criticism of interested parties. without this, it is impossible to understand the real situation, which is exactly where the ideological and political work requires “skills”. many cases provide useful explorations. 2.3 listening the essence of listening is to listen, and the difficulty lies in making the object speak and guiding them to say what you want to hear. the purpose is to understand the situation through listening, form measures to solve the problem, achieve emotional communication, resolve conflicts, and solve problems. listening does not mean not speaking, but it must start with letting the other person speak and stop when they stop. being good at listening is one of the professional qualities of counselors. in the process of listening, they can discover clues and clarify their thoughts. at the same time, counselors should avoid the phenomenon of "one-way communication" and grasp the priorities and distinguish the important and unimportant matters so that they can better solve the problems faced by students. 2.4 targeted guidance and persuasion when facing the need to solve problems, counselors can adopt targeted guidance and persuasion strategies. in the process of chatting, they can timely grasp the person’s thoughts and understanding of the situation, understand their daily needs, and further strengthen communication. 2.5 special arrangements in work when facing special arrangements for dealing with problems, teachers should carefully analyze the problem students, mainly due to family education issues and student development problems. therefore, teachers should contact the students’ parents and do a good job in communicating with them. teachers should not give up on “problem students” and should stick to their persistence. while caring for their emotions, they should also strengthen disciplinary education and “give the student a disciplinary www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 162 published by scholink inc. punishment” to let them understand the importance of rules. this undoubtedly plays an important role in the students’ future development in society. at the same time, teachers should carefully grasp the characteristics of student work under the new situation of the internet+, make full use of modern media to do a good job in student ideological work, and use warmth to provide psychological guidance. in this case, “the parents and students expressed their gratitude to me, and the father even offered me a large sum of money as a reward, which i firmly refused.” this fully reflects the importance of professional ethics in student education work and demonstrates the moral style of “being a model of virtue” for college teachers in the new era. 2.6 response and aftermath of work feedback with the hard work of every counselor, all the problem students left the school with gratitude. some of them became teachers, some became civil servants, and so on. their growth cannot be separated from the care, concern, and help of the counselors. at the same time, we should also see that the work of counselors is not just about telling students what to do and which path to take, but also teaching them how to analyze the pros and cons, how to establish a correct worldview, life view, and values, how to distinguish between truth and falsehood, and how to guide them to establish firm ideals and beliefs, and live the life they want. 3. dealing with typical issues 3.1 dormitory issues after entering college, students in the dormitory have great differences in their ideology, values, lifestyle, and habits, which can easily lead to dormitory problems when faced with practical issues. dormitory problems fundamentally relate to how members of the dormitory community get along with each other and are essentially a question of how to be a good person. it is normal for individuals with different growth experiences, habits, and value orientations to have differences of opinion when living in a shared space, and the dormitory has become the main field where students’ interpersonal relationships are tense and conflicts arise. how to manage differences and prevent them from becoming conflicts? this requires the construction of dormitory community culture as well as the self-growth of community members. one important reason for poor relationships among dormitory classmates is the lack of communication and exchange among members. students do not like to express their emotions, do not know how to put themselves in others’ shoes, and have a strong sense of self-awareness. because of differences in interests, hobbies, behavior habits, and economic conditions among classmates, it is natural for students in the dormitory to form groups with those who have similar situations. this can easily lead to the formation of small circles and make relationships between dormitory classmates awkward. in dormitory life, bad habits can easily cause conflicts among dormitory members. these habits include: not paying attention to personal hygiene, throwing rubbish and items around, and being prone to taking petty advantages. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 163 published by scholink inc. for students, in addition to learning and living skills, they must also learn to be tolerant, patient, and helpful to others in school. especially for those who are not good at socializing, have introverted personalities, and are not good at fitting in with others in the dormitory, they need to learn to respect and tolerate each other in order to create a good dormitory environment and promote learning and healthy growth. for teachers, firstly, students should establish a dormitory covenant to manage and regulate dormitory members. secondly, some collective activities should be organized for the dormitory as a unit to strengthen dormitory cohesion in the class. finally, regular visits to the dormitory should be conducted to communicate with students and strengthen emotional connections with them. 3.2 emotional issues currently, emotional issues among college students are becoming more common and prominent on campus. if college students who are deeply involved in emotional problems do not handle them properly, negative effects may arise, even leading to serious consequences. during this period, if emotional distress cannot be handled properly, it may trigger other psychological problems such as anxiety, tension, and compulsions, which, if accumulated without timely relief, will further cause personality obstacles or defects. at the same time, if psychological problems are not solved for a long time, they can also cause physical problems. for example, long-term anxiety and depression can lead to neurasthenia, insomnia, and even physiological changes, forcing students to drop out of school halfway. such phenomena are not uncommon on college campuses. for teachers, the first step is to create a space and environment for students to establish interpersonal relationships. this allows students to build emotional bonds between classmates and between students and teachers, thus avoiding emotional loneliness. by offering elective courses or holding lectures on psychological counseling, students can be taught interpersonal communication skills from a psychological perspective, enabling them to build their own network of good interpersonal relationships. secondly, by monitoring attendance and academic performance in class, teachers can reflect on the students’ mental state, observe changes in their thinking, and identify the reasons for these changes. if emotional problems are found to be the cause of these changes, timely help and guidance should be provided. finally, teachers should provide positive guidance for college students in love, encourage them to help each other in their studies, and achieve academic and romantic success together. in daily class meetings, students should be taught to establish a correct view of love, so that they can take responsibility in their relationships. 3.3 family issues the family is the main source of social capital for college students. the family’s economic status, parents’ education level, and educational background may all have a significant impact on students’ academic performance and interpersonal communication. students from remote rural areas in universities may strongly feel the differences in economic status, personal abilities, and vision. at the same time, the pressure of family finances can cause significant psychological burdens, leading to sensitivity, inferiority, and other psychological problems. single-parent families or disharmonious www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 164 published by scholink inc. family atmospheres can easily lead to negative, inferior, and isolated personalities, making them very sensitive to interpersonal relationships, unwilling to open up, and creating obstacles for their families, studies, and interpersonal relationships. for teachers, the first step is to establish a basic file for impoverished students, increase their care and assistance, make them feel the warmth from the collective, school, and society, and increase their opportunities for part-time work to help them become self-reliant and accept, improve themselves, overcome their inferiority, and move toward self-improvement. secondly, for students with disharmonious family relationships or low levels of psychological health caused by family upbringing, basic files should be established to grasp their basic situation, strengthen communication with their families, and help them accept themselves, cultivate positive and optimistic personalities. 3.4 psychological issues in the current stage of college students’ growth, there are many problems in adapting to the environment, interpersonal communication, academic growth, making friends and romantic relationships, and job selection. although college students’ physiological age tends to be mature, their psychological age is relatively young, and they have relatively little experience, making them very susceptible to various factors. in addition, society and families have high expectations for college students, and the pressure they face in the development process is relatively high, making them very susceptible to emotional instability and weak resilience to setbacks. under the heavy pressure of academic work and the confusion about the future and prospects, this sense of psychological defeat and depression will continue to increase. under the influence of negative emotions, students’ emotions of doubt, anxiety, loneliness, pessimism, and depression will continue to increase, causing very adverse effects on students, leading to psychological disorders or mental illnesses, and even self-harm, suicide, and harm to others. for teachers, the first thing is to enable students to understand and master the basic knowledge of psychology, to have a clear understanding and mastery of their own psychological characteristics and individual variation patterns, to learn how to adjust their mentality and methods of psychological health care, and to learn to control their personal emotions. this will help contemporary college students to understand themselves correctly, enhance their psychological adjustment ability, and correctly deal with setbacks and contradictions in life and learning, comprehensively improving their individual psychological quality and mental health level. secondly, it is important to attach importance to psychological counseling and guidance, and improve the self-quality and level of the personnel engaged in psychological counseling and guidance. when necessary, provide students with psychological counseling to effectively safeguard their mental health. finally, establish a psychological committee in the class, timely pay attention to the trends of students in the major, understand and master the students’ psychological health status and trends. special attention should be paid to several types of students, such as those with economic difficulties, poor learning ability, and introverted personalities, and any abnormalities should be reported immediately. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 165 published by scholink inc. 3.5 learning issues learning in college is different from before. college students have more choices and autonomy. many college students are uncertain about their future, have no clear expression of their life goals, and do not know why they are studying, resulting in unclear learning goals and lack of passion in learning. they also lack clear planning for the future and have weak learning planning skills, as well as a lack of relevant guidance. due to the influence of the “indoctrination-style” learning in high school, teachers as the dominant knowledge conveyors, and students become passive learners, relying heavily on teachers to solve problems. changes in the environment make it difficult for them to adapt to independent learning methods after entering college. in addition, due to the weak self-control ability of college students, they are easily influenced by external factors. for teachers, the first thing is to let students establish the concept of lifelong learning, improve their awareness of independent learning, overcome various difficulties, enhance self-control, and actively learn scientific and cultural knowledge. they should help students set life goals, formulate long-term and short-term plans, and persistently execute them, which can help them exercise their willpower. secondly, teachers should strengthen interaction with students, understand their confusion in life and learning, teach them learning methods, and provide guidance on career and life planning. finally, teachers should strive to create conditions to give students more opportunities to showcase themselves, stimulate their interest in learning, improve their learning initiatives, and continuously enhance their confidence, imagination, and creativity. 4. conclusion as ideological and political education workers in universities, we have the historical mission of cultivating college students’ socialist ideology and moral character with chinese characteristics, shaping college students’ ideal personality with chinese characteristics in the new era, and guiding them to practice socialist behavior in the new era. this requires ideological and political education workers in universities to have ideals, a correct view of life, and patience. we need to do our work carefully and solidly, and ensure that our daily work is in place. we should also be good at collaborating with ideological and political workers from all walks of life and working together. universities should strictly enforce discipline, use necessary disciplinary measures in college students’ ideological and political education work (the bottom line of discipline), and cultivate college students’ compliance with laws and regulations. we can improve the education skills of ideological and political education workers through training in ideological and political work skills, etc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 166 published by scholink inc. references shi, h. y. 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https://kns.cnki.net/kcms2/article/abstract?v=rtzjjxmhiavdh7epfdl7smusgyccgwyjtv9h_atlrbsvaurudxx5xzrnynnjviav594b5csqfwgzxnhbl3okv5lysxbkthrabbbsmn_keez2wo84fo1gylu2h_99rvdhcsthluyuwm3vi49vkxfcma==&uniplatform=nzkpt https://kns.cnki.net/kcms2/article/abstract?v=rtzjjxmhiaud4lnoffyz0sqerls9my_gwtvaw8blhzrcmbb5zsx3xtaarotxql7eeewwt_lj8ztplragc9ekta5pq_3_zxv9ethxgwoz-0byt-cexr5uwsu2fdtnib2ly5hery4c8syw7q63qkvatg==&uniplatform=nzkpt https://kns.cnki.net/kcms2/article/abstract?v=rtzjjxmhiaud4lnoffyz0sqerls9my_gwtvaw8blhzrcmbb5zsx3xtaarotxql7eeewwt_lj8ztplragc9ekta5pq_3_zxv9ethxgwoz-0byt-cexr5uwsu2fdtnib2ly5hery4c8syw7q63qkvatg==&uniplatform=nzkpt frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no.4, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 81 original paper research on demonstration curriculum-based political and virtuous awareness construction of introduction of international chinese language education course zipeng zhou1* & yunhai liu2 1 qingdao institute of technology, qingdao, china 2 nanfang college·guangzhou, guangzhou, china * zhou zipeng, e-mail: zhouzipeng@qit.edu.cn received: october 10, 2023 accepted: november 2, 2023 online published: november 21, 2023 doi:10.22158/fet.v6n4p81 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v6n4p81 abstract the course introduction to international chinese language education occupies a central position in the undergraduate curriculum in the major of chinese international education, significantly influencing the cultivation of talent in this domain. this research paper systematically examines the present condition of course delivery, discerns the multifaceted factors that contribute to suboptimal teaching outcomes, and utilizes a case study approach, focusing on our university’s exemplary ideological and political education course. the case study provides a comprehensive overview of the course’s role in promoting ideological and political education. it elucidates the strategies and initiatives implemented in the context of ideological and political education development. drawing on the empirical results derived from curriculum reforms, this study synthesizes a coherent model and a well-defined pathway for curriculum enhancement (365 model). keywords introduction of international chinese language education course, curriculum-based political and virtuous awareness, 365 model 1. introduction while ideological and political education in higher education has been continually reinforced, the majority of university educators remain specialized in their respective academic fields, and the curriculum continues to be predominantly focused on specialized courses. students still allocate the majority of their study time to major-specific coursework, with 80% of students acknowledging that www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 82 published by scholink inc. specialized courses and their corresponding instructors have had the most profound impact on their personal growth. as a result, specialized course instructors constitute the mainstay in higher education, and specialized course instruction remains the primary arena for education in higher institutions, serving as the main channel for knowledge dissemination. the release of the professional competence standards for international chinese teachers (pcsoict) in 2022 aligns with the new trends and demands in international chinese education in the modern era, introducing novel concepts and offering a fresh framework for the development of international chinese education. in light of this backdrop, the crucial task becomes the implementation of the fundamental mission of cultivating virtue and talent and the unwavering pursuit of the ultimate goal of nurturing individuals for the party and the nation. this encompasses achieving lifelong and comprehensive education, the cultivation of well-rounded, capable applied talents, and the promotion of high-quality development in international chinese education. these objectives constitute a pressing challenge for the professional course instructors in the field of international chinese education. the research takes course introduction to international chinese language education (iicle) as a case study, analyzing the current state of ideological and political education within this specialized course. it outlines the development pathway, implementation processes, and outcomes of a model curriculum on ideological and political education at an applied university. the aim is to use this specific course as an example to explore the pathways for talent cultivation and curriculum ideological and political education in the context of international chinese education in the new era and establish a demonstrative effect. 2. current status of curriculum instruction iicle is a core mandatory course for students majoring in teaching chinese as a secone language (tcsl), and it also serves as a distinctive compulsory course for majors such as chinese language and literature and chinese linguistics. this course encompasses various disciplines, including linguistics, cultural studies, education, psychology, and more. it systematically introduces the essential knowledge of teaching chinese as a second language and the theory of the chinese language. it is a comprehensive, practical, and specialized course. through systematic theoretical lectures, case analyses, and practical teaching exercises, it provides students with the necessary skills in various aspects related to international chinese education, such as curriculum design, textbook development and utilization, classroom instruction and management, language testing, and assessment. the course is offered in the third year of the undergraduate program when students have already acquired foundational knowledge in the field of international chinese education and are beginning to contemplate their future career paths and professional development. therefore, in the teaching process, it is essential to guide students in applying their prior foundational knowledge while also enhancing their individual professional competence and competitiveness. this course aims to cultivate students with an international perspective, a strong ideological awareness, and elevated personal moral standards, helping them www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 83 published by scholink inc. establish the right values and life outlook. the goal is to nurture high-quality, innovative, and application-oriented talents, guiding students in career planning. however, due to the course’s strong theoretical nature, extensive content, and the abstract nature of some concepts, teaching often remains confined to the knowledge level, with insufficient attention to skill and value development. this limitation results in lower quality in the cultivation of professional talents. the main challenges can be summarized in the following aspects. 2.1 inadequacies in ideological and political education in curriculum delivery traditional teaching methods predominantly rely on lectures, with the curriculum’s core content primarily grounded in theoretical knowledge from linguistics, education, and psychology. this content is extensive, fragmented, and largely disjointed, resulting in challenges related to the effective infusion of ideological and political elements into the classroom. firstly, the abstract nature of linguistic theories presents difficulties in identifying relevant ideological and political elements. as a consequence, some instructors abandon the exploration and integration of these elements, resulting in a lack of appropriate integration of ideological and political components within the curriculum. secondly, some educators may unwisely adopt ideological and political elements from other courses, leading to inappropriate integration. this lack of alignment with the course content often results in awkward teaching arrangements and, in some cases, straying off-topic. thirdly, the course is designed to encompass both theoretical and practical components. however, some instructors introduce ideological and political content primarily during the theoretical segments and often neglect to provide guidance on the emotional and values-based aspects of students during practical sessions. given the inappropriate integration of ideological and political elements within the curriculum, there is a compelling need for an in-depth exploration of these elements. this exploration should be coupled with the optimization of integration methods to enhance the effectiveness of ideological and political education. 2.2 shortcomings in ideological and political education assessment in the curriculum the traditional assessment methods primarily rely on end-of-term closed-book examinations, consisting of question types such as multiple-choice, fill-in-the-blank, short answer, essay writing, lesson planning, and case analysis. these assessments are oriented towards grade evaluation and are meticulously designed and conducted following the teaching syllabus. they mainly focus on gauging the grasp of fundamental knowledge. however, they barely involve elements of ideological and political education within the curriculum, resulting in the confinement of ideological and political education to the classroom setting. this approach lacks the capacity to assess the effectiveness of ideological and political education, making it challenging to gather data that can support the enhancement of ideological and political elements and improvements in teaching methodologies. furthermore, this approach fails to capture students’ attention and lacks the capacity to ensure that ideological and political education deeply resonates with them. the absence of an adequate ideological and political assessment necessitates a reevaluation of the assessment methods. this should include the incorporation of dedicated ideological and political assessment components that comprehensively www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 84 published by scholink inc. evaluate students’ learning outcomes. such modifications align with the objectives of talent development in applied undergraduate programs. 3. the overall concept of curriculum reform and development 3.1 direction and emphasis the primary objective of this curriculum is to cultivate students with a fundamental understanding of the theory and teaching skills required for international chinese language education, thereby paving the way for their career choices, employment, and further academic pursuits, such as postgraduate studies. in line with the quality requirements of international chinese language educators, the design of teaching cases should emphasize the new development concepts of international chinese language education, which prioritize ethical conduct, basic competence, learner-center, cross-cultural proficiency, collaboration, and lifelong learning. the target audience for international chinese language education includes language learners for whom chinese is a second language. the curriculum covers chinese language, chinese culture, and contemporary developments in china. in the design of ideological and political education in the curriculum, special attention should be paid to fostering students’ understanding of contemporary china, instilling cultural confidence, enhancing patriotism, nurturing the ideal belief in telling the chinese story well and disseminating the voice of china, and strengthening their professional identity, sense of responsibility, and mission. 3.2 approach and objectives 3.2.1 restructuring the teaching team establish a diverse teaching team comprising frontline subject instructors, ideological and political educators, and industry experts. frontline subject instructors grasp the foundational course content and direction, integrating knowledge objectives, skill objectives, and emotional objectives, and initiate the preliminary design of the integration of ideological and political education into the curriculum. ideological and political educators, guided by the curriculum objectives, provide instruction in the integration of ideological and political elements, ensuring their scientific, contemporary, and influential aspects, and address the methods of integration, teaching approaches, and assessment methods. instructors with industry experience incorporate real cases from international chinese language education to enhance students’ professional competence. invite experienced expert instructors and quality assurance experts to provide guidance at various stages of classroom instruction to enhance the teaching quality. 3.2.2 restructuring the teaching content the foundation of ideological and political education in the curriculum lies in the curriculum itself. based on the objectives of professional talent development and the curriculum standards, on the basis of the overall curriculum design, and considering the knowledge and skills points along with the six fundamental concepts determined by the competency model for international chinese language www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 85 published by scholink inc. educators outlined in pcsoict condense them into five professional modules: professional philosophy, professional knowledge, professional skills, professional practice, and professional development, and integrate these into the central theme of ideological and political education. combine this with the in-depth exploration and selection of ideological and political elements according to 16 professional objectives, identifying integration points, collecting ideological and political cases, and forming the curriculum’s ideological and political education design. gradually infuse the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and ideological and political elements that international chinese language educators should possess into the teaching, in a layered and phased manner, and continually update and refine the case library. furthermore, the teaching model will be restructured, primarily concerning the course delivery process, which will be discussed in detail in the following section. 4. the implementation process of course instruction this course adopts the “365 model” implementing a blended teaching approach based on both online and offline modalities, integrating professional knowledge, skill enhancement, and ideological and political education. 4.1 3 stages 4.1.1 pre-class stage building upon the existing spoc preparatory materials, team discussions are conducted to select multiple ideological and political education cases from a case library. the optimal cases are determined through collaboration with the teaching team and added to online resources, forming preparatory tasks. these tasks guide students to combine pre-class preparation with activities such as voting and thematic discussions, encouraging them to explore cases infused with ideological and political education. to ensure the continuity of ideological and political education, the selection of pre-class elements should align with in-class and post-class ideological and political elements. 4.1.2 in-class stage the evaluation of student preparation is integrated into the introduction of new lessons. positive ideological and political education cases are introduced during lesson explanations, transforming traditional knowledge-oriented teaching cases into knowledge and ideological and political education cases. this integration ensures the subtle infusion of ideological and political elements into the classroom environment. new ideological and political education cases should be related to pre-class preparation cases, rekindling student reflections through in-class teaching and reinforcing the guiding effect. 4.1.3 post-class stage constantly aligning with current events, leveraging online teaching platforms, and promptly disseminating assignments and cases infused with ideological and political education into the course, students engage in independent exploration for consolidation and expansion. additionally, new lesson preparatory task lists, incorporating elements of ideological and political education, are released. case www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 86 published by scholink inc. selections are relevant to daily life, achieving a silent yet profound impact. through the cyclical repetition of the three major teaching stages, the ideological and political education objectives persistently and continuously influence students. 4.2 six fundamental principles the course adheres to pcsoict as the normative document, explicitly outlining the teaching, technical capabilities, and professional knowledge system that chinese teachers should possess. serving as the main thread of ideological and political education, the course is purposefully designed. the six fundamental principles address attitudes, knowledge, skills, and professional development, setting clear requirements for teachers’ instructional and learning objectives. it aims to establish a strong sense of the chinese national community in terms of ideology, nurture students’ patriotic sentiments, and contribute to the overseas dissemination of the chinese language through linguistic and teaching skills. through course learning, it further reinforces students’ disciplinary literacy for practical application, cultivates scientific literacy characterized by rigor and attention to detail, and fosters students’ research capabilities in problem identification, analysis, and resolution. this ensures the scientific and effective nature of educational activities while serving as a professional integration point for ideological and political education in the curriculum. this approach avoids blind ideological education, prevents ideological teaching from becoming formalistic, comprehensively enhances the effectiveness of nurturing, and facilitates convenient implementation for teachers and easy comprehension for students. 4.3 five major professional modules this section outlines the incorporation of moral education elements in each course, serving as the foundational understanding for advancing ideological and political education within the curriculum. drawing on various textbook editions and the pcsoict five primary indicators are utilized to restructure teaching content into five professional modules and sixteen professional skills. collaborative lesson planning among front line teachers is guided by sixteen secondary indicators as points for exploring ideological and political elements. carefully selected ideological and political education case studies are discussed with ideological and political education teachers, modified, finalized, and implemented before, during, and after classes. the main sources for these case studies are important educational discourses, combined with local elements such as the school motto and educational philosophy. each module selects corresponding ideological and political education elements. 4.3.1 module one: professional philosophy selects exemplary deeds related to professional ethics, model stories of educating and teaching, national language education policies, education-related laws and regulations, and outstanding chinese teacher experiences. aims to establish ideal beliefs and adhere to professional ethics. 4.3.2 module two: professional knowledge incorporates cutting-edge knowledge from foundational disciplines such as education, linguistics, psychology, and cultural studies. emphasizes chinese traditional culture, history, art, literature, etc., www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 87 published by scholink inc. guiding students to analyze social and cultural phenomena, appreciate the profoundness of chinese culture, and foster cultural confidence, tolerance, innovation, and a global perspective. 4.3.3 module three: professional skills utilizes diplomatic and cross-cultural communication case studies, guiding students to understand different regional ways of thinking, values, and effective solutions to cross-cultural communication challenges. selects the latest applications of advanced educational technology in international chinese education to cultivate students’ basic information ethics, including knowledge of protecting intellectual property, respecting others information, and prioritizing information security. 4.3.4 module four: professional practice selects high-quality demonstration cases in chinese teaching to enhance teaching abilities. incorporates advanced educational philosophies from ancient and modern times, such as “teaching without discrimination” and “tailoring education to individual needs,” to further establish professional ethics in teaching practices and focus on student development, aiming to be an exemplary teacher. 4.3.5 module five: professional development integrates innovation and entrepreneurship education to cultivate students’ self-development awareness, guiding them to establish a lifelong learning philosophy. encourages active participation in academic lectures and conferences, deepening their understanding of the profession and promoting continuous professional development for the benefit of humanity. 5. effectiveness of demonstration course construction 5.1 high evaluation of students over the past two years, the average scores for team teachers in student evaluations were 99.53 and 99.6, ranking first in the entire department. post-course surveys reveal that students believe the course effectively prepares them for the teaching interview component of the teacher qualification exam. it significantly aids in the selection process for chinese teachers at the language center, offering students a new understanding of the teaching profession. students consciously contemplate how to become qualified teachers and plan for future educational activities. the course has led to a reevaluation of chinese culture, dispelling initial uncertainties about the profession, and clarifying future career plans. students now perceive limitless prospects in their field. during internships, they successfully apply acquired knowledge to their work, resulting in substantial gains. additionally, the course has ignited students’ patriotism, professional responsibility, and a sense of mission. they actively emulate role models of the era and teaching, maintaining a corrected perspective on the world’s development patterns. students engage in independent research on chinese language and teaching, demonstrating good professional ethics in simulated teaching. they emphasize cooperative learning and achieve high-quality completion of practical teaching tasks. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 88 published by scholink inc. 5.2 wide impact of the demonstration the establishment of the ideological and political resources library for language teaching courses has been completed, continuously updated, and refined. efforts have been made to skillfully integrate ideological and political elements with theoretically strong linguistic content. the course’s design, lesson plans, and material library serve as templates for other courses in the same department. due to the abundance of ideological and political material, not all of it can be incorporated into this course. therefore, the material is utilized in other courses, extending the influence of comprehensive education from individual courses to the entire professional, academic, and institutional levels. 6. conclusion taking the opportunity of ideological and political education course construction, this course, guided by industry standards, explores and integrates ideological and political elements, continuously optimizing the construction path through blended teaching. teachers enhance their sensitivity to ideological and political issues and teaching capabilities, motivating students, playing a primary role in professional course teaching, radiating through course clusters, building a resource library, and creating a demonstration effect. references danrong, m. (2023). a study on strategies for improving the professional quality of public english teachers under the background of curriculum ideology and politics. frontiers in educational research, 6(21). https://doi.org/10.25236/fer.2023.062117 johnsona, s. et al. (2016). shanghai co-construction and sharing platform of moral education curriculum resources in schools and universities. journal of residuals science technology, 13(7). li, x. (2023). reform of higher education curriculum in the new era. the educational review, 7(7). https://doi.org/10.26855/er.2023.07.017 wang, m. (2023). research on the construction of curriculum ideological and political education in universities in the new era. journal of educational research and policies, 5(10). https://doi.org/10.53469/jerp.2023.05(10).16 zhu, f., & liu, x. (2023). research on curriculum politics teaching practice of vocational english in higher vocational colleges based on poa. the educational review, 7(9). https://doi.org/10.25236/fer.2023.062117 https://doi.org/10.26855/er.2023.07.017 https://doi.org/10.53469/jerp.2023.05(10).16 frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no.1, 2021 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) original paper keeping high schools relevant in a global, innovative and tech ubiquitous society christina pierce1 & cheryl james-ward1* 1 san diego state university, san diego, california, usa * cheryl james-ward, san diego state university, 5500 campanile drive, san diego, california, 92182, usa received: january 20, 2021 accepted: february 5, 2021 online published: february 13, 2021 doi:10.22158/fet.v4n1p27 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v4n1p27 abstract with the onset of covid-19 and game-changes like ubiquitous technology, artificial intelligence and global economies, public high schools are challenged to provide a new level of education. in order for the united states and other countries to compete on a global scale, school leaders need to reevaluate and redesign educational programs to provide students the exposure and experience needed to become globally competent competitors. this collective case study examined the knowledge of educators ranging from school leaders to teachers in regards to the predicted global megatrends, the future 2030 workforce, game-changing technology and the impact at three public high schools. the study examined how the process of change was implemented, how each school addressed challenges and barriers, and to what degree each school was able to transition to an online environment during the unexpected 2020 covid-19 shutdown. the study design incorporated a mixed method case study approach. the information collected consisted of school leader and teacher interviews, as well as review of artifacts, documents and data. the researchers concluded that school transformation needs to start with an understanding of the future workforce and potential megatrends. most importantly, schools must take action regardless of the challenges and barriers before them. keywords high school, game-changers, megatrends, transformation, workforce ready 27 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 1. introduction as the united states further progresses into the 21st century and the economy continues to evolve on a global scale, societies are facing a new set of challenges and responsibilities in preparing students for the future. public high schools are impacted by these unpredictable changes and are challenged to provide a new level of education. in order for the united states and other countries to compete on a global scale, school leaders need to reevaluate and redesign educational programs in order to provide students the exposure and experience needed to become globally competent competitors (kpmg international, 2014; national intelligence council, 2012). as times change, new global factors come into play that impact the economical stage and, in turn, learning institutions. over the last century, the movement of ideas, money, and needs within economies have morphed, creating a new level of competition in the workforce and the need to reevaluate the preparation of students (ruby, 2014). in order to be marketable, young people entering the 2030 workforce will need a drastically different set of skills than they are taught today. back in 2013, oxford university conducted a study indicating that half of american jobs could be nonexistent and/or potentially replaced by artificial intelligence and machines by 2030. the united states and other global countries are finding themselves competing against these technology entities and are now placed in a position where they must create awareness, and prepare and plan accordingly (frey & osborne, 2013). as americans watched global and technological game-changers occur with covid-19, the predictions of a looming pandemic and disruptors have become reality and will continue to manifest. in order to be prepared and adjust accordingly, these economical disruptions should ignite a sense of urgency in educational change leaders and school systems. the united states public school system, and in fact educational systems across the globe, are facing high stakes and great pressure as current programs are becoming outdated and are failing to meet the skill demands predicted in the future economy (flynn, 2017; mgi, 2017; oecd, 2018; schwab, 2016). technical and research-based reports provide evidence-based predictions on the future of economies and the reasons why redesigning work-based preparatory programs is vital. looking at the workforce vacancies and at the skills and knowledge of average graduates of the american educational system, it is evident there is a misalignment; moreover, that the system is not providing adequate programs as recommended by flynn (2017). these reports also support edward gordon’s argument in the global talent crisis, futurist (2009), that public school systems need a transformation in order to more effectively align with the new workforce demands and avoid becoming obsolete. advocates for school change argue the need to provide guidance and a framework to our school systems. the same argument continues: “schools need to systematically and programmatically change” (rojewski & hill, 2017, p. 5). unfortunately, american schools have had a reputation for priding themselves in being immune to the latest educational fads that too often prove to be counterproductive. at times, many are so resistant to new thinking that they ignore new, creative, and better ways to educate children, thus preventing schools 28 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 from becoming progressive and forward-thinking learning institutions. as a result, american schools become their own enemy (bassett, 2002). in order for the united states to compete on a global scale, school leaders must reevaluate, reimagine and redesign the entire system to provide students the exposure and experience needed to become globally competent and marketable. 1.1 purpose of the study the purpose of the research was to learn more about schools who deem themselves as transformational and brand their schools as progressive, innovative and 21st century learning and beyond environments. the focus was on determining how specific schools are able to design and develop innovative programs where students are exposed to and engaged in learning opportunities which prepare them for the 2030 workforce and the demands of the global society. the study also identified key steps that are necessary when implementing such programs and bringing awareness to the potential challenges that may arise. in 2016, klaus schwab, founder and executive chairman of the world economic forum, described the digital age as the third industrial revolution, but he believed a new event was unfolding: the fourth industrial revolution. according to schwab (2016), we stand on the brink of a technological revolution that will fundamentally alter the way we live, work, and relate to one another. in its scale, scope, and complexity, the transformation will be unlike anything humankind has experienced before. we do not yet know just how it will unfold, but one thing is clear: the response to it must be integrated and comprehensive, involving all stakeholders of global polity, from the public and private sectors to academia and civil society. (p. 1) schwab believes internet access and technology advancements in areas such as 3d printing, artificial intelligence, and virtual reality have expanded the ability to drive new change, causing yet another economic and workforce disruption at an accelerated pace never seen before. these new technological advancements will create new demands and expectations of workforce skills, which makes it more challenging to prepare. this type of shift is not new. historically, this similar impact is what drove the purpose of american schools during the first industrial revolution. the assembly line was the game-changer for the economy, as it increased a factory’s ability to produce mass quantities of goods. this game-changer, in turn, impacted and required school systems to adjust and develop compliant type factory-skilled workers (schwab, 2016). with the new level of machines and technologies today and the research about the future economy that lies ahead, america once again needs to reevaluate and adjust how it educates and prepares youth. this knowledge needs to drive changes in the american school system. this research is also aligned with the work of thomas friedman. in his 2016 book, thank you for being late, friedman points out that we are living in an age of acceleration due to the demands of economic competition. he refers to the economy as “the market” and points out that current and future markets are constantly pushing for new ideas and solutions, known as game-changers, that are driving humans’ need to work faster and more efficiently. 29 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 friedman’s game-changing examples include the birth of the microchip in 1971, internet in 1980, and iphone in 2007. these technologies clearly demonstrate how new and creative products can impact and shift the economic landscape. for example, the microchip enhanced technology systems to move faster in order to rapidly develop new and advanced products. after the development of the microchip, the technology industry began competing and racing to develop a faster and more efficient microchip. in 1980, the internet was born, changing the way humans interact, communicate and do business. then in 2007, the world was introduced to the iphone. during this time period, very few understood how a phone would impact every facet of people’s professional and social lives. after its arrival, though, humans had a mini-computer in their hands and were able to accelerate how they communicated, accessed, and located information (friedman, 2016). as a result, the 1980s game-changer of internet access accelerated to new and unpredictable heights and became the new commerce highway for communication and business, once again disrupting our economy. from here a new communication format was born: the internet cloud. the cloud was a new system that allowed communication to flow more rapidly and reduced the need to have information downloaded onto computer hard-drives, thumb-drives, or documents that needed to be shared and/or delivered through email. this brought new waves of disruption within the realm of communication and technology systems. the cloud increased humans’ ability to access, download, and exchange information from any location and any time of day at an accelerated rate never seen before. in turn, these new innovative ways to exchange and save information impacted the way products were designed and developed and the way business was conducted. this disruption required computer and software companies to adjust and develop new cloud-based programs in order to compete, and with it a new set of job skills hit the market. soon after, a transformed race to develop internet businesses was born. new search engines, portal systems, social media, internet applications, and cloud-based companies such as google, facebook, amazon, pandora, itunes, netflix, hulu, and airbnb hit the market. these accelerated game-changers then caused another wave of disruption in terms of businesses, employment and jobs skills, requiring schools to shift in how students are educated and prepared. this new era has been termed, the fourth industrial revolution. the accelerated change driven by technology is an example of how rapidly the economy can change and how an unpredictable future workforce can be shaped. this pattern is what makes the future exciting and yet concerning at the same time. the acceleration trend has yet to slow down, causing challenges in predicting and determining future job markets. as a result, new job skills will require people to be adaptable and creative. workers entering this new economy will need to be able to see and think of the unimaginable as well as work with others to problem-solve and generate new innovative ideas and solutions. 1.2 the research the research was driven by the hypothesis that schools can meet the demands of the 2030 work place if they: ● incorporate 21st century and future global workforce skills into learning 30 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 ● (such as communication, critical thinking, problem-solving, collaboration, creativity and technology) ● integrate real-world work experiences into students’ learning experiences, ● support students with college and career resources, and ● have systems in place to support students and teachers with the transition. the researchers focused on collecting the following information from three high schools in the southern region of the united states who met their criteria for readying students for 2030 and beyond: ● knowledge of 2030 global megatrends and global competency skills that will be required ● curriculum and instruction utilized, and to what degree it aligned to the research, future economy expectations and integration of global competencies, ● leveraging technology for the 2030 workforce as well as artificial intelligence and virtual reality, ● lessons learned, including ○ how are they making the shift, ○ lessons to be drawn from study schools and replicable practices, ● perceived barriers that impact each organization’s ability to further prepare students for 2030, and ● measurements used to determine effectiveness and success. 1.3 limitations of the study the study was limited to three high schools in southern california, united states: (1) a design-thinking charter high school, (2) international baccalaureate (ib) high school and (3) an xq high school (xq organization provides schools with grant money to redesign and reimagine). thus, the culture and demographics of the region were also limitations. in addition, other factors such as school closures due to covid-19 in the spring and fall of 2020 limited the ability to conduct in-person site visits, classroom observations, and interviews. 2. literature review the literature review begins with identifying global megatrends, game-changers, and disruptions that are impacting the economy and school systems today and those that are predicted to do so in the future. next, it introduces the steps various government agencies have taken in attempts to address the american school system’s shortcomings, as well as organizations that have been established to provide research, guidance, and networks to school systems seeking to transform. afterwards, the literature review identifies four specific school organizations -international baccalaureate (ib), edleader21, xq schools, and career technical education (cte)that have led concerted efforts to assist schools with reimagining, redesigning and integrating new school programs that better align with the future workforce skills and expectations. these organizations provide current research, literature, guidelines for system design, 31 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 networking support, established partnerships, and frameworks to develop proper innovative programs. for example, ib is an international school program that focuses on developing global citizenship. edleader21 is an organization that carries a mission of helping schools develop programs to integrate global competency skills, also referred to as 21st century skills, into academic programs. xq schools focus on providing financial help to high schools, while career technical education programs focus on developing students for the workforce through access to work-based experiences/training and course work. all four focus on emphasizing global competencies: critical thinking, communication, collaboration, creativity, and civics. finally, the literature review explores the similar qualities and programs these educational institutions claim to integrate that are centered around global competencies and learning environments heavily expressed and advocated in journals such as organization for economic co-operation and development (oecd), and future of education and skills 2030 project. as a result, a case study using three high schools located in southern california who base their school programs around these philosophies and concepts was conducted. school a is a charter high school that focuses on the drawn ideas of xq schools, particularly with design-thinking and personalized learning, and integrates cte concepts. school b is a formal international baccalaureate high school that prides itself on a foundation of developing globally-minded citizens. school c is a xq super high school that was awarded a grant for its transformational design in efforts to reimagine and become innovative. the focus of this school has changed over the last 4 years and today is focused on personalized learning. 2.1 relevance and tech ubiquitous society the alignment and relationship between the future 2030 workforce and high school preparation programs is leading the american educational system to a new set of crossroads. new game-changers and disruptions have created the demand for new workforce skills, and high schools are feeling the pressure. some high school leaders understand these game-changes and are taking action to transform and align, while others are not. schools that claim to have transformed are labeled and honored as progressive and innovative, while others are described as traditional and outdated. while some claim that american public schools have the ability to transform, others argue they do not because of philosophical and/or systemic barriers. research and future predictions from notable organizations, such as mckenzie global institute, the brookings institution, center for strategic and international studies, organization for economic co-operation and development, klynveld peat marwick goerdele (kpmg) international, and the national intelligence council, argue that new global trends and challenges will impact the future economies. furthermore, they emphasize that school organizations must adjust accordingly in order to build human capital needed to sustain our economy. the rapid advancement of science and technology has exacerbated the demand for newly acquired knowledge, skills, and attitudes. future citizens who will be contributing members in this new global job 32 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 market will need to understand the high stakes that lie ahead in terms of the challenges and skills that will be required for employment. 2.2 megatrends the research indicates that new complex global megatrends will impact and challenge current knowledge, skills, and the workforce beyond just one country. one set of information on these complex global megatrends is outlined in the global trends 2030: alternative worlds report, provided by the national intelligence council in 2012. the purpose of the global report is to outline future needs and provide insight and guidance on the geopolitical changes affecting the global economy. in the last several decades, economic trends and research have been produced indicating that the united states and other world countries will economically function differently by 2030. if not careful, the united states could potentially lose its power and influence within the economy. according to the global trends 2030: alternative worlds report (national intelligence council, 2012), the united states will no longer be the powerhouse because of four global megatrends. in order to prepare and develop solutions to address the 2030 global challenges, all government world leaders and citizens, including the united states, will have to view themselves as game-changers within four global megatrends: (a) individual empowerment; (b) diffusion of power among states; (c) demographics patterns; and (d) demands for food, water, and energy. they will have to work as a cohesive front instead of nationalists focused on their individual issues (kpmg international, 2014). individual empowerment. according to predictions, individual empowerment is considered the biggest and most influential megatrend, as it will directly impact the global economy, including areas such as political and military power. individual empowerment refers to an individual government’s ability to develop into a powerhouse and control its own destiny and influences regardless of its physical size. the widespread exploitation of new and fast levels of communications and high-speed manufacturing technologies has enhanced how countries around the world can now compete, attack, and protect themselves. both big and small countries will have greater access to technologies that are capable of mass destruction. this will impact how governments will battle and protect themselves. as a result, there is a greater need to create and develop cyber and bioterror instruments and weapons (kpmg international, 2014). diffusion of power among states. global power and economic competition is predicted to shift as asia is said to become the leading powerhouse continent, surpassing the united states and european countries, both socially and economically. larger countries will no longer be considered as strong, influential and powerful as before; on the other hand, smaller countries are becoming more powerful. one example is south korea who in 2021 is considered a leader in innovation while the united states has dropped out of the top ten most innovative nations (jamrisko, lu, & tanzi, 2021). governments will be judged by how they manage population size, military spending, and technological investments, regardless of size. technologies used for communication will channel through more sophisticated, multifaceted, and 33 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 advanced networks, impacting how state and global governments transmit information and make informed decisions (kpmg international, 2014). demographic patterns. a growing world population will impact how people at all levels live. according to the 2014 kpmg international report, the global population is expected to exceed 8.3 billion people in 2030, compared to 7.1 billion in 2012. this growth is attributed to (a) humans living longer, which in turn will create larger societies, and (b) an increase in migration, which will impact urbanization. these two elements will place significant demographic and political demands on living standards, the economy/job market, and land resources in order to support human life (kpmg international, 2014). demands for food, water, and energy. the global population increase, expansion of the middle class, and global climate changes will create new demands for food, water, and energy resources requiring policymakers to develop new creative ideas and solutions. for example, how we access and purify existing water resources, as well as the focus on agricultural production, will become a necessity. as biofuels threaten certain countries’ land and food resources, new solutions for energy will be required. in order to support human life, government leaders, the private sector, and the educational field will have to work together to rethink and design solutions to avoid the negative implications, such as starvation. as a result, these three entities need to start working together now to prepare students and provide them with opportunities to develop sustainable solutions (kpmg international, 2014). 2.3 technology impact historically, megatrends have always existed, but changes based on different influencing factors have varying impacts; this is why they are referred to as game-changers. one of the strongest and most influencing game-changers in particular is innovation driven by advancing technology. the technology trends predicted in the past have occurred and will continue to occur with the acceleration of digital advancements, such as artificial intelligence (zovko, 2018). because new technologies are able to process and produce products at a faster pace and in mass quantities, computerized machinery and robots will continue to advance, transforming workplaces, such as production and customer service. according to organizational theorists, computer scientists and economists are now carefully considering “what computers do—that is, the tasks they are best suited to accomplish and how these capabilities compliment or serve as a substitute for human skills in workplace settings” (autor, levy, & mumane, 2003, p. 9). because humans can be replaced and production can occur in mass quantities, these advancements have accelerated new sets of job demands and skills. for example, the impact of robotics and machinery has led to industries needing a new set of workers who have a background in technology, computer science, math, and coding skills. this technology and machine game-changer, in conjunction with the other global megatrends, has placed a new sense of urgency on countries to develop solutions. this, in turn, has created a multi-faceted level of competition placing pressure on learning and preparational institutions to develop a new type of graduate who can design fresh, innovative systems and devices to solve these challenges. this level of 34 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 competition has developed a manifestation referred to as singularity (zovko, 2018). the singularity phenomenon is not a new concept; it was originally linked to the computer scientist and science-fiction writer vernor vinge, who warned society that artificial intelligence would replace people by 2030. in order to support singularity and the potential impact, zovko (2018) references vinge’s 1993 essay, “the coming technological singularity,” where he stated: employees today are knowledge workers. their source of motivation is not control or fear. they have a desire to be creative and challenged, have the feeling of accomplishment and self-fulfillment. brain-based organizations need a new value system, aligned with passion, enthusiasm, appetite for life, engagement, commitment, great causes, and determination to make a difference. the students and workers of the present are not trained for shared adventures, bizarre failures, and appetite for change. (p. 420). zovko (2018) believed the rise of super intelligence is based on the need for humans to enhance intellectual abilities with intimate technological bonds. furthermore, he stated: radical transformations of the concept of learning will take place—knowledge and skills transfer will be instantaneously available to everyone, making the schools (as known today) obsolete and the concept of employment and work will be redefined—the general trend is moving toward shorter working hours, making more time available for leisure activities. (zovko, 2018, p. 420) after reviewing the economic and educational trends over the last 10 years, vinge’s (as cited in zovko, 2018) 1993 predictions continue to be proven true in describing how technology and artificial intelligence would change, not only the landscape of the workforce, but also the platform of learning and educational organizations. based on the oecd (2018) report, technology and digital trends continue to expand at rapid speeds, and schools must adjust. in order to compete with new technologies, such as the impact of new machinery and robots, school leaders must be aware of how these trends and new forms of technology will not only influence job skills, but students’ interests and abilities to learn. 2.4 education organizations leading transformational work according to yong zhao’s (2012) report, “flunking innovation and creativity,” american schools focus too much on high academic achievement and test scores, which stifles the ability to think creatively, and the development of ideas and entrepreneurial qualities in students (zhao, 2012). zhao’s research compared the programme for international student assessment (pisa) math scores to entrepreneurial abilities and determined that high pisa scores do not always correlate to the necessary skills demanded of workers and/or business savvy citizens. thus, his report causes friction with the messages often articulated to american students and families by k-12 public and post-secondary schools. he argues this competition between student achievement and developing creative entrepreneurs is the rift. according to zhao (2012), high performing countries, such as china and singapore, have picked up on this and are looking for ways to reform their own educational systems in order to invest in their own social capital; 35 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 therefore, the united states should be concerned with this and follow a similar thought process. this emphasizes an even bigger need to reform american schools. although there are challenges in transforming schools, there are some organizations that support zhao’s (2012) philosophies and are taking action to realign curricular programs, instructional practices, and assessment of workforce future job skills and global competency needs as identified in the future of education and skills: education 2030, developed by the oecd (2018). starting in 2001, educational guidance organizations such as partnerships for 21 century learning (p. 21, 2007), battelle for kids (battelle for kids, 2018), and edleader21 (edleader21, 2010) were established to promote 21st century school reform. in 2019, these three organizations joined forces to develop one large network system. the synergetic efforts of these organizations is to create a stronger and larger national movement in developing innovative and progressive schools; moreover, to bring the knowledge and experiences of all three to provide school organizations with the most current research as well as a suitable and manageable framework to implement. also, these efforts seek to assist with the development of a plan that will provide guidance in creating a 21st century vision that links academic content, standards, and instruction to global competencies. initially, these were simply known as the 4cs, namely communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity. soon after, others adopted a “fifth c”, to include civic skills, understanding the importance of addressing the social and civic responsibilities needed among students and the world. the development of this group collaborative is a testament to the use of the collective effort approach, emphasizing the need to involve stakeholders, such as local businesses, community members, and other education-focused organizations to support continuous transformation. the group provides assistance in developing and putting into action a roadmap and graduate profile aligned to its vision. it also provides further support through professional learning opportunities, connecting leaders to other school success stories and networking systems to support the work (battelle for kids, 2018). in addition, there are selective programs that have been used in the redesign of schools based on current research and future job market predictions. one such program is the international baccalaureate programme (ib) producing globally-minded citizens. career technical education (cte) is another one focused on developing programs based on the current job market and demands. then there’s xq, which awards funding to super schools with doable, sustainable and transformational plans. along with the global competencies and future workforce skills that these networks and programs outline and emphasize, technology integration is an overarching theme threaded throughout all. the aforementioned competencies are aligned with skills needed to develop global-minded students who will in turn be more engaged and take ownership of their education (oecd, 2018). today, new global megatrends are the driving force behind changes in the economy and directly impact preparational programs such as schools. it is crucial that american public schools develop the systems, mindset, infrastructure, programs and information needed to prepare and develop students for this new and unprecedented workforce and economy. in order for schools to avoid becoming obsolete, it is 36 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 necessary that school leaders not only continuously understand the role of education, but the connection and responsibility between learning institutions and the job market. as a result, a case study using three high schools located in southern california who base their school programs around these philosophies and concepts was conducted. school a is a charter high school that focuses on the drawn ideas of xq schools, particularly with design-thinking and personalized learning and integrates cte concepts. school b is a formal international baccalaureate high school that prides itself on a foundation of developing globally-minded citizens. school c is a xq super high school that was awarded a grant for its transformational design in efforts to reimagine and become innovative. the focus of this school has changed over the last 4 years and today is focused on personalized learning. 3. methodology this research was driven by three key factors: (a) how schools incorporate 21st century and future global workforce skills into learning (such as communication, collaboration, critical thinking, problem solving, and using creativity), (b) how real-world work experiences are integrated into students’ learning experiences, and (c) how students are supported with college and career resources. the purpose of this research was to examine school programs that brand and claim themselves as progressive, innovative, and 21st century learning-and-beyond environments. the focus was on how these specific schools are able to design and develop innovative programs where students are exposed to and engaged in learning opportunities which prepare them for the 2030 workforce and the demands of a global society. the research also unearthed key steps that are necessary when implementing such programs and brought awareness to the potential challenges that may arise. a case study, mixed-methods approach, consisting of interviews and observations was conducted, as well as a review of school artifacts, documents and reports. the study was designed to answer the following research questions: 1) what do school leaders and stakeholders know about the 2030 global megatrends and global competency skills required? 2) what curriculum and instruction is used and how are the global competencies integrated? 3) how are schools leveraging technology for the 2030 workforce, as well as artificial intelligence and virtual reality? 4) what can we learn from schools who are preparing students for the 2030 workforce? a. how are they making the shift? b. what lessons can be drawn from these schools and what practices replicated? c. what do they use to measure and determine effectiveness and success? 5) what are the perceived barriers that impact districts’ ability to prepare students? a convenience sampling technique was used to identify three schools that met the inclusion criteria listed below. once the three schools were identified, a mixed-methods case study investigation was conducted. this approach was an appropriate choice to better understand how these schools are able to influence 37 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 others and execute changes. by using this methodology, the researchers were able to better understand the steps the study schools have taken and how they have overcome barriers that many other schools are experiencing and have not been able to overcome. 3.1 inclusion criteria the following criteria was used to identify the participants: ● school claims to follow a set of established, recognized and reputable 21st century school globally-minded elements, such as those used by ib, xq, cte or other 21st century branding; ● vision, mission, and school plan provides evidence that demonstrates knowledge in developing students’ skills that address global megatrends and the 2030 workforce needs; ● school will be able to produce a 21st century transformation framework focus that is used to drive school-making decisions and programs; ● programs integrate the 21st century and future workforce skills; ● technology is integrated into the school programs; ● school has been labeled as a 21st century innovative school; and ● school used the guidelines and framework of a reputable research-based organization to design its program. following identification, the three schools selected participated in a full scale and in-depth investigation, which included leadership interviews and teacher focus group interviews, as well as a review of school artifacts, documents and reports. classroom observations were originally planned, but school closures due to the covid-19 pandemic prevented this from occurring. 4. findings the case study was conducted using three high schools in california, usa during the summer and fall of 2020. all three schools met the research criteria based on self-reporting. during this time, schools were impacted by the covid-19 school closures. as a result, zoom meetings were used to conduct interviews and to collect data. the researchers collected quantitative and comparison data. specifically, school leadership and staff members were interviewed and school artifacts and assessment data were analyzed. the findings reported include triangulated school comparison on the following: ● school staff knowledge of global megatrends, ● school staff knowledge of predicted future workforce, ● process for transformation, ● curriculum, instructional practices and technology integration, ● success and outcome barriers, and ● current challenges and recommendations for schools embarking on the transformation journey. 38 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 4.1 three-way school comparison the qualitative data-leadership and staff interviews-were used to determine how the three schools compared to one another and to identify significant themes among each unique type of program in terms of having knowledge and understanding of the global megatrends, future job markets and predicted economies. data was collected to determine what type of processes each school used to lead, brand, and guide the transformation as well as to determine to what extent each school is successfully working and producing results. an analysis of the data organized by the researched groups and questions is below. for each question, themes are reported with evidence from the principal interviews, focus interviews and review of the artifacts. knowledge global megatrends and predicted future workforce and process for transformation. significant themes were noted with the school leadership participants and focus group interview responses. similarities among school a, school b and school c included that intent for school transformation was based on a strong passion and desired purpose to improve school programs to better prepare students for the future workforce; strategic intent on how to bring all stakeholders (students, parents and staff) along including conversations around current research, and providing professional development and workshops that supported for shifting philosophies, pedagogy and instructional practice. all three schools’ artifacts used to communicate and brand the school were aligned and supported the overall goal and intent of the school vision and transformational shifts expected on site and in the classrooms. what varied in the responses were the individual driving forces, philosophies, justification and the level of knowledge between leadership and staff members regarding the future job markets, global megatrends, and the processes used to lead school transformation. school a’s and school b’s leadership and staff members had the most knowledge and had systems in place for keeping all stakeholders informed, updated and educated on the latest research related to global and future job market trends. both schools also directly tied this information to their school vision, expectations, culture, communication, and classroom practices. school c struggled in this category at the leadership level. the principal’s answers were limited in scope in terms of understanding the future job market, global megatrends and did not use this information to drive transformation. instead, school c’s school leader focused more on building culture by making personal connections and building relationships among teachers, parents, community members and students rather than educating and bringing these stakeholders up-to-par with the latest educational needs and transformational research. overall, all three schools had limited knowledge of the megatrends. curriculum, instructional practices and technology integration. each of the three schools were unique in terms of curriculum. school a utilizes an online core curriculum suited to meet the design and intent of personalized learning, but also integrates design thinking activities developed by teachers to supplement each course. school b utilizes core curriculum required by the international baccalaureate program. school c utilizes district-adopted core curriculum, but in a less traditional manner. 39 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 in terms of instructional practices, all three schools were similar in pointing out that they focus on integrating 21st century instructional practices and the four cs (communication, collaboration, critical thinking and creativity) with teaching content standards. school a’s and school b’s interview answers were much stronger in emphasizing and giving examples of current 21st century practices, developing global citizens, and how they align to the future workforce skills needed. each school was unique in emphasizing specific strategies related to the branding of their schools. school a focused on design and deeper learning concepts and on providing a personalized learning experience that matches student’s individual academic and social/emotional needs. school b is based on a global instructional continuum designed to increase the rigor each year. its instruction also includes students’ development physically, emotionally and ethically in addition to intellectual and academic growth. additionally, instructional practices are centered around having students apply knowledge and make connections regarding curriculum, instruction and the real world. due to the pandemic, school c’s teachers did not participate in the focus group interviews; therefore, understanding their instructional philosophies and practices were the most limited. although the principal acknowledged the four c’s, his emphasis was more about personalizing the learning experience in order to better connect and engage students. in terms of technology, all three schools varied. school a was by far the furthest along and with the strongest technology implementation. from the inception of the school, students were provided with 1:1 devices, internet service and access to online curriculum. as a result, this school was able to shift to an online learning environment immediately without any disruption or loss of instructional days due to the covid-19 pandemic. school a closed with brick-and-mortar instruction on friday, march 13, 2020 and opened on monday, march 16, 2020 with full day synchronous online instruction. the other two schools were not 1:1 schools and did not provide students with access to the internet nor access to online curriculum. as a result, these two schools scrambled and functioned in a panic-reactive mode when the school closures hit. it was a learning curve for many. the majority of teachers struggled with how to use the basic substitutional functions of technology to communicate and provide quality instruction in an online environment. unlike the other two schools in the study, school a students did not miss a day of instruction as teachers were already providing a blended learning environment to students and were able to easily move communication and delivery of instruction to online platforms full time. in terms of the degree to which technology is used to enhance learning and provide a more engaging and personalized experience. school a was far beyond school b’s and c’s skill sets. school a had already provided students with an online curriculum. in addition, school a clearly understood the need to go beyond the substitution level of integrating technology to enhance learning. the school leader and teachers stated they were working together to determine how to further use digital platforms and tools to go beyond the substitution level in efforts to further engage students and provide a more effective personalized learning experience for all. furthermore, school a’s staff recognized and understood the need to continue working together to rethink curriculum and instruction and redesign new lessons to provide students a more 40 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 effective and engaging blended learning experience. the 2020 school closure validated their transformational technology work and personalized learning efforts over the last several years. because school b and c were in response mode, it was evident they struggled to see beyond the substitution level of technology integration. their mindset and focus again was learning how to utilize and understand basic functions of technology to communicate and provide students access to teachers and core instruction. both noted that the shift was very challenging due to teachers’ lack of 21st century knowledge, technology skills and inability to integrate digital platforms, curriculum and tools prior to the pandemic shutdown. with this said, the covid-19 pandemic’s disruption did provide these schools, and so many others, the realization that the shift to a blended learning environment needed to happen as well as the importance of being able to adapt at a moment’s notice; hence schools can no longer rely on in-person instruction as the only mode of learning. although school b and c’s technology skills have improved, they continue to struggle with accepting this new mode of online instructional delivery. this impediment of learning to let go of traditional instructional delivery seems to be preventing them from moving forward and proactively working together to design new blended learning online activities and instruction. success and outcome measurements. in terms of identifying and measuring success, there were some similarities and differences among the three schools. although all three school leaders believed change was necessary and reported that their driving force was in effort to prepare students for the future global economy, each one had an individual and distinct focus. school a was focused on design-thinking, and on deeper and personalized learning. the goal of this school is to provide students with learning experiences that connect to the future job market skills, which is to think, apply, and problem-solve and design solutions related to local and global issues. school b was focused on personalizing and connecting the learning experiences to the real world by shifting the teaching staff to embrace and include more student and community input, voice and choice in efforts to change what and how they teach. school b’s philosophies were based on designing learning experiences that would develop a globally-minded and empathic student based on international baccalaureate theories and guidelines. school c was focused on having students take ownership of learning and being involved in school improvement efforts. nevertheless, for the most part, all three utilized california’s college and career indicator data (california department of education, 2018) california state assessment data and college assessment data such as the psat/sat to measure academic growth. what varied was the type of local and perceptual data used. school a had evidence of using parent, student and staff input to evaluate strengths and needs of the school’s services and programs. school b and c claimed to collect and use perceptual data but no evidence was provided. past barriers, current challenges and recommendations for schools embarking on the transformation journey. in terms of past barriers, current challenges and recommendations related to the transformational process, all three schools’ participants responded similarly. all three school leaders pointed out that the beginning of the process, that is, changing mindsets and having ample time to 41 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 implement changes, were key pieces and the most challenging barriers to navigate around. each one expressed that although the process is worth the effort, it brings in a great deal of frustration as it takes time, energy and relentless focus to keep the school moving forward as situations happen that can potentially derail the work. examples of the situations given were related to archaic and outdated school systems, structures and instructional practices; need for full support from all stakeholders; political and labor group hesitations, new and/or competing initiatives, and people’s lack of knowledge or unwillingness to learn and work collectively. when looking at current challenges that continue to impede the work, the same examples were given. one additional challenge mentioned was associated with covid-19 school closures. the unforeseen disruption temporarily required schools to shift from an in-person to online model. as a result, leading, working with and supporting staff in delivering blended learning in an online environment became the number one focus and challenge. the human connection—time and the inability to meet in person and collaborate—was impacted. the emphasis shifted to learning how to work together within an online platform to determine needs and how best to support students and deliver this new mode of instruction. as mentioned in the technology section, this was an easier transition for school a as they had already implemented technology by providing students with laptops, internet access and online curriculum. regardless though, all three schools’ staff had to work and collaborate in a new environment. overall, the study concluded that school transformation begins with school leaders who are visionary, knowledgeable, and purposeful. transformational leaders understand the role of education and have a sense of urgency to create school programs that prepare students with the skills for future global economy. data collected from the three schools studied confirms the need to clearly understand the purpose of learning institutions in relation to preparing students for the future workforce. schools must have a strategic implementation plan that is based on research and a guiding framework. in addition, all stakeholders must be brought on board, educated on the intent and have an opportunity to provide input on the decision-making process. the study also concluded that staff member philosophies, school programs and instructional practices must be aligned and support the overall arching goals, vision and strategic plan of the school. 5. conclusion the digital and computer age has placed pressure on what students are learning and how they are learning it (friedman, 2016). the impact is two-fold: (a) american school systems today are not producing enough skilled labor to fill these new job demands caused by these game-changers, and (b) schools are struggling to engage this current new generation of students. this gap and student disconnect will continue to widen if american public schools do not find ways to adjust and provide more meaningful and relevant learning experiences linked to preparing students for the future labor workforce. the current school-to-work misalignment and educational program mismatches are glaring. as a result, the current 42 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 labor market outcomes are being impacted and new jobs are going unfilled (bol, ciocca eller, van de werfhost, & diprete, 2019). in this study, school leaders and staff overall had limited knowledge of the future global megatrends and the potential impact this has on societies, the economy and workforce. this is concerning because, if the intent of education is to develop students for future job markets, it is important that school leaders have a clear understanding of these global megatrends, as it has a direct correlation to the future global economy. if not, american schools will be unprepared for disruptive situations such as the 2020 coronavirus pandemic. the covid-19 pandemic provides a living example of disruptions foretold and of megatrends working in unison to impact the world as described in the global trends 2030: alternative worlds report (national intelligence council, 2012) and future state 2030: the global megatrends shaping governments (kpmg international, 2014). both reports emphasize that global megatrends will impact the global economy, businesses, and relationships. reflecting on these predictions and not planning accordingly, the united states may sabotage their long-term standing of being the powerhouse country. in order to be prepared and develop solutions to address the 2030 global challenges, all government’s world leaders and citizens, including the united states, will have to view themselves as game-changers within these predicted global megatrends and work as a cohesive front instead of nationalists focused on their individual issues (kpmg international, 2014). although the literature and research clearly stated and provided strong arguments and evidence that public schools need to learn and understand the predicted future economy, revisit their purpose, and redesign schools, the struggle continues for many, whether it is due to the lack of knowledge, willingness to take action, and/or failure to recognize past challenges and barriers plaguing current school systems. moreover, at the time of this research, an unforeseen and impactful infectious disease, covid-19, which originated in wuhan, china, plagued the world and created a global pandemic which should have been used as a wake-up call. the covid-19 crippling event led to school closures around the world. it supported the notion that societies and public school systems were not prepared for such an event nor had integrated the level of technology needed to shift and support a new online learning environment at a moment’s notice. as uncomfortable and frustrating as it was for many, the 2020 experience was an example of living in a tech ubiquitous society, one in which we have to rely heavily on technology to communicate, conduct business, and provide educational opportunities. the event brought an increased sense of awareness and urgency as to the importance of ensuring societies take action to redesign high schools to survive and thrive in an unpredicted tech ubiquitous global society. this is a pivotal time no one ever expected to experience. the covid-19 pandemic is an example of how society and school systems can be disrupted without warning as was outlined in the megatrends and the implications of not integrating technology platforms and tools as a response to the fourth industrial revolution noted in the literature review. as a result, the educational outcomes, learning losses, and disparities of an already existing inequitable public school system is now being exacerbated by this 2020 43 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 disruption (dorn, hancock, sarakatsannis, & viruleg, 2020). the findings from this research are clear indications that the current educational public school system was not designed to adjust and shift gears when daunted by an unprecedented life altering event. this pandemic has left school districts floundering, unprepared, exposed for lack of 21st century readiness and off guard. as a result, sadly no one anticipated that schools could pivet and provide a full-time online learning environment overnight (dorn et al., 2020). the pandemic highlighted the negative impacts of not paying attention to and/or heeding the research and predictions of the future, and, most importantly, not planning or embedding technology adequately, timely, effectively, or in a responsive way. this pandemic event is a wake-up call to take action. the state and federal governmental levels need to provide guidance, leadership and funding to support the critical systemic changes needed to overhaul current school programs and address these deficiencies. the research has advanced, and the recommendations are aligned to the future 2030 workforce needs, but the educational systems in many places continue to function archaically and are stubbornly resistant to change. in addition, states have accountability systems that do no support nor align with the changes that schools are tasked to make. work needs to continue around aligning learning expectations, standards, curriculum, instructional practices, and integrating technology in order to prepare students to adequately handle present and future challenges and be prepared for the future job market. 6. implications and recommendations to reiterate, this 2020 mega-global event should be viewed as a wake-up call and validate the need to continue analyzing and understanding future predictions. additionally, it should be viewed as an immediate and necessary call to action to learn how to (a) transform school systems, and (b) to adapt to changes, especially in the area of technology integration. more should be done to educate school leaders and teachers about the megatrends, game-changers and the work necessary to link current education to the 2030 workforce. this should be the basis of school reform and should validate and further drive the sense of urgency to creatively redesign schools. the focus of learning must shift to educating students on how to solve complex problems, to critically analyze information, communicate and collaborate globally, and understand how to apply knowledge and skills to design solutions for local and global issues. with this said, all three case study schools provided evidence of taking action to redesign; but, only the public charter school was able to make the shift almost seamlessly, as measured by the level of integrated technology prior to covid-19. this experience is an indication and evidence that technology integration is non-negotiable. the internet is the new global communication highway that will only continue to expand and grow. although the pandemic forced schools to provide students with the basics—a device and internet access—school systems must do more to expand the integration of technology beyond the substitution level. the next step is to utilize technology to enhance learning and serve as a base for creativity and curiosity, to develop deeper and higher level technical and digital workforce skills in order 44 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 for students to be well-equipped and prepared. countries must also commit to providing every student with free high-speed internet access both at school and at home. based upon the study findings, literature review, the consideration of the challenges and adjustments the world is experiencing due to the 2020 covid-19 pandemic and the reliability of technology, the need to redesign and transform schools is more evident than ever. expectations, initiatives, practices and policies that should have been in place prior to covid-19 are now critical if public schools are expected to survive this disruption and develop skilled students for the future workforce. if school systems react appropriately and accordingly, they will thrive and contribute to the development of human capital and a sustainable workforce. if they ignore this wake-up call, learning institutions could place themselves at risk and become the demise of the workforce; furthermore, the future economy and the position of the united states as a powerhouse on a global scale will be at stake. references autor, d., levy, f., & mumane, r. (2003). the skill content of recent technological change: an empirical exploration. quarterly journal of economics, 118(4), 1279-1333. https://doi.org/10.1162/003355303322552801 battelle for kids. (2018). edleader21 network: leading together to advance 21st century learning for every student. retrieved from http://www.battelleforkids.org/ networks/edleader21-network california department of education college and career indicator. (n.d.). retrieved from https://www.cde.ca.gov/ta/ac/cm/ccical.asp dorn, e., hancock, b., sarakatsannis, j., & viruleg, e. (2020). covid-19 and student learning in the united states: the hurt could last a lifetime. retrieved from https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/public-and-social-sector/our-insights/covid-19-and-student-l earning-in-the-united-states-the-hurt-could-last-a-lifetime flynn, m. (2017). students need coding in schools-and more-to fill stem jobs of the future. retrieved from https://www.techlearning.com/tl-advisor-blog/12370 frey, c. b., & osborne, m. a. (2013). the future of employment: how susceptible are the jobs to computerisation. retrieved from https://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk downloads/academic/the_future_of_employment.pdf friedman, t. l. (2016). thank you for being late: an optimist’s guide to thriving in the age of accelerations. new york, ny: farrar, strauss, & giroux. gordon, e. (2009). the global talent crisis. futurist, 43(5), 34-39. jamrisko, m., lu, w., & tanzi, a. (2021). south korea leads the world in innovation as the u.s. exits top ten. retrieved from https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-03/south-korea-leads-world-in-innovation-u-sdrops-out-of-top-10?cmpid=bbd020321_biz&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&ut m_term=210203&utm_campaign=bloombergdaily&sref=ppkwo00x 45 published by scholink inc. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-03/south-korea-leads-world-in-innovation-u-s-drops-out-of-top-10?cmpid=bbd020321_biz&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_term=210203&utm_campaign=bloombergdaily&sref=ppkwo00x https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-03/south-korea-leads-world-in-innovation-u-s-drops-out-of-top-10?cmpid=bbd020321_biz&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_term=210203&utm_campaign=bloombergdaily&sref=ppkwo00x https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-03/south-korea-leads-world-in-innovation-u-s-drops-out-of-top-10?cmpid=bbd020321_biz&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_term=210203&utm_campaign=bloombergdaily&sref=ppkwo00x https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-03/south-korea-leads-world-in-innovation-u-s-drops-out-of-top-10?cmpid=bbd020321_biz&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_term=210203&utm_campaign=bloombergdaily&sref=ppkwo00x www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 kpmg international. (2014). future state 2030: the global megatrends shaping governments. retrieved from https://assets.kpmg/content/dam/kpmg/pdf/2014/02/ mckinsey global institute (mgi). (2017, january). a future that works: automation, employment, and productivity: executive summary. retrieved from https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/mckinsey/featured%20insights/digital%20 disruption/harnessing% 20automation%20for%20a%20future%20that%20works/mgi-a-future-that-works-executive-sum mary.ashx organisation for economic co-operation and development (oecd). (2018). the future of education and skills: education 2030. retrieved from https://www.oecd.org/ education/2030/e2030%20position%20paper%20(05.04.2018).pdf partnership for 21st century learning (p21). (2007). framework for 21st century learning. retrieved from http://www.p21.org/our-work/p21-framework rojewski, j. w., & hill, r. b. (2017). a framework for 21st-century career-technical and workforce education curricula. peabody journal of education, 92(2), 180-191. xq institute. (n.d.). reimagining high school takes hard work—and deep knowledge. retrieved from https://xqsuperschool.org/resource/knowledge-modules/ ruby, a. (2014). preparing global citizens. international educator, 23(5), 54-57. schwab, k. (2016). the fourth industrial revolution: what it means, how to respond. retrieved from https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/01/the-fourth-industrial-revolution-what-it-means-and-ho w-to-respond/ xq institute. (n.d.). reimagining high school takes hard work—and deep knowledge. retrieved from https://xqsuperschool.org/resource/knowledge-modules/ zhao, y. (2012). flunking innovation and creativity. phi delta kappan, 94(1), 56-61. https://doi.org/10.1177/003172171209400111 zovko, v. (2018). management in the year 2050. interdisciplinary description of complex systems: indecs, 16(3-b), 417-426. https://doi.org/10.7906/indecs. 16.3.14 46 published by scholink inc. http://www.p21.org/our-work/p21-framework https://xqsuperschool.org/resource/knowledge-modules/ original paper frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 13 original paper the development of motor skills in children with mild intellectual disabilities with autism (proxemic analysis of teaching action) kacem nejah1 1 higher institute of sport and physical education of sfax, tunisia received: december 15, 2024 accepted: december 28, 2024 online published: january 6, 2025 doi:10.22158/fet.v8n1p13 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v8n1p13 abstract the study of the effectiveness of teaching action is a means of pedagogical intervention which has been the subject of a large body of research. most researchers emphasize the possibilities in pedagogy, and more particularly in motor education where there is some practical material, about the use of methods based on verbal interventions. in motor education, the teacher, in order to improve the learning conditions, uses verbal exchanges, he instructs the class by organizing the tasks, by making the landmarks contained to all the students in the class can be carried out in an indirect way. the objective of our study is the proxemic analysis of the teacher’s action for our population composed of eight teachers of motor activities during learning ensured by an improvement in communication and integration of autistic children much more than the modes of intervention. the results of our research, justified by a qualitative mode, are articulated with the quantitative mode. our research therefore strives to construct, from an exploratory perspective, elements of an answer. it is therefore a question of laying the premises of a new approach, based on a study focused on certain elements of teaching action based on pedagogical intervention. our work is based on research work whose subject is proximity. our study on the difference in distance by tool to compare the repertoires of the four pe teachers teaching motor activity to subjects with autism. we are interested in what actually happens in motor performance optimization sessions, and we want to describe and understand the role of teacher distance in the teaching-learning process. we seek to see how the different types of distance used by the teacher during the transmission of knowledge participate in the didactic techniques of chronogenesis, topogenesis and mesogenesis in order to respond to the different situations encountered within the didactic system. all of this research is part of a comparison. it aims to characterize the proxemic productions of the four pe teachers and to identify their didactic functionalities. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 14 published by scholink inc. keywords motor skills, motor interactions, proxemic analysis, teacher’s action 1. introduction the development of the communication and motor skills of children with mild intellectual disabilities with asd (bhat et al., 2011). macdonald et al. (2013) provide evidence that poor social skills in individuals with asd were also found to be weaker in deficits in participation in motor activity, which is an effective tool for developing communication and social interaction. according to the national autism center (2015) motor skills is a method that is used not only to improve the physical sufficiency of students with asd, but to decrease behaviors that are not appropriate such as increasing behaviors to give appropriate responses and take responsibility. however, participating in physical activities, games, or motor activities for children with asd are not able to do so at the expected levels due to their communication and social interaction (yanardag & yılmaz, 2017). the development of social relationships is also a defining characteristic of asd. the skills of people with asd may be due to their inability to learn skills or their lack of motivation (sivaraman & fahmie, 2018). in addition, the difficulties faced by people with asd are mainly related to a lack of understanding of the behaviour of others, such as the inability to interpret and respond to social and emotional cues given by others, including eye contact and facial expressions (sowa & meulenbroek, 2012). pedagogy has never cured a biological disease (martinet c. & rieben l., 2010)). integration techniques have always been the subject of criticism, in fact guiding the child with permanent support by the professionals who accompany this child, describes a field of pedagogical action identifying a method used with autistic people. the mode of social skills training presented by the study (liratni, blanche, & pry, 2013) on the evolution of the symptomatology and socio-communicative skills of children with autism with moderate mental retardation, has clearly shown that this mode of care is beneficial for developing socio-communication in autistic subjects. several scientific studies have shown a decrease in stereotypies and an improvement in social skills as well as academic performance through physical activity programs. motor and coordination disorders for children with autism spectrum disorders are expressed by poor coordination of the upper limbs in vasomotor tasks or dexterity tasks and poor coordination of the lower limbs in balance, agility or speed tasks. the correlation between motor disorders and communication disorders remains a relevant subject of research. as a result, movements have a role in early communication and the motor plan improves the communicative prognosis of autistic children, the decrease in running speed and the appearance of instability in the sagittal plane during activities implies a double task in autistic children, especially in football: running and ball control at the foot. in fact there is no significant difference between the walking groups, there is only a difference in speed. studies have shown a decrease in stereotypies with physical exercise. some show a short-term effect of intense aerobic exercise (such as running) (petrus & adamson, 2008), with a decrease in stereotypies after a 14-week kata techniques learning program (bahrami, 2012). hence the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 15 published by scholink inc. similarity in the movement pattern between stereotyped movements and movements performed during exercise (bahrami, 2012). the gestures required during the exercise according to stereotypies would make it possible to reinvest the function of the limb and more particularly of the movement concerned. social behaviours have been shown to be improved in several studies (vivanti & victorial, 2013)). several techniques have been used to promote the well-being of autistic people. among other things, this model described above, which proposes a structured organization of space, but also and mainly, motor activity which offers a place of relaxation. the teacher’s action, thought out with the help of conceptual tools derived in particular from the didactics of mathematics (schubauer-leoni, 2000); and relating to questions of distance and proxemics, following hall’s (1971) definition for this term: proxemics is “the set of observations and theories concerning the use that man makes of space as a cultural product”. for any communication, four criteria are presented, these are developed by amade-escot chantal, halledwaedt (1984) and summarized as follows: • space (prudential modality or remote communication). • time (synchronous or delayed communication). • the technique (direct or mediatized communication). • the first direct form is the most used in a pedagogical context since it puts the interlocutors in relation to the protagonists through choice, gesture, posture, etc. …). • the communication situation: “each situation presents inducing elements and then influences the possibilities of exchange”, mucchelli a (1991) indeed, educational communication is often a prudential communication, synchronous, direct and more or less interactive. the principles of communication: the understanding of communication mainly involves the knowledge of its principles are: • communication is a set of signals (verbal or non-verbal behaviors usually reinforce each other. • communication is a process of adjustment (the effectiveness of communication depends on the ability to detect the other person’s signals, to know their use and to understand their meaning; it ensures the cohesion of any organism). • communication has content and relational aspects (this is when a simple message contains content that concerns the desired reactions in terms of behavior). • communication involves symmetrical and complementary transactions (the two people reflect each other’s behaviours). • communication sequences are punctuated for interpretive purposes (i.e., dividing the communication process into causes and effects or stimuli and responses). • communication is a transactional process (there can be no message without a sender). • communication is inevitable (in a situation not not to communicate). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 16 published by scholink inc. • communication is intentional (during communication, we try to send a message to someone and we aim for an objective). • communication is irreversible (once you have communicated something, you cannot go back). 1.1 ways of communication communication is the mechanism by which human relationships exist and develop; it includes all the symbols of the spirit with the means of transmitting them through space and maintaining them over time gamba c. (2007). it includes facial expression, attitudes, gestures, words, writings, print. if the communication previously defined is an exchange of a message between at least two interlocutors, it should be added that this basic model is supplemented by a channel which, in addition to linking the two parties, makes it possible to convey the message and produce its reception with effects inherent to it. this channel is defined as the set of characters, words and symbols, written or graphic, verbal or gestural, which are assembled according to rules for the purpose of communicating information. so language, which is both an act and an instrument of communication, is a verbal language that is based on conversation and words, and a non-verbal language that is based on mimicry, gestures and body movements, etc. 1.2 verbal communication according to sapir e, verbal action is presented as a purely human and not instinctive means of communication, through a system of created symbols. these symbols are primarily auditory and are produced by the so-called speech organs. according to vygostsky’s perspective, language has a double function montesinot-gelet i. & morin m.-f. (2012). on the one hand, it mediates interindividual relationships and refers to the importance of social interaction. on the other hand, it mediates the relationship between activity and consciousness. its differentiated use, as learning progresses, would reveal the degree of formation of the action, i.e. the expertise of a student in the face of a task to be accomplished. benoit h. & sagot j. (2012), states that it is through this dual function that language allows access to the basis of learning orientations and would reveal the degree of formation of action and its internalization. in motor sciences, the teacher, in order to improve the learning conditions, uses verbal exchanges in addition, he instructs the class by organizing the tasks, by making the landmarks contained to all the students in the class can be carried out indirectly. indeed, the teacher also uses language to make corrections to the movements performed by the student. but now, it remains for us to situate and define the second possible path given rise to by any pedagogical intervention, which is the non-verbal language martinet c., balslev k. & saada-robert m. (2007). 1.3 non-verbal and gestural communication 1.3.1 non-verbal communication it should be noted that the person who expresses himself does not do so only by verbal communication. this motor activity affects all the speaker’s bodily areas: the head, eyes, shoulders, arms, hands, legs, etc. etc. gestural manifestations, facial expressions and bodily expression are referred to by the term www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 17 published by scholink inc. paralanguage. research that pays attention to these manifestations is called nonverbal communication. so expressive activity deeply involves speech and bodily movement. it seems to us that the question of the scope of this motor activity within the communication process is obviously crucial. non-verbal communication is a very interesting field of research; since in any pedagogical situation, non-verbal communication processes intervene. the occupation of space, the regulation of distance, and gestures, depending on the tonic state, the orientations of the body, the looks, the mimics, the contacts, etc. they concern the teacher-student relationship. this non-verbal communication was the subject of research conducted by pujade, renaud g. and zimmerman d in real pedagogical situations. on the basis of various observations and experiments, the authors identify the non-verbal ways of educational relations, they envisage an implicit non-verbal, a kind of law governing the incorporation of school norms. based on studies on the teaching of motor skills, basil c. & reyes s. (2003), show that the subject constructs a pictorial representation of the observed model by encoding visual data in images or words. these symbolic mediators then make it possible to find the appropriate answers. for pujade, renaud, g. and zimmerman, d. (1992), a visual image is a form of cognitive representation that has the characteristic of preserving perceptual information in a form that has a degree of structural similarity with perception? it constitutes a cognitive instrument that allows the individual, in the context of his motor actions, to imagine situations of a spatial nature, or dynamic configurations, an instrument of evocation. the visual image becomes an instrument of anticipation because it helps to plan action. motor education teachers use these instruments to better construct the goal of the action in the learner, but it is above all a question of getting closer to an image to be reproduced by simplifying it, exaggerating certain tenses and distorting it: an oriented, filtered, structured image. mucchelli a. (1986) show that gestural cues given by teachers are used in 82% of cases when teaching physical activity. however, the use of a visual model can take several forms in pe. vigarello g. and vives j (1986) and later gamba c. (2010), differentiate this mode of communication by focusing more particularly on the gestures of the coaches. in their observations, they highlight “illustrative” and “partial demonstrations” which can be classified according to three possibilities: fragmenting demonstrations, deforming demonstrations, rhythmic demonstrations. these particular demonstrations are intended to help the student better perceive the message. speech is only sequential, it says one thing after another, it fragments it; gesture and, for its part, more syncretic, offering a more global vision. the analysis of discourse is opposed to the synthetic of gesture. a more in-depth observation leads these authors to classify the different gesture demonstrations performed by coaches in the set of physical and sports activities. these gestural communications are grouped into four categories according to meaning: the role and function that we summarize as follows: • the teacher designates brands, for example, locations or specifies places where action to be carried out. • the teacher gives a verbal instruction and the gesture accompanies the communication. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 18 published by scholink inc. • the teacher distorts certain aspects of gestures, points to key moments and fragments actions using his own body. the priority here is in the image offered to the students. • this presupposes the acquisition of the rules of the language of the activity. this way pushes students to understand the metaphors that the teacher proposes. he must not wear out his body in life-size as in the illustration, but transposition operations are carried out. • to give an instruction to close the body at its center of gravity, the teacher uses his arm to close it at the elbow. whatever the types of gestural communication, they are intended to help the student better perceive the message. thus speech is only sequential, it says one thing after another, it fragments; the gesture is more synthetic, it offers a more global vision. in this regard, vigarello g. and vives j stipulate that “the analysis of discourse is opposed to the synthetics of gestures”. seners points out that all these media are only “didactic media”. the teacher should not be satisfied with favouring just one, on the contrary, it is preferable to differentiate them as much as possible to enrich the communications. it is necessary for the teacher to ensure that the message is understood by the students. makdissi h., boisclair a. & sirois p. (2010), confirm that it is not enough to present a reliability or an activity for all its elements to be perceived or understood by the participants. a check is often necessary before launching the whole group into the activity. effective communication depends in part on the ability to detect the other person’s signals, to know how to use them, and to understand their meanings. if we project all the work cited above onto our field of research, we are led to say that we cannot not communicate in class. as soon as the teacher and the pupils are present, an order is established. all the researchers cited also agree in recognizing the importance of non-verbal cues in this definition and constant redefinition of the situation by the subjects of the interaction. this importance of non-verbal elements in communication phenomena, and in particular in classroom communication, was already present in the work of teachers quintillan g. (2002) on waiting effects. indeed, many researchers agree on the importance of non-verbal cues in the definition and constant redefinition of the situation by the subjects of the interaction; in motor education marschark m., tang g. & knoors h. (2014), where the human body itself is concerned in the first degree, it is commonly accepted that the term non-verbal communication applies to gestures in their kinematic amplitude, postures, mimicry, body orientations, distance relationships through which information is emitted by the individual(s) concerned. this form of communication or interaction brings into play a set of so-called “medium” elements, which contribute dynamically or statically to interactive exchanges in intimate relation to the strictly verbal part. 1.4 teacher’s action the notion of the teacher’s gesture in didactics: the “professional gesture” has a dual role in didactics: first, it focuses on the process of circulation of knowledge that develops through a structured set of situations and means, theoretical and practical, and also a regulated set of professional gestures that take place in a situation. these gestures, according to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 19 published by scholink inc. amade-escot, loquet and léziart, in 2003, contain an important part of didactic ingenuity, which conceals ways of making people experience and subsequently, little known. second, it is the one that also focuses on the process of knowledge circulation. nevertheless, the word gesture will be used in a more restricted sense, in other words, as a movement of the body, mimicry. so, we think that the gestures used include an important part of didactic intention determining the teacher’s action. 1.5 the importance of gestures in motor praxeologies in a different register, parlebas (1984) presents his theory of sports games. the author develops two fundamental notions, namely “praxema” and “gesture”. the “praxema” is the motor conduct of a player interpreted as a sign whose signifier is the observable behaviour and the signified the corresponding tactical project as it has been perceived. the “gesture” is defined as a class of attitudes, mimics, gestures, motor behaviors performed in order to transmit either a request, an indication, or a tactical or relational injunction by simple substitution for speech (parlebas, 1981, pp. 75-169). otherwise, we can consider that the “praxema” as a unit of action made up of a set of “gestures”, the smallest elementary units of action. these notions are created in order to account, in a structuralist way, for the importance of the player’s gestures in the interaction with his team, his opponents and the decisions made. the idea of motor praxeology emphasizes the importance of gesture in motor communication. 1.6 gestures as a body technique vigarello and vivès (1989) in a number of successive works have focused on the body as a tool for transmitting information on practice. the study and analysis point out that written technical discourse is confronted with the need to highlight gestural phases that have no equivalent in the real situation. it is a question of translating “the right image of the action” to be carried out. the results of the study show that the difficulty encountered consists in translating all the richness of the action, its fluidity, its rhythm, from graphic signs. in the continuity of this study, the authors will conduct investigations in the field of practice. based on recordings in training or teaching situations, they show the importance in particular of the non-verbal aspects of orality, namely intonation and rhythm in the practitioner’s understanding of the direction of movement. in particular, it emerges that the referent of the action is more present in the rhythms of the voice than in the text itself, at the risk of sometimes taking precedence over the content transmitted itself. it is from this work that the question of coaches’ gestures, as a tool for the transmission of body techniques, becomes a relevant object of study. 1.7 the notion of distance as a tool for observing didactic situations the models for observing and understanding communication situations have evolved from the simplest to the most complex since 1945. the simplest models are based on a telegraphic concept, where communication is in fact reduced to the transmission of information (shannon & weaver, 1949, in picard, 1995). this conception of communication, of the telegraphic type, is opposed to another, very different in its consequences from the point of view of observation and research methodology. there is indeed a great www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 20 published by scholink inc. difference in considering communication not as a “(computable) message that a transmitting subject sends to a receiving subject through a channel, but as the insertion of a complex subject into an environment that is itself complex: the subject is part of the environment, and the environment is part of the subject sfez (1992). winkin calls this second vision of communication “orchestral communication”. it was inaugurated by bateson in 1951. it is a cultural, anthropological vision of communication: “communication does not only refer to the transmission of verbal, explicit and intentional messages; as used in our sense, communication would include the set of processes by which subjects influence each other. this definition is based on the premise that every action and every event offers communicative aspects as soon as they are perceived by a human being” (bateson & ruesch, 1951/1988). bateson’s work first dealt with psychiatric problems, and in particular allowed him to highlight, in communication situations, the existence of paradoxical injunctions. this work gave rise to a current of research known as the palo-alto school, a telegraphic conception of communication. he gives as an example the absence of a message, which can be, depending on the context, an effective message. in this conception, we note the presence of the notion of expectation, which is taken into account through the idea of predictability. in parallel with this work in the field of interactionist sociology, we can also observe the emergence of this orchestral point of view in the language sciences, with the theory of discourse acts (austin, 1962/1970). beyond the transmission of information, this point of view also integrates processes of mutual influence in the production of utterances. in his enterprise of studying in which senses to say something is to do something. austin distinguishes: the locutionary act and the phonetic, phatic and rhaetian acts that he includes which have a meaning; the illocutionary act has the fact of saying to a certain value; and the perlocutionary act, which is the obtaining of certain effects by speech. it is interesting to note that austin does not limit the effects of perlocutionary acts to one interlocutor or even to the people present: “saying something will often most often cause certain effects on the feelings, thoughts, and actions of the audience, of the speaker, or of other persons. and one can speak with the design, the intention, or the purpose of bringing about these effects” one of the consequences of the necessary didactic reluctance, already evoked in the paradox of the teacher, is precisely the strong perlocutionary valence of professorial statements, highlighted by sensevy and quilio (2003a and quilio (2003a and sensio). mainly intended to make people act, to produce effects. it is also quite capable of specifying the behaviors that interest us, namely non-verbal behaviors. it is not surprising that the theories that emerge from orchestral communication are compatible with that of didactic situations in mathematics, if we consider the kinship that has already been evoked around the didactic contract (sanazy, op.cit.), and in particular the reference to goffman. it is undoubtedly possible to broaden the subject even further, by taking up in bateson’s quotation the following passage: “every action and every event offers communicative aspects as soon as they are perceived by a human being”. we can then question the communicative aspects of the didactic environment and, even more, the “messages” implicitly conveyed by the institutions through the categories they host (douglas, 2002). as soon as they enter a space such as a school or a classroom, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 21 published by scholink inc. places as impregnated as possible with implicit institutions, and specifically set up by the class teacher, the actors are immersed in a world saturated with real and symbolic objects likely to feed their perception and guide their actions. 2. methodology observation of behaviour is a very important step that is organised during structured motor activities. analysis of the nature and quality of interactions with others, communication ability, the nature and quality of their games, autonomy, and diet, as well as the level of adaptation of certain behaviours (rogé, 2002). this helps to foster a good appreciation of boundaries and resources in associated environments. the unusual behaviours that manifest themselves during observation during assessment sessions make it possible to identify the early signs of autism, as well as the child’s development through the regular check-ups that are carried out, these are instruments both for family dialogue and for educators (guidetti, tourrette, & colin, 1996). socialization, communication, and daily living coping skills, as well as motor skills, are determined by the vineland adaptive behavior scale (sparrow et al., 1984). it is one of the tools currently used to measure the child’s socio-adaptive behavior and it is carried out by a professional. the latter must rate the scale in order to obtain a developmental age in each competency area. the evaluation of motor skills is done by examining tone, postures, manual coordination, stereotypies, and praxia (baghdedli, 2006). successive observations have shown us that distance is powerless to account for the distances perceived by the observer and, probably, by the teacher and the pupils. the distance in question is therefore not based solely on geometry. it should also be noted that hall (1963) had already constructed his distances by combining several factors. euclidean distance will therefore be one of the elements of distance that we will study, but we will have to take into account other determinants. in particular, if the euclidean distance homogenizes space through the use of a cartesian coordinate system, the distance perceived by an individual is self-centered. the subject is confused with the origin (the zero) of the coordinate system, whose axes are neither normative nor orthogonal. for example, when an object is 50 centimeters from us, in front of us, it is subjectively closer than if it is 50 centimeters behind us. our notion of distance will therefore have to integrate, in a general way, the orientation of the speaker’s body in relation to that of the speaker. continuing the exploration of this example, we can say that, if we look at an object, we subjectively bring it closer. the distance that we will postulate as a didactic distance will therefore be a function of euclidean distance, the orientation of the body and that of the gaze. the student and the put on will be all the closer to each other in the sense we understand it, the more their gazes are convergent, their posture is face to face, and of course their physical distance is short. let us note at this point that the meaning of the adjective “didactic” in the above expression (didactic distance) agrees with the general meaning we have given it: this distance is “didactic”. we are well aware of the expression “keep your distance”. in this context, let each of us mark our distance by talking to the other. subsequently, four communication zones are distinguished: www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 22 published by scholink inc. • intimate area: (15 to 45 cm), tone of confidence. • personal area: (between 45 and 1.20 m), professional relations, friendly path. • social area: (1.20 to 3.50 m), marks the function of each person. • public area: (> 3.50 m), facing an audience 2.1 focus of the research our study aims to highlight the staging of the teaching strategy for autistic children following the use of a program of intervention and management of the psychosocial skills of these children in the tunisian context. the study sample consisted of 20 students aged 6 to 12 years. the students were divided into two groups: a training group that applied an intervention program, this group is composed of 8 students (n = 8 with asd) and a group that applied a usual motor intervention program, this group is also composed of 8 students (n = 8 with asd with mild intellectual disabilities). researchers who have taken an interest in the non-verbal in the classroom (notably pujade renaud, 1983; ferrao-tavares, 1985; savaria, 1987) report difficulties arising from the specificity of these behaviours, while agreeing on the absolute necessity of taking them into account. in a summary note, genevois (1992) concluded on the interest of a naturalistic attitude based on the observation and description of behaviour in the field, an approach that is particularly interesting and worthy of being developed in the fields of pedagogy and training. neill (1986), who is widely cited in this note, indicates an impact of the teacher’s non-verbal behaviour on his or her perception by the pupils as effective or calm. this conjecture of neill’s is put forward even more explicitly by moulin (2004), who extends it to the objective efficiency of the professor. our research therefore strives to construct, from an exploratory perspective, elements of an answer balslev k. & saada-robert m. (2007). it is therefore a question of laying the premises of a new approach, based on a case study focused on certain elements of teaching action based on pedagogical intervention. … in this respect, it is important to better analyze and explain the two lines of communication in order to be able to clarify and delimit our research object. the problem that usually arises is to know which of the methods meet the interests of the learner and lead to better results at the level of assimilation for our population with specific aspects.our work is based on research work whose subject is proximity. our study on the difference in distance by tool to compare the repertoires of the four pe teachers teaching motor activity to subjects with autism. we are interested in what actually happens in motor performance optimization sessions, and we want to describe and understand the role of teacher distance in the teaching-learning process. we seek to see how the different types of distance used by the teacher during the transmission of knowledge participate in the didactic techniques of chronogenesis, topogenesis and mesogenesis in order to respond to the different situations encountered within the didactic system. all of this research is part of a comparison. it aims to characterize the proxemic productions of the four pe teachers and to identify their didactic functionalities. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 23 published by scholink inc. 2.2 study population four motor education (me) teachers, two novices and two and two experienced are involved in the present investigation, including two men and two women. each teacher is asked to teach a motor education session for a group of 08 eight children with autism with mild intellectual disabilities. teachers are classified as experienced male (he) and experienced female (fe) or novice male (hn) and novice female: • the he teacher, is a pe teacher who teaches in the middle school, and he is experienced • professor hn, is a pe teacher who teaches in college, and he is a novice. • the fe teacher, is a pe teacher who teaches in middle school, and she is experienced • professor fn, is a pe teacher who teaches in middle school, and she is a novice data collection system: learning is based on the implementation of routines and repetitions, but also by the introduction of variations within these routines. nevertheless, it happens that despite respecting all these principles, the child does not progress. in this case, this model has established a decision tree, a hierarchy of measures to be implemented according to the situations. 2.3 research objective the research aims to determine the impact of cooperative play on the development of certain basic motor skills (running, throwing, jumping; crawling) for autistic children, as well as on the variable of integration and adaptation with the environment following a proxemic analysis of the teaching action as a function of distance during the various communications carried out as well as on the degree of expertise of the teacher. 2.4 program a program planned and organized in the light of the scientific and educational foundations based on the principles and techniques of the “behavioral school” where it offers training through a range of activities of a number of sessions. 2.5 gaming activities it is a targeted or unguided activity carried out by children in order to achieve pleasure and entertainment and exploited by adults in order to contribute to the development of children’s behavior and personality by taking them away from the different physical, mental, and emotional dimensions. 2.6 basic motor skills these are some manifestations of motor realization that appear with the early stages of physical maturity, such as love, walking; run; roll; perforation; throw; climb; attachment; and because these motor patterns appear in humans in the first form,” so they are called basic motor skills or key motor skills. research plan and procedures: teaching environment and use of joint activities. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 24 published by scholink inc. the child and the teacher carry out the same routine activities together, from session to session. these routines are short activities (2 to 4 minutes) that are selected according to the child’s preferences and interests. they have several objectives, in different fields. the implementation of routines goes through several stages: from the choice of the activity, to learning the routine, by developing the rotation and collaboration between the two protagonists, to the complexification of the routine action to expand the child’s repertoire of activities and develop his mental flexibility, until the cessation of the routine, to move on to a new routine. 2.7 mode of investigation the sessions are carried out in a shared game environment, they are often biweekly and of a short duration of thirty minutes each, during which the activities are supervised by two people, who alternate between the role of observer and that of the teacher. the intervention was carried out through the functional assessment of the child and the creation of an individualized project. the functional assessment of the child guided us to structure the detailed developmental phases of the child by detecting the strong points, and the still fragile points, the emerging skills to be consolidated. the assessment focuses on the examination of: autistic symptomatology, disorders of psychophysiological functions, cognitive functioning, language or socio-communicative skills vismara, l., young, g., & rogers, s. (2012). 2.8 study population the study involves 20 children between 4 and a half and 6 years old, cared for at the private centre for autistic children in sousse, benefiting from motor activity sessions once a day. this over a period of 3 months. an initial assessment is conducted and a reassessment takes place at the end of this period. this reassessment is to verify whether an improvement in the capacities of: imitation, shared attention, interaction, regulation of behavior, perception has been made. in addition, regular evaluation of autistic symptoms to show whether a decrease in social communication disorders is occurring. the analysis of the child’s interaction with the environment will be considerably observed to check whether the children accept the novelties of the environment, and better match their behavior. these testify to the improvements following this intervention, promotes the development of the child. 2.9 research approach the population of our research represents autistic children in the governorate of sousse, aged 4 and a half to 6 years, the research sample intentionally selecting the specialized center of which had (24) children in order to meet the conditions of the average severity of autism on a scale of motor activity; research sponsored some of the conditions of the selection: • the child does not have a motor disability that prevents him or her from participating in the activities of the programme. • the child is not taking any medication that affects motor performance. • the common child should not undergo other motor programs. • the child’s guardian agrees to participate www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 25 published by scholink inc. 2.10 research tools diagnostic measurement of the autistic child scale description: this measure is designed to determine whether a child has autism and also how much autism they have. the scale used is that of the university of north carolina and prepared by professor eric schubler in 1988, who is also the discoverer of the teacch program. the form contains fifteen evaluation elements: • relationship with others •imitation. • emotional response • using the body. • use stereoscopic • adaptable to change • visual response. • audio response. • respond to taste, smell and touch. • fear or nervousness. • verbal communication. • nonverbal communication. • activity level. • level and harmony of mental response • general impressions. scaling instructions: after completing the scores for the 15 items on the form, the examiner compiles the scores for the items on the form to obtain the total test score under the form for the scale. within each item of the form, there is a special section of notes under each item that can be written on the examiner’s observations of the child’s behaviors associated with the item. once the child’s observation is complete, the appropriate degree of the child’s behaviour is placed in the element by placing a circle around the degree to which the description of the child’s behaviour is described in that element. the examiner may find that the child’s behavior is between two terms of the element, in which case the examiner places a circle around the degree (1.5 -2.5 – 3.5). 2.11 basic motor skills tests tests of basic motor skills have been developed by identifying the most important basic motor skills of the autistic child, based on theoretical readings and specialized scientific references. these skills were placed in the form of a survey and presented to an expert group consisting of 8 teachers of special motor education with at least 01 years of work in the field of leisure, play and basic motor skills. •race. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 26 published by scholink inc. •throw. •attachment. •shooting. •crawl. these variables were presented to a panel of experts to ensure that they fit and fit into this category is possible. a survey of studies and research as well as scientific references were conducted in which these abilities were applied to samples similar to the research sample to achieve tests that measure research skills and the researcher achieved the following tests. • running • jump: stability long jump • throw: throw a ball the farthest distance • crawl: crawl on the stomach the program based on the use of play activities for autistic children: first: the overall objective of the program: the current program aims to develop some basic motor skills for children with autism from the age of (5 to 9) years of age with simple to moderate autism. second: the objectives of the program: • develop the physical elements to help perform the running skill of the muscular strength of both men and speed activities. • development of elements to help perform the jumping skill of the muscular capacity of the feet. • development of elements to help perform the shooting skill of arm muscle strength. • development of elements that help to perform the crawling skill of the strength of the arm and torso muscles. • identify the importance of the positive activities that autistic children respond to and contribute to achieving its goal. • the ability to communicate verbally, non-verbally and self-expression in the autistic child. it also aims to: • help the child to empty potential energy. • to help the child develop his attention and concentration. • help the child develop the large and small muscles that are important in learning basic motor skills. • practice appropriate social behavior such as (obedience order cooperation role sharing waiting). • develop certain concepts associated with the perception of spatial relationships such as: above under right left forward behind. • develop some of these children’s abilities that help develop communication skills such as (comprehension, imitation, connectivity; recognition, label). • to develop the ability to imagine and play, and thus contribute to the development of a clear weakness in these children. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 27 published by scholink inc. • develop certain skills of discrimination and auditory perception. there are basic principles to follow when applying the program with the autistic child: • repeated skill stabilization training in autistic children. • make a daily routine schedule with these people, based on their characteristics. • taking into account the individual differences between these children. • using appropriate reinforcement methods. • provide the right place to apply the program to be away from distractions. • put the task in the form of small steps. • save enough time to complete the mission. • to lead these children to develop their attention and acquire new skills. • give instructions clearly in front of the child” using the signal as much as possible. the content of the program: the program contains a range of different motor activities that are collective or individual and simple and include motor activities, which are essential activities for children in general and autistic children in particular, where the program provides children with the opportunity to engage in sports activities that contribute to the development of autistic children’s concepts and motor perceptions, cognitive and emotional” and also help to reduce the repetitive stereotypes that appear to them. materials and tools: •chairs. •hoops. •balls. •wooden boxes. •graphics • plastic baskets. •cones •strings this study deals with the proxemic analysis of didactic moments, which is why we relied on a quantitative analysis, which thanks to data analysis software allowed us to obtain meanings by cross-referencing the various variables. 2.12 the data is collected in three stages • a pre-session interview of about twenty minutes, semi-directive, with the teacher about the teaching that will be recorded. it made it possible to specify the teacher’s “didactic intentions”, to situate the session in the didactic history of “the class”, to identify the different tasks proposed to the pupils and to establish what knowledge will be taught. the documents for the preparation of a session are also taken into consideration: • the film of the session with observations taken by the experimenter present. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 28 published by scholink inc. • the data collected relates to the video and audio recording of all the actions and interventions of the teacher and the students. the device uses the coupling of sound and image in order to be able to relate the behaviour of the different actors to the words of each one (instructions, private or public remarks, verbal reactions of the teacher and the pupils). the teacher-student group is filmed in a fixed shot presenting communicative teacher-student interactions. • a post-session, semi-structured interview, which allows the teacher to review certain elements of the session. this step is essential: it is a question of recognizing in the teacher’s words the expression of authentic knowledge and thus avoiding attributing to the person we are observing the point of view of the one who is in his chair according to bourdieu’s formula. our materials are essentially the methods presented by amade escot c (2001) who proposes to carry out antiand post-session interviews. on the other hand, we did not insist on the “didactic episode” which consists of following the progress of the objective during the sessions. thus, the main purpose of the interviews was to support the interpretation of our results. 2.13 statistical tools the observed data collected were exploited by a data analysis software (the software: statistica, spss (khi2 test) the method of the khi 2 tests: this is a statistical calculation that makes it possible to decide whether the relationship between two variables is significant or not. more precisely, it makes it possible to test whether two variables are dependent, by judging the importance of the differences between the theoretical results and the observed results. it compares an observed distribution (calculated from the khi2 (k2) formula applied in excel) to a theoretical distribution, based on the khi 2 distribution table according to the degree of freedom (ddl) and the tolerated probability of error. ddl= (row -1)(column -1) k2= (x1 – x’1)²/x’1 + (x2 – x’2)²/x’2)...: x1 represents the actual or experimental number, x’1 is the theoretical number). in our analysis, the theoretical chi-2 corresponds to a probability of error of 5%. 3. results the results are presented on the basis of the proxemic behaviors of the four teachers with reference to the four types of intimate, personal, social and public distances. by referring to the gender of teachers and their professional experience. and taking into account the gender of the students and their degrees of autism and intellectual disabilities. by presentation of individual and collective task types. based on the didactic moments corresponding to a technique (topogenesis, mesogenesis and chronogenesis) interacting with the gender of the teachers and that of the student. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 29 published by scholink inc. figure 1. global analysis of teachers’ proxemic behaviour the observation of our four teachers lasting 227 minutes made it possible to retain 1096 trips. figure 1 show the overall results for the four teachers. according to the results obtained, we can see that distances (intimate and personal) are the most used by our teachers, with values of 540 proxemic units for personal distance and 460 proxemic units for intimate distance. this leads to the conclusion that teachers use intimate and personal distances much more than social and public distances. reading the graph of the variation in the type of distance as a function of the sex of the teacher shows a significant khi 2 at p<0.001 these results inform us about the difference in the use of different types of distances between male and female teachers. this is the intimate distance, with a percentage of 49.7% for female teachers and only 29.4% for teachers. the use of the type of personal distance is almost realized with similar values for both sexes (50% for men and 48.8% for women). social and public distancing are used much more by men (by 17.9% and 2.6% respectively) than by women (by 0.4% and 0.4% respectively). figure 2 shows that teachers intend to place themselves at a distance of between 1.5cm and 1.2m to manage their students and impose an order of organization and discipline during their teaching. figure 2. variation in the use of distances according to the gender of the teacher the proxemic unit used according to their professional experiences shows that teachers experienced in their teaching of motor activity frequently use both types of intimate and personal distances with the “absence” of other types of distances. the comparison between experienced and novice teachers has www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 30 published by scholink inc. shown that experienced teachers always place themselves close even in physical contact with their students during the teaching of motor activities, while novice teachers take more distance during moments of didactic interactions. the frequency of use of intimate distance is 53.9% for experienced teachers and 27.6% for novice teachers. the variation in the use of personal distance shows that this parameter is used much more by novice teachers than experienced ones. the frequency of use of this distance is 54.9% for novice teachers compared to 44.6% for experienced teachers. figure 3. variation in the use of distances as a function of the teacher’s experience similarly, figure 3 of the study of the variation in the use of distances according to the teacher’s experience shows that social and public distances are used much more by novice teachers than experienced teachers, with normative values of 14.9% in social distance (social or public) for novice teachers and 2.6% for the same type of distance among experienced teachers. the values found in social disatance (social or public) are 2.6% for novice teachers and 0.4% for experienced teachers. this use of such a type of distance at the time of teaching proves the effect of professional experience in the teacher-pupil didactic interaction at the time of learning. figure 4. variation: in the use of the various types of distance according to the sex of the pupil the study of the variation in distance as a function of the student’s sex presented in figure 4 reveals a significant khi-2 at p<0.001 and confirms that motor activity teachers addressing a population of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 31 published by scholink inc. autistic children with mild intellectual disabilities tend to frequently use intimate and personal distances during their teaching. indeed, our teachers have shown that they feel close to their students without taking into account the nature of their gender. the results of the frequencies of use of intimate distances according to the sex of the student are 44.1% for boys and 45.5% for girls. for the personal distance type, this percentage is 48.8% for boys and 47.4% for girls. we also note that our teachers are more likely to address a group of girls, boys, or mixed (indifferentiated) by taking more distance per report (norms of 54.3% in personal type of distance and 11% in social distance and 6% in public distance). these distances are sometimes far away and it is generally to have the learners in a field of vision allowing the direct intervention of the teacher to correct, put in order or impose a continuity of work of the students. figure 5. variation in the use of the various types of distance according to the didactic moments for the moments of the definition as what the teacher does so that the pupils know precisely which game they should play, this mode shows values according to the results found justifying that it is frequently used in motor education with a value equal to 53.4% in intimate distances, 36.4% in personal distances, 7.8% in social distancing and 2.4% in public distances. at the moment of devolution, as what the teacher does so that the students take responsibility for their work, their position, the fact that they “get caught up in the game”. a clear difference between teachers in greater frequency to use this function in the personal type of distance (62.5%) compared to the intimate type of distance which is (29.9%) and (6.5%) in social and (1.8%) in public. regulation as what the teacher does in order to obtain a winning strategy from the students. this mode shows values based on the results found justifying that it is frequently used in intimate and personal distances with a value equal to 52.1% in intimate distances, 36.4% in personal distances, 10.1% in social distances and 1.4% in public distances. institutionalization as what the teacher does so that this or that behavior, this or that assertion, this or that knowledge is considered legitimate, true, and expected, in the institution. it is almost on par with the other previous modes according to distances with a percentage of 51.5% in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 32 published by scholink inc. intimate distances, 48.5% in personal distances, and 0% in social and public distances. this allows us to deduce that through the sessions observed, our teachers begin their task teaching by definition to allow their students to know precisely which task must be performed. they resort to devolution during their sessions while keeping the two most preferred types for the teaching of motor activities, which are the personal and the intimate, hence the observation of distances varying significantly according to the didactic moment of the session. this didactic moment seems to be significantly related to the types of distances that would be imposed. as a result, a particular type of travel as well to act. the teacher would use a rather intimate distance, whereas at the time of devolution, we notice that he takes a little distance from his students. table 1. variation in the use of the various types of distance according to didactic techniques intimate personnal social public total chrono genetic didactic technique nombre 0 4 5 3 12 % 0,0% 33,3% 41,7% 25,0% 100% topogenetic moments nombre 435 487 60 15 997 % 43,6% 48,8% 6,0% 1,5% 100% mesogenetic didactic technique nombre 32 39 13 0 84 % 38,1% 46,4% 15,5% 0,0% 100% total nombre 467 530 78 18 1093 % 42,7% 48,5% 7,1% 1,6% 100% analysis of the results of the frequency of use of the various types of distance according to the techniques. the didactic moments presented in table 1 show that the topogenetic moments, which are generally the teacher’s moments, vary according to the teacher’s movement to the various didactic moments with values of 48.8% in personal type, 43.6% in intimate type, 6% in social and 1.5% in public. it can thus be deduced that the division of responsibilities between the pupil and the teacher greatly favours the teaching action. teachers tend to be close, even very close to their students and have more responsibilities. thus the results of the variation in the use of the various types of distance according to the mesogenetic didactic technique show the action of the teacher in the course of his teaching: to encourage the pupils to use this or that notion, this or that system of notion, for a given piece of work. the action of the teacher of motor activity during his teaching in relation to the mesogenetic type evaluates in parallel with the tendency to use the personal and intimate type with a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 33 published by scholink inc. percentage of 46.4% and 38.1% for the personal, while it is 15.5% for the social type and absent in public with 0%. figure 6. distribution of techniques according to distances the analysis of the results of the distribution of techniques according to distances presented in figure 6 proves that the observation of the proxemic behavior of the motor activity teacher in his teaching action at the moment of chronogenesis as being what the teacher makes the students “advance” in the classroom in relation to the progression of the content shows that this variable is never realized in an intimate way. the recorded value is 0%. indeed, this variable takes on a social rather than a personal tendency. the results illustrated are 41.7% social distance, 33.3% personal distance and 25% public distance. these data allow us to deduce that teachers, as they advance their didactic time from one learning situation to another, they take these types of distance as a reference explaining the nature of the discipline. the significant difference between the didactic techniques used by the teachers and their respective distances shows that during the “topo” moment, the distances are rather of an intimate and personal nature to ensure that the learner understands through a clear and meaningful discourse. we also see these types of distances in mesogenesis, with the presence of the social type. our teachers change their teaching environment not only while being close to their students, but they do so at a distance indicating mastery of the student group on the part of the teacher and good management of the group according to space, material and time. 4. discussion observation of behavior is a very important step that is organized during motor activities. indeed, to recognize the signs of the child’s motor development. the analysis of the nature and quality of interactions with teachers, the ability to communicate, the nature and quality of one’s games, autonomy, and diet, as well as the level of adaptation of certain behaviours, makes it possible to promote a good appreciation of the limits and resources in the associated environments. the development of the child through the regular check-ups that are carried out are instruments both of the family dialogue and with the educators (guidetti, tourrette, & colin, 1996). adaptation skills from a communication perspective, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 34 published by scholink inc. as well as motor skills are determined to measure the child’s socio-adaptive behaviors and it is carried out by a motor activity teacher. the latter must rate the scale in order to obtain a developmental age in each competency area. the quantitative analysis of our data clearly shows that there are similarities but also differences between our teaching quarters. indeed, the data processed allowed us to observe that the elements of the proxemic category are common to the four professors in the sense that they are the most used by both professor. our results also highlight the importance of a topogenetic modality compared to the other two techniques. indeed, it would seem that in motor education aimed at children with autism with a degree of intellectual disability, more than in other disciplines, the definition of the “topos” of the teacher and the student brings into play a specific modality. hence the importance of topogenetic techniques.the analysis should therefore allow us to better identify the dimensions of mesogenetic action in teachers. is it an organizational environment, or a real didactic environment. a significant proportion of our teachers participate in the definition. the latter is associated with a devolution aim. the professors as we have just seen have many similarities, but we were also able to note differences according to their professional experience. first of all, our results show that teachers use more of the personal and intimate type in their teaching didactic actions with differentiated didactic functionalities. motor and coordination disorders for children with autism spectrum disorders are expressed by poor coordination of the upper limbs in vasomotor tasks or dexterity tasks and poor coordination of the lower limbs in balance, agility or speed tasks. the correlation between motor disorders and communication disorders remains a relevant subject of research. as a result, our general hypothesis that movements have a role in early communication and motor plan improves the communicative prognosis of autistic children according to the analysis of didactic moments across distances is verified. studies have shown a decrease in stereotypies with physical exercise. some show a short-term effect of intense aerobic exercise (such as running) (petrus & adamson, 2008). and others show longer-term effects (up to 1 month later), with a decrease in stereotypies social behaviors are shown to be improved in several studies (movahedi, 2012). the meta-analysis by sowa and meulenbroek showed a superiority of individual interventions compared to group interventions, which is verified by our results. autistic children have interaction difficulties that are linked to three symptoms: contact and social relationship disorders, language and communication, repetitive behaviors and/or activities. we emphasize that the difficulties of interaction in all cases, effectively confirm this hypothesis. motor activity teachers find difficulties in interaction in these three symptoms presented in autistic children, educators of autistic children encounter difficulties, such as the problem of contact and social relationships, and difficulties that can engender. the results of the observation of proxemic behaviours in the didactic relationship have shown that the motor activity teacher frequently places himself at each moment of the session at a well-determined distance according to that of the pupil or the group he was teaching, consequently influencing the interaction of these two determining factors in the didactic relationship of learning as a result that the teachers expert. in their didactic interactions tend to have both personal and social, sometimes public, distances, which reflects the idea that they www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 35 published by scholink inc. tend to keep their distance from their students. the results of the observation of proxemic behaviours in the didactic relationship have shown that the motor activity teacher frequently places himself at each moment of the session at a well-determined distance according to that of the pupil or the group he was teaching, consequently influencing the interaction of these two determining factors in the didactic relationship of learning as a result that the teachers expert. in their didactic interactions tend to have both personal and social, sometimes public, distances, which reflects the idea that they tend to keep their distance from their students. the analysis of the act of teaching allows us to better understand how the competence to teach engages in a real bodily relationship with the environment and the students. following our observations we also find that novice teachers tend to always be close to their students expressed by their frequent use of the intimate and personal type of distance, this can be explained not only by the experience of the teacher, but also by the nature of the task, and its place of practice similar to a classroom, with variation of the risk variable from one learning task to another. while professional experience plays an important role in the game of didactic interactions, the variation of the distance variable as a function of the teacher’s gender with that of the students has shown us that men use a personal type of distance when they interact with girls in the course of their teaching, and it is much closer to boys. this is justified by the intimate type at the time of didactic interactions and it is the opposite result for female teachers who keep more distance in interaction with boys and more intimate with girls, from which we can conclude that our teachers, without differentiating their genders, each tend to be intimate with students of the same sex and keep more distance in interaction with a student of different genders moment of didactic interaction to be close to the receiver of verbal or gestural messages. on the other hand, the teacher is thus, unknowingly, at the origin of an effect that relieves the pupil of the essential part of the knowledge. teachers of motor activity which is at the level of didactic features. whereas institutionalization does not seem to be very developed by the latter. on the other hand, the teacher of motor activity, tends towards “manipulations” and favours regulations, which best characterise the teacher’s action. their didactic function is to help define and regulate knowledge, by means of essentially topogenetic techniques. the teachers are also at the service of the definition and regulation of the environment, through a mixture of mesogenetic and topogenetic techniques. indeed, teachers manifest a certain number of meanings through their gestures and positions. at the same time, as soon as the teacher enters the scene, the students are on the lookout for signs that will allow them to guess his expectations, and thus reduce the inevitable uncertainty attached to any communication situation. we believe that the non-verbal modalities of exchange of meanings between the teacher and the students play a non-negligible role in the quality and effectiveness of the didactic relationship. another way of specifying the notion of didactic contract is proposed by chevallard in 1981, with the concepts of topogenesis and chronogenesis, concepts that have been taken up and extended by sensevy, mercier and shubauer-leoni (2000). chronogenesis represents didactic time, the arrangement of knowledge in successive elements on the axis of time. teaching is therefore, from this perspective, to travel, with the students, through an oriented series of objects of knowledge. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 36 published by scholink inc. topogenesis represents the state of the respective places, of the topos, occupied by the teacher, on the one hand, and each of the students or group of students, on the other hand. the places in question here are places for the teacher to understand all the tasks he is supposed to accomplish, and to master his space of knowledge. in the same way, the student also occupies a space, which is assigned to him by the teacher, and which includes the tasks he must carry out and the conditions in which he is supposed to carry them out. seen from this angle, the didactic contract in progress, at a given moment of the didactic interaction, can be conceived as a state of topogenesis at this precise moment of chronogenesis. we can thus consider that in a learning situation, the student plays a “game” where the aim is to produce “answers” which he assumes correspond to the teacher’s expectations. if the situation is constructed adequately, the teacher’s expectation is sufficiently opaque to the student so that the production of the desired “response” is the result of the implementation of the targeted knowledge, or at least that the knowledge is contained in the strategy implemented to “achieve the proper execution of the task requested”, i.e. produce the appropriate response. we can clearly see here that the teacher will be subjected to a paradox, because it is not he who must play, and the more he “reveals what he desires, the more he tells the student precisely what he must do, the more he risks losing his chances of obtaining and objectively observing the learning he should actually aim for” (brousseau, 2003). the teacher is therefore led to play another game which is a game built on the student’s game (sensevy et al., 2000). to account for this teacher’s game, sensevy offers us a model for describing the teacher’s action, the four structural elements of which refer to this idea of the teacher’s game on the student’s game. 5. conclusion our research aimed to make visible teaching techniques for teaching motor activities for children with autism and a mild intellectual disability, which we saw during the analyzes themselves had the effect of making visible objects for didactic learning interactions. we will conclude with this idea of visibility that the teacher, in a didactic field which is at the same time proxemic, material and linguistic, assumes a differentiated management of joint attention, for the benefit of the forms of the environment which in principle contain part of the knowledge targeted. these forms can be considered as so many transpositions in class. the teacher organizes the progressive visibility of these forms by highlighting certain relevant elements of the environment without neglecting the response elements which can later attest to learning. in our research we are subject to a double requirement, to which is added a constraint of meaning. a first requirement, to understand what is at stake in the session and to make visible the knowledge issues present in this session. because the notion of “knowledge” covers the realities of the content taught. a narrow vision of knowledge often leads to the indictment of the professor. the making of knowledge visible in a session by the teacher therefore goes beyond the strictly disciplinary framework and requires reflection around knowledge. a second requirement, the one which is at the heart of our work, concerns the making visible of the non-verbal modalities of teaching arrangements. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 37 published by scholink inc. as part of our research which allowed us to answer certain questions concerning the notion of skill development and the difficulties of interacting with autistic children. our research is carried out on the basis of observations noted in the field and the practice of motor activity for autistic children, interaction difficulties encountered, contact disorder and social interactions, communication and language and behaviors, and many others require adequate multidisciplinary care for autistic children while throughout their lives. until today, professionals have still not been able to find the underlying causes of this pathology. with this in mind, a team made up of different people likely to bring experience in the desired field ensures the study of the relationship of the body to the social environment. bodily appearance in the social gaze depending on the gender of the educator and their interactions with autistic children is our research perspective in this field. the notion of social representations of the body presents itself as a variable for future study. 6. research limitations an early diagnosis of autistic children is very sensitive and especially in terms of the child’s future. adapted and rapid intervention is therefore more effective for better management of the disorder and helps to cope with the difficulties encountered. to obtain an early diagnosis the experience of professionals can also be at issue especially with the lack of specialized structures, the diagnosis for the youngest age, especially since the early signs can be discreet and generally only represent slight deviations from the normal development. references amade-escot chantal. 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(2017). teaching advance movement exploration skills in water to children with autism spectrum disorders. retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/268693313_teaching_advance_movement_exploration_ skills_in_water_to_children_with_autism_spectrum_disorders frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no.2, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 124 original paper family-type, childhood deprivations, parenting style, single parenting, broken home, peer influence and sibling rivalry as correlates of criminal behaviour among agodi inmates, nigeria prof. rotimi adebayo animasahun1*, etzeoghena joy iluebbey1 & veronica oluwatoyin animasahun2 1 department of counselling and human development studies, university of ibadan, ibadan, nigeria 2 school of secondary education (science programmes) department of integrated science, federal college of education, special, oyo, nigeria * prof. rotimi adebayo animasahun, e-mail: animarotimi@yahoo.com received: april 17, 2023 accepted: may10, 2023 online published: june 2, 2023 doi:10.22158/fet.v6n2p124 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v6n2p124 abstract crime is a problem that is almost as old as man. it has long since been the goal of many stakeholders to find the reason and solution to the problem of crime. relevant professionals and bodies have still not reached a consensus on the reason for criminal behavior. the goal of this study is to identify any patterns or connections between family type, single-parenting, parenting style, childhood deprivation, broken home, sibling rivalry, and peer influence and criminal behavior in order to find potential solutions to the problem of crime. the study uses a descriptive research design and involves a sample of 200 inmates selected through simple random sampling. a structured questionnaire consisting of measures of the family type, single-parenting, broken home, childhood deprivations, sibling rivalry, parenting style, and peer influence was used to collect data. three research questions were raised for the study and data collected was analyzed through the use of multiple regression analysis, and correlation tested at 0.05 level of significance. the findings revealed that there were significant relationships between family type (r=0.642**; p<.05); followed by peer influence (r=0.628**; p<.05); broken home (r=0.595**; p<.05); single parenting (r=0.560**; p<.05); childhood deprivation (r=0.551**; p<.05); parenting style (r=0.547**; p<.05); sibling rivalry (r=0.122**; p<.05) and criminal behaviors of inmates. seven independent variables jointly contributed a total of 64.6% (adjusted r2=0.646) to the total variance of the criterion variable (criminal behavior of agodi inmates, nigeria). the independent variables made relative contributions to criminal behavior in the following order family type (β=0.246, t=6.910; p<0.05); peer influence (β=0.242, t=7.235; p<0.05); www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 125 published by scholink inc. broken home (β=0.241, t=3.677; p<0.05); single parenthood (β=0.235, t=3.651; p<0.05); childhood deprivation (β=0.221, t=3.822; parenting style (β=0.189, t=0.1.4.370; p<0.05); and finally, sibling rivalry (β=0.080, t=3.019; p<0.05). this study found that the independent variables contribute significantly to criminal behavior among inmates in agodi, nigeria. it suggests that if the situation of families and homes continues to deteriorate, criminal behavior will also continue to increase. the study recommends providing orientation to the public on the role of the family in shaping an individual’s behavior and the causes and effects of criminal behavior in order to address the issue. keywords family type, single parenting, broken home, parenting style, childhood deprivation, sibling rivalry, peer influence, criminal behaviours, agodi inmates, nigeria 1. introduction it is an indisputable fact that crime is on the increase every day, not just in nigeria but all over the world. there is no disagreement from both the micro and macro levels of studies that the rate of crime in nigeria has reached an unacceptable level (fajemirokun, adewale, idowu, oyewusi, & maiyegun, 2006). the news reports incidents of armed robbery, assassination, and ransom-driven kidnapping, which is spreading like wildfire and spreading a climate of fears and anxieties about public safety. this occurrence of crime for decades can be traceable to poverty, family deprivations, poor parental upbringing, and greed among the youth; a get-rich-quick mentality, and an inadequate crime control model of national security, among others. crime and criminal behavior are concepts that are difficult to separate, as they go hand in hand. criminal behavior implies that a crime has been committed. criminal behavior could be described as behavior that breaks a set of rules that govern society. it is regarded as anti-social and goes against the norms of the prevailing society. such behavior could be an imitation of learned behavior through social contact and associations. criminal behavior is used to describe offending adults, while delinquent behavior is the term used to describe offenses committed by adolescents. the definition of criminal behavior is limited because it only makes an inference from offenses that are detected by the criminal justice system. sutherland (1939) defines criminal behavior as behavior, which violates criminal law. no matter what the degree of immorality, reprehensibility, or indecency of an act, it is not a crime unless it is prohibited by criminal law. sutherland (1939) further mentions seven attributes of a crime. a) before a behavior can be called a crime, there must be certain external consequences or harm. crime harms social interest. b) the external consequences or harm shall be strictly forbidden. anti-social behavior is not a crime unless forbidden by law. c) there must be an intention. d) mens rea (a guilty mind) must be present. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 126 published by scholink inc. e) there must be a fusion or concurrence of mens rea and intention. f) there must be a causal relationship between the legally forbidden harm and the misconduct. g) there must be a legally prescribed punishment. according to the business dictionary (2016), a crime is a harmful act or omission against the public that the state wishes to prevent and which, upon conviction, is punishable by fine, imprisonment, and death. no conduct constitutes a crime unless it is declared criminal in the laws of the country. some crimes (such as theft or criminal damage) may also be civil wrongs (torts) for which the victim(s) may claim damages in compensation. fink (1938) opined that before an act can be legally defined as a crime, at least theoretically, five conditions must be met: i. an act must take place that involves harm inflicted on someone by the actor; ii. the act must be legally prohibited at the time it is committed; iii. the perpetrator must have criminal intent (mens-rea) when he engages in the act; iv. there must be a causal relationship between the voluntary misconduct and the harm that results from it; and: v. there must be some legally prescribed punishment for anyone convicted of the act. iain (2007), while recommending prevention before punishment opined that it is right that a government should seek to protect its citizens as its priority. however, the current emphasis on reforming legislation and increasing penalties for offenders will do little to stop the next generation of prisoners and unlock the cycle of deprivation, which so many young people are trapped in unless it is backed up by an attempt to tackle the underlying drivers of crime. he thinks that the government has got the balance wrong; all its energies are directed at punishing those whose lives are products of a fractured society without tackling the causes of crime in a holistic way. as the government continued to fail in delivering its promises to the citizens and instead engaged in corrupt practices such as; money looting etc. individuals decided to pursue their aspirations in illegal ways. there is hardly an individual who does not exhibit criminal behavior in one way or the other. criminal behavior can be seen in almost every sector of our society. public officers ask for a bribe before they perform their duties, law enforcement agents require bribes from law offenders, the public nurse asks for a bribe before showing a patient a bed space, accountants help adjust the books or steal and change figures, workers engage in fraud, even the family is not left out. when a woman wants to ask for money for school fees or some other need, she doubles the price so she can keep the extra, the child increases the price he needs for school, and the husband lies about his salary. the circle of crime keeps on growing. almost everyone engages in budget padding. youths engage in cybercrime, kidnapping, robbery, etc. criminal behavior is any behavior or act that violates criminal law, whereas a crime is a particular action representing such behavior (kamaluddin, shariff, othman, ismail, & ayu, 2015). “it is not itself, or criminality that is innate; it is certain peculiarities of the central and autonomic nervous system that react with the environment, with upbringing, and many other environmental factors to increase the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 127 published by scholink inc. probability that a given person would act in a certain antisocial manner” (eysenck & gudjonsson, 1989; bartol & bartol, 2005). the impact of the interaction of these factors has been found in a few studies; however, this remains an area that requires more research. it can also be noted that with the varying rise and patterns of criminal behavior so also the varying patterns of family structure and relationships today. no single factor can be said to be responsible for criminal behavior. there are a lot of factors that could influence criminal behavior, such as family-related factors, peer influence, etc. families serve as one of the strongest socializing networks. they play an important role in the socialization of the child and serve as the fundamental building block of society. families help teach children to control unacceptable behavior, delay gratification, and respect the rights of others. in the same way, families can also teach children aggressive, anti-social, and violent behavior. in adults’ lives, family responsibilities may provide an important stabilizing force. given these possibilities, family life may directly contribute to the development of delinquent and criminal tendencies. the family type of individual can influence criminality. most researchers have been able to establish a correlation between family type, size, environmental factors, and criminality. in a research carried out by madhurima (2009) on the offenders in the state of punjab, it was found that a majority of them (57.5%) live in a nuclear family, and 36.5% of the offenders live in joint or extended families. another study by pandey and singh (2006) found results consistent with that of madhurima, with 69.70% of offenders identified as being from a nuclear family. the research indicates a rather equitable distribution between joint and nuclear families. scholarly evidence (such as research carried out by heritage scholars on the real root causes of violent crime) suggests that at the heart of the explosion of crime in america is the loss of the capacity of fathers and mothers to be responsible for caring for the children they bring into the world (fagan, 1995). this statement also applies to nigeria because family dynamics are the same everywhere. this loss of love and guidance at the intimate levels of marriage and family has broad social consequences for children and the wider community. research by heritage scholars also shows that too many young men and women from broken families tend to have a much weaker sense of connection with their neighborhood and are prone to exploit its members to satisfy their unmet needs or desires. this contributes to a loss of a sense of community and the disintegration of neighborhoods into social chaos and violent crime. when a child is deprived in childhood of parental care, control, love, education, and other basic needs, there is the tendency for that child to seek love, care, etc. through other means, which may lead to engaging in crime. there is overwhelming evidence from professional literature revealing that teenage criminal behavior has its root in the habitual deprivation of parental love and affection going back to early infancy (white, moffitt, earl, & robins, 1990). when young people have experienced a chaotic, disintegrating family life growing up, which they projected through aggression and hostility to others outside the family, they tend to continue with aggressive and hostile behavior which can grow into www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 128 published by scholink inc. criminal behavior. most young people suffering from parental deprivation are not withdrawn or depressed. rather the opposite is the case: they are actively involved in activities in their environment but in a violent manner. this hostility is usually established in the early years of life. by age six, habits of aggression and free-floating anger typically are already formed. in contrast, normal children enjoy a sense of personal security derived from their natural attachment to their mothers. the future criminal is often denied this natural attachment. the parenting style employed by parents in raising their children goes a long way in determining the future behavior of the child. the child is evidence of the parenting style of the parents. where parents employ appropriate disciplinary measures, the child is less likely to engage in criminal acts that may lead to criminal behavior while the use of harsh, punitive punishments may harden and toughen the child and eventually push the child to engage in criminal acts that may lead to criminal behavior. broken homes create an environment that predisposes children to criminal activities. broken homes are characterized by absent fathers’ and mothers’ who are unable or unwilling to provide necessary affection, fighting and domestic violence, inadequate child supervision, discipline, and mistreatment of children. all these factors contribute to criminal activity. children from broken homes also tend to have negative experiences in their neighborhood, such as; rejection from other children and even adults who look at them as apples that cannot fall far from the tree. these children tend to struggle in school and participate in gangs; all these experiences further encourage their participation in criminal activities (fagan, 1995). as the child faces all these negative experiences, a major determining factor that influences negative behavior is the lack of dedication and the atmosphere of rejection or conflict within the family, which diminishes the child’s experience of his personal life as one of love, dedication, and a place to belong. instead, it is characterized increasingly by rejection, abandonment, conflict, isolation, and even abuse. the child with a desire to have a place of belonging finds others who have experienced similar rejection and adopt them as a family. these new “families” not having caring adults then carve out their form of acceptance. the child turns to peers who are a major influence on criminal behavior (fagan, 1995). peer influence plays a major role in the life of young individuals. during the early stage of a person’s life, especially the teenage years, pleasing one’s peer is thought crucial. therefore, if a person’s peers are criminally minded, the individual may also engage in criminal acts. it is said that evil communication corrupts good manners. in secondary schools, friends in a clique engage in similar behavior as this is what binds them together. the relationship between parents, not just the relationship between mother and child, has a powerful effect on very young children. children react to quarreling parents by disobeying, crying, hitting other children, and in general, being much more antisocial than their peers. another fact to note is that quarreling or abusive parents do not generally vent their anger equally on all their children; instead, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 129 published by scholink inc. they tend to vent their anger on their more difficult children. this parental hostility, and physical and emotional abuse that the child experiences shape the future delinquent according to cummings (1987). most people who break laws tend to have been abandoned by their fathers. they were also deprived of love and affection from their mothers. inconsistent parenting, family issues, and multiple other stresses (such as economic hardship) that flow from these disruption compounds the rejection this set of individuals receive from their parents, many of whom became criminals during childhood. with all these factors working against the child’s normal development, by age five, the future criminal already will tend to be aggressive, hostile, and hyperactive. four-fifths of children destined to be criminals will be “antisocial” by 11 years of age. (white, moffitt, earl, & robins, 1990). according to the professional literature on juvenile delinquency, kevin wright, professor of criminal justice at the state university of new york at binghamton, writes: “research confirms that children raised in supportive, affectionate, and accepting homes are less likely to become deviant. children rejected by parents are among the most likely to become delinquent.” (wright & wright, 1992) this rejection and abandonment can cause the child to release his feelings through anti-social or delinquent behavior (green, 2015). many characteristics of broken families create conditions for criminal behavior. some of these include:  fatherlessness;  absence of maternal affection;  parental fighting and domestic violence;  lack of parental supervision and discipline;  rejection of the child;  parental abuse or neglect. a study carried out by manning and lamb (2003); jeynes (2000) revealed that children of single-parent families were far more likely to have academic and behavioral problems in school and were far more likely to become delinquents while children of intact married families are more likely to attend college. children experiencing problems due to unfavorable family conditions tend to do poorly in school as a result of the inability to concentrate in school, rejection by classmates, and aggressive behavior. if a child breaks the rules in school, he/she is punished and might be given work to do, which further takes him/her away from school work. the child angry at what he/she may perceive as unfair treatment continues to display aggressive behavior and breaks the rules, which leads to continued punishment. all these affect the child academically, emotionally, and socially, and reduce the child’s chance of advancing his/her education. the child, therefore, may continue to resort to criminal behaviors first as a way of crying out, rebelling, getting his or her needs met, and later on, as a habit. while children from single-parent homes can certainly have strong attachments with the custodial parent, some research has suggested that having a second parent in the household is still important in reducing delinquency. for example, rankin and kern (1994) found that children who are strongly attached to both parents have a lower probability of self-reported delinquency than children who are www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 130 published by scholink inc. strongly attached to only one parent. furthermore, even children living in single-parent homes who are strongly attached to the custodial parent generally have a greater probability of committing delinquent acts than children living in intact homes who are strongly attached to both parents (rankin & kern, 1994). in addition to parental attachment or closeness, social bonds with parents have also been measured with terms such as parental monitoring, supervision, and involvement. their meta-analysis of 161 published and unpublished manuscripts determined that the strongest links connecting this relationship were parental monitoring, psychological control, and negative aspects of support (hoeve, dubas, eichelsheim, laan, smeenk, & gerris, 2009). sibling rivalry occurs when a type of competition or animosity exists among siblings. this rivalry can be caused by preferential treatment by parents and perhaps, family members, jealousy, etc. sibling rivalry can progress to sibling conflict and violence. the perpetrator of sibling violence socializes the victim to violence, and the victim may come to regard violence as normal behavior (criminal justice research). when individuals have been exposed to sibling rivalry, and in turn sibling violence while growing up, they take such behavior with them when associating with other people. individuals who see their siblings as rivals and who are violent to their siblings will tend to see others in society who display behaviors’ or have characteristics similar to that of the sibling they dislike as rivals too and may be violent towards them. those violent with their siblings will also be violent to others since they have learned violent behavior. many factors could serve as correlates of criminal behavior as some could view criminal behavior as a learned behavior, but for this study, family type, sibling rivalry, broken home, childhood deprivations, single parenting, parenting style, and peer influence are investigated as correlates of criminal behavior. 2. research questions 1) what is the pattern of relationship between the independent variables (family type, sibling rivalry, broken home, childhood deprivation, single parenting, parenting style, and peer influence) and the dependent variable (criminal behavior among agodi inmates, nigeria)? 2) what is the joint influence of the independent variables (family type, sibling rivalry, broken home, childhood deprivation, single parenting, parenting style, and peer influence) on the dependent variable (criminal behavior among agodi inmates, nigeria)? 3) what is the relative contribution of the independent variables (family type, sibling rivalry, broken home, childhood deprivation, single parenting, parenting style, and peer influence) on the dependent variable (criminal behavior among agodi inmates, nigeria)? www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 131 published by scholink inc. 3. methodology the study adopted the descriptive survey research design, which draws inference from selected sampled portions of the population. this also involves using empirical statistical tools to analyze information and data collected from the field to explain events and circumstances as they occur. the population of this study consists of all inmates, both awaiting trial and convicted inmates of the agodi custodial centre, ibadan, oyo state, nigeria. two hundred inmates of the agodi custodial centre were used for the study using simple random sampling. the instrument used to collect data for this study contained seven scales. these include: crime behaviour scale developed by knight, garner, simpson, morey, and flynn (2006) which was adapted by the researcher for the data collection on inmates’ criminal behaviour, single parenting scale developed by the researcher, broken home scale, peer influence scale developed by rigby and slee (1993), sibling rivalry scale, parenting style scale and childhood deprivation scale. family type was determined by asking respondents to tick the family type they belonged to from the options provided. this instrument was pilot tested using cronbach alpha reliability coefficient. the pilot study was carried out using 20 inmates of agodi custodial centre. cronbach alpha reliability coefficient of .555 alpha for the crime behavior scale, .492 for the single parenting scale, .817 for the broken home scale, .581 for the parenting style scale, .751 for sibling rivalry scale, .829 for childhood deprivation scale and .779 for peer influence scale. the researcher obtained a letter of introduction from the department of guidance and counseling for the identification which was presented at the prison. the researcher administered the instruments to the inmates of agodi custodial centre, ibadan, nigeria, directly alongside a research assistant from the prison who gave guidance to the researcher and respondents. data analysis was carried out using the descriptive research design of correlational a with test significance of variables at 0.05 level of significance. 4. results research question 1: what is the pattern of relationship between the independent variables (family type, sibling rivalry, broken home, childhood deprivation, single parenting, parenting style, and peer influence) and the dependent variable (criminal behavior among agodi inmates, nigeria)? the result is presented in table 1. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 132 published by scholink inc. table 1. descriptive statistics and matrix table showing the pattern of relationship among the variables sn variables mean sd 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 dependent variable criminal behaviour 52.1 12.4 1 1 family type 1.39 .494 .642** 1 2 sibling rivalry 2.08 .735 .122** .017 1 3 broken home 1.35 .598 .595** .126 .119 1 4 childhood deprivation 1.46 .678 .551** .148 .395 .226 1 5 single parenthood 79.75 16.9 .560** .064 .063 .029 .153 1 6 parenting style 70.36 15.8 .547** .056 .063 .022 .113 .700 1 7 peer influence 79.55 18.1 .628** .003 .035 .075 .171 .524 .742 **variable is significant at 0.05 level. the table displays the mean and standard deviation for all the variables and also shows that all the independent variables (family type, sibling rivalry, broken home, childhood deprivation, single parenting, parenting style, and peer influence) are positively correlated with the dependent variable (criminal behavior). in the order of magnitude, family type ranked the highest (r=0.642**; p<.05); followed by peer influence (r=0.628**; p<.05); broken home (r=0.595**; p<.05); single parenthood (r=0.560**; p<.05); childhood deprivation (r=0.551**; p<.05); parenting style (r=0.547**; p<.05); and lastly, sibling rivalry (r=0.122**; p<.05). this means that variables highly influence criminal behaviours of the inmates in this study. the highest correlate of criminal behavior is family type. research question 2: what is the joint influence of the independent variables (family type, sibling rivalry, broken home, childhood deprivation, single parenting, parenting style, and peer influence) on the dependent variable (criminal behavior among agodi inmates, nigeria)? the result is presented in table 2. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 133 published by scholink inc. table 2. multiple regression table showing the joint correlation of the independent variables (family type, sibling rivalry, broken home, childhood deprivation, single parenting, parenting style, and peer influence) to criminal behavior. multiple r = .807 multiple r2=.651 multiple r2(adjusted) = .646 standard error estimate = 7.39 anova source of variation df sum of square mean square f ratio p regression 6 62724.063 6969.34 127.78 .000 residual 244 33598.507 54.54 the result in table 2 shows that all the seven independent variables jointly yielded a coefficient of multiple regression (r)=0.807, and a multiple correlation square (r2)=0.651, and finally an adjusted multiple correlation square (adj. r2)=0.646, which means that the seven independent variables jointly contribute a total of 64.6% to the total variance of the criterion variable. the analysis of variance also shows a significant relationship of the independent variables to the dependent variable (f (6,616)=127.78; p<0.05). this shows that all the independent variables jointly contribute significantly to the incidence of criminal behavior among inmates in the agodi custodial centre. any increase in the incidence of any of the variables will produce an automatic increase in criminal behaviour among the inmates. research question 3: what is the relative contribution of the independent variables (family type, sibling rivalry, broken home, childhood deprivation, single parenting, parenting style, and peer influence) on the dependent variable (criminal behavior among agodi inmates, nigeria)? the result is presented in table 3 below: www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 134 published by scholink inc. table 3. relative contributions of the independent variables to the prediction of criminal behaviour predictor unstandardized coefficient standard error standardized coefficient b beta t-ratio p constant 9.208 2.126 4.360 <.05 family type .144 .613 0.246 6.910 <.05 sibling rivalry 1.344 .445 0.080 3.019 <.05 broken home .861 .514 0.241 3.677 >.05 childhood deprivation .414 .504 0.221 3.822 <.05 single parenthood .173 .026 0.235 3.651 <.05 parenting style .153 .035 0.189 4.370 <.05 peer influence 2.89 .032 0.242 7.235 <.05 table 3 shows the contribution of each independent variable to the prediction of criminal behavior. the beta weight determines the level of contribution of each variable to the criminal behavior of the inmates. the result shows that family type contributed the highest with a beta weight of 0.242 to criminal behavior, while sibling rivalry has the lowest contribution with a beta weight of 0.080. arranged in the order of magnitude, the result is as follows: family type (β=0.246, t=6.910; p<0.05); peer influence (β=0.242, t=7.235; p<0.05); broken home (β=0.241, t=3.677; p<0.05); single parenthood (β=0.235, t=3.651; p<0.05); childhood deprivation (β=0.221, t=3.822; parenting style (β=0.189, t=0.1.4.370; p<0.05); and finally, sibling rivalry (β=0.080, t=3.019; p<0.05). this shows that all the independent variables contributed to the criterion measure (criminal behavior), no matter how small. 5. discussion this research has found that family type is a significant factor in determining criminal behavior. in particular, the study suggests that parental neglect and laissez-faire attitudes towards childrearing can lead to criminal behavior, particularly in polygamous families where the mother may struggle to care for the children and ultimately leave them to their own devices and the influence of their peers. previous research has also indicated that the family structure a child is exposed to and the relationships they have with their parents can affect their risk of delinquent behavior, with youth from cohabitating and blended households, single-parent families, and two-parent families all showing higher rates of delinquency. the social environment in which a child grows up can also have a significant impact on www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 135 published by scholink inc. their well-being. children who had negative sibling relationships were found to have high levels of anxiety, depression, poor self-esteem, and school adjustment (dunn, slomkowski, beardsall, & rende, 1994). also, conflict within the sibling relationship in early adulthood was associated with poor psychological adjustment, whereas supportive relationships were linked with decreased anxiety and greater maturity (stocker, lanthier, & furman, 1997). a study by researchers from the national institute of mental health found that only 6% of children from stable, safe homes became delinquent, while 18% of children from unstable or unsafe homes (such as those with a broken marriage or lack of supervision) became delinquent, and 90% of children from both unstable and unsafe homes became delinquent. americans for divorce reform examined 23 studies that considered the relationship between family structure and crime or delinquency, and 20 of these studies concluded that family structure does affect crime or delinquency. eight of the studies found that children from single-parent or non-intact family structures were more likely to commit criminal or delinquent acts, and other studies found that changes in family structure were also associated with an increase in crime rates. the cambridge-somerville study in boston found that poor parental supervision in childhood was the best predictor of both violent and property offending up to age 45. peer influence is a social phenomenon. the result of this study reveals that individuals are influenced by their peers. many children get spoilt from their interactions with their peers. this buttresses the slogans such as “evil communication corrupts good manners,” “show me your friends and i will tell you the kind of a person you are” and “association often determines the destination.” peer influence, therefore, has a very strong affiliation with criminal behavior. it is a factor notably featured among children and adolescents. peer influence has a relationship to criminal behavior as this study has discovered. childs, sullivan, and gulledge (2011) found that peer substance use had a significant positive effect on adolescent substance use, with a one-unit increase in peer substance use predicting a 13.4% increase in the expected frequency of adolescent substance use. they also found that peer delinquency significantly predicted adolescent delinquency. one unit of increase in peer delinquency was found to lead to a 5.1% increase in the expected count of adolescent delinquent behavior. pardini, loeber, and stouthamer-loeber (2005) found that higher levels of deviant peer association predict later increases in pro-delinquency beliefs. there is an abundance of research that examines the impact of family structure on delinquency (amato & keith, 1991; leiber & kunz, 2003; rankin, 1983). the majority of research finds that youth from broken homes report increased levels of delinquency. for example, in a longitudinal survey of 411 males living in south london, juby and farrington (2001) found that delinquency rates were higher among 75 boys who were living in non-intact homes compared to boys living in intact families. also, price and kunz (2003) conducted a meta-analysis involving 72 studies that involved divorce and juvenile delinquency. the results indicated that children from divorced homes have higher rates of delinquency (status offenses, crimes against a person, felony theft, general delinquency, tobacco, and drug use) compared to children from intact homes, except for alcohol use. many studies examining the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 136 published by scholink inc. singular relationship between single-parent families and delinquency have found a positive relationship (gibson, 1969; rutter, 1971; wilkinson, 1980; canter, 1982; rankin, 1983; matsueda & heimer, 1987; leflore, 1988). other studies have identified more specific breakdowns. for example, gove and crutchfield (1982) found a positive relationship to be true for males but not for females. rosen (1985) observed a positive association between single-parent households and delinquency for male children in black families. brady, james, and linda (1986), testing in a clinical setting, found that the children of single-parent families exhibited more behavioral problems. in a study by demuth and brown (2004), it was found that adolescents in single-parent families were significantly more delinquent than their counterparts residing with two biological, married parents. mccord found that children who are brought up in families where they are closely supervised and have interaction are less likely to turn into criminals as adults (kierkuss, 2009). an authoritarian parent is likely to produce a lot of vagabonds who are always on the opposition side. they engage in a lot of protests, wanton destruction of lives and properties, etc. practicing good parenting and closely supervising an adolescent can influence the adolescent not to participate in crime throughout adulthood (kierkus, 2009). parental monitoring, supervision, involvement, and attachment appear to be especially important in the case of an adolescent participating in crime and delinquency (mccord, 1991). the result obtained in this study is in line with the view of those who see crime as deeply rooted in social conditions and argue that crime is closely connected to deprivation. according to them, the relatively deprived are prone to having feelings of anger and hostility, which lead to criminal behavior. any child that is deprived of any of the essential basics of life, such as food, shelter, security, etc. is likely to manifest a lot of maladjustments in the future. concerning parental involvement, some studies show that more time spent with parents leads to less participation in crime and delinquency (keijsers, branje, vandervalk, & meeus 2010). the more leisure time that an adolescent spends with parents, the less likely the adolescent is to deviate. if an adolescent spends more time away from his parents, he is more likely to disclose information from authority figures and keep things from his parents (keijsers, branje, vandervalk, & meeus, 2010). degenova and rice (2002) said parents’ affirmations of their adoration, love, value, approval, and acceptance of their children were among the most important contributions they could make to the children’s development. such affirmation gives children healthy self-esteem and self-acceptance. degenova and rice also pointed out that among children in environments where anger and conflict exist, there were greater risks of behavioral and emotional problems. 6. conclusion this study found that certain factors, including family type, sibling rivalry, a broken home, childhood deprivation, single parenting, parenting style, and peer influence, may contribute to criminal behavior. it also emphasized the need for society, including the government, families, and organizations, to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 137 published by scholink inc. address the problem of crime by finding solutions and promoting re-education about criminal behavior and its causes and effects. however, the study had limited access to information and participants, particularly female inmates, and the number of participants was also limited due to expenses and accessibility. future research could explore other factors that may be related to criminal behavior and examine the potential for a codependent relationship between criminal behavior and these variables. it could also involve a larger sample size. 7. recommendation based on the findings of this study, it is recommended that: parents should adopt a discipline-based parenting style that promotes a positive relationship with their children and raises children who will be beneficial to society. they should create a supportive environment for their children and seek counseling if they notice any concerning behaviors or persistent sibling rivalry. it is important for parents to also prioritize their marriage and seek the knowledge and skills needed to effectively navigate challenges in family life. in addition, parents should find ways to financially support their family without neglecting their children or relying on caregivers. while polygamy may be a cultural tradition, parents have a responsibility to prioritize their children’s well-being and encourage positive behavior. educational policymakers should ensure that schools adopt appropriate disciplinary measures for children. private organizations should invest more in helping children from deprived homes by catering to their basic needs. provisions should also be made for children from broken homes to mitigate the negative effect on their well-being. the government should work to create jobs and laws that support and protect families, and recognize the value of counseling in all sectors of society. the deterrence method for dealing with criminals has not effectively reduced crime rates, and instead, the government should focus on strategies to rehabilitate, reform, and remediate inmates in order to prevent recidivism. counseling psychologists should investigate the root causes of criminal behavior and use counseling techniques to address these issues. by identifying individuals who may be at risk of criminal behavior due to their family background or parenting style, counseling psychologists can intervene and prevent such behaviors from escalating. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 138 published by scholink inc. references amato, p. r., & keith, b. 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(1992). “family life and delinquency and crime: a policymaker’s guide to the literature,” prepared under an interagency agreement between the office of juvenile justice and delinquency prevention and the bureau of justice assistance of the u.s. department of justice, 1992. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-9125.1990.tb01337.x microsoft word fet-v3n1-p12 frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 12 original paper students of chinese language major and their attitude towards the current learning study in vietnam thi hong tham pham1*, yan cheng zhang1 & jing shang1 1 college of literature, wuhan university, china * thi hong tham pham, college of literature, wuhan university, china received: october 30, 2019 accepted: december 11, 2019 online published: december 23, 2019 doi:10.22158/fet.v3n1p12 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v3n1p12 abstract chinese language has recently grown so rapidly that people compared it to a storm overflowing into vietnam. thus, education managers and teachers can only respond promptly by immediate emergency measures, but have not found measures for stable development. the learning situation therefore also becomes chaotic and the quality does not meet social requirements. this article aims to analyze the current situation of vietnamese students studying chinese language by applying methods of current situation survey by questionnaires, observations in actuality and document research. through this, the author figure out the true situation of learning attitude and student’s assessment of their schools’ quality of teaching. results of the research will help teachers to better adjust their teaching methods, and help educational managers have more effective education policies. keywords vietnamese students, scientific research, chinese language, foregin languages, learning attitude, career trends 1. introduction 1.1 objectives of the research an overall investigation of the current situation of studying chinese language of vietnamese students an investigation of the awareness and learning attitudes of students towards chinese language an analysis of those factors that affect their academic performances in this practical research, the authors hope to help educators and teachers have a more comprehensive view of the current learning situation of students so as to better adjust management methods, bringing the teaching quality to a higher level. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 13 published by scholink inc. 1.2 subjects of the research subjects of the research are students of chinese language major all over the country from year 1 to year 4. we conducted a nationwide survey with 8 universities across 3 regions of the northern, central and southern vietnam. the number of students undertaking the survey was 896 students. 1.3 research methods in order to obtain the best research results, the authors use many research methods simultaneously. in educational research, empirical research and qualitative research methods are used most commonly by their practicability. the methods used are as the following details: questionnaire: the questionnaire designed by us includes 30 questions. it consists of 4 parts: 1/personal information; 2/information about student’s class learning process; 3/information about their self-study process; 4/information about participating in scientific research and self-assessment. we gave out 1,100 questionnaires in total that were equally divided among 8 universities across the country, but only 896 of the taken back questionnaires were valid. therefore, in this report we only used the survey results of 896 valid votes. multiple choice: with an aim to have a more equal assessment of the chinese language proficiency of vietnamese students, we designed a multiple-choice test comprising 60 sentences on a 10-point grading scale. the content consists of three levels: beginner, intermediate and advanced. students with under-6 point were classified as beginner level, from 6 to 7—intermediate level and from 8 and above—advanced level. the test was passed by chinese professors, doctors, and experts of wuhan university, hubei, china. questionnaires and multiple choice were designed entirely in chinese language to ensure that only students of chinese language major could fill out the questionnaire, ensuring the right subjects of the research. interview and direct observation: in parallel with the time to conduct surveys by questionnaires, we attended classes and conducted class observations, mainly observing students’ learning attitudes at class. we then conducted random interviews with students to understand their learning situation, as additional materials for our research. refer to related documents and use data from the official website of vietnam’s ministry of education’s: the authors combined the results from previous researches and used actual data published by the ministry of education of vietnam. we conducted the survey from october to december 2018. the paperwork method, 02 copies for each student (questionnaire and multiple choice question) for them to fill out, then we collected them, gather, import and process data via spss software. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 14 published by scholink inc. 1.4 overview of research issues we would like to confirm that the study of the current studying situation of students of chinese language major has not been given enough attention. in the process of searching documents at national libraries, hanoi library, libraries of different universities, foreign language research magazines, foreign language sciences, educational researches, educational sciences or even the reports in the conference about foreign languages in general and chinese language in particular, we only found very few short articles. the research areas which were more frequently mentioned by researchers were learning motivation, learning environment, learning results, assessment... the study in a comprehensive way to assess properly the current situtation of students of chinese language major is almost nonexistent. the author think, in this regard, we really need a lot more investment. in the coming time, hope we have more comprehensive and in-depth studies on the learning situation of chinese learning of vietnamese students. 2. research content 2.1 current types of training chinese language on present-day, teaching chinese language in vietnam is divided into 2 types: specialised (chinese language as a major) and non-specialised. specialised chinese (or chinese language as a major) is trained at language specialized universities and those institutions opening faculty of chinese language. prior to graduation, students of these universities often have to meet the hsk5 requirements or higher. in addition, they also have to complete other programs required by particular school. non-specialized chinese is considered as a second foreign language. studying this type of chinese language training, students only need to reach hsk4 depending on the requirements of particular university (ministry of education of vietnam, 2019). 2.2 admissions/entry requirement, outcome requirement and learning process according to the regulations of the ministry of education of vietnam, students who would like to study the major in chinese language can use either english or chinese to undertake university entrance examination. this means that at the time of enrollment many of them have known chinese language already and vice versa. this fact leads to the situation that students of chinese language major have a difference in language skills’ levels in the classroom right from the start. during the study program, students of chinese language major must make great efforts. as the above mentioned, students must obtain hsk5 before graduation from their four-year program, so, supposing their entry level is 0, they must reach more than one hsk level each year. this is really a very big difficulty for each student to overcome due to our non-communicative environment of vietnam. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 15 published by scholink inc. 2.3 study environment the study environment in vietnam does not satisfy the requirements of students. the survey results showed that only 2.9% of students thought the study environment in their universities was very good. the number of students giving assessments as “poor” accounted for the highest rate of 46.1%. the number of students saying that the learning environment in their school normal and very poor also accounted for a relatively high percentage. the “good” assessment was 6.5% only. table 1. assessment results about the study environment assessment about the study environment amount percentage effective percentage cumulative percentage very good 26 2.9 2.9 2.9 good 58 6.5 6.5 9.4 normal 290 32.4 32.4 41.7 poor 413 46.1 46.1 87.8 very poor 109 12.2 12.2 100.0 total 896 100.0 100.0 source: this study. during the survey, the authors found that many universities did not have air conditioners. obviously, in the hot and humid tropical climate of vietnam, the lack of cooling equipment was also one of the reasons resulting in student’s dissatisfaction. besides, the classroom equipment was very outdated, many devices were even broken. students have almost no environment to practice foreign language. only in large universities that have partnerships with educational institutions in chinese-speaking countries, do students at these universities occasionally have opportunities to interact directly with native speakers. in smaller universities or those that have not had the opportunity to work with the educational institutions of these countries, students must create a communication environment by learning in groups or finding by themselves native chinese speakers to learn. consequently, vietnamese students are limited in their ability to response in communication and have non-standard pronunciation... many researches have shown that after graduation, vietnamese students can only speak for vietnamese people to understand (vu a. & vu h., 2008). consequently, through these data, we can strongly advise the universities and the ministry of education of vietnam about changing or improving the study environment for students, ensuring that they have the best study conditions to have the highest learning performance. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 16 published by scholink inc. 2.4 self-study awareness in addition to the time studying in the classroom, self-study is very important. this is the time for students to revise lessons and prepare for new lessons before coming to class for summarizing and developing more new knowledge. self-study time is an important time to determine the quality of learning for each student. according to the results of a survey about the time that vietnamese students spent on studying chinese language at home, we could see that the number of students who spent 90 minutes or more to study was 24%, from 60-90 minutes—38.4%, there were 27.2% of students spent about 30-60 minutes on self-study and the number of self-study under 30 minutes accounts for only 10.4%. no student does not spend time studying at home by himself. table 2. time of self-study at home time of self-study amount percentage effective percentage cumulative percentage less than 30 minutes 93 10.4 10.4 10.4 from 30-60 minutes 244 27.2 27.2 37.6 from 60-90 minutes 344 38.4 38.4 76.0 more than 90 minutes 215 24.0 24.0 100.0 total 896 100.0 100.0 source: this study. in the learning environment in vietnam, this is an acceptable number. usually in the classroom, beside the major subjects, students will also have to complete many other subjects, so, they will have to divide their time for each study. the time spent on self-study of chinese language, as the above mentioned, can further demonstrate the passion for their chosen field of study. in addition, according to the author’s observation when participating in the survey, students who came to class often paid attention to lectures, enthusiastically answered questions asked by the teacher, however, they still had much difficulties when giving questions. considering the context of the educational environment in vietnam, this had been also a common trend of many student generations for years. vietnamese students were less likely to give their teachers or educational managers with questions (vu, 2012). reasons coming from different aspects, partly because vietnam had been applying traditional education method for a long time: listened and recorded what given by teachers; partly because of the long-standing culture that young people being forced to listen to their seniors ... these have profound effects towards people of the younger generations. up to now, we have been gradually reforming the above situation to educate a whole new young generation who are completely independent with critical thinking and know how to ask questions. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 17 published by scholink inc. 2.5 scientific research scientific research is a special kind of activity that helps people find and improve reality. that is the process of creating, discovering rules and applying them to the reality of social life. therefore, universities are now paying much attention to the current scientific research works undertaken by students. for students, scientific research is a process of experience from theory to practice, helping them to initially practice and improve their thinking, self-discovering and self-fostering knowledge while studying at universities. learning is a lifelong job, scientific research will help students have knowledge of learning methods and self-study, forming and perfecting personalities, having positive thinking in awareness and behavior. for the school’s training works, scientific research helps improve the efficiency and quality of teaching and learning, contributing to improve the quality of training in universities, turning the training process into a self-training process and helping students gradually improve their knowledge and approach scientific issues in a more convenient way. however, scientific research activities of students are still having a lot of shortcomings. students’ perceptions of the importance of scientific research the quality of scientific research activities, the participation attitude of students depends greatly on the awareness of students about scientific research activities. however, the survey results showed that only 5.5 % of all students thought that scientific research was very important, and the number said it important was 28.7%. while the number of students who thought this activity was not important is 29.1%, not participating was 13.3%, and still up to 23.4% of students still had not clearly defined what was scientific research activity so they still appreciate its importance. table 3. students’ perceptions of the importance of scientific research importance of scientific research amount percentage effective percentage cumulative percentage not participated 119 13.3 13.3 13.3 did not understand about scientific research 210 23.4 23.4 36.7 un-important 261 29.1 29.1 65.8 important 257 28.7 28.7 94.5 very important 49 5.5 5.5 100.0 total 896 100.0 100.0 source: this study. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 18 published by scholink inc. from the above results, it was shown that students currently do not really saw the importance of scientific research activities to learning activities, so there was no investment nor active participation in this activity. forms of participation in scientific research of students in order to promote students’ scientific research activities, the universities had actively integrated this activity into their annual teaching plans. diverse forms of scientific research were put into practice such as: discussing case studies in class, making essay subjects, organizing competitions to seek for talents/student’s ideas, organizing seminars at faculty level ... to encourage students to participate in scientific research, to encourage creativity and dynamism in the first step to familiarize themselves with research. here are some forms of scientific research that students have participated in: table 4. the rate of participation in scientific research of students the rate of participation in scientific research amount percentage effective percentage cumulative percentage never participated 262 29.2 29.2 29.2 write a report at the end of the term or midterm 497 55.5 55.5 84.7 writing thesis 122 13.6 13.6 98.3 participate in scientific research at faculty level 15 1.7 1.7 100.0 total 896 100.0 100.0 source: this study. according to the survey results, the current scientific research activities of students were mainly in simple and mandatory forms such as carrying out essay assignments or provide specialized reports, assigned by teachers with the rate of 55.5%, and write thesis with the rate of 13.6%. regarding voluntary activities, requiring the exploitation and research, students had not participated much, and not really interested as well, such as participation in scientific research organized by the faculty. this number only accounted for 1.7%. students had not consciously participated in scientific research at university level and higher levels of scientific research. besides, there were also quite a number of students who had never participated in scientific research activities, accounting for 29.2%. this shows that scientific research activities were not popular among chinese language students on present-day, but it was only at the level of writing essay. gradually this would create “inertia” making students to hesitate at reading, writing and even made them return to the old learning method “as teacher reads, so must students record”. as a result, knowledge was still the knowledge of teachers, and students were passive, coping, greatly affecting the quality of training. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 19 published by scholink inc. regarding the cause of this situation, according to our survey, there are several causes: scientific research is a difficult task for vietnamese students: this difficulty is reflected in the lack of researching skills, lack of job handling skills in research implementation and undertaking, not really understand what scientific research is, lack of knowledge about scientific research process or methodology, lack of experience and knowledge to conduct research. awareness of scientific research is still limited: the majority of chinese students are not really interested in scientific research, not fully aware of the benefits of this work and the biggest obstacle is that students are not well equipped with research methods, most of them are confused about where to start, what to do and what they want to achieve, for whom ... this is deeply influenced by the out-of-dated teaching method of lecturers when they regularly apply traditional teaching methods. students lack the necessary thinking requirements that make finding problems in science be limited. scientific research of students is very little and they receive alsmost no support from all levels. in fact, in order to successfully undertake a scientific research project, the project implementer needs to spend a lot of expenses such as purchasing data, materials, printing, surveying, contact information... if the project is at faculty level, then often they will receive very low support. to satisfy their passion, most of them have to pay pocket money to pay these expenses or to reduce survey expenses, so the results are not objective and the reliability is not high. in vietnam, the completion of lessons in the classroom is still a key task of students, scientific research has not been taken seriously, so the time division for this work has not been paid attention. some students even said that they will spend time for scientific research only when have they no more work to do. this is the situation that educational managers and teachers need to pay more attention to. if overcoming the situation that student is self-concious to undertake scientific research, the education of the country will have an opportunity to develop and implement the awareness of lifelong learning for each person. however, we should not completely blame on students, what they acquire at schools is largely transferred and instructed by teachers. teachers are both supportive and research instructors who are both motivating and inspiring students. if students do not have the guidance of teachers, they will find it difficult to find research directions, content and how to write scientific reports. in fact, many lecturers also do not care or do not have enough time to be interested in scientific research issues. therefore, the scientific research of students has not really achieved the desired results (pham, 2019). 2.6 evaluation of school management the way of teaching, managing the quality of learning always has a profound impact on each student. to see the effects from the university’s management to each student, we need to look back on how to organize teaching in universities in vietnam today. about the teaching chinese language at schools www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 20 published by scholink inc. table 5. situation of teaching at schools situation of teaching n minimum maximum mean std. deviation numbers of having exam/semester 896 .00 3.00 1.3750 .61997 average exam mark 896 5.00 9.00 7.3170 1.17515 number of students 896 20.00 50.00 45.4018 5.33308 number of class hours/week 896 1.00 5.00 4.0513 .97662 valid n (listwise) 896 source: this study. from the above table 5 we could see the teaching organization at schools was as follows: + regarding proficiency test: most of universities gave tests at least one times each semester, but there were also universities that gave tests three times each semester. on average, universities gave test 1.37 times out of three maximum. the score were recorded in the school academic record and used to calculate the average mark for the end of the school year. + about the grade point average: in general, the overall average mark of students was relatively high, reaching over 7. + about the duration of training: in general, the duration of chinese language training at the universities was guaranteed to comply with the regulations of the ministry of education. for students of chinese language major, the training duration was guaranteed from 16-20 study periods a week and about 225 periods a semester. + class size: on average, each class had about 45 students, this was a fairly large number for the class size of a foreign language class (note 1). from the above information, the evaluation and assessment of the universities are in accordance with the regulations of the ministry of education of vietnam. compliance with the regulations is mandatory for every university in vietnam. however, we also realize that the above regulations are completely administrative, the assessment and evaluation for each student are aimed at giving marks to count into the conditions for passing grades. the assessment in vietnam has not been conducted for the purpose of classifying students. evaluation of students for the universities’ teaching the above objective information about teaching organization showed us the teaching situation of the universities today. they completed the mission in accordance with the regulations of the ministry of education of vietnam. however, how students perceived these rules, the survey below will show us their evaluations so that we can have a fairer view of the teaching arrangements. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 21 published by scholink inc. table 6. evaluation students about the teaching process teaching process n minimum maximum mean std. deviation self-assessment of proficiency 896 1.00 5.00 3.2455 .98819 survey results on students’ proficiency 896 1.00 5.00 2.8638 1.51469 teachers 896 1.00 5.00 3.4252 1.30276 school facilities 896 1.00 5.00 2.1607 .86577 curriculum 896 1.00 5.00 2.7310 1.39919 valid n (listwise) 896 source: this study. self-assessment results: we could clearly see that students tended to evaluate themselves higher than the results of our actual survey (the self-assessment level was 3.24, while the actual survey level was 2.86). evaluation of teaching organization: we could see that students’ opinions towards teachers (including ideas about teaching attitudes, professional qualifications, teaching methods ...) was not absolutely good, only achieved an average of 3.4 points out of 5. if putting this result in the context of vietnamese culture when students do not have the habit of giving suggestions to the managers about how to organize the school’s teaching or the teaching method of teachers, even if it is above the average level we still learn from it the dissatisfaction of students. evaluation of teaching equipment and curriculum: the number demonstrating the dissatisfaction opinions of students at this point was relatively low, reaching only 2.1/5. in addition to the question as communication environment in chinese, extracurricular activities to enhance chinese ability for students, the number was even lower. this dissatisfaction was also reflected in the ideas of open questions. this again confirmed the results of student satisfaction with the school learning environment. in addition to the aforementioned issues, there was also a remarkable information that the ratio of private tutoring of students today. there were 479 out of 896 respondents answered that they took extra classes, accounting for 53.5%. this was an alarming number because from this figure we could see that the current training program had not really met the study needs of more than half of the students nationwide, although they still had to take classes in the classrooms and sit for every test. this was also a great waste of effort for teachers and students. with such a high rate of private tutoring, whether or not anyone who can affirm with certainty that the achievements of the students today are the result of the school’s training. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 22 published by scholink inc. about foreign language certificate: among the 896 students responding the survey, there were up to 188 students (accounting for 21%) said that they had national language certificates (note 2), of which 123 people (accounting for 65.4%) had degrees. b, 65 people (accounting for 34.5%) have degrees c. the number of students with hsk certificates was 151 people (accounting for 16.9%), of which the number of students achieving hsk6 was up to 42 people (accounting for 27.8%), reaching hsk5-57 people (accounting for 37.7%), reaching hsk4-52 people (accounting for 34.4%). this information once again confirmed the difference in proficiency as stated above. it was worth mentioning that these students have to study with students who are at a much lower level. this gave us more ground to be able to affirm that the big difference in proficiency of students in the same class is one of the reasons causing the inefficiency to the chinese language training at tertiary education in vietnam today. 2.7 the results of the student’s proficiency assessment conducted by the survey team according to the regulations of the ministry of education of vietnam, year-1 student must achieve minimum results of hsk3 when completing their first year; at least hsk4 at the end of year 2, at least hsk5 at the end of year 3 and at least hsk5 at the end of year 4. we designed a test of chinese language proficiency for students based on different levels, less than 6 equivalent to the elementary level (hsk1-2), likewise, students must reach 8 and above to reach advanced level (hsk5-6). according to the assessment results of the universities participating the survey, all students meet requirements for passing up to higher class. however, for more information about the actual situation of current chinese language students, we refer to the survey results of the investigation team. table 7. the results of the student’s proficiency assessment the student’s proficiency assessment n minimum maximum mean std. deviation year 1 265 1.00 3.00 1.5509 .60165 year 2 226 1.00 5.00 2.2655 .85393 year 3 212 1.00 5.00 3.0425 1.20154 year 4 193 2.00 5.00 3.4560 .78354 valid n (listwise) 193 source: this study. thus, referring to the above mentioned, the proficiency of first year students only obtained the average level of 1.55, the second year—2.26, the third year—3.04 and the fourth year—3.45 (see table 7). this is a very low score compared to the requirement. according to the hsk definition, first-year students can only deal with familiar situations, while the 3rd and 4th year students are only able to participate in exchanging simple information in familiar contexts, they have not been able to participate in the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 23 published by scholink inc. exchange of opinions or expressing personal views (note 3). in addition, if using the average growth (note 4) based on the test results of the students in the sample, when they graduate, these students will only reach above hsk4 nearly hsk5. at this level, university graduates are only qualified to participate in simple interviews, not to mention talks, seminars, conferences ... not to mention that the survey only concluded students in grammar, vocabulary, reading comprehension, etc., without assessing the speaking skill, the skill that vietnamese students are often very weak. thus, if we assess all 4 skills of learners, the conversion result will be much lower. 2.8 trends of major selection of chinese language students the chinese language major is divided into 2 main groups: 1/chinese language pedagogy (training teachers of chinese language); 2/chinese language. now, the current major selection also changes compared to it before. previously, the pedagogy (teacher training) branch often had higher entry scores and the enrollment rate was higher than the chinese language major, but in recent years, the entrance exam scores have been lower compared with the chinese language branch, the number of students who registered for the exam is also much smaller (tran, 2016). this can be explained that china’s investment in recent years has grown too strongly, creating many job opportunities for students after graduation, while in the pedagogy, the pedagogy/teacher training branch was limited due to strict recruitment regulations (requires high qualification from a master degree or higher for schools that open the normal chinese language major), doctor degree for schools offering specializing chinese language major. in addition, if student are only at university level they can only apply for jobs at primary, secondary and high schools that teach chinese language, (the number of these schools is not much), partly because of the government’s preferential treatment for teachers was not good (pham, 2019) and compared with the chinese language branch, the opportunity to improve income from the chinese pedagogy/teacher training branch is much lower. therefore, recently, some vietnamese universities have to increase opening the chinese language classes, increasing the number of students, teachers and other learning conditions. typically, the hanoi university of foreign languages in recent years has especially opened an advanced chinese language class for the chinese language major in order to improve the quality of this branch, while the chinese pedagogy/chinese language teachers training branch has not changed, while thai nguyen university of teacher training had recruited 70 students for chinese language teacher training branch, but only 30 for the year 2019, but the chinese language branch was deposit, which recruited 180 students for year 2017 and the number increased to 300 in year 2019 majored in chinese pedagogy in 2017 recruited 70 students., in 2019 it was reduced to 30 students, and chinese language industry in 2017 recruited 180, then in 2019 increased the enrollment to 300 (ministry of education of vietnam, 2019). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 24 published by scholink inc. 3. conclusion through this research result, we have temporarily found some reasons causing the low quality of chinese language training in the current period. the way the universities organize ineffective management, the fact that they do not really pay attention to the actual needs of students, the failure to meet requirements of their learning environment, the relatively big difference of students’ proficiency in a same class ... are the important reasons resulting in the ineffectiveness in the training quality of the universities training. at the same time, it is necessary to carry out reforms on assessment, take students as the center in education, encourage them in the learning process, especially promote their awareness of scientific research. in addition, with the current situation of changing job trends, the vietnamese government also needs to reconsider the policy towards the chinese language teacher training/pedagogy branch, to avoid wasting high-qualified human resources. through this research, we hope to bring valuable reference information, giving education managers, teachers and students a more comprehensivean overview so as to take appropriate reforms, helping to improve the learning quality of students and to meet the requirements of society. reference website of ministry of education of vietnam. (n.d.). ministry of education of vietnam. (2019). according to the “2019 high education entrance examination guide”. prepared by the ministry of education of vietnam, vietnam education press, 2019 (network edition). [in vietnamese]. pham, t. (2019). investigation and analysis of chinese proficiency of vietnamese college students. new teaching age, 27(12), 45-56. [in chinese]. pham, t. (2019). investigation and analysis on the development of chinese teachers in vietnam university. journal of education and e-learning research, 6(2). tran, c. (2016). researching the development of chinese language teaching under the view of spreading international chinese language in vietnam (doctoral thesis). minzu university of china [in chinese]. vu, a., & vu, h. (2008). the foreign language ability of university students (in vietnamese). vu, h. (2012). vietnam’s foreign language needs and public attitudes towards foreign language education policy. journal of languages, 8. (in vietnamese). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 25 published by scholink inc. notes note 1. according to world standard, the class size of a foreign language class can never exceed 20 students. under the vietnamese conditions, the acceptable class size for a foreign language class is 30 students, but should not more because students will not have conditions to practice using the language. note 2. the national foreign language certificate of vietnam is prescribed as follows: level a (elementary) includes levels a1 and a2 equivalent to hsk1 and hsk2; level b (intermediate) includes b1, b2 equivalent of hsk3 and hsk4; level c (advanced) includes c1 and c2 equivalent to hsk 5 and hsk6.  note 3. according to the chinese language testing center, hsk level 1.2 (equivalent to a level of vn level below 1 is used in the topic), the students can only deal with simple information in familiar situations. level 3.4 is equivalent to level b) in accordance with vietnamese regulations, the level of 2-3 in the topic can cope with more situations, raise opinions and express limited attitude. level 4-5 (equivalent to c in vietnam, level 4-5 in the topic), they can be confident and use functional language, which can be expressed inaccurately but with be able to understand and be more aware of language usage rules.  note 4. according to the research results, the topic “evaluation of the effectiveness of english as a foreign language at universities” by the department of science and technology assigned to the research team of ho chi minh city university of social sciences and humanitie, which is calculated as follows: 4/8 * 2 = expected growth for each semester.  microsoft word fet-v1n1-p51 frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 51 original paper impact of educational programs that include elements of positive psychology for developing the emotional competences of the students mariјa kotevska dimovska1* 1 business academy smilevski, skopje, r. macedonia * mariјa kotevska dimovska, business academy smilevski, skopje, r. macedonia received: may 10, 2018 accepted: may 16, 2018 online published: may 17, 2018 doi:10.22158/fet.v1n1p51 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v1n1p51 abstract modern education considers schools and faculties for institutions whose goals have a broader scope than just an academic competence. educational institutions have an obligation to completely prepare young people for adulthood and improve their optimal functioning and well being. this paper shows how the application of the positive psychology in the education can help schools and faculties to develop and maintain optimal functioning of the students and the employees. educational institutions should approach strategically in the creation of positive educational programs that include elements of positive psychology, which positively reflects on the well-being and positive educational climate. the empirical findings of this paper confirm the role of positive psychology in education for improving the subjective dimensions of students: happiness, optimism, self-confidence, social and emotional competence. students who attended educational programs with elements of positive psychology, have shown higher personal, emotional, social achievements and general well-being, which are prerequisites for realizing their potential. these findings imply the need to expand the arsenal of education through a positive education that includes the development of positive emotions that promote happiness and well-being. keywords positive psychology, students, educational programs, emotional competences, well-being 1. introduction positive education is defined as an education for acquiring traditional skills and for achieving the well-being, optimism and happiness of students. positive psychology programs show good results, as confirmed in many research studies. therefore, the term positive education is introduced, which is www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 52 published by scholink inc. implemented within the framework of the school curriculum. the high rise in depression and negative attitude towards studying among young people, brought the need to encourage introduction of educational programs which develop positive emotions and the skills needed for happiness. educational institutions such as schools and faculties, play an important role in the development of the character of young people through positive cognitive and moral education programs in the school as well as through the ethical characteristics of the teachers which can influence the development of the personality of young people (kohlberg, higgins, & powers, 1989). 1.1 positive education positive education is defined as the application of positive psychology in education. the need for positive education comes from the need for a holistic approach in the development of pupils and students with a focus on well-being opposed to classical schools where academic excellence is evidence of their success. this interest has been enhanced by the need to take a proactive approach to the protection and development of mental health and to prevent the psychological problems of pupils and students. positive psychology is a term that encompasses theory and research regarding what makes life worth living for (mcgrath & noble, 2010). it covers concepts such as: happiness, wisdom, creativity, emotional and social competence, and more. positive psychology is effective in understanding and achieving a higher level of psychological well-being among pupils, students, employees and the school. it is a relatively new field of psychology, and its beginnings in education date back in the seventies when the focus was only on self-esteem in education and programs for social skills and stress resistance. since then, this field has been updated with new programs and initiatives. 1.2 positive psychology and areas of application the positive psychology is applicable at different levels of human existence. positive experiences and individual qualities of the individual are the first area of application of the positive psychology. this area includes phenomena such as positive emotions, sense of psychological well-being and happiness, optimism and hope. the positive emotions allow people to learn from their mistakes and stressful situations (folkman, 1997). thinking in a state of positive emotions enables effective problem solving, creativity and altruistic behavior. the analyses of previous studies of happiness have shown that happiness has many positive consequences not only for the individual, but for the family, the community and the society as a whole (lyubomirski & abbe, 2003). the second area of the positive psychology deals with research of the positive personality and focuses on exploring creativity, courage, compassion, integrity, self-control, leadership, wisdom, spirituality, and the like (rijavec, 2006). peterson and seligman in 2004 proposed a classification in 6 categories with 24 forces of human power that are thought to contribute to a positive life. the classification of 6 categories of human forces follows (seligman, 2004): 1) wisdom and knowledge of cognitive power that involves the acquisition of knowledge and its use. this area includes: creative thinking about new and productive ways of creating; curiosity about www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 53 published by scholink inc. different topics and experiences; openness of the mind is thorough thinking; love for learning and gaining new skills, the ability to look at the wider picture and giving wise advices. 2) an emotional force that includes the will to achieve the goal despite the difficulties. this includes features such as: authenticity, sincerity, openness and presenting oneself in true light, courage, challenges, as well as perseverance and a vital and energetic approach to life. 3) humanity in interpersonal relations involves: a pleasant attitude towards others, kindness, generosity, empathy as well as love, respect and development of others. these qualities are a feature of social and emotional intelligence. 4) justice and healthy life in the community is encompassing concepts such as: honesty, morality, fairness, non-discrimination, team spirit. 5) power guidance that protects against excessive behavior or: the ability for forgiveness, modesty, awareness of the wider universe, truthfulness, avoidance of unnecessary hazards, self-regulation. 6) trans-transcendental nature: respect for beauty, excellence and skills in all areas of life, gratitude for the good things in life, hope and optimism and expectation of the best, sense of humor, spirituality and coherent belief in the higher goal and purpose in life, well-being of students, including social and emotional learning programs. 1.3 the positive psychology in education in the school system in the republic of macedonia emphasis is put on academic skills, which are considered as a prerequisite for a good job and a successful life. this approach neglects the skills for success in interpersonal relationships, stress response and anxiety that are integral to the work of every successful professional. according to seligman (2009) and many of his contemporaries in education, positive programs that are concerned with the development of well-being should be introduced. this approach will lead to increased life satisfaction and help for better learning and creative thinking, as well as reducing depression. such programs are implemented in many modern countries where through various activities it influences the development of positive qualities and skills. such learning is included in the regular school curriculum, and the researches proves students’ progress in positive emotions and moods, greater creativity and critical thinking as well as reduction of depression and anxiety. 1.3.1 the positive psychology in the higher education institutions higher education institutions are the places that create the future, progress and constant improvement of reality. the methods applied in the higher education institutions encompass a wide range of activities from concept to realization. therefore, each occurrence deserves proper treatment, with special treatment of the emotional intelligence. positive education is the inclusion of the science of positive psychology in the life and work of schools (fischer & sharon, 2006). in the past two decades, positive psychology in education has been the focus of researchers’ interest. it is the third area of positive psychology that explores the ways in which institutions can influence the development of goodness, tolerance, equality and open opportunities for www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 54 published by scholink inc. all, because in such environment it is more likely to develop characteristics of positive people. studies show that investments in the level of personal happiness are greatest in societies that are more prosperous and that protect human rights (ryan & deci, 2001). seligman (2002) considers that the positive development of young people can affect the synergy of educational institutions, the development of character and positive subjective experiences. positive higher education institutions encourage the development of positive personality characteristics that enable positive subjective experiences (park & peterson, 2003). the programs based on positive psychology have shown very good results in improving school performance (hodges & clifton, 2004). the style of thinking of people who are in a state of positive emotions is more creative in problem solving (lessen, 1993). greater part of the successful results for promoting the application of the principle of positive psychology is most commonly received among primary school students, but also in higher education has positive effects. according to several surveys, various positive psychology programs conducted in primary, secondary and higher education institutions showed some positive results, contributing to increasing general well-being and better school success. positive effects are positively reflected in other areas of the individual’s life and have long lasting effects. the results of the studies involving teachers and parents show better effects than when only students are involved. 2. methodology of the research the methodology of research applied in this paper is based on an insight into contemporary empirical findings on the impact of educational programs with elements of positive psychology on students’ emotional and social competence. the emergence of research in this paper is the influence of positive psychology on the emotional and social competence, self-esteem and well-being of students in higher education. the problem of the research is how to improve the emotional and social competence of the students, or how emotional and social competence can be improved by adequate programs in education. is the improvement of educational programs and implementation of elements of positive psychology going to improve the emotional and social competences of students and also the overall well-being and mental health? subject of the research is the influence of educational programs from positive psychology on students’ emotional and social competences. 2.1 objectives of the research the overall aim of the research was to determine the impact of the application of positive psychology on the emotional and social competences and the general well-being of the students. the practical goals are to point out the need for introduction of educational programs with elements of positive psychology in the higher education institutions as methods for developing the emotional and social competences of students and staff in the function of well-being and psychological health. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 55 published by scholink inc. 2.2 hypothetical framework the research starts from the assumption that there is a connection between the positive education represented by adequate workshops from positive psychology and the level of development of students’ emotional and social competence. the general hypothesis reads: the implementation of positive psychology in higher education affects the development of the emotional and social competence of students. 2.3 research techniques the measuring instruments used in this study are:  questionnaire for measuring emotional and social competence—questionnaire for emotional competence, pec (takšic, 1998). questionnaire for assessment of successful training in the workshops for positive psychology.  survey questionnaire for determining the attitudes of students and teachers about the importance of positive psychology for the development of emotional and social competences. 2.4 population and sample the educational program has been applied to a sample of higher education students in the republic of macedonia. the study was attended by 57 students from the faculty of economics at the age of 19 to 24, of which 31 are women and 26 are male. 2.5 steps in the research process the research was conducted by implementing an educational program of positive psychology of students in higher education. one day a week during four months, fifteen workshops were held through which students were introduced with terms such as: self-consciousness, self-esteem, self-control, optimism, creativity, gratitude and forgiveness. all the elements of positive psychology were integrated in the workshops, and students formed attitudes and acquired certain knowledge. the survey lasted four months, in order to see the impact on the development of emotional and social competencies. after the completion of the experimental learning, the students were measured for the emotional and social competence, and evaluated of the successfully mastered program through an evaluation list that was evaluated by the educator himself, the classmates and the educators. students were given a questionnaire about their attitudes, in terms of positive psychology. the data is statically processed and analyzed. 3. results the results are presented according to the answers from the questionnaires and the tests given to the respondents, as well as the estimates for the level of coverage of the educational program. the obtained results confirm that there is a connection between the emotional competence of the students, measured by the questionnaire for emotional competence pcu-45 and the level of mastering the program for positive psychology, represented by a performance evaluation in the educational program for positive psychology. this connection is confirmed by the existence of a high correlation between the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 56 published by scholink inc. assessment of the degree of overcoming of the educational program for positive psychology with the level of development of students’ emotional and social competences. the statistical processing showed that emotional intelligence, represented by all emotional competences, statistically and significantly correlates with the grades for positive psychology (r=0.51; p<0.001) and confirms that students with higher knowledge of positive psychology have higher emotional and social competence. the knowledge of the content of positive psychology participates with 26% in determining the competencies of emotional intelligence: self-consciousness, self-esteem, self-control, social-consciousness (optimism and empathy). (table 1) table 1. presentation of the multiple correlation between the performance grades of the educational program and the competencies of emotional intelligence altogether respondents multiple correlation quotient multiple determination quotient variant n r r2 % 57 0,51 0,26 26 in table 2, the correlation between social competencies one by one and the grades of the educational program for positive psychology are presented. table 2. a demonstration of a multiple correlation between the assessment of the knowledge of positive psychology and the competences of emotional intelligence among students grade for successful knowledge of positive psychology self-consciousness self-esteem self-control social-consciousness grade for successful knowledge of positive psychology 1 self-consciousness 0,32*** 1 self-esteem 0.38*** 0,39 1 self-control 0,41*** 0,35 0,38 1 social-consciousness 0,47*** 0,21 0,36 0,39 1 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 57 published by scholink inc. it can be stated that the knowledge of positive psychology methods and techniques highly correlate with social awareness of students which covers empathy and optimism (r=0.47; p<0.001). correlations have shown meaningful connection with the rest of the social competencies: self-domination, self-confidence, self-awareness. the obtained results indicate that in the development of socio-emotional competences among students there is a significant influence of an adequate education, i.e., applying programs with positive psychology and their solid learning by students. those students who regularly attended and successfully mastered the education and showed high marks in the process of evaluation showed a higher level of developed self-awareness, self-control, self-confidence, as empathy and optimism, which are prerequisites for a mature, healthy and happy person. and the results of the survey questionnaire showed a high level of awareness among students about the importance of applying educational programs with elements of positive psychology for the development of emotional competences and point to the perceived need for development of the same among students and also among the staff. these conclusions were reached by analyzing the responses of the questionnaire compiled for this research. when asked if they know what positive psychology is, 80% of the students answered that they know, 16% heard but do not know, while the other 4% do not know this concept. on the question of whether there is a need for applying positive psychology in education for their own development of emotional and social competences, 72% answered that they have such a need, 10% answered—maybe and 8% did not have that kind of need. when asked if they would be involved in education in the field of positive psychology, 70% of students would join, 25% maybe and only 5% would not join. 4. concluding observations taking into account the considerations and findings in this paper, it can be concluded that the students’ social and emotional competencies are significant for cognitive achievements and psychological health, fulfilled with well-being and happiness. according to the statements of the respondents on the questionnaire and the interview, the introduction of positive psychology in higher education can lead to the development of emotional competences among students. students with a high level of self-awareness and empathy can influence the formation of a positive culture based on positive motivation, while students with low level of emotional competence do not have the power to create a positive motivation that indirectly negatively affects academic success and a sense of well-being. the results of this study support the inclusion of positive psychology in higher education for the development of emotional and social competences and the concepts of happiness and well-being of students. it is necessary to create trainings with elements of positive psychology that are directed towards further development of positive emotions and improvement of emotional competences for dealing with the responsibilities and life. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 58 published by scholink inc. world trends find a greater application of positive education based on positive psychology. this means greater systematic and planned investments in creating and implementing educational programs for student development at every level, i.e., their social and emotional competencies. this has been confirmed in this research and as a future direction it would be good to invest in development of programs for development and their institutional implementation in the educational system and organizations. “even the most successful professionals are willing to admit that neither one nor any graduate student is a finished product, and therefore everyone has a lifelong learning obligation for their professional and personal development” (palmer, 1995). references clonan, s. m., chafouleas, s. m., mcdougal, j. l., & riley-tillman, t. c. (2004). positive psychology goes to school: are we there yet? psychology in the schools, 41(1), 101-110. fisher, w. s., & shearon, n. d. (2006). building a foundation for positive psychology in schools. gilman, r., furlong, m. r., & huebner, e. s. (2009). handbook of positive psychology in schools. new york, routledge. goleman, d., boyatzis, r., & mckee. (2002). primal leadership. in reali-zing the power of emotional intelligence. boston: harvard business review press. isen, a. m. (1993). positive affect, cognitive proocesses, and social behevior. advances in experimental social psychology, 20, 203-253. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0065-2601(08)60415-3 kohlberg, l., higgins, a., & powers, f. c. (1989). lawrence kohlberg’s approach to moral education. new york: columbia university press. lyubomirski, s., & abbe, a. (2003). positive psychologys legs. psychological inquiry, 14. mayer, j. d. (1999). emotional intelligence: popular or scientific psychology? apa monitor, 30, 50. mcgrath, h., & noble, t. (2010). hits and hots. teaching + thinking + social skills. pearson education: melbourne. palmer, c. j. (1995). graduate preparation of residence hall directors: the addition and subtraction dilemma. journal of college and university student housing, 25(2). park, n., & peterson, c. (2003). virtues and organizations. in s. cameron, j. e. dutton, & r. e. quinn (eds.), positive organizational scholarship (pp. 33-47). san francisco: berret-koehler. rijavec, m. (2006). pozitivna psihologija-novi pravac u psihologiji. zagreb, društvena istraživanja, 5(1), 84-95. ryan, r. m., & deci, e. l. (2001). to be happy or to be self‐fulfilled: a review of research on hedonic and eudaimonic well‐being. in s. fiske (ed.), annual review of psychology (vol. 52, pp. 141‐166). palo alto, ca: annual reviews/inc. seligman, m. e. p. (1998). the presidents adress. annual report. retrieved december 13, 2009, from http://www.positivepsychology.org/aparep98htm www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 59 published by scholink inc. takšic, v. (1998). validation of the construct of emotional intolerance (doctoral dissertation). zagreb: department of psychology, faculty of philosophy, zagreb. frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no.3, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 30 original paper effects of dyadic psychotherapy and selfmonitoring strategy on marriage anxiety among young married couples in ibadan baptist conference professor r. a animasahun1 & oyerinde isaac olusegun, ph.d2 1 department of counselling and behavioural studies, university of ibadan, nigeria received: april 3, 2023 accepted: may 1, 2023 online published: may 23, 2023 doi:10.22158/fet.v6n3p30 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v6n3p30 abstract sustaining a cordial relationship among married couples is a necessity for the marriage to fulfill its purpose. however, marriage anxiety often exerts force on married couples resulting in undesired behaviours. evidences have shown that young married couples experience marriage anxiety which may lead to conflicts, separation, divorce, suicide and homicide. previous studies had focused majorly on factors leading to marital anxiety with very few interventions to address the problem. this study, therefore, employed dyadic psychotherapy and self-monitoring strategy as interventions to reduce marriage anxiety among the participants. ninety-four participants were selected in ibadan baptist conference. taylor manifest anxiety scale ( 0.89) was used as screening instrument while the main instrument for post test was hamilton anxiety scale ( 0.86). the experiment lasted eight weeks. seven null hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. analysis of covariance (ancova) and scheffee post hoc test were used as tools of analysis. the results show that there was a significant main effect of treatment on marriage anxiety (f2.83=60.292; p<0.05, ŋ2=0.592). dyadic psychotherapy and self-monitoring strategy were effective in reducing marriage anxiety. thus, this paper recommended the effective management of marriage anxiety, the strategy involved as well as skills to reduce the marriage anxiety for married couples and professionals in the field of counselling to note in order to effectively treat marital anxiety among couples. keywords dyadic psychotherapy, self-monitoring strategy, marriage anxiety, young married couples, in ibadan baptist conference. please, kindly remove “in” before ibadan baptist conference www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 31 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction in recent times, the institution of marriage is exposed to the gripping force of anxiety as undesired behaviours are manifested by married couples no sooner than the wedding took place. though anxiety is inevitable but many young married couples are experiencing negative aspects of marriage anxiety when they fail in their commitment to marriage pledge. young married couples usually experience marriage anxiety physiologically, psychologically, socially and even spiritually. no wonder young married couples under the influence of the attacks of marriage anxiety physiologically suffer from headaches, stomach aches, faster heart beats and high blood pressure. psychologically, they are anxiously tensed, feeling like losing control, dizzy and choky. socially, such young married couples withdraw from each other, avoid one another, abuse, and fight or flee. spiritually, the young married couples suffer from marriage anxiety when it originates from demonic attacks, spell or enchantment. though it is normal to be anxious in the face of danger, but it is abnormal when accompanied with sudden unexpected rapid heartbeats, phobia, chest pains and shortness of breath (collins, 2005). general marital problems that lead to anxiety in marriage include: lack of sexual satisfaction, barrenness, paucity, religious differences, personality incompatibility, lack of acceptance by in-laws and the likes. anxiety has consequential effects on married couples which include relapsing to drugs, engaging in extra marital affairs, fighting violently, unfaithfulness in god’s worship and service to others leading to inability to relax or sleep, fainting, separation and divorce or death (afolabi, 2015). marriage which is usually preceded by a glamorous wedding ceremony especially church wedding is generally considered to be the first institution while wedding that ushers in marriage life is the happiest ceremony in life but the usual consequent anxiety is a factor for serious concern. marriage is not just a mere institution, it is very important to get married in order to build a formidable family for life. with marriage every couple is licensed formally to joyfully begins a marital relation for procreation, that is rearing children, sex relation or pleasure and for companionship or partnership (falade, 2009). despite these, the issue of anxiety has generated a substantial share of interest and confusion. anxiety is used to describe an inner feeling of apprehension, uneasiness, worry, and fear or dread that is accompanied by a heightened physical arousal of an individual (busari, 2000; collins, 2005). meanwhile, every couple is bound to experience anxiety in marriage life because it does not respect religion, race or status; no person is immunized against it. all is bound to have it at different points or occasion in life. anxiety related with marriage really starts before wedding ceremony. pre-wedding anxiety features in the life of both the couples preparing for wedding and even their family members, friends and relations (akinade, 2005). during wedding it is normal to experience anxiety at a moderate level. it is common for young couples to feel tense, nervous and perhaps, fearful at the thought of the stressful wedding occasion especially at the very point of making marriage covenant with each other since it is a decision which has impact throughout one’s life. other kinds of anxiety are those associated with unforeseen disappointments by engagers, food vendors, decorators, costume makers, drinks suppliers, as well as www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 32 published by scholink inc. journeys embarked by the guests (collins, 2007). after wedding ceremony, anxiety seems to be more pronounced with peoples’ comments on bride and bridegroom etiquette, appearance: bride’s make-ups and general dressing of bridal trail, couples dancing style and mood during and after wedding. the increasing rate of security challenges is also making couples to panic. additionally, in the past, the newly wedded couples that are found pure especially when the bride’s virginity is intact yields positive effect of marriage anxiety. linda (2005) opined that couples’ virginity (especially bride) is highly honored among the yorubas in western nigeria and; the jews, majority of muslims, christians and other minorities living in pakistan adhere to the ancient norms of chastity. nowadays emphasis is no more placed on it. anxiety could be grouped into six categories of anxiety as normal, neurotic, moderate, intense, state and trait. to treat anxiety disorder in young married couples there are two main options: psychotherapy or medication, at the same time there could be a combination of both. the main form of psychotherapy used for anxiety disorder is cognitive behavioural therapy (cbt). the cognitive methods (discovery errors in thoughts, and generating rational thoughts) while the behavioural methods (relaxation techniques, exposure, and rehearsal) to reduce anxiety. the main groups of medication used are the antidepressants, anti-anxiety, drugs beta-blockers like serotonine, menomine oxidase inhibitors (collins, 2007). the major factors maintaining the risk of anxiety include: family transmission, genetic factors, temperamental factors, life events and cognitive biases. the reality is that wedding which precedes marriage has its own unique problems. therefore, married couples that have evidences of successful wedding or marriage life as desired, feel on top of the world while some who could not have it as cheap as expected may suffer great anxiety (oladapo, 2012). no doubt the honour attached to evidences of successful married life could be the talk of the town and in this age of technology it could be posted to the internet for people to appreciate the giver of all things worldwide. one of the bitter experiences of marriage anxiety is the one on the issues of different religious background. from writers personal experience in the gospel ministry for more than a decade now has indicated that even after successful wedding some couples do face rigors of marriage anxiety as they encounter unresolved conflict on where and how to worship god (oyerinde, 2016). marriage anxiety has a lot of bad implications or consequences on couple’s well-being. many couples, in order to prevent the shame of marriage anxiety, relapse to drugs, keeping late at night, attend night party, drug addict, alcoholism, extra marital affairs, then fighting violently. unresolved conflict emanated from uncontrollable violence usually and finally results to separation and divorce within few weeks, months or years in marriage; adding more to societal problems. akinade (1997) expressed his opinion that couples are expected to possess cordial interpersonal relationship and that could cub adverse effect of anxiety after wedding (akinade, 1997; oyerinde, 2016). in the same vein, osiki (1995) also submitted that evidence from literature indicates that factors that favor spousal happiness are yet to be fully understood by couples in nigeria. though, some researchers like johnson and whilffen (2003, 2005) have worked on some psychosocial factors and their effects on www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 33 published by scholink inc. pre and post marriage anxiety with due consideration to gender roles in marriage institutions yet the problems of marriage anxiety still persist. worst still is the incidence of increase homicide and suicide among young married couples compounding nigerian societal problems. considering the importance of marriage, the havoc caused by marriage anxiety and its implications among young married couples, there is need for quick intervention to overcome marital challenges as a result of marriage anxiety in order for couples to live a satisfactory life in marriage institution. it is surprising to note that anxiety has forced some youths to run away from marriage because of anxiety. what is the society turning to? in the light of these, it is expedient of the counseling psychologists to deal with marriage anxiety realistically in order to focus on the aim of finding possible solutions to the problems caused by marriage anxiety before it turns wedding and marriage to a mirage in the society. therefore, it is germane to quickly find a way of reducing the negative effects of marriage anxiety so that it will not make complete mess of the whole marriage institution in nigerian society. the tools used to examine and manage the effects of marriage anxiety on young married couples were dyadic psychotherapy and self-monitoring strategy for peace and tranquility leading to fulfillment of wedding and marriage purposes among young married couples. management of anxiety must be thoroughly done to bring down the level of worries in stress, depression and anxiety disorder (busari, 2000). peaceful environment would be achieved with the use of dyadic psychotherapy and selfmonitoring strategy to manage several of the problems caused by marriage anxiety. having young christian married couples with several challenges of marriage anxiety in the nigerian baptist convention and ibadan baptist conference churches especially easily reveals that some families in diverse troubles are in dear need of helps. this study, therefore, employs dyadic psychotherapy and self-monitoring strategy as interventions in enhancing successful treatment of marriage anxiety among young married couples in ibadan baptist conference in order to make marriage fulfill its purpose better for the young married couples in the conference. the moderating variables in the course of the study are the economic status and sexual satisfaction. the economic status (high or low) of a given married couple usually has effects on their marriage anxiety as it may raise or lessen it. 2. purpose of the study generally, the study experimentally investigated the relative effects of two psychological strategies (dyadic psychotherapy and self-monitoring strategy) in managing marriage anxiety among young married baptist couples in ibadan baptist conference of oyo state, nigeria. also, specifically the study: 1) investigated the effects of dyadic psychotherapy and self-monitoring strategy in managing marriage anxiety among young married baptist couples in ibadan baptist conference of oyo state, nigeria. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 34 published by scholink inc. 2) examined the effects of sexual satisfaction on marriage anxiety among young married baptist couples in ibadan baptist conference of oyo state, nigeria. 3) explored the effect of level of economic status on marriage anxiety among young married baptist couples in ibadan baptist conference of oyo state, nigeria. 4) identified the interaction effect of sexual satisfaction and level of economic status on marriage anxiety among young married baptist couples in ibadan baptist conference of oyo state, nigeria. 5) explored the interaction effect of treatments, sexual satisfaction and the level of economic status on marriage anxiety among young married baptist couples in ibadan baptist conference of oyo state, nigeria. 3. research hypotheses the researcher tested the following null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance h01. there is no significant main effect of treatment on marriage anxiety of the participants. ho2. there is no significant main effect of number of sex on marriage anxiety of the participants. ho3. there is no significant main effect of level of economic status on marriage anxiety of the participants. h04. there is no significant interaction effect of treatments and number of sex on marriage anxiety of the participants. h05. there is no significant interaction effect of treatments and level of economic status on marriage anxiety of the participants. h06. there is no significant interaction effect of number of sex and level of economic status on marriage anxiety of the participants. h07. there is no significant interaction effect of treatments, number of sex and level of economic status on marriage anxiety among of the participants. 4. methodology 4.1 design the study will employ a pre-test, post-test, control quasi experimental design using 3 x 2 x 2 factorial matrix. 4.2 sample and sampling technique ninety-four participants were randomly selected from three baptist churches in ibadan baptist conference to participate in the study. 4.3 research instruments 4.3.1 hamilton anxiety rating scale (ham-a) hamilton anxiety rating scale developed by psychol j. med (1959) was adapted for the study in order to determine the severity of symptoms of anxiety in the participants. it has fourteen (14) lists of phrases www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 35 published by scholink inc. that describe certain feeling that people (adult) may have. the participants are rated by finding the answer which best describes the extent to which he/she has the conditions considered. they are to select one of the five responses for each of the fourteen questions which are on four likert-type scale as: 0 = not present, 1 = mild, 2 = moderate, 3 = severe, 4 = very severe. the instrument has internal consistency value (cronbach’s alpha = 0.893) and 0.99 test retest reliability value = 0.99). also, the instrument was however re-validated and cronbach alpha value obtained after administering the instruments in a pilot study was 0.86. 4.3.2 the dyadic adjustment scale the dyadic adjustment scale was developed spanier g.b. (1976). it is a scale for assessing the quality of marriage among the similar dyads. it has a list of 32-items, measure of relationship quality. the psychometric properties of the dyadic adjustment scale (das) show that the instrument has internal consistency value, cronbach’s alpha is 0.80 and for the subscales it ranged from .13 to .88. the instrument was however re-validated and cronbach alpha value obtained after administering the instruments in a pilot study was 0.87. 4.3.3 the self-monitoring scale the self-monitoring scale was developed by mark snyder (1974). the scale was adapted in order to measure the extent to which the young married couples consciously manage themselves positively in their social interactions. it has a list of 25-items to measure the relationship quality of the young married couples. the scale is divided into 4 subscales. if a statement is true or mostly true as applied to him or her, he or she marks t as his or her answer. if a statement is false or not usually true as applied to him or her, he or she marks f as his or her answer. self monitoring strategy has test-retest reliability (.83 for one month) and the original study is also reported to have evidence regarding the scale’s validity. the instrument was however re-validated in a pilot study correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). 4.3.4 sexual satisfaction scale the sexual satisfaction scale was developed by agnieszka nomejko, grażyna dolińska-zygmunt (2014). it was designed to measure the degree of sexual satisfaction among the married couples. it consists of 10 items of phrases describing sexual activities. the participants responds to the 10 positions with a four-point likert scale:(1-strongly disagree, 2-rather disagree, 3-rather agree, 4-strongly agree). the result informs about the level of the young married couples’ sexual satisfaction. the psychometric properties of the sexual satisfaction scale (sss) show that the instrument has the cronbach alpha indicated a high consistency: 0.83. 4.3.5 salami socio-economic status scale the socio-economic status scale developed by salami (2000) was used to measure the particiapnts’ socio-economic status. this scale was developed to measure the educational, occupational and social status of the participants. the respondents were classified as into lower socioeconomic status, middle socio-ecomic status and high socioeconomic status. the test retest reliability coefficient of 0.73 with www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 36 published by scholink inc. interval of three weeks was stated by the author. the internal consistency was 0.83. the instrument was however pilot tested and the result yielded a reliability coefficient value cronbach alpha value value after a pilot test was 0.74. procedure: this study was carried out over a period of eight weeks. voluntary participation was solicited for and only participants who felt that they would be able to complete the trainings were eligible to participate. furthermore, there were four phases of intervention with the participants: recruitment, pre-test, treatment and post-treatment evaluation. a good conducive environment was provided for the treatment administration. trained research assistants assisted in distributing and collecting the questionnaire. one hour thirty minutes were spent a day per week per when therapeutic sessions for each of the experimental groups were held for the period of eight weeks. all the participants were assured that responses were only for research purposes and not subjected to public consumption. all rules guiding good healhting living to prevent contacting pandemic were given and followed strictly. 4.4 data analysis the pre-test data for the three groups were analyzed using mean and standard deviation to establish the similarities and prove that the groups are similar in their levels of reducing the attacks of anxiety. analysis of co-variance (ancova)—a parametric technique was used to test the hypothesis in order to determine the effect of the treatment on the experimental groups. then the post hoc analysis was done for a comparison of the results. 5. results the results obtained are shown below: 5.1 hypothesis one there is no significant main effect of treatment on marriage anxiety of the participants. table 1. analysis of covariance (ancova) of pretests-posttest interactive effects of marital anxiety of participants in the treatment groups, socio-economic status and sexual satisfaction source type iii sum of squares df mean square f sig. partial eta squared corrected model 5415.211a 10 541.521 27.495 .000 .768 intercept 1876.146 1 1876.146 95.258 .000 .534 prescore .142 1 .142 .007 .932 .000 trtgrp 2375.226 2 1187.613 60.299 .000 .592 sexsatis 39.874 1 39.874 2.025 .159 .024 ses .076 1 .076 .004 .951 .000 trtgrp * sexsatis 27.237 1 27.237 1.383 .243 .016 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 37 published by scholink inc. trtgrp * ses 10.299 2 5.149 .261 .771 .006 sexsatis * ses 9.900 1 9.900 .503 .480 .006 trtgrp * sexsatis * ses 6.599 1 6.599 .335 .564 .004 error 1634.715 83 19.695 total 22497.000 94 corrected total 7049.926 93 a. r squared = .768 (adjusted r squared = .740) table 1 above shows a significant main effect of treatment in reducing marital anxiety among participants (f2,83 = 60.292; p < 0.05, ῆ2 = 0.592). hence, hypothesis one was not confirmed statistically. table 2. scheffee post-hoc test of treatment groups on marital anxiety among the participants trtgrp n subset for alpha = 0.05 1 2 self monitoring strategy 34 7.8235 dyadic psychotherapy 32 8.0313 control 28 24.3571 sig. .983 1.000 table 2 shows that the mean score of participants exposed to self monitoring strategy (sms) were not significantly different from those in the dyadic psychotherapy (dp). however, it was significantly difference to the control group. also, the mean score of participants exposed to dyadic psychotherapy (dp) was significantly different from those in the control group. figures 1 and 2 further shows that there is significant difference in the treatment packages in reducing the marriage anxiety among the participants. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 38 published by scholink inc. figure 1. the graph showing the pre mean scores of the participants in the three groups figure 2. the graph showing the post mean scores of the participants in the three groups 5.2 hypothesis two there is no significant main effect of the number of sex on marriage anxiety of the participants. table 1 shows that number of sex has no significant effect in reducing marital anxiety of the participants (f1,83 = 2.025; p > 0.050, ῆ2 = 0.024. hence hypothesis two was statistically accepted. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 39 published by scholink inc. 5.3 hypothesis three there is no significant main effect of level of economic status on marriage anxiety of the participants. table 1 shows that socio-economic status has no significant effect in reducing marital anxiety of the participants (f1,83 = 0.004; p > 0.050, ῆ2 = 0.000. hypothesis three was also accepted. 5.4 hypothesis four there is no significant interaction effect of treatments and number of sex on marriage anxiety of the participants. table 1 shows that there is no significant interaction effect of treatment and number of sex in reducing marital anxiety among participants (f1,83 = 1.383; p > 0.050, ῆ2 = 0.016). hence hypothesis four was statistically confirmed. 5.5 hypothesis five there is no significant interaction effect of treatments and level of socio-economic status on marriage anxiety of the participants. table 1 shows that there is no significant interaction effect of treatment and level of socio-economic status in reducing marital anxiety among participants (f2,83 = 0.261; p > 0.050, ῆ2 = 0.006). this means that there is no significant interaction effect of treatment and level of socio-economic status in reducing marital anxiety among the participants and hypothesis five was accepted 5.6 hypothesis six there is no significant interaction effect of number of sex and level of economic status on marriage anxiety of the participants. table 1 shows that there is no significant interaction effect of number of sex and level of socio-economic status in reducing marital anxiety among participants (f1,83 = 0.503; p > 0.050, ῆ2 = 0.006). there was no significant interaction effect of number of sex and level of socio-economic status in reducing marital anxiety among the participants; hypothesis six was also accepted. 5.7 hypothesis seven there is no significant interaction effect of treatments, number of sex and level of economic status on marriage anxiety among the participants. table 1 shows that there is no significant interaction effect of treatment, number of sex and level of socio-economic status in reducing marital anxiety among participants (f1,83 = 0.335; p > 0.050, ῆ2 = 0.004). there was no significant interaction effect of treatment, number of sex and level of socio-economic status in reducing marital anxiety among the participants. hence hypothesis seven was finally accepted statically. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 40 published by scholink inc. 6. discussion the study investigated the effectiveness of two therapeutic techniques (dyadic psychotherapy and self monitoring strategy) in managing marriage anxiety among the young married couples in ibadan baptist conference. the results of the study are therefore discussed one hypothesis after the other, based on those scores of the participants on the measure of anxiety in marriage. the first hypothesis states that there is no significant main effect of treatments on marriage anxiety of the participants. as reflected on the tables 1 and 2, there was a significant differences in the scores of participants exposed to treatment and the control group. it clearly shows that the treatments of dyadic psychotherapy and self-monitoring strategy foster the reduction of marriage anxiety of particpants who took the therapeutic packages in the two groups was not confirmed (f2,83 = 60.292; p < 0.05, ῆ2 = 0.592). this findings showed that if young married couples with marriage anxiety problems are exposed to either of the two experimental strategies (dyadic psychotherapy and self-monitorting strategy) they would be supported by developing appropriate skill that would help them to manage marriage anxiety. the finding shows some level of consonance with the submissions of collins, (2007) that cognitive behaviours interventions have potency to reduce anxiety. precisely, the findings of the two psychological strategies were closely efficacious and were outstrageously displayed since the participants who used either of the strategies could record reduction of marriage anxiety. the second hypothesis states that there is no significant main effect of treatments of number of sex on marriage anxiety of the participants. the hypothesis was accepted because the result in table 1 showed that the number of sex has no significant effect in reducing marital anxiety of the participants (f1,83 = 2.025; p > 0.050, ῆ2 = 0.024. this means that there was no significant main effect of number of sex in reducing marital anxiety among the participants. hypothesis three states that there is no significant main effect of level of economic status on marriage anxiety of the participants. as reflected in table 1 socio-economic status has no significant effect in reducing marital anxiety of the participants (f1,83 = 0.004; p > 0.050, ῆ2 = 0.000). the researchers then concluded that there was no significant effects social economics status has on marriage anxiety of the young married couples. the submission is in agreement with the views of oladeni (2013) that connotes that since the young married couples do not have larger financial loads that can threaten them as at that very young age (1-5 years) in marriage economic status may not predict reduction of marriage anxiety (paul, 2012). hypothesis four states that there is no significant interaction effect of treatments and number of sex on marriage anxiety of the participants. table 1 showed that the interaction effect of treatment and number of sex in reducing marital anxiety among participants (f1,83 = 1.383; p > 0.050, ῆ2 = 0.016) is not significant. this means that there is no significant interaction effect of treatment and number of sex in reducing marital anxiety among the participants. by implication the young married couples do not see sex as a reason to be panic. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 41 published by scholink inc. hypothesis five states that there is no significant interaction effect of treatments and level of socio-economic status on marriage anxiety of the participants. as reflected in table 1 the interaction effect of treatment and level of socio-economic status in reducing marital anxiety among participants (f2,83 = 0.261; p > 0.050, ῆ2 = 0.006) is not significant. though the economic status could be measured using combination of indicators like income, wealth, education and occupation (salami, 2000); the outcome of this study implies that joint effect of dp and sms and the level of economic status was not potent enough to meaningfully control marriage anxiety among the young married couples. this happens probably because of ayodele (2016) assertion that says if married couples plan their family budget properly they would not fail to meet their basic needs. then there will be no need to worry or be anxious unnecessarily. hypothesis six states that there is no significant interaction effect of number of sex and level of economic status on marriage anxiety of the participants. table 1 shows that the two way interaction effects of number of sex and level of socio-economic status on marital anxiety among participants were not significant (f1,83 = 0.503; p > 0.050, ῆ2 = 0.006). the outcome of this finding might be due to the fact that most of the participants had acquired experiences during courtship before wedding. though number of sex may be determined by economic status but it could be that their marriage anxiety had no relationship with the number of sex or that the higher their economic status is in marriage, the more the marriage depreciates. the last hypothesis seven states that there is no significant interaction effect of treatments, number of sex and level of economic status on marriage anxiety among the participants. table 1 shows that interaction effect of treatment, number of sex and level of socio-economic status in reducing marital anxiety among participants (f1,83 = 0.335; p > 0.050, ῆ2 = 0.004), was not significant. this implies that the hypothesis was statistically confirmed. the result of the this finding is amazing as one might have thought that the interaction of the treatments, that is dp and sms with the moderating variables, that is the number of sex and the level of economics status together would make significant interaction effect on the management anxiety of the participants. the implication and possible reason that could be deduced to this finding is that the two experimental groups possessed similar traits determinants and the moderating variables have strength and effects on the two participants. hence they produced similar outcome. 7. conclusion on account of the findings of this study the conclusion are made as follows. it was discovered that both dyadic psychotherapy (dp) and selfmonitoring strategy (sms) are effective in reducing marriage anxiety. in other words the training given to the young married couples with these strategies will go a long way in equipping the young married couples’s skills to reduce marriage anxiety. although both dyadic psychotherapy and self-monitoring strategy are almost equally effective, the latter is more effective. number of sex is largely not determinant factor to reduce anxiety in marriage among young www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 42 published by scholink inc. married couples. also, economics status is likely not to predict reduction of anxiety in marriage among young married couples. recommendation it is therefore recommended that dyadic psychotherapy and self-monitoring strategy should be taught to young married couples in particular in order to reduce the negative effects of marriage anxiety which is inevitable. references nomejko, a., & dolińska-zygmunt, g. (2014). institute of psychology, faculty of pedagogical and historical sciences, university of wrocław, dawida 1, 50-527 wrocław. american psychiatric association. (2000). diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (4th edition). text revision. washington, dc, american psychiatric association, 2000. national institute of mental health’s online publications. animasahun, r. a. (2017). psychology of divorce (unpublished). hints on marriage issues university of ibadan. asuzu, c. c., & m. c. (2007). human sexuality, a primer the ambassador publication, ipetu-remo, ogun state nigeria. attu, t. (2015). west african rescue association, anxiety disorder. bowlby, j. (1969). attachment and loss: vol 1. attachment. new york: basic books. collins, g. r. (2007). christian counseling a comprehensive guide thomas nelson. nashville usa. hamilton, m. (1959). the assessment of anxiety states by rating. br j med psychol, 32, 50-55. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8341.1959.tb00467.x johnson, s., & whiffen, v. (1999). made to measure: adapting emotionally focused couple therapy to partners’ attachment style. clinical psychology: science and practice, 6, 366-381. https://doi.org/10.1093/clipsy.6.4.366 mcconnell, m. e. (2011). the effects of self-monitoring on student academic and social change (2nd ed.). new york, ny: the guilford press. sociology/cahiers, volume 19, no.1. snyder, d. k., & smith, g. t. (1986). classification of marital relationships: an empirical approach. journal of marriage and the family, 48, 137-146. https://doi.org/10.2307/352237 spanier, g. b. (1976). measuring dyadic adjustment: new scales for assessing the quality of marriage and similar dyads. journal of marriage and the family, 38(1), 15-28. https://doi.org/10.2307/350547 whiffen, v. e. (2005). the role of partner characteristics in attachment insecurity and depressive symptoms. personal relationships, 12, 405-423. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-6811.2005.00123.x https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8341.1959.tb00467.x https://doi.org/10.1093/clipsy.6.4.366 https://doi.org/10.2307/352237 https://doi.org/10.2307/350547 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-6811.2005.00123.x www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 43 published by scholink inc. mark, y., mary, h., & timothy, f. (2015). self-monitoring and self-evaluating, the brain injury association of nys learnet tutorials self-regulatory/executive functions issues. strategies for the future. frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no.1, 2021 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) original paper id model development and validation: improving secondary school students’ mathematics achievement through cooperative learning strategies troy t. brown, ph.d1* 1 university of guyana, georgetown, guyana * troy timothy brown, ph.d., university of guyana, georgetown, guyana received: january 2, 2021 accepted: february 5, 2021 online published: february 22, 2021 doi:10.22158/fet.v4n1p47 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v4n1p47 abstract many secondary school students within the caribbean region are consistently failing to grasp basic mathematical concepts. the purpose of this design and development research was to generate an instructional design (id) model that demonstrates how the effective use of cooperative learning strategies improved students’ mathematical achievement, at a junior secondary school in the british virgin islands. the researcher collected information from mathematics teachers (n = 5) and their students (n = 5). each participant was involved in semi-structured interviews and maxqda12 was employed for analysis. two research questions guided this research. the results of this research showed that the consistent use of effective cooperative learning strategies contributed to students’ academic achievement in mathematics, especially at the junior secondary school level. the results stand to benefit both mathematics teachers of junior secondary schools and their students. there is one recommendation for future research. keywords academic achievement, cooperative learning, id model, instructional design, mathematics, secondary school, validation 1. introduction mathematics education, at the elementary school level, should not be overlooked. this level of mathematical instruction sets the foundation for students’ grade 12 exit examination. mathematics education is fundamentally essential to a dynamic global economy. students’ academic achievement and the effective implementation of teachers’ pedagogical strategies have been the most hotly debated 47 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 topic in recent years. however, the ongoing debate, regarding the improvement of students’ academic achievement in mathematics, seems to be at a stand-still. the urgent need of the education system is to ensure that teachers who are trained in the area of mathematics are equipped with the required content knowledge (ck) and pedagogical content knowledge (pck) that intentionally and ultimately aims at making a positive difference in students’ mathematical gains. cooperative learning strategies employed in the teaching of mathematics are perceived to make a difference in students’ academic gains. podolak, młynarska, kawałek, śnieżek, and napiórkowska (2016) posit that present-day teaching strategies should provide students with creative and critical thinking skills, which inevitably lead to self-development. they further stated that this contemporary teaching strategy is rooted in piaget’s theory of cognitive development. action teaching is synonymous to providing students with creative and critical thinking skills. plous (2012) mentioned that action teaching is dichotomous because it is designed to address the needs, interests, and abilities of the diverse student-population in a collaborative classroom culture, while simultaneously preserving the social fabric of the society. in other words, action teaching and cooperative learning strategies have some common characteristics, one of which involves the preservation of social interaction among students and teachers. few teachers are making the best use of the cooperative learning and teaching strategies while others continue to exhibit the traditional teaching strategies at the expense of students’ cognitive and social development. this suggests that students are not meeting their mathematics grade-level standards, partially due to the teaching strategies employed. even though, in every sphere of life mathematical concepts can be found, many students are unable to make connections to real-life situations because teachers shy away from teaching this skill. this may explain the unacceptable mathematics grades students receive. while unacceptable grades can be attributed to poor teaching method . . . (alami, 2016), mangilit (n.d), in the article, why smart students get low grades said that students receive low grades because they are unable to make connections between the mathematics content knowledge and the real-world. a clear understanding of why students receive low grades in mathematics can begin the process of change. it is essential for educators to be aware of the benefits, well-thought out, change affords. to meaningfully generate an id model that would help students develop an appreciation for mathematical concepts, teachers must first be willing to intentionally incorporate cooperative learning techniques and strategies within their mathematics classrooms. with the consistent and effective use of this knowledge and skill in cooperative learning and teaching strategies, it is perceived that the students’ mathematical achievement, will improve. we are living in a competitively charged environment; therefore, mathematics methodology should be on the cutting edge of our education system. this practice will ensure that students are prepared for the environment in which they live. 48 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 1.1 background of the study the caribbean examinations council (cxc) annual technical reports (2009-2019) revealed that students are consistently underperforming in the caribbean secondary education council (csec) mathematics at an alarming rate. as a result, there are widespread concerns among policy makers, teachers, parents, and students with respect to the overall performance of our students. an extremely brief report of students’ mathematics performance for 11 consecutive years (2009-2019) is shown below. table 1. aggregate and bvi performance in csec mathematics examination during 2009-2019 year of examination (mathematics) % of registrants obtaining grades i-iii (aggregate) % of registrants obtaining grades i-iii (bvi) 2009 41 73 2010 41 66 2011 35 65 2012 33 60 2013 30 55 2014 50 68 2015 57 74 2016 44 88 2017 45 71 2018 49 78 2019 46 63 note. the aggregate column represents the performance of students in the cxc territories, while the bvi column represents the performance of students in the british virgin islands. the mean percentage of aggregate and bvi students who received acceptable grades for the csec mathematics examination, may/june sitting is 42.8 and -69.2 respectively. the standard deviation percentage of aggregate and bvi students who received acceptable grades for the csec mathematics examination, may/june sitting is 7.60 and 8.66 respectively. a cursory glance, at these statistics, reveals that the registrants in the bvi out-performed their counterparts on the aggregate level. for this reason, the students of the bvi were selected for this research which ultimately led to the development of the id model. the researcher, a former head of department (mathematics), a trained certified graduate mathematics teacher has been teaching mathematics at all grade levels within the secondary school for more than 49 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 two decades. throughout these years of teaching mathematics, it has been observed that each student can learn and information is processed according to their needs, interests, and abilities. this suggests that knowing one or two teaching strategies is insufficient. if students are not performing at an acceptable standard with the current teaching strategies employed by the teacher, a change is necessary. with a rigorous and intentional change or adjustment in teaching strategies, the teachers will be able to identify the factors that are most likely to be responsible for students’ academic achievement in mathematics. this working knowledge of cooperative learning and teaching strategies can assist teachers in becoming more informed of pedagogical content knowledge (pck). simultaneously, the deliberate use of cooperative learning and teaching strategies can act as an initial pathway towards improving students’ mathematical achievement within the junior secondary schools. 1.2 statement of the problem problems are ubiquitous and the education system is not immune to them. there are numerous educational challenges that are affecting the pedagogical platform within the junior secondary school system. educators are faced with major problems and challenges within and without the classroom and the teaching profession as a whole. a problem can be viewed as the difference between what now exist and an expectation of a more favourable situation. the researcher delved into the likely cause of this discrepancy; students’ current unacceptable performance and a more desirable performance in mathematics. the reduction of this performance gap is perceived to be possible through the analysis, design, development, and evaluation of this id model that is intended to improve students’ mathematics achievement at the junior secondary schools, through the effective use of cooperative teaching and learning strategies. hence, the statement of the problem for this research was generated from the basis of the cxc annual technical reports which state that, many students are consistently underperforming in mathematics, due to their inability to grasp basic mathematical concepts and apply them to real-world situations. 1.3 purpose of the study creswell (2013) stated that a purpose statement provides a major objective, intent, or road map to the research and is considered one of the most important statements in research. hence, the purpose of this grounded theory (gt) qualitative design and development research (ddr) was to analyze, design, develop, and evaluate an id model that is perceived to improve students’ performance in mathematics through cooperative teaching and learning strategies at a private junior secondary school in the british virgin islands (bvi). at this stage in the research the id model is generally defined as the cooperative teaching and learning strategies suitable to improve the performance of junior secondary school mathematics students and by extension students writing the csec mathematics examination. 1.4 pragmatism: an interpretive framework pragmatism as an interpretive framework focuses on the practical implications of research (creswell, 2013). the term pragmatism was first coined by charles peirce in 1905 because he wanted to name a philosophy that was considered new and diverse (ghenea, 2015). to educate students in the field of 50 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 mathematics, the teacher must take on a practical framework that is perceived to encourage learners to be actively involved in the learning process. teaching and learning mathematical concepts through cooperative learning strategies encourage meaningful planning and intentional practical involvement. for the pragmatists, learning is driven by social interaction. in fact, gorshkova (2015) said that dewey believes students should be guided along their intellectual journey through practical engagement. 1.5 ontology: a philosophical assumption there is a positive connection between pragmatism and ontology to the teaching of mathematics through cooperative teaching and learning strategies. almeida (2013) said that the branch of philosophy concerned with the study of reality is known as metaphysics and a fundamental component of metaphysics is ontology. this suggests that ontological beliefs play a major role in understanding the nature of reality. creswell (2013) said that qualitative researchers embrace multiple realities since each participant can provide a different reality. this research showed how each student and teacher shared their own reality about the nature of cooperative teaching and learning at a junior secondary school level and their perception of the use of this teaching strategy within their mathematics classroom. one general ontological question within this research is, what is the reality of the analysis, design, development, and evaluation processes of the id model that is perceived to bridge the performance gap in the mathematics classrooms using cooperative teaching and learning strategies? 2. methodology 2.1 research design the glaserian grounded theory research design is the most appropriate for this research. one of the primary rationales of this design was to develop a substantive theory that emerged from the identification of the core categories grounded in the data (merriam, 2009) and the fact that, all the participants involved in this research was selected because of common characteristics that they share (creswell, 2013). this design and development research, also called type ii design, development, and validation research, was conducted with mathematics teachers and their students of junior secondary schools in mind. ibrahim (2016) mentioned that there are four phases in a design and development research: analysis, design, development, and evaluation. this research strongly embraced these four phases. 2.2 population and sample the target population of this research was the junior secondary school students and their mathematics teachers. the sample came from this group of students and teachers. these participants came from a private junior secondary school on the island of tortola, british virgin islands. they were also bona fide students and full-time teachers of the institution. these students were not considered as being a part of any vulnerable group. the teachers were exposed to the strategies of cooperative learning by the researcher while their students were exposed to this teaching strategy, by their respective mathematics 51 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 teacher. the three grade levels that constituted the junior secondary school were made up of mixed gender—male and female between the 12-19 age range. there were five students and five teachers directly involved in this research. these five teachers were assigned different classes within the three grade levels to teach mathematics by the school’s administration at the beginning of the school year, 2018-2019. each teacher had at least seven years of experience teaching mathematics at various secondary schools and at different grade levels. each teacher holds a bachelor’s degree, except for mathematics and was between the ages of 30 and 51 years. 2.3 sampling strategy each participant was purposively sampled because the researcher felt that they were able to provide adequate information for the development of the research id model for improving students’ academic achievement in mathematics. interacting with these students and recognizing their ability to supply rich and thick information was incredible. as a result, they were selected as participants, subject to the signing of their informed consent forms by their parents or legal guardian. teachers also read, signed, and returned their informed consent forms to the researcher. 2.4 research procedure the researcher first made an appointment with the principal of the research site, two weeks prior to meeting with the mathematics faculty of the junior secondary school. at that meeting, the researcher shared an overview of the research as well as an outline of the procedure, which was eventually followed. the principal gave the researcher permission to meet with the mathematics teachers of the junior secondary school and to conduct the research. the researcher shared with each potential participant the purpose of the study, the significance of the study, the estimated number of interviews, sensitivity to the demand on their time, the high level of confidentiality and respect for the research process, and the voluntary nature of their participation. teachers were allowed to ask questions and seek clarifications. the researcher responded to each question asked as well as clarified misconceptions during the meeting. at the end of the interactive meeting, the researcher asked each potential participant to indicate their commitment and willingness to the research process. they read, signed, and returned their informed consent form to the researcher. the students were purposively sampled and they were given an informed consent form for their parents or legal guardian to read, sign, and return directly to the researcher. once these signed informed consent forms were returned, the researcher asked each student to give assent to their willingness to participate in the research. the researcher conducted two weeks of training for mathematics teachers in cooperative learning strategies. each teacher implemented these strategies in their mathematics classrooms. as a result of this intentional implementation, the tentative id model was developed and this was followed by an evaluation process. this tentative model was validated prior to the development of the final id model. 52 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 2.4.1 id model explanation and validation this ddr involved four phases: analysis, design, development, and evaluation. the first phase, analysis, focused primarily on the qualitative review of students’ current mathematics achievement at the junior secondary school level. a careful document analysis of the students’ mathematics copy books and their teachers’ grade book revealed that students continue to perform below their grade-level standard. the second phase, design, focused on the training of the mathematics faculty in cooperative teaching and learning strategies. the teachers of the junior secondary school were exposed for the first time to in-depth sessions on cooperative learning strategies. the researcher was the lone facilitator. each teacher at the two-week training session was asked to incorporate the pedagogical content knowledge (pck) gained at the training sessions, into their mathematics classes. there were two training sessions held each week, on tuesday’s and thursday’s; that lasted for an average of 90 minutes. these sessions were adequate for the implementation of foundational principles in cooperative learning strategies, within the mathematics classrooms. the third phase, development, saw the development of a tentative id model from the information each participant contributed. each teacher as participant was given at most two weeks before beginning the implementation of the cooperative learning strategy, in their mathematics classrooms. during the implementation of the cooperative learning strategies, by the mathematics teachers, the researcher conducted continuous observations, interviews, and document analyses. the information received from the in-progress data, was analyzed using maxqda12 software. the results from this analysis were used to develop a tentative id model that was subsequently validated in the fourth phase. phase four was the internal validation of this tentative id model. this fourth and final phase also known as the delphi study consisted of a three-round process prior to the final development of the substantive id model. mulder (2017) postulates that limiting the delphi study to the first round fails to test the complex processes of analysis and measurement occurring later in the delphi research process. for this reason the researcher utilized three rounds in this process. at each round the researcher used the information submitted by the panellists to update each tentative model. this delphi study panel consisted of three persons. these three persons were the mathematics expert, cooperative learning practitioner, and a curriculum and instruction specialist. this validation process relied heavily on the delphi panel arriving at a consensual agreement for the id model. each member of the panel voted in favour of the final substantive id model. 2.5 research questions research questions provide researchers with an action plan for the development of research instruments. it is expected that, “researchers identify a general question followed by a sub-question referred to as the research question” (creswell, 2013, p. 138). the general question for this research is, “what is the design and development research id model that would improve students’ mathematical performance 53 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 at the junior secondary school level at a private secondary school in tortola, british virgin islands?” as a result, this study was guided by two sub-questions referred to as the research questions. research question #1. what role will mathematics teachers of junior secondary school play in the process of developing an instructional design model that will improve students’ academic performance in mathematics through the use of cooperative learning strategies? research question #2. what role will junior secondary school students play in the process of developing an instructional design model that will improve the students’ academic performance in mathematics through the use of cooperative learning strategies? 2.6 data collection sources and procedures 2.6.1 interview—focus group and individual semi-structured interviews were conducted with individual participants as well as in focus groups. only students were involved in the focus group interviews. focus group interviews stimulate an extremely dynamic interaction between and among group participants (merriam, 2009). the focus group interviews were held with four and sometimes all five students. the difference in the numerical composition of the focus group was due to the absence of a participant from school on the day in question. there were four focus group interviews conducted bi-weekly for two weeks. each interview session lasted for an average of 30 minutes. during these focus group interviews the researcher made keen observations of those students who he believes have the proclivity to supply additional rich, thick description for the study. these students were formally invited to participate in the individual interviews. merriam (2009) advanced, “interviews in a qualitative research are more open-ended and less structured” (p. 90). both students and teachers participated in the individual interviews. the individual interview process lasted for approximately three weeks. the interview process ended when the researcher believed that the point of saturation was reached and no meaningful additional information was being contributed by the participants. each participant was interviewed at least once during the three weeks. at most four participants were interviewed weekly. these interviews lasted for an average of 30 minutes. at the conclusion of each interview, the researcher spoke into an audio tape recorder. this was immediately followed by a detailed transcription of the reflection. participants did not consent to have their interviews, individual and focus group, audio nor video-taped. 2.6.2 observation at the conclusion of the teacher-training in cooperative teaching and learning strategies, the researcher allowed at most two weeks “grace period” before the teachers began implementing these strategies in their respective mathematics classrooms. during the two-week “grace period”, the teachers were asked to practice these skills. following this two-week period, the researcher conducted bi-weekly observations of teachers during interactive classroom sessions. during these observations the researcher took field notes using the observation protocol. immediately following the completion of an 54 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 observation, the researcher reverted to the interview room and quietly spoke into an audio tape recorder whatever transpired on that occasion, made personal reflections, and comments. this process was immediately followed by verbatim transcription of that session and the information was filed according to date, time, data source, and research site before being uploaded in maxqda12 software for analysis. these observations determined the level of use, of the cooperative learning strategies by the teacher and how students were responding to them, in the mathematics classrooms. 2.6.3 document analysis at least twice weekly during the research process which lasted for six weeks, the teachers’ log books, lesson plans/record and forecast, and students’ mathematics note books were reviewed. the review of their note books was done at least once weekly. after each review, the researcher spoke into the audio tape recorder, a reflection of the review process. these data collection sources were used to ensure a wide cross-section of views from the participants, from which a substantive id model was developed. these three data collection sources were most appropriate for this research since it gave the researcher a clearer and deeper understanding of the phenomenon of interest. 2.7 data analysis strategies joyner, rouse, and glatthorn (2013) posited that qualitative data is more challenging to analyze as the data are not numerical, but textual. merriam (2009) suggested, “all qualitative research data analysis is primarily inductive and comparative” (p. 175). gay, mills, and airasian (2009) concurred that the collection and analysis of qualitative data could occur simultaneously. this current study engaged in an iterative data collection and analysis process (creswell, 2013; gay, mills, & airasian, 2009; merriam, 2009). the reflective notes from the interviews, observations, and document analyses were saved on an 8 gb kingston flash drive and a seagate external usb 2 tb device, according to date, time, data source, data collection strategy, and research site. when the researcher was satisfied through member checks that the information received was true and accurate, it was uploaded into maxqda12 software for analysis. 2.7.1 coding procedures a code in qualitative research is a single word or short phrase that is symbolically assigned to a selected portion of text or visual data (saldana, 2013). to enable the generation of the grounded theory, creswell (2013) suggested three coding phases (a) open, (b) axial, and (c) selective coding. nvivo codes were used, which according to creswell (2013) captured the exact words spoken by the participants. this type of coding helps to capture the essence of the participants’ contribution to the theory generation. 2.7.1.1 open coding the goal of open coding is to remain flexible to all possible theoretical directions indicated by the reading of the data collected from the participants (charmaz, 2006). there are three data collection sources in this research. these sources are: interview, observation, and document analysis. the coding, 55 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 for this research, began with open coding in which the researcher engaged in line-by-line coding to ensure that every possible theoretical direction was indicated. 2.7.1.2 axial coding saldana (2013) used the term axial coding to describe the relationship between categories and sub-categories. charmaz (2006) asserted that focused coding also known as axial coding aims at linking categories with sub-categories to make sense of the data and show how they are related. creswell (2013) provided an axial coding relationship model which consists of (a) causal conditions—what factors caused the core phenomenon, (b) strategies —actions taken in response to the core phenomenon, (c) intervening conditions—broad and specific situational factors that influence the strategies, and (d) consequences—outcomes from using the strategies. 2.7.1.3 selective coding the final coding phase in the qualitative data analysis process for this grounded theory is selective coding. at this juncture, the researcher further examined the relationships formed from within the axial coding paradigm and developed propositions that followed an analytical storyline making the connection between categories more meaningful (creswell, 2013). it was within this phase that the researcher generated the theory that was found within the information received. this theory came as a result of rigorous analysis of the data that led to a profound storyline. the ability to make connections between categories and sub-categories added to this storyline, simultaneously augmenting the meaningfulness and usefulness of the research. 2.8 validation strategies: credibility to ensure internal validity, the researcher engaged in three data collection sources for each research question. the most commonly known strategy to shore up validity is triangulation and member checks (merriam, 2009). the type of triangulation that was employed in this research was the multiple sources of data triangulation. this ensured the comparable use of different data that were collected. member checks were done to solicit feedback on the responses from the participants interviewed, observed, and whose document was analyzed. 2.8.1 triangulation triangulation, according to creswell (2013), is a process of corroborating evidence from various sources that inevitably lead to a comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon being studied. this research involved a combination of different collection data sources: interview, observation, and document analysis. the information shared in each source brought clarity to the phenomenon. 2.8.2 member checks member checks, also called respondent validation, is a process of taking your preliminary analysis back to the respondents for verification and clarification (merriam, 2009). creswell (2013) used the term, member checking, to suggest the researcher returning to the participants so that they can judge the exactness and integrity of the account. returning to the participants involves verifying whether the researcher’s interpretation of the information is accurate. the researcher returned to the participants to 56 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 verify and clarify data and interpretation. member checks were done throughout the research process where the researcher met individually with the research participants whose information shared was unclear and needed clarification. 2.9 validation strategies: consistency reliability is based on the supposition that there is one reality and if a study is repeated over time, it will yield the same or similar results (merriam, 2009). reliability poses tremendous problems whenever human subjects are involved, because of their vacillating complexity. individuals’ dispositions constantly change which suggests that the findings in one study may not be achieved in another, even if the same participants are involved. when this occurs, it does not mean that the findings are unreliable. it simply means that human behaviour is consistent with change and the results are consistent with the data collected. as a result, the researcher pilot studied the interview and the observation protocols and the final instruments were used. 2.10 reader generalizability merriam (2009) contends that a common understanding of generalizability in qualitative research is reader or user generalizability. this suggests that the individual that reads or uses the research must decide whether or not the findings can be applied to his or her particular context. the researchers or readers should not freely apply the findings to general scenarios. more specifically, the ddr is usually contextual and should not be seen as being applicable to different or similar contexts (richey & klein, 2007). creswell and plano clark (2011) mentioned that qualitative data are not to be generalized from the sample to the population. it is primarily used to gain an in-depth understanding of the phenomenon being studied. 2.11 ethical and legal considerations intentionally, each participant was assured orally and in their written informed consent form, that their identity, responses, and research site will be treated with a high degree of confidentiality. in addition to confidentiality measures, there will be no perceived form of discrimination based on sexual orientation, age, social class, disability, ethnicity, gender, religious affiliation, or otherwise. in other words, the information received from each research respondent will not be divulged to anyone at any time. only the researcher will have full and absolute access to the information collected which will be stored in a personal cupboard with lock and key at all times. all research participants were reminded that their participation is voluntary and that they are free to withdraw at any time without prior notification and without fear of being victimized in any way. 2.11.1 access and hierarchy the researcher formally requested permission from the chairman of the school board of management of the adventer community college (pseudonym). with the permission granted by the chairman of the school board of management, the researcher made a formal request to meet with the principal, the mathematics faculty of the junior secondary school and their students. these meetings were held in a 57 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 research-designated room and void of external interference and distractions. they were also held on different occasions. 2.11.2 informed consent an informed consent form was given to potential participates in this research. they were told that if they acceded to the request, they must return the signed copy to the researcher within three days of the receipt of the informed consent form. each teacher as a potential participant returned their signed consent form and they were given a schedule outlining the stages of their involvement in the development and internal validation of the id model. each student was also given an informed consent form for their parent or legal guardian to read, sign, and return. the students, who returned their signed informed consent form from their parent or legal guardian, give accent to being a part of the research process. 2.11.3 pseudonym and anonymity during the meeting with the prospective participants, the researcher reassured them of the high level of confidentiality that will be upheld throughout the research process. for the researcher to maintain a high level of confidentiality, an appropriate pseudonym was decided upon for each participant as well as the research site. 3. results there were two research questions that guided this research. five themes, two from research question #1 and three from research question #2, emerged as a direct result of the data that were collected from the three data collection sources observation, interview, and document analysis. collectively, the information was incorporated to generate the grounded theory and the substantive id model. ten participants voluntarily contributed to this research until the researcher perceived that information saturation was reached. in other words, there was no additional substantive information that was being collected by the researcher. 3.1 grounded theory identified the grounded theory that emerged from this research has widened teachers’ and students’ understanding of cooperative teaching and learning techniques and strategies. after rigorous analysis of the data received from participants, the grounded theory derived from this qualitative research orientation is: collaboration through cooperative consultation. this suggests that students’ mathematical performance can be improved through intentional collaboration between teachers, teachers and students, as well as between students engaged in meaningful small-group discussions. 3.2 research question #1: what role will mathematics teachers of junior secondary school play in the process of developing an instructional design model that will improve students’ academic performance in mathematics through the use of cooperative learning strategies? the data sources that were used to obtain information that provided answers to this research question were semi-structured interviews and 58 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 document analysis. the two themes that emerged as a result of rigorous analysis of the data collected are knowledge transfer ability and maximizing students’ potential. 3.2.1 knowledge transfer ability the ability to transfer knowledge from the classroom setting to the real-world does not evolve in a vacuum, but through meaningful engagement among teachers and students in small-group discussions. small-group discussions lend themselves to the development of analytical skills followed by a clearer understanding of the content being taught. it is prudent that teachers teach these analytical skills to students before requiring them to demonstrate such mastery. teachers should assist students in recognizing the relevance between the knowledge of the classroom and the real-world setting and this may provide a smoother transition from the school setting to the world-of-work. 3.2.1.1 summary statement cooperative learning classrooms facilitate the growth of students both academically and socially. through such collaborative environment, students develop their ability to transfer knowledge from the classroom to the real-world. 3.2.2 maximizing students’ potential an intentional collaborative effort between teachers and students can maximize students’ learning potential. students learn at various rates. as a result, some students would require being taught beyond the school day. cooperative learning strategies build students’ self-confidence, critical-thinking skills, and creativity. self-confidence is built by occasional independent work as students discover their creativity. it is perceived that these students are better equipped to handle classroom challenges. students’ learning potential can be maximized academically and socially, since they are encouraged to engage in constructive discussions within small groups. 3.2.2.1 summary statement through small-group discussions, students are able to maximize their true learning potential and become more proficient in understanding mathematical concepts. self-confidence, creativity, and critical-thinking skills are developed within small-group discussions. 3.2.2.2 overall summary statement cooperative learning classrooms support both academic and social development of students. when students develop these abilities, their learning is maximized as they are able to think critically, creatively, and develop their self-confidence. 3.3 research question #2: what role will junior secondary school students play in the process of developing an instructional design model that will improve the students’ academic performance in mathematics through the use of cooperative learning strategies? the data sources that were used to obtain information that provided answers to this research question were semi-structured interviews and observation and the three themes that emerged were dual beneficiaries from knowledge engagement, learning in a psychologically charged environment, and independence drives need for cooperation. 59 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 3.3.1 dual beneficiaries from knowledge engagement students who are engaged in consistent sharing of information within their small-groups augment their ability to retain the information learned. they are able to explain a concept in a simplified manner, “better” than the teacher, with the use of their familiar jargons. the student’s explanation of a concept will determine first if that student understands the information, and during this process may recognize his/her misunderstanding. students with differing aptitude levels working together in a small-group can be beneficial to each member within that group. teachers also benefit by being familiar with the jargons used by their students, in an effort to serve them better. 3.3.1.1 summary statement students readily adopt their familiar jargons that lend clarity to their small-group discussions. the content, of these discussions, appears to be “clearer” than the teacher’s explanation and as a result, more students are able to grasp a better understanding of the concept being taught. it is expected that teachers familiarize themselves with these jargons in order to be of greater assistance to their students. 3.3.2 learning in a psychologically charged environment the most important learning environment, that must be created before teaching and learning is maximized, is a psychologically charged learning environment. such environment must be intentionally created by the teacher because it develops students’ confidence and enthusiasm. teachers must be sensitive to the composition of the small groups, since they would be familiar with their students’ abilities. teachers must also ensure that the information being discussed in the small groups is correct or plausible before students are allowed to share with the entire class. when this is done a stronger cordial social bond is developed and maintained between teachers and students and learning becomes meaningful and rewarding. 3.3.2.1 summary statement the psychologically charged classroom environment must be intentionally prepared to receive students who are eager to learn. part of the benefit of this environment includes students being willing and comfortable to engage in fruitful discussion and sharing. 3.3.3 independence drives need for cooperation secondary school students working independently, especially in a mathematics classroom, highlight their misunderstanding and subsequent need for collaboration. not every student learns best in groups. learning depends on the content being taught and the level of cognitive skills that are required. students can also learn challenging content through organized collaborative work as is evident through meaningful socialization. 3.3.3.1 summary statement some students are able to succeed academically through periodic independent engagements while others need constant scaffolding from their colleagues. however, prolonged period of independence robs them of the social element of learning. 60 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 3.3.3.2 overall summary statement the benefits of learning come through meaningful learning engagements. it is remarkable to know that both teacher and students can benefit from the learning experience. however, it is important to prepare the psychological environment before meaningful learning can occur. students learn at different rates, but it does not negate the fact that independence drives need for collaboration. 4. discussion the purpose of this grounded theory design and development research was to develop and validate an instructional design model that can be used to improve students’ performance in mathematics through cooperative teaching and learning strategies at a private junior secondary school in the british virgin islands (bvi). its purpose was also to generate a substantive theory that explored how students’ mathematics achievement can be improved through the application of cooperative learning strategies. at this stage in the research the instructional design model was generally defined as the cooperative learning strategies suitable to improve the performance of students at the junior secondary school level and by extension students writing the csec mathematics examination. the reason for collecting qualitative data was to clearly understand the research problem by interacting with participants and spending prolonged periods of time in the research site. 4.1 discussion of findings from research question #1 research question #1 is: what roles will mathematics teachers of junior secondary school play in the process of developing an instructional design model that will improve students’ academic performance in mathematics through the use of cooperative learning strategies? it is evident that cooperative learning classrooms cater for the holistic development of students. in some classroom scenarios, only the cognitive development of the students is intentionally developed, losing sight of other aspects of student growth. the social development of an individual is just as important as their mental growth. for this reason, educators in general and mathematics educators in particular must intentionally plan for the “whole child”. each facet of the holistic development of a student supports one another. when students are intentionally exposed to a holistic development, their learning is maximized rather than skewed. maximization of learning helps students to think critically, creatively, and develop their self-confidence. cooperative learning strategies support students’ all-round development. mathematics teachers who intentionally engage in this teaching strategy recognize that students are social beings and that they can learn through well-organized small-group discussions. these discussions can well transcend beyond the walls of the classroom. 4.2 discussion of findings from research question #2 research question #2 is: what role will junior secondary school students play in the process of developing an instructional design model that will improve the students’ academic performance in mathematics through the use of cooperative learning strategies? the power of learning is phenomenal. mathematics educators need to factor in the classroom discourse, variables of engagement. the era for 61 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 students to sit still and be quite throughout a mathematics lesson has become extinct. the level of interaction and the sharing of ideas should never constitute “noise” but meaningfully controlled learning engagements. students should not be treated like commercial institutions, where deposits are made. rather they must be treated like entrepreneurs who are also able to make valuable contributions to the learning experience. it is remarkable to know that both teachers and students can benefit from the teaching and learning experience. if consciously engineered, each person has the capacity and the ability to make valuable contributions to the learning process. the intentional use of various cooperative teaching and learning strategies can foster exponential academic growth. one of the many ways that teachers can make a valuable contribution to the learning process is to prepare the psychological environment of each student. this is by far one of the most critical environments that must be prepared prior to meaningful engagement and learning. meaningful learning is contingent on the understanding that students learn at different rates. learners must be treated with a high level of importance and mathematics lessons should be planned with them in mind. no effort should be speared for all students to acquire learning, which is evident by a change in their behaviour. this may include both independent and collaborative engagements. we need each other at some point in our learning experience. sharing one’s knowledge about a particular concept helps the sharer to know whether or not he or she clearly understands that concept. the student becomes aware of his or her misunderstanding and reaches out for assistance. seeking assistance is not a difficult venture in a psychologically charged learning environment. everyone feels comfortable learning from each other and each person in the cooperative learning group is willing to share their knowledge. 5. conclusion the grounded theory approach was utilized in this qualitative research design. through this design, a substantive id model was developed to assist junior secondary school students improve their mathematics achievement through cooperative learning strategies. there was a total of 10 participants, five teachers and five students. these participants were purposively selected because the researcher believes that they would adequately contribute to the development of the id model and the theory grounded in the data collected. two research questions guided this research. three data collection sources were incorporated throughout this research and they added to the rich and thick description emanating from the voices of the participants. the maxqda12 qualitative data analysis software was employed to analyze all the data that were collected. as a result of the analysis of the data, five themes emerged. this research was relevant since students at a private junior secondary school in the bvi were consistently under-performing in their mathematics examinations. analysis of the data indicated that cooperative learning strategies supported students’ all-round development. mathematics teachers who intentionally engaged in this learning and teaching strategy recognized that students are social beings and that they can learn through well-organized small-group 62 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 discussions. these discussions can well transcend beyond the immediate walls of the classroom. we need each other at some point in our learning experiences. sharing one’s knowledge about a particular concept helps the sharer to know whether or not he or she clearly understands that concept. the student becomes aware of his or her misunderstanding and reaches out for assistance. seeking assistance is not a difficult venture in a psychologically charged learning environment. everyone feels comfortable learning from each other and each person in the cooperative learning group is willing to share their knowledge. 6. recommendation for further research 1) the scope of this research explored the development of an instructional design model using the cooperative learning strategies in the mathematics classroom. hence, there needs to be further research to determine which teaching strategy would yield the greatest academic achievement of students in mathematics. a graphical representation of the meaningfulness of the grounded theory is shown in figure 1 below. figure 1. theoretical id model for the implementation of cooperative 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(2013). the coding manual for qualitative researchers. los angeles, ca: sage. 65 published by scholink inc. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf02961473 original paper 1 university of guyana, georgetown, guyana * troy timothy brown, ph.d., university of guyana, georgetown, guyana abstract 1. introduction 1.1 background of the study 1.2 statement of the problem 1.4 pragmatism: an interpretive framework 1.5 ontology: a philosophical assumption students who are engaged in consistent sharing of information within their small-groups augment their ability to retain the information learned. they are able to explain a concept in a simplified manner, “better” than the teacher, with the use of thei... 3.3.1.1 summary statement 5. conclusion microsoft word fet-v1n1-p24 frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 24 original paper is attitude an impediment to achieving english proficiency amongst the final year students in the northern geopolitical zone of nigeria: a comparative study of southern and northern geopolitical zones famogbiyele o. taiwo1* 1 general studies department, national institute for hospitality and tourism, abuja, nigeria * famogbiyele o. taiwo, general studies department, national institute for hospitality and tourism, abuja, nigeria received: april 14, 2018 accepted: april 28, 2018 online published: may 17, 2018 doi:10.22158/fet.v1n1p24 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v1n1p24 abstract this study investigated whether it is the learners’ attitudes in the northern geopolitical zone of nigeria which impede them from achieving high level of proficiency in the study of english language as compared to that of their counterparts in the southern geopolitical zone. three research questions were generated to guide the study. 28-item questionnaire adapted from gardner’s (1985b) attitude motivation test battery (amtb) were used to elicit the data needed. the descriptive survey research design that was adopted for the study comprised of four-part likert-type statements. 610 students (male and female) registered for ssce examination were selected from 18 government-owned public secondary schools in the northern and southern geopolitical zones using stratified random sampling technique. the data collected were analyzed using simple mean scores and percentages. the result of the study showed that students in the northern geopolitical zones, in fact, have high positive attitude towards the learning of english but were not motivated to learn it and that language anxiety had a pervasive impact on the language learning experience of the students. the study recommends amongst others that, language teachers need to evolve effective teaching and learning strategies that generate the attitudes and motivation most conducive to the production of more successful learners of english language. keywords attitudes, impediment, motivation, nigerian students, english proficiency www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 25 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction motivation is a “key factor in l2 learning” (ellis, 1994, p. 508). it is invaluable as an influencing factor in examining success in second language acquisition. attitudes, one of the motivational variables has been found to be a crucial factor in this regards. in this study, attitudes to the learning of english was investigated among final year secondary schools in the northern states of nigeria to find out whether students’ attitudes to the study of english language is what impede them from achieving high level of proficiency. to do this, a comparative survey was carried out with their counterpart in the southern part of the country. nigeria, it must be noted, is a former british colony where english is the official language. to fully understand learners’ attitudes to english language therefore, there is a need to take a closer look at a broader linguistic picture of the context. this, the study seeks to examine in the following sections. 1.1 background to the study like many other african countries that were under colonial rule, at independence, english language became the country’s official language. english came to occupy this position not so much because it is a language of wider communication; rather it has more to do, with its unifying role in nigeria: it is a language which seems to eliminate the communication barriers created by the existence of the many languages in the country. consequently, it becomes necessary for every nigerian to learn the language in addition to their l1 to be able to function effectively. thus, the stage is set for the unassailable position of english language in nigeria as an l2. the national language policy in nigeria, it appears, encourages multilingualism. hausa, igbo, and yoruba are recognized by the 1979 constitution as national languages and can be used along with english in conducting the business of legislation in the national assembly. at the educational level, however, english, by virtue of its status in nigeria, is the medium of instruction in schools: secondary and post-secondary levels. at the primary education level, the national language policy on education (nlpe) stipulates that “the medium of instruction in the primary school is initially, the mother tongue or the language of the immediate community, and at a later stage, english” (federal ministry of education, 1977). what happens in practice is that most primary school teachers endeavour to use english as the medium of instruction as early as possible even right from the first year. the implication of this is that the nigerian student is exposed to english early to help quicken the acquisition of the language. nigeria today is divided into six geopolitical zones. the southern geopolitical zone comprises of south west, south-south, and south-east while the northern geopolitical zone is made up of north west, north-central, and north-east zone. the yorubas and the ibos are the major ethnic groups occupying the southern geopolitical zone while the hausas populate the northern geopolitical zone respectively. during the period of colonization, the yorubas and the ibos accepted western education and by implication, the use of english language while the hausas did not. this is partly because they are predominantly an islamic society and they equate accepting western education to a change in their www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 26 published by scholink inc. religion and culture (fafunwa, 1976, p. 69). the resultant effect of this is that there is a disparity in the levels of educational attainment between the yorubas and the ibos on the one hand, and the hausas on the other. it is very important to understand this point in order to situate the context in which this study took place. as a result of the number of years the researcher spent in teaching the english language in the northern states, i observed that learners of english in the northern geopolitical zone have a lot to contend with in the classroom. unlike their counterparts in the southern geopolitical zone of the country, they are not exposed to the english language until they get to school at the age of 6. the traditional koranic school that they have to attend from age 3 appears to be one of the reasons adduced for this (fafunwa, 1976, pp. 50-70). the situation is such that by the time they get into the primary schools, learners would have only succeeded in nearly mastering the native language (hausa); but as for the arabic language, they really never get to master it properly. to compound the issue, they have to learn a new language -english-, which they consider a huge problem to contend with. english is to a large extent in the northern geopolitical zone is restricted to the classrooms. the learners find no reason to use the language outside the classroom because she/he functions in a predominantly monolingual society. perhaps the only time she/he is forced to use the english language outside the classroom is when she/he wants to communicate or transact business with the so-called “non-indigenes” in the state. evidence in second language acquisition research has, however, revealed that there is definitely a link between the degree of exposure to english and competence in the language. further to this, year in year out students in the northern geopolitical zone fail to achieve success in english examinations conducted both internally and externally. nowhere is the failure more glaring than in the senior secondary certificate of education examination (ssce) conducted at the end of school year in secondary schools by the west african examination council (waec). judging from the 1987 to 1999 ssce results and statistical figures available to the researcher obtained through the nigerian educational research and development council (nerdc), the assertion is true especially when results are compared with that of their counterparts in the southern geopolitical zone. in kano state, one of the states in the northern geopolitical zone, for example, 9,832 students sat the exam in 1991; and 8,822 failed, representing 87.94%. that same year in lagos state, one of the states in the southern geopolitical zone, 22,827 sat the exam while 11,234 failed representing 49.21%. in 2014, waec reported that for those who made five credits and above including math and english in some states in the northern geopolitical zone, adamawa recorded 8.75% jigawa, sokoto, zamfara, and kebbi recorded 7.47%, 7.12%, 6.65% and 6.30% respectively. gombe state recorded 5.68%, bauchi 5.28% and yobe, 4.85%. whereas enugu, lagos, imo, delta, rivers abia and ekiti states in the southern geopolitical zone recorded 51.91%, 45.86%, 40.12%, 62.78%, 52.78%, 58.52% and 33.80% respectively. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 27 published by scholink inc. in 2016, waec result showing how each of the 36 states performed in its examination rated sokoto -30th, bauchi-31st , kebbi-32nd, katsina-33rd, gombe-34th, jigawa-35th , zamfara-36th, and yobe-37th. in the same year abia rated 1st, anambra 2nd rivers, imo, delta, enugu and ekiti rated 4th, 5th, 8th, 9th and 11th respectively. the study became significant because every year, a large number of students in the northern geopolitical zone fail to achieve success in english language examinations conducted both internally and externally; and as stated earlier, this is more glaring in the ssce conducted at the end of school year in secondary schools. 1.2 the problem the english language is a compulsory subject that all senior secondary school (sss3) students in nigeria take in their final ssce examination conducted by waec and national examination council (neco). based on the background, the central problem of this study was that secondary school students are performing poorly in this examination despite the considerable amount of time devoted to english instructions in nigeria. this failure to achieve an acceptable level of competence in the language has been a matter of great concern to english language teachers, educators and researchers. parents and government are in total agreement that their huge investment in education is not yielding the desired dividend as the students’ performances still remain poor. the result of this is that researchers, from different contexts, have taken up the gauntlet to find out why this is so (bello, 2010; ogar, 2007; yoloye, 2004; gardner, 2001a; noels, 2001). the main purpose of this study will be to compare the language attitudes of the students in the northern geopolitical zone with that of the southern geopolitical zone. this is because anecdotal evidence seems to indicate that attitudes towards english by students in secondary schools in the southern geopolitical zone of nigeria are generally positive while that of those in the northern geopolitical zones are negative; and that this, perhaps, accounts for the reason why northern students often fail to perform well in english examinations. such impression or statements can neither be proved nor disproved until research is carried out in the context. below were the specific questions addressed by the study. answers to these questions, it is hoped, would increase the researcher’s understanding of the issues specifically related to the learners:  what is the attitude of students towards the learning of english language in the southern and northern geopolitical zones?  are students in the northern geopolitical zones less motivated than the students in the southern geopolitical zone because of their attitudes to the study of english language?  what factors within the learner/social milieu (e.g., self-confidence, teacher, parent) hinder the effective learning of english? 1.3 theoretical framework a key framework and very influential in the field of l2 motivation and learning is robert gardner’s socio-educational model of second language acquisition. gardner and lambert and their associates www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 28 published by scholink inc. began their work in canada in the 1950s and this has continued to the present (gardner & lambert, 1972; gardner, 1980, 1985a, 1988, 2000a). through the works of gardner and his associates, a battery of testing instruments, the attitude/motivation test battery (amtb) was also developed (gardner, 1985b). since this groundbreaking research by lambert and gardner, there has been a lot of research that has been carried out internationally to investigate learners’ motivation and attitude towards the learning of english language. these researches have had a profound effect on our understanding of l2 acquisition. gardner (1985a, pp. 146-147), however, best summarized the model. the model focuses on four classes of variables in the socio-educational model: the social milieu, individual differences, language acquisition contexts, and linguistic outcomes. the language acquisition process is viewed as involving a particular causal interplay of these four types of variables. the social or cultural milieu refers to the environment in which an individual is situated, thus determining their beliefs about other cultures and language. these beliefs do have a significant impact on second language acquisition; it also determines the attitude and motivational orientation individuals hold toward the target language, its speakers, and its culture. as a consequence, gardner avers that an individual’s attitude toward the other language group or toward other groups, in general, can influence the extent to which he acquires the language. the model postulated that second language acquisition is facilitated by an integrative motive, which “reflects favourable attitude towards the language community and a general openness towards the group in general” (gardner, 2001a, p. 5). in the socio-educational model, motivation has most frequently been characterized as an integrative motive. gardner (1988, 2005) while elaborating on the model, says this integrative motive comprised of integrativeness, attitude toward the learning situation, and motivation. integrativeness refers to an individual’s desire to interact with the tl group while attitude toward the learning situation deal with the individual evaluation of the course and the teacher. all these are related to achievement in the second language. their effect is indirect and they act through motivation. within the model, motivation is conceptualized to subsume three components. these include effort which refers to the time spent studying the language; desire, which indicates how much the learner wants to become proficient in the language and affect illustrates the learner’s emotional reactions (e.g., enjoy) with regard to language study. this is the positive attitudes toward the goal. gardner (1985a) gardner avers that in order to understand why learners were motivated, it is necessary to understand the learners’ ultimate goal or purpose of learning the language. gardner refers to this as the learner’s orientation or reasons for second language study which he identified as integrative and instrumental. gardner (1983, p. 203) explained and clarified what is meant by an “integrative motivation” as: “learning a language because the learner wishes to identify himself with or become integrated into the society of the target language”. in other words, a learner is integratively motivated when she/he learns a language because she/he wants to know more about the culture and values of the foreign language group. it is believed that students who are most successful when learning a target www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 29 published by scholink inc. language are those who like the people that speak the language, admire the culture and have a desire to become familiar with or even integrate into the society in which the language is used. this form of motivation is known as integrative motivation, which is believed to underlies successful acquisition of a wide range of registers and a native-like pronunciation (finegan, 1999, p. 568). in contrast to integrative motivation is the form of motivation referred to as instrumental motivation. gardner defines instrumental motivation as “learning a language because of someone e or less clearly perceived utility it might have for the learner” (ibid., 1983, p. 203). in other words, a learner is instrumentally motivated when she/he wants to learn a language in order to pass an examination, to use it in one’s job, to use it in holiday in the country, because the educational system requires it (gardner & lambert, 1972). instrumental motivation is generally characterized by the desire to obtain something practical or concrete from the study of a second language. with instrumental motivation the purpose of language acquisition is more utilitarian, such as meeting the requirements for school or university graduation, applying for a job, requesting higher pay based on language ability, reading technical material, translation work achieving higher social status. instrumental motivation is often a characteristic of second language acquisition, where little or no social integration of the learner into a community using the target language takes place, or in some instances is even desired. it is instructive to note that the two orientations function merely as stimulus or “motivational antecedents that help to arouse motivation and direct it towards a set of goals either with a strong interpersonal quality (integrative) or a strong practical quality (instrumental)” (dörnyei, 2001). specifically, orientation is “a class of reasons” (gardner & tremblay, 1994, p. 361) for studying the language and its purpose is to fuel learners’ motivation; whereas motivation is the overall goal of learning a second language. in fact, according to gardner, (1985a) it reflects the extent to which the individual works or strives to learn the language because of a desire to do so and the satisfaction experienced in this activity. 1.4 concept and definition of attitude various definitions of attitude abound in the literature. according to bohner and dickel (2011), an attitude is defined as a belief or thought toward any object, person, or event based on judgment. in describing the main features of attitude, baker (1992) contends that attitudes consist of three components: cognition, affect, and readiness for action. cognition comprises thoughts and beliefs. the affect is related to feelings or emotions for the object, such as love or hate, and passion for language learning and use. both components of attitude, cognition and effect, are not always consistent with each other. that is to say, although a person might have a favourable attitude toward english language learning, he or she may have negative feelings about the instruction. third, readiness for action indicates a tendency of language behaviour in relation to a person or object in a specific context. it is connected with cognition and effect components. a positive attitude, no doubt, is good to cultivate in order to achieve success in second language learning. researchers have shown that positive attitude facilitates learning (jolayemi, 1999; peng, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 30 published by scholink inc. 2003). in fact it is most injurious if the students’ attitude is negative. gardner (1982, p. 136), corroborates this observation when he points out that “there is an overwhelming evidence” in support of it. if learners have a positive attitude towards a language then there is every likely-hood that they will have more confidence in learning a language and that success in learning that language is guaranteed. for the purpose of this work, it seems best to restrict the definition of attitude specifically and only to a language learners feelings towards and opinions about the target culture and the tl. 1.5 relationship between attitude and motivation researchers have admitted that simple as these explanations are, a truly perplexing issue is determining the relationship between attitude and motivation in social psychological research. lightbown and spada (1993), echo this perplexity when they say that, even though research findings show that attitudes and motivation are indeed related to successful l2 learning; yet how they do so has not been indicated. masgoret and gardner (2003, p. 124), also acknowledge this problem when they affirm that “relationship reported in the literature between attitude and motivation was inconsistent to draw any firm conclusion”. ellis (1985, p. 116), on his part, posits that this might be because the “distinction blurs”. despite these comments, researchers are unanimous in their belief that attitude and motivation are two important ingredients needed in creating an optimal learning environment. macintyre et al. (2001, p. 281), corroborates this when they declare that attitudes and motivation are “key factors that influence the rate and success of second language learning in the classroom”. from gardner and lambert (1972) perspective, “attitude” is the persistence shown by the learner in striving for a goal; whereas, “motivation” is seen in terms of the overall orientation or goal. they argue that attitude is related to motivation by serving as supports of the learner’s overall orientation. indeed, the acquisition of a second language is a long and difficult process because it is not like “learning mathematics or word processing… it involve[s] not only the linguistic and cognitive capacities of the learner as an individual but her social, historical, emotional, cultural, moral sense of self as a subject” (kramch, 2001, p. 12). a stable attitudinal base, therefore, is needed to maintain motivation for a long period. 1.6 review of previous studies researchers have shown that positive attitude facilitates learning (fakeye, 2010; bello, 2010; babajide, 2001; colletta, 1982). in fact it is most injurious if the students’ attitude is negative. in discussing the attitudinal dimension to the language achievement in schools, there is need to emphasize that attitude to learning is not solely shaped by learners themselves; this is because attitudes of the teacher, the learner’s peers, and the parents are also contributive factors. “each relationship”, spolsky (2000, p. 273), maintains “might well be shown to be a factor controlling the learners’ motivation to acquire the language”. fakeye (2010) for example, in his study titled “students” personal variables as correlates of academic achievement in english as a second language in nigeria’ investigated the relationship between students personal variables such attitude and academic ability and their achievement in english language: four www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 31 published by scholink inc. research questions were generated for the study in lagos state. the instruments used were questionnaire on students’ attitude to english (qsae) and students’ academic ability test (saat), four hundred senior secondary ii (ssii) students randomly selected from five secondary schools in lagos state were involved in the study. the result of the study showed that there was a positive relationship between students’ attitude and their academic achievement in the english language. bello (2010), study titled “students” personality traits and performance correlates of high grades in senior school certificate english examination in kwara state was designed to correlate students’ personality traits (e.g., attitude, motivation) with the performance and high grades in senior school certificate english examination. for this study, he sampled 450 ss3 from fifteen secondary schools in three senatorial districts of kwara state using stratified random sampling technique. eight research questions and seven hypotheses were generated for the study. the instrument used was students’ personality attributes questionnaire (spaq) adapted from national advisory mental council’s (1995). the finding of the survey showed that the general level of students’ attitudes in learning english is positive because the students obtained a mean of 13.44 out of 20 which is the maximum obtainable score. the finding of this study corroborates the work of ogar (2007), who investigated instructional, media, learner and teacher factors as correlates of senior secondary students’ learning outcomes in the english language in cross rivers’ state. babajide (2001) in his study of language attitude patterns of nigerians reports that 75% of yoruba respondents are comfortable in the use of english; while only 37.5% of hausa respondents are in this category. the reasons he adduced for this is that the yoruba land embraced western education earlier than the hausa land. this finding corroborates the work of adegbija (1994), who stated that in most hausa states, for example, kano, katsina and sokoto, the majority of the population have indifferent, negative and hostile attitudes towards english language; but they rather encourage, nurture and promote the speaking of arabic. in a survey carried out by oyetade (2001) on the attitudes of 60 parents in ibadan and lagos on the use of indigenous language in early child education, he showed that majority of the parents were averse to the use of mother tongue. in fact, the use of english was supported by 70% of the respondents while 23.7% supported the use of the mt and english simultaneously. in an investigation, colletta (1982) examined parental influence on students’ attitudes and motivation in second language learning. data were obtained from 68 grades 7, 8, 9 and 10 anglophone students enrolled in the late french immersion programme of the ottawa roman catholic separate school board during the academic year 1978-79. data were also obtained from their parents. attitudes and indices of motivation of both students and parents, and of self-confidence with french (students only) were measured. the result confirmed parental influence on students’ attitudes and motivation in second language learning. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 32 published by scholink inc. 2. method 2.1 population of the study the population of this study was made up of the final year students registered for ssce in eighteen government-owned public secondary schools in two out of the six geopolitical zones that make up nigeriathe north west and the south west geopolitical zones. a further breakdown showed that the southern geopolitical zone is made up south west, south east, south-south geopolitical zones while the northern geopolitical zone comprises north west, north east, and north central. there are 9,162 secondary schools spread across the 36 states of the country and the federal capital territory fme (2004). the choice of the terminal class was firstly, because of the interest and focus of this study and secondly, it was reasoned that the students who have studied english language for at least twelve years [through their primary, junior secondary school and senior secondary school education] would have gained enough knowledge using english language. in addition, it was believed that they were mature enough to give their opinion about english language learning. the researcher concentrated on the southern and northern geopolitical zones so as to compare the attitude and motivation of the students. a closer look at these two zones showed that each one of them has the same broad political and social history and identical educational policies. all the schools selected for the study utilise the mandatory ssce syllabus and all the students sit for the same examination in their terminal class. 2.1.1 sample size and sampling technique participants were drawn from 6,100 students registered for ssce examination comprising male and female students from each of the participating schools out of which 10% or 610 were randomly selected for the study. the sample which consists of 610 students drawn from eighteen public secondary schools owned by the government was considered adequate. fowler (1988) reiterates that a sample of 150 people will describe a population of 15000 or 15,000,000 with virtually the same degree of accuracy, assuming all other aspects of the design and sample procedures were the same. in this case, 10% of the students registered for ssce examination in the 18 schools located in the northern and southern geopolitical zones were selected and used in this study. for this research, the researcher used stratified random sampling for the government-owned senior secondary schools and simple random sampling techniques for the entire final year students understudied for the research. nigeria has six geopolitical zones (south west, south east, south-south, north west, north east and north central). using stratified random sampling technique, the researcher divided nigeria into two parts: the southern and the northern geopolitical zones. the southern zone in effect is made up of south west, south east and south-south geo-political zones; while the northern zone had the north west, north east, and north central geopolitical zones. thereafter, from these two zones—the southern geopolitical zone and the northern geopolitical zone —the researcher used a hat and draw method to select one geo-political zone from each of them. these www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 33 published by scholink inc. were the north west geopolitical zone from the northern geopolitical zone and south west geopolitical zone from the southern geopolitical zone. it should be noted that the south west geopolitical zone is made up of six states (lagos, ekiti, oyo, ogun, osun and ondo) while the north west geopolitical zone has seven states (jigawa, kaduna, kano, katsina, kebbi, sokoto and zamfara). using a hat and draw method, three states each were selected from the two zones earlier drawn: kano, jigawa, and kaduna from the north west zone; and lagos, osun and ekiti from the south west zone. in order to ensure a fair representation of the target population in the six selected states (lagos, ekiti, osun, jigawa, kaduna, kano), the researcher used the three senatorial districts already in existence in each of the states as the basis for randomly selecting three government-owned public secondary schools per state for the research to give a total of eighteen. the limited sample size was informed by virtue of the vigour and demanding nature of the study. therefore, for ease of administration and because of the detail with which the data were analyzed, it was not possible to study a large number of subjects. 2.1.2 instrumentation the main instrument used for this study was gardner’s (1985b) “attitude motivation test battery” (amtb). the underlying principle of selecting it was its established validity and reliability over the last two decades, as it has been used in a significantly large number of quantitative studies which focused on examining different affective components influencing second language learning (see for example gardner & lambert, 1972; masgoret & gardner, 1994; kristmanson, 2000). the instrument of the study is a 28-item questionnaire with sections a-g. the sections are (a) motivation index, (b) self confidence, (c) integrative motivation, (d) instrumental motivation, (e) attitude towards learning english, (f) teacher influence, and (g) parental influence. each of the sections was structured with four statements on a four-point likert scale to generate the information on the ss3 students’ attitude and motivation. in addition to the questionnaire, an open-ended question was also used as an instrument for data collection. the students were asked to answer an open-ended question by categorizing themselves as either “student a” or “student b”, and offer reasons for classifying themselves as such. student a: english is very important to me and i enjoy the english class. i really want to continue learning the language. student b: english is not important to me and i do not enjoy the class. if i had the opportunity i would want to stop learning the language. by requesting that the students select among exemplars of the attitudes a and b that is most descriptive of them and give reasons for doing so, it is hoped that it would shed more light on the answers given by students in the questionnaire. 2.1.3 method of data analysis the statistical package for social sciences (spss) 16.0 program was used to analyze the data. in analyzing the data, the researcher made use of the mean scores for individual variables and the overall mean scores were calculated for each of the scales. frequencies, percentages and bar chart were also www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 34 published by scholink inc. used to analyze and present the findings of the study. all the questionnaire items were based on a 4-point likert-type scale 1-4 (1=strongly disagree (sd), 2=disagree (d), 3=agree (a), 4=strongly agree (sa)). 3. results here, the research questions were answered by using the questionnaires administered to the students. the analysis of the research question was based strictly on the data collected from the respondents. for ease of reference, the results are discussed according to the order of the research questions. research question 1: what is the attitude of students towards the learning of english language? to answer this research question, mean response for the students responses on attitudes towards the learning of english scale of the questionnaire was used and the result is presented in table 1 below. table 1. mean and overall mean scores of students’ attitudes towards the learning of english language (n=587) item sgpz mean score ngpz mean score e: attitudes towards learning el 5 i really enjoy studying english language. 3.31 3.34 12 i will choose to learn english even if there were no exams. 3.26 3.28 19 if i had the choice i would give up learning english. 2.24 1.90 26 i study english because it is compulsory. 2.87 2.80 mean score (sgpz & ngpz) 2.94 2.83 overall mean score 2.91 in table 1 above, four statements were used to elicit the attitudes of final year secondary school students towards the learning of english language in the southern geopolitical zone (sgpz) and northern geopolitical zone (ngpz). looking at the mean scores, the attitude variables in items number 5 and 12 were the most positively responded to items, “i really enjoy studying english language” (sgpz, 3.31; ngpz, 3.34); “i will choose to learn english even if there were no exams” (sgpz, 3.26; ngpz, 3.28). these items seem to represent the informants’ perception of the importance of english language. of particular interest were the findings for items number 19 and 26. they show that 71% of the northern geopolitical zone respondents agree that giving the choice they would give up learning english as opposed to 39% of the southern geopolitical zone who shared the view equally, 68.8% www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 35 published by scholink inc. (sgpz) 61.4% (ngpz) respondents study english because it is compulsory. with overall mean scores of 2.91, it can be safely concluded that the students’ attitudes toward learning english is high. research question 2: are students in the northern geopolitical zones less motivated than the students in the southern geopolitical zone because of their attitudes to the study of english language? to answer this research question, mean response for the students’ responses on motivation index scale of the questionnaire was used and the result is presented in table 2 below. table 2. mean and overall mean scores of students’ motivation towards the learning of english language (n=587) item sgpz mean score ngpz mean score a: motivation index 1 english lessons are not interesting. 1.49 1.53 8 learning english is a waste of time. 1.27 1.40 15 i really want to be able to speak english with confidence. 3.49 3.56 22 i study english regularly even when there is no specific english assignment. 3.17 3.16 mean score (sgpz &ngpz) 2.35 2.41 overall mean score 2.41 the students were asked to indicate on a four-point scale their motivation towards the learning of english language; the result revealed that motivation questionnaire items number 15 and 22 were the most positively responded to: “i really want to be able to speak english with confidence” (sgpz, 3.49; ngpz, 3.56); “i study english regularly even when there is no specific english assignment” (sgpz, 3.17; ngpz, 3.16). these items seem to represent the participants’ perception that english is needed for their success in life. even though the students desire to speak english very well and study english regularly when there is no specific english assignment, the lessons were found not to be interesting; as a higher percent of 92.3% and 91.7% respondents of the southern geopolitical zone and northern geopolitical zone respectively indicate this in their response. a closer look at the mean response of the individual items on the scale also showed that the least positively responded to items are item number 1 “english lessons are not interesting” (sgpz, 1.49; ngpz, 1.53); and item number 2 “learning english is a waste of time” (sgpz, 1.27; ngpz, 1.40). as presented in table 2, the overall mean score of 2.41 fall below the “ideal” average considered for this study which suggests that the ss3 students’ motivation towards english language is negative. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 36 published by scholink inc. research question 3: how do students rate their confidence in the learning of english language? to answer this research question, mean response for the students’ responses on self-confidence scale of the questionnaire was used and the result is presented in table 3 below. table 3. mean and overall mean scores of students’ rating of self-confidence (n=587) item sgpz mean score ngpz mean score b: self-confidence 2 learning english language is easy for me. 3.19 3.05 9 learning english language is a difficult task. 1.70 1.95 16 i am afraid other students will laugh at me when i speak english. 1.82 2.03 23 in english language class i can get so nervous i forget the things i know. 2.00 2.20 mean score (sgpz &ngpz) 2.17 2.30 overall mean score 2.27 with an overall mean score of 2.27, the confidence of ss3 in the northern geopolitical zone and southern geopolitical zone rates negative on the rating scale. when the respondents were asked to indicate whether they are afraid other students will laugh at them when they speak english, 78.6% of southern geopolitical zone respondents were in agreement with the variable, while 69.6% of northern geopolitical zone respondents shared the view. in fact, out of the four items on this scale, only item 2 “learning english language is easy for me” rates very high (sgpz, 3.19; ngpz, 3.05). while the others items: 9-“learning english language is a difficult task”; 16-“i am afraid other students will laugh at me when i speak english”; 23-“in english language class i can get so nervous (sic) i forget the things i know” rate low on the self-confidence scale. in fact, three out of the four self-confidence items were ranked at the bottom of the scale for self-confidence; this is an indication that students do not have confidence in themselves when they speak english language. in order to obtain proficiency in the learning of english language learners’ must have a positive attitude toward the subject and have minimal anxiety. research question 4: what role do teachers play in students learning of english? to answer this research question, mean response for the students on teacher influence scale of the questionnaire was used and the result is presented in table 4 below. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 37 published by scholink inc. table 4. mean and overall mean scores of teacher influence on students learning of english (n=587) item sgpz mean score ngpz mean score f: teacher influence 6 i wish i had a different teacher for english. 2.54 2.65 13 my english teacher encourages me to learn english. 3.19 3.38 20 i like english language because of my teacher’s method of teaching. 2.88 3.12 27 i am happy with my english teacher. 3.25 3.30 mean score (sgpz &ngpz) 2.96 3.11 overall mean score 3.01 in table 4, the informants were asked to indicate on a four-point scale how the teachers influence them in the learning of english language. the result revealed that even though, the teachers encourage them to learn english (item no. 13), they like their teacher’s method of teaching (item no. 20), and they are happy with their english teacher (item no. 28); yet they wished they had a different teacher for english (item no. 6). in fact, 55% of southern geopolitical zone respondents agreed with item number 6, “i wish i had a different teacher for english”; while 57% of northern geopolitical zone expressed the same view. this perhaps may be because 1) teachers use unsuitable methods to teach the subject and, 2) they do not have a thorough grasp of the instructional content and procedure. with an overall mean score of 3.01 which is far above the “ideal” average considered for this study, the students can be considered to be strongly influenced by the teachers. research question 5: in what ways do parents of students influence their children positively towards learning of english language? to answer this research question, mean response for the students’ responses on parental influence scale of the questionnaire was used and the result is presented in table 5 below. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 38 published by scholink inc. table 5. mean and overall mean scores of parental influence on students (n=587) item sgpz mean score ngpz mean score g: parental influence 7 my parents think that learning english is not important. 2.51 2.54 14 my parents think english language will be useful to me. 3.42 3.43 21 my parents encourage me to learn english. 3.29 3.51 28 my parents try to help me with my english language. 3.22 3.48 mean score (sgpz & ngpz) 3.11 3.24 overall mean score 3.17 table 5 above has been used to present the data on parental influence over the students in the learning of english language. when the mean scores of the items on the scale of parental influence on the final year secondary school students in nigeria in the northern geopolitical zone and southern geopolitical zone were examined, the data showed that the students are strongly influenced by parents in three of the items measured with mean scores of above 3. the items least positively responded to is item number 7, “my parents think that learning english is not important” (sgpz, 2.51; ngpz, 2.54); though the mean score is still moderately high. with the overall mean score of 3.17, the respondents can be considered to be strongly influenced by their parents. table 6. the response of informants to exemplars a and b exemplars sgpz ngpz exemplar a: english is very important to me and i enjoy english class. i really want to continue learning the language. 85% 59% exemplar b: english is not important to me and i do not enjoy the class; if i had the opportunity i would want to stop learning the language. 15% 41% table 6 above has been used to present the data on response of informants to exemplars a and b. the two exemplars are intended to provide additional information on the measures of attitudes and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 39 published by scholink inc. motivation. it is interesting to find that more than 50% of the southern geopolitical zone and northern geopolitical zone respondents think that exemplar “a” best describe them, rather than “b”. the students’ reasons were analysed and coded to produce eleven distinct themes presented along with examples of respondents’ comments taken from the questionnaire. table 7 below shows the eleven distinct themes. table 7. reasons given for liking or disliking english by ss3 students in north west and south west geopolitical zones (n=587) freq. (sgpz) freq. (ngpz) 1. english is not enjoyable to learn 30 34 “i study english because it is compulsory” “i do not enjoy the class” “i am not really understand english very well”(sic) “if i had the choice i would give up learning english” “it is an(sic) official language” “i have no choice than to continue [learning english] because it is compulsory” “i will like to continue but i want to change my teacher” “the teachers should make it easy for us” 2. english is enjoyable to learn 20 27 “i realy (sic) always enjoy english class” “i am happy with my english teacher” “i like english because of my teacher’s method of teaching” “i like how our teacher mr. lawal teaches us” “anytime i am inside english class i feel happy” 3. english as a confident builder 29 32 “i want to be able to speak english with confidence” “it will make me speak better in the mise (sic) of my collice” (sic) “i will be able to talk in public without afraiding” (sic) “it make me feel good about myself” 4. english enhances status 18 33 “i will have a specific status in the society” “ability to speak english make people to respect you” “because it will increase my status in the society” www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 40 published by scholink inc. “if you can’t speak english in the society your esteem will low” (sic) “because it makes me to know better people” (sic) “it will make me have more respect the way i speak it” 5. english is needed to travel 16 23 “because i wish to visit english countries” “to see what is happening in other countries” “i will learn about what is happening in other world” “english language allow (sic) you to travel to from country to countries” “i will be able to travel round the world” “it widens my horizonv (sic) 6. english as a means of communication internationally 25 37 “without english language you won’t be able to interact with people” “english is an international language” “english helps me to get alone [along] easily” “because it is a universal language” “it will make me to talk with anyone” 7. english is useful for academic purposes 28 40 “it will help me in higher institution” “english language is important to my education v “without english i cannot gain admission into universities” (sic) “i need english to pass my exam” “english is very important in my academy” (sic) “without english education is never complete” 8. english is a means to career 19 35 “i would like to become english teacher” “i need english to work in a company” “because i need english for my future career” 9. english helps one to meet foreigners 5 15 “i like to speak with english people” “i will like to know more about english people” “i like speak (sic) english so that i can meet people from other countries” 10. english as way of identifying with the speakers 14 26 “it helps one to learn about cultures of other people” “because it makes me feel like white [british]” “i will be able to participate more freely in the activities of english group” 11. english is useful to get a good job 25 39 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 41 published by scholink inc. “english help (sic) get better jobs” “without english language you can’t get a good job” “english will help me get a better job” “english makes you get vacancy without suffering” (sic) 12. others 5 11 “because it is used in hip-hop music” “to develop my vocabulary” “allah says where education is find it to know” 234 353 total respondents 587 as can be seen from table 7, some of the comments clearly show that the learners have the desire to continue learning english but for various reasons. some of the reasons correspond to integrative orientation (e.g., items no. 3&10); instrumental orientation (e.g., items no. 4&11); and personal reasons; (e.g., “because it is used in hip-hop music”; “to develop my vocabulary”). none, however, seems to relate directly to inherent interest (intrinsic orientation) in studying the language; in fact for some students the main reason why they are still studying english is because it is included in the curriculum, (e.g., “i have no choice than to continue [learning english] because it is compulsory” “if i had the choice i would give up learning english” (see table 7)). there were three other reasons inferred from the open-ended responses of the students in section b of the questionnaire which may have hindered the success of the ss3 students in learning english in the north west and south west geo-political zones. they are related to the major findings of the research. one of this was that the lessons were found not to be interesting—a situation which appears to indict the teachers’ teaching methods, styles and/or difficulty of tasks set for students. the second reason has to do with learners’ fear that peers might laugh at them when they speak english. finally, personal reasons associated with difficulties with the subject (english) aspects such as vocabulary, structures and spelling were also found to be demotivating factors for the students. 4. discussion this study investigated whether it is the learners’ attitudes in the northern geopolitical zone of nigeria which impede them from achieving a high level of proficiency in the study of english language as compared to that of their counterparts in the southern geopolitical zone using gardner socio-educational model. the students’ responses from open-ended questions in the section b part of the questionnaire as shown in table 7 were particularly useful as they served to buttress the findings. where necessary, therefore, the discussions were supported by quotations from the students’ response to emphasize the importance of their contribution to the final results. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 42 published by scholink inc. on research question 1, what is the attitude of ss3 students towards english language learning? some interesting findings were obtained concerning the students’ english language attitudes. perhaps the most startling revelation for the researcher in this study was the clear evidence that students from the northern geopolitical zone when compared with their counterparts in the southern geopolitical zone of nigeria generally have the same level of attitudes towards the study of english language. the significance of this finding becomes more apparent in the light of the earlier anecdotal evidence which seems to indicate that attitudes towards english by students in secondary schools in the southern geopolitical zone of nigeria are generally positive while that of those in the northern geopolitical zones are negative. in fact, in two of the variables tested, item no. 5— “i really enjoy english language”; item no. 12—“i will choose to learn english even if there were no exams”, students show a high percentage of overall agreement. this study could be said to establish that final year secondary schools students’ in nigeria generally have a high positive attitude towards english language. researchers have pointed out that attitudes play a major role in students’ success in second language learning. if learners have a positive attitude towards a language and the culture of the people who speak the language; then there is the likelihood that they will have more confidence in learning target language (gardner, 2001c). however, despite the fact that they exhibit high positive attitudes towards the study of english language these students failed to achieve success in english examinations conducted both internally and externally. a possible explanation would be that learners’ positive attitude has not led to proficiency. this is consistent with the findings of bello (2010). bello asserts that it is possible for learners’ to demonstrate high levels of positive attitudes toward the learning situation, but if these are not linked with motivation to learn the language, they will not be particularly related to achievement. in other words, an attitude is seen as support for motivation, but it is the motivation that is responsible for achievement in the second language. two possible reasons why the students in the northern geopolitical zone still study the english language as revealed in this study, were 1) it is part of the curriculum; and 2) it is a language of wider communication across national and cultural boundaries. these were corroborated by some of the responses in the open-ended section of the questionnaire: “i have no choice than to continue [learning the language] because it is compulsory”; “because english is the lingua franca of the world” (see table 7). on research question 2, to what extent are ss3 students motivated to learn english language? the data from the research into the students motivation showed that the students’ desire to learn english language was strong as they want to be able to speak english very well and so was the effort they expended on the language because they study english regularly even when there was no specific english assignment; however, their attitudes toward learning english was not very positive (e.g., “i study english because it is compulsory”; “if i had the choice i would give up learning english”). the truly motivated individual according to gardner (2001a) displays effort, desire, and affect [and] each www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 43 published by scholink inc. element, by itself, is seen as insufficient to reflect motivation. it can be safely inferred that the final year secondary school students in nigeria were not motivated to learn english language. another reason the researcher could deduce from this finding was that the final year secondary school students in nigeria appear to be motivated “from without” (extrinsic) and not “from within” (intrinsic). noel et al. (2003) maintains that learners who are extrinsically motivated will have the incentive to continue engagement in the learning process but they are likely to quit at the first opportunity to do so. it was, therefore, not surprising to see the following response from students (e.g., “i study english because it is compulsory”; “if i had the choice i would give up learning english”). on research question 3, what factors within the learner/social milieu (e.g., self-confidence, teacher, parent) hinder the effective learning of english? the roles played by the teacher in the classroom would go a long way in motivating students to acquire english language. the result revealed that students are strongly influenced by the teachers in the northern and southern geopolitical zones. however, there is the need to point out the contradiction in the response given to the variables. even though the teachers encouraged ss3 students to learn english, they like their teacher’s method of teaching, and they are happy with their english teacher; yet they did not find english lessons interesting. in fact, more than half of the population sampled in the northern and southern geopolitical zones expressed the view that they wished they had a different teacher for english language. this is somewhat a sad commentary. one probable interpretation for this contradiction might be 1) that the final year students in these zones do not want to be outrightly critical of their teachers, and 2) that this is a way of saying that the teachers are incompetent without being confrontational. the situation, unfortunate as it is, reflects closely the attitudes of these final year secondary school students towards the learning environment in which teachers play prominent roles. not surprising, this issue also came out in the response of the students to the open-ended questions in part b of the questionnaire: e.g., “english is enjoyable but my teachers [sic] do not make me have interest in it”; “i will like to continue [learning english] but i want to change my teacher because it [sic] is not too interesting”. all these appear to raise serious indictment on possibly, the teachers’ teaching methods, styles and or difficulty of tasks set for students. the finding here is consistent with the findings of ogar (2007) who argued that negative attitudes toward teachers could adversely affect student motivation not only in the classroom but also in terms of a student’s desire to continue learning the language; thereby suggesting that teachers’ role in motivating learners is important and crucial in determining success in english language. parental encouragement plays an important role in shaping the idea of the learners’ attitude towards the tl community. the research further revealed that parental influence on students in the north west and south west geopolitical zones is very high. the learner’s perception of their parents’ support is related to their willingness to continue language study and in their own assessment of how hard they work to learn the second language in the northern and southern geopolitical zone. as gardner (1985, p. 122) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 44 published by scholink inc. points out, it is “…one reason why some students reach a higher level of attainment in a foreign/second language learning”. in this study, parents seem to be more involved in their children’s education, e.g., “my parents is (sic) encouraging me”. this is consistent with a number of studies in the l2 field which have revealed that parental encouragement plays an important role in shaping the idea of the learners’ attitude towards the tl community (gardner, 1985; gardner, masgoret, & tremblay, 1999; babajide, 2001). a greater involvement is however canvassed for to foster more positive attitudes toward school and enhance academic achievement. language anxiety, as the research revealed, had a pervasive impact on the language learning experience of the students. as the result indicated, more than half of the final year secondary schools students were afraid that other students would laugh at them when they speak english, e.g., “i want to be able to talk in public without afraiding” (sic). nigeria’s language learning contexts appear to be particularly prone to anxiety arousal. students anxiety may manifest in various ways, such as trying to avoid difficult linguistic structures and express difficult or personal messages in the english language, getting nervous in role-play activities, not volunteering answers and participating in oral activities, coming unprepared to class, avoiding speaking in english language class, being less willing to communicate and express themselves compared to more relaxed students. the research revealed two possible explanations which may indicate why the ss3 students in nigeria fail to succeed in the learning of english language were provided by the response to the section b part of the questionnaire. one possible explanation for the anxiety in language production might be that the students lacked the requisite language skills that would enable them to function effectively in their academic settings, e.g., “to develop my vocabulary”. finally, the anxiety in language production might be as a result of the students’ desire to express themselves as native english speakers: “it will make me speak better in the mise [midst] of my collice” [colleague]. in nigeria generally, the underlying classroom culture is that the teacher wields enormous control over the class and would not tolerate mistakes in english class. it is, therefore, not surprising to see students feel anxious, embarrassed when they make mistakes or when they are called upon to speak in front of their colleagues; the only option that they believed is opened to them is to “clam up”—an option that has dire consequences for their achieving competency in the language. this is because evidence in sla research has shown that there is a definite link between degree of exposure to english and competence in the language. this feelings and symptoms of “uneasiness, frustration, self-doubt, apprehension, or worry” similar to any other specific anxieties as established in other findings (e.g., horwitz, e., horwitz, m., & cope, 1986) are similar to the ones found in this research. they indicate why the final year secondary school students in nigeria fail to achieve proficiency in the learning of english language. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 45 published by scholink inc. 5. implications for practice this study investigated whether it is the learners’ attitudes in the northern geopolitical zone of nigeria which impede them from achieving a high level of proficiency in the study of english language as compared to that of their counterparts in the geopolitical zone. three questions, it would be remembered, were posed at the beginning of the study:  what is the attitude of students towards the learning of english language in the southern and northern geopolitical zones?  are students in the northern geopolitical zone less motivated than the students in the southern geopolitical zone because of their attitudes to the study of english language?  what factors within the learner/social milieu (e.g., self-confidence, teacher, parent) hinder the effective learning of english? contrary to the researcher’s belief that attitude may have been responsible for students in the northern geopolitical zone inability to achieve higher levels of proficiency in english, the findings suggest that this is not so. in fact, northern geopolitical zone students appear to exhibit a high positive attitude to the study of english compared to their southern counterpart. they are equally motivated to learn the language as they want to be able to speak english very well; they also study english regularly even when there is no specific english assignment. to the question, whether students in the northern geopolitical zone are less motivated than students in the southern geopolitical zone because of their attitudes to the study of english language; the answer would appear to be that the students in the northern geopolitical zone are no less motivated than their southern counterpart. results from the survey data show that there is no marked significance on the variables used to operationalise the motivation index between students in these two zones; which seems to suggest that motivation is likely to be at par. most theories suggest that students, who have a high degree of motivation (as displayed by the students in both zones) are successful learners; yet students in the northern geopolitical zone fail to achieve a high level of proficiency in the study of english compared to their counterpart in the southern geopolitical zone. perhaps what this suggests is that learners’ in the northern context are only motivated “from without” (extrinsic) and not “from within” (intrinsic). noel et al. (2003, p. 39) maintains that learners who are extrinsically motivated will have “incentive to continue engagement in the learning process” but they are likely to quit at the first opportunity to do so. to achieve a high level of proficiency in the language therefore in this context, students need to be motivated “from within” (deci, 1996; cited in ushioda, 2003, p. 93). two other reasons are inferred from the research findings which may have hindered the success of learning english. one of this is that lessons are found not to be interesting—a situation which seems to indict the teachers’ teaching methods, styles and/or difficulty of tasks set for students. it is also speculated that this lack of interest may have stemmed out of the fact that success in language learning in the context is defined by mastery of rules and forms in which students need to learn a great deal www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 46 published by scholink inc. about vocabulary, grammar, and sentence which make language learning uninteresting. the other reason has to do with learners’ fear that peers might laugh at them when they speak english. one reason which the researcher thinks may have been responsible for this in the context is the underline classroom culture in which the teacher dominates and would not tolerate mistakes. it is, therefore, not surprising to see students feel nervous, anxious, embarrassed when they make mistakes or when they are called upon to speak in front of their colleagues. the only option they believed open to them is to “clam up”—an option that has dire consequences for their achieving competency in the language. the above findings no doubt present clear pedagogic implications for practice and they are stipulated below. 6. implications for the language teacher from the findings, the students were found not be motivated to learn english language. equally, they complained that the lessons were not interesting. there is, therefore, a clear implication for teachers to consider what they can do to motivate students in the northern geopolitical zone of nigeria. firstly, the language learning process needs to be made a more motivating experience. in pursuance of this, teachers need to put a great deal of thought into developing programmes which maintain student interest; something akin to “programme of exposure” advocated by chandrasegaran (1981, p. 64) (see also norris-holt, 2001; ngeow, 1998). this can be achieved through activities in which language is used spontaneously to communicate ideas, feelings, and opinions or even through identification of informal out-of-class language learning experiences. all these may help to motivate students to improve their tl proficiency. the use of interesting textbooks can also help to increase the motivation level of students in the classroom. many nigerian texts often contain materials which fail to capture the interest of students due to the heavy emphasis on vocabulary and grammar. textbooks, which contain topics that can create a great deal of classroom interaction and help to motivate students to develop their language skills, are hereby advocated. suitable soccer topics will no doubt make a classroom lively, active and fun because of the underlying familiarity of the learner to the issue since it constitutes his/her interest and experience. songs, too, can be used in different ways to teach grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation. studies in sla have shown that students’ motivation for learning a language increases when they see connections between what they do in the classroom and what they hope to do with the language in the future. bringing cultural content into the language classroom by teachers might equally prove useful in increasing the learners’ motivation. this is because as tremblay and gardner (1995, p. 506) argue “an openness and positive regard for other groups and for groups that speak the language’ serves as powerful influences on language learner motivation”. in doing this, however, sonaiya (2002, p. 114) cautious remark should guide the teachers: the process [of bringing in cultural content] needs to be managed so that the learner does not feel that his or her culture and, consequently, his or her identity is being www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 47 published by scholink inc. overly threatened by the culture of the language being acquired (sonaiya, 2002, p. 114). equally, if teachers at all times convey an enthusiasm that is contagious in the teaching of the language in this context, learner achievement may improve tremendously. one way through which teachers could achieve this is to take advantage of topics which can create a great deal of classroom interaction and help to motivate students to develop their language skills within and outside of school. studies in sla have shown that students’ motivation for learning a language increases when they see connections between what they do in the classroom and what they hope to do with the language in the future. finally, in the words of oxford and ehrman (1993) cited in wu man-fat (2004), it is desirable that: teachers must do everything they can to heighten l2 learning motivation by ensuring that the materials and the tasks are communicative, non-threatening, exciting, relevant, appropriately challenging, capable of stimulating successful performance, and presented according to students’ favoured need to help reverse any negative attitudes (e.g., stereotypes) that might harm student motivation (oxford & ehrman, 1993, p. 200). 7. implications for the students first, students in northern geopolitical zones need to recognize that the demands that the language place on them is enormous. according to gardner (2001c, p. 33), “they [students] need to acquire language content, skills, develop some degree of automaticity and fluency with their handling of the language; and ultimately, develop some degree of willingness to use the language outside of the classroom”. these are no small set of requirements; as such, they must be ready to do all it takes to be proficient in the language. one of the findings in this study was that language anxiety had a pervasive impact on the language learning experience of the students in spite of having affirmative attitudes towards english language learning. in order to overcome their causes of anxiety, the students need to know that the use of the target language plays a crucial role in successful second language learning. the consequence of this is that students in the northern geopolitical zone must be willing to take risks in the use of english language without being bothered by whether their peers would laugh at them or not. conducive environment plays an important role in facilitating effectual language learning and moderates their disquiet levels (kristmanson, 2000). in order to take risks, one needs an environment which is favorable and appreciative, where anxiety levels are low. language communication is the ultimate aim for many students. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 48 published by scholink inc. references bello, y. (2010). students’ personality traits and performance correlates of high grades in senior certificate english examination in kwara state (unpublished ph.d. dissertation). university of ilorin, ilorin. brown, h. d. (2000). principles of language learning and teaching (4th ed.). englewood cliffs, nj: prentice-hall. chen, j., warden, c., & chang, h. t. (2005). motivators that do not motivate: the case of chinese efl learners and the influence of culture on motivation. tesol quarterly, 39(4), 609-633. https://doi.org/10.2307/3588524 chiara, t., & oller, j. w. (1978). attitudes and attained proficiency in efl: a sociolinguistic study of adult japanese speakers. language learning, 8, 55-68. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-1770.1978.tb00304.x chukwu, c. (1983). a correlation study of attitudinal and motivation variables in second language learning (unpublished ma dissertation). ahmadu bello university, zaria. clément, r., & kruidenier, b. g. (1983). orientation in second language acquisition: i. the effects of ethnicity, milieu, and target language on their emergence. language learning, 33, 273-291. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-1770.1983.tb00542.x csizer, k., & dörnyei, z. (2005). the internal structure of language learning motivation and its relationship with language choice and learning effort. the modern language journal, 89(1), 19-36. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0026-7902.2005.00263.x deci, e. l., & ryan, r. m. (1985). intrinsic motivation and self-determination in human behaviour. new york: plenum. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-2271-7 dörnyei, z. (2001). teaching and researching motivation. london: longman. dörnyei, z., & clément, r. (2001). motivational characteristics of learning different target languages: results of a nationwide survey. in z. dörnyei, & r. schmidt (eds.), motivation and second language acquisition (pp. 399-432). honolulu: university of hawai’i, second language teaching and curriculum center. ellis, r. (1994). the study of second language acquisition. oxford: oxford university press. gardner, r. c. (2001b). integrative motivation: past, present and future. retrieved november 20, 2008, from http://publish.uwo.ca/~gardner/gardnerpubliclecture1.pdf gardner, r. c. (2001c). language learning motivation: the student, the teacher and the researcher. being a key-note address to the texas foreign language education conference, university of texas at austin, austin, texas. gardner, r. c., masgoret, a. m., & tremblay, p. f. (1999). home background characteristics and second language learning. journal of language and social psychology, 18, 419-437. https://doi.org/10.1177/0261927x99018004004 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 49 published by scholink inc. gardner, r. c., smythe, p. c., & clément, r. (1979b). intensive second language study in a bicultural milieu: an investigation of attitudes, motivation and language proficiency. language learning, 29, 305-320. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-1770.1979.tb01071.x horwitz, e. k., horwitz, m. b., & cope, j. (1986). foreign language classroom anxiety. the modern language journal, 70(2), 125-132. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4781.1986.tb05256.x könig, g. (2006). orientation, motivation and attitudes of turkish university students learning a second foreign language. retrieved october 20, 2007, from http://www.ualberta.ca/~german/ejournal/koenig6.htm lamb, m. (2004). integrative orientation in a globalizing world. system, 32, 3-19. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2003.04.002 macintyre, p. d., macmaster, k., & baker, s. c. (2001). the convergence of multiple models of motivation for second language learning: gardner, pintrich, kuhl and mccroskey. in z. dornyei, & r. schmidt (eds.), motivation and second language acquisition (pp. 461-492). honolulu, hi: university of hawaii press. marjan, m. a. (2008). motivational orientation in english language learning: a study of iranian undergraduate students. in a. shafae, & m. nejati (eds.), global practices of language teaching: proceedings of the 2008 international conference (pp. 126-135). universal publishers: florida, usa. noels, k. a., pelletier, l. c., clément, r., & vallerand, r. j. (2003). why are you learning a second language? motivational orientations and self-determination theory. in z. dörnyei, & a. cumming (eds.), attitudes, orientations, and motivations in language learning (pp. 33-63). oxford: blackwell. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9922.53223 norris-holt, j. (2002). an investigation of japanese high school students’ attitudes towards the study of english. retrieved january 19, 2009, from http://www.usq.edu.au/opacs/sllt/2/norris-holt02.htm obanya, p. (1981). evaluation in modern language teaching. in educational evaluation series no 1. ibadan: icee, university of ibadan. ogar, m. n. (2007). instructional, media, learner and teacher factors as correlates of senior secondary students learning outcomes in english language in cross rivers state (unpublished ph.d. thesis). university of ibadan, ibadan. pavlenko, a. (2002). poststructuralist approaches to the study of social factors in second language learning and use. in v. cook (ed.), portraits of the l2 user (pp. 277-304). clevedon, england: multilingual matters, ltd. pennycook, a. (1994). the cultural politics of english as an international language. london: longman. rahman, s. (2005). orientations and motivation in english language learning: a study of bangladeshi students at undergraduate level. asian efl journal, 7(1). retrieved may 26, 2007, from http://www.asian-efl-journal.com/march_05_sr.html www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 50 published by scholink inc. scovel, t. (1978). the effect of affect on foreign language learning: a review of anxiety research. language learning, 28, 129-142. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-1770.1978.tb00309.x sonaiya, r. (2002). autonomous language learning in africa: a mismatch of cultural assumptions. language culture and curriculum, 13(2), 106-116. https://doi.org/10.1080/07908310208666637 taylor, d. m., meynard, r., & rheault, e. (1977). threat to ethnic identity and second language learning. in h. giles (ed.), language, ethnicity and intergroup relations (pp. 99-118). academic press. tremblay, p. f., & gardner, r. c. (1995). expanding the motivational construct in language learning. the modern language journal, 79(4), 505-518. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4781.1995.tb05451.x uche, u. w. (1984). sociology of nigeria education. nigeria: new african publishing press. ushioda, e. (2003). motivation as a socially mediated process. in d. little, j. ridley, & e. ushioda (eds.), learner autonomy in the foreign language classroom: teacher, learner, curriculum and assessment (pp. 90-102). dublin: authentik. warden, c. a., & lin, h. j. (2000). existence of integrative motivation in an asian efl setting. foreign language annals, 33, 535-547. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1944-9720.2000.tb01997.x wenden, a. l. (2002). learner development in language learning. applied linguistics, 23(1), 32-55. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/23.1.32 yoloye, t. w. (2004). that we may learn better. an inaugural lecture, university of ibadan, ibadan: stirling horden publishers ltd. microsoft word fet-v3n1-p26 frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 26 original paper authenticating factor analysis of attitude towards mathematics inventory (atmi) in thailand hareesol khun-inkeeree1* & m. s. omar fauzee2 1 walailak university, nakhonsithammarat province, thailand 2 universiti utara malaysia, malaysia * hareesol khun-inkeeree, walailak university, nakhonsithammarat province, thailand received: december 17, 2019 accepted: january 7, 2020 online published: january 15, 2020 doi:10.22158/fet.v3n1p26 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v3n1p26 abstract the study examine the psychometric properties of attitudes towards mathematics inventory (atmi) in the thai context. to achieve the objective set by the authors, 259 students from 10 different primary schools in nakhon si thammarat province, thailand were selected. furthermore, a forty items atmi questionnaire having four scales that is, 15 items measuring self-confidence, 10 items measuring value, 10 items measuring enjoyment, and 5 items measuring motivation from the study of khine and afari (2014) was adapted. the questionnaire adapted was translated to thai language by expert english thai lecturer. kaiser-meyer-olkin (kmo) measure of sampling adequacy and bartlett’s test of sphericity were carried out to ascertain the factorability of the correlation matrix. that atmi can be a viable scale to measure students’ attitudes toward mathematics in thai context. keywords attitudes toward mathematics, attitudes towards mathematics inventory (atmi), verifying factor analysis, nakhon si thammarat province, thailand 1. introduction there is a growing trend of technological advancement in various forms across different human endeavors. this is evident in the usage of sophisticated electronic gadgets such as cell phones, medical facilities and scientific exploratory activities (tate, lyons, & valle, 2015). the observations in today’s world had also increased the level of addressing mathematical problem-solutions in the academic circle particularly in enhancing the level of students’ understanding and mastering of the mathematical concepts. to achieve this, mathematics teachers have also intensified their knowledge and expand their scope of learning in their curriculum activities (thorsteinsson & page, 2015). the objective of using www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 27 published by scholink inc. electronic gadgets is aimed at assisting students to develop a positive mindset and attitude towards mathematical problem-solving. although, for the past thirty years, researchers have been investigating how to develop the mind and attitude of students towards mathematics (belbase, 2013; johnson, 2012; kutaka et al., 2018; kay, 2015). the relevance of mathematics across various disciplines cannot be overemphasized because it contributed a lot to problem-solving and analytical issues. mathematics is extensively utilized in areas such as economics, education business, medicine, biology, engineering, computer science, and sociology (battistoni, 2017; bucciarelli & kuhn, 2018; maloney, maloney, ramirez, gunderson, levine, & beilock, 2015). additionally, mathematics is a vital tool needed in everyday life to enhance the level of awareness and consciousness without being deprived of one’s rights (maloney & beilock, 2012). living in a fast-growing economy adequate information dissemination is paramount for effective communication because technology usage keeps advancing. to meet up the pace of technological advancement propelled through scientific discovery, countries across the globe recognized the need to develop the mental capacity and attitude of the student towards the culture of learning and applying mathematical knowledge in their everyday life activities. studies by wang and eccles (2014) does indicate that most students perceived mathematics as a problematic subject. although, there has been a remarkable improvement in elementary mathematics at the lower educational stage in recent times, yet, the concern for effective implementation of the educational program has become the focus of educators in the academic environment. more so, one of the educational goals is to develop a positive mindset of students in embracing mathematics as a prerequisite in addressing daily encounters (hattie, fisher, frey, gojak, moore, & mellman, 2016). thus, it is widely believed that the students’ attitudes towards a particular subject will affect their level of performance in that subject (lee & hannafin, 2016; lo & hew, 2017; griffin, 2015). 2. background of study the thai system of education consists of 12 years of compulsory education: 6 years of “prathom” (primary education, p1 to p6) and 6 years of “mattayom” (secondary education, m.1 to m.6) as per the policy laid out by thai ministry of education. this system resulted from the educational reform of the 1999 national education act. it emphasized on organizational structures, decentralization of administration, and student-centered teaching practices (ministry of education, 2008). furthermore, the thai education mathematics curriculum was updated in the year 2018. the curriculum inculcates flexibility to integrate the knowledge, experiences, and culture of the thai community. as a result, the curriculum is consistent with the learning standards of each core subject. in the thai national curriculum, self-learning strategies, thinking skills, and moral development are cauterized teaching and learning activities. an essential part of the educational reform is that educational institutes were decentralized to play a major role in curriculum development. the centralized role was restricted only to determining the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 28 published by scholink inc. standards and to develop students’ attitudes. the basic educational curriculum as spelled out in 2001; this was followed by the revision of the core curriculum of basic education in 2008. the curriculum became standard-based, giving more attention to students’ quality rather than the curriculum contents. with this, teachers’ innovativeness was mandated and they were charged to support students’ learning process of thinking. according to the basic education core, the expected competencies among students, with a special focus on mathematics, deals with the skills in communication, thinking, problem-solving, applying life skills, and technological application in teaching approaches is more important. the awareness and understanding of these approaches are advantageous to teachers by employing different strategies to teach mathematics, thereby creating a balance of teaching and learning mathematics with regards to students’ expectations within the academic environment. such a balance is seen to enhance the techniques used in teaching mathematics in a strategic way through which students will develop high-quality experiences. thai education system lays tremendous emphasis on mathematics as the basis for overall learning development. the learning of mathematics imparts many skills that contribute to the development of the human mind. it trains the learner to think methodically and rationally, analyze various types of situations, anticipate and plan, make decisions and solve problems (coghlan & brannick, 2014). mathematics also serves as a tool that facilitates the gaining of knowledge related to science and technology. mathematical skills and knowledge are indeed essential to enhance the standard and quality of living in the modern era. there are three levels of mathematics curriculum in school: 1) intended curriculum which is derived from the school administrators’ perspectives. 2) implemented curriculum which is derived from the teachers’ perspectives. 3) attained or realized curriculum which is derived from the students’ perspectives (inprasitha, 2004; khonkarn, 2006). 3. problem statement the learning areas in the study of mathematics are designed to enable students to acquire mathematical skills and knowledge to their utmost potential. these include numerical concepts and sense of perception; percentage and ratio; and system, properties, and operation and application of real numbers. it was realized that the mathematics curriculum cannot be found in textbooks, reports, or documents because it occurs and continues in the classroom which is the structural unit of mathematics (inprasitha, 2004; khonkarn, 2006). the guidelines of the national council of teachers of mathematics (2000) suggest that teachers should establish the standard for class discussion. the groundwork for mathematics learning is that students should be good listeners who respect and value others’ opinions whether or not they are agreeable. the responsibility to ensure this in the classroom was also given to the teacher (khan, 2011). recognizing the importance of mathematics learning as outlined above, the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 29 published by scholink inc. ministry of education of thailand (2001, 2008) stated that students in thailand were expected to learn how to associate knowledge of mathematics with other sciences. with this government of thailand had over the years enhance the education curriculum. yet, the performance of thai students is nowhere found to meet up with the expected outcome (asian correspondent, 2019). some of the factors identified to contribute to these low-performance observations include lack of personnel, that is, less teaching staffs puncreobutr and rattanatumma (2016) as well as the behavior of teachers and students towards learning mathematics (yasar, çermik, & güner, 2016). concerning this, the initial focus of this study is to examine the relationship between students’ attitudes toward performances in mathematics. however, as literature have it, there exist oceans of studies regarding the intended objective (bofah & hannula, 2015; karjanto, 2017; yáñez-marquina & villardón-gallego, 2016). nevertheless, deeper insights into earlier studies reveal that although there are several studies investigating attitudes towards performances, there exist no agreeable measurement in this regard (byrne, 2001; chamberlin, 2010; mata, monteiro, & peixoto, 2012; mohamed & waheed, 2011; tapia & marsh, 2004) specifically, among studies primary school students in thailand’s context. hence, the authors find it critical to develop a universal attitudinal instrument viable enough to cater for attitude stability towards learning and performing in mathematics. 4. purpose and objective of study considering the low performance of thai students in mathematics, the main objective of this study is to examine the stability of the attitude toward mathematics inventory (atmi) scale concerning student’s performance in mathematics. the study will therefore provides alternative approach to researchers in measuring student’s attitudes towards mathematics by followed the objectives to determine the reliability and validity of instruments to measure students’ attitudes toward mathematics in thailand context. 4.1 review of literatures attitudes are predispositions of individuals towards a particular object, thing or situation based on past experiences over time. nevertheless, attitude can influence by imagined circumstances, although attitudes are more stable than emotions but, at the same time, it can influence the level of participation. winter and o’raw (2010) noted that attitudes are formed in response to educational background, teaching practices and organizational structure. attitude can either be seen as being positive or negative. a positive emotional disposition towards a particular subject is a function of a positive attitude to that subject while a negative attitude towards a particular subject emanates from negative emotional dispositions (mata et al., 2012). attitude is conceptualized by different authors based on individual dispositions towards a subject. according to mata, monteiro, and peixoto (2012), students’ attitude towards mathematics is propelled by certain factors such as beliefs experiences, which could be changed over time. buttressing the relevance of individual experience, social interactions among students is paramount within the context www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 30 published by scholink inc. of mathematical discuss as it becomes a central issue. likewise, fraser and kahle (2007) identified in their study that learning process within a designated environment among pair group significantly impact on student attitude. this is also reflected in the level of performance and achievement by the student which is reflected in their overall scores. additionally, mohamed and waheed (2011), in their study on understanding attitude and influences in relation to differences amongst students on their development, identified three factors that play significant role on students; factors associated to students themselves (for instance, achievement in mathematics, anxiety, self-efficacy and self-concept, motivation and experiences at school); factors associated with school-teacher and students relationship and teaching skills such as teachers knowledge on mathematics, availability of teaching materials, beliefs and organization of teaching environment. finally, they also identified factors such as family background and societal influences students’ development and achievement towards mathematics. these imply that the level of students’ attitudes and performances towards the assimilation of studying mathematical is a function of environmental, social and emotional influences on the individual’s psychological makeup that reflects the way the students view mathematics as either being positive or negative. positive attitude builds self-confidence and enhances the level of student achievement and vice versa. positive attitude thus is crucial in the willingness of students to accept, learn, assimilate and achieve remarkable results in mathematics. the aim of this study, therefore, is its contribution to the development of a theoretical base through the validation of the atmi instrument. 4.2 background of instruments used to measure attitudes there are various instruments to measure the level of student’s attitudes towards mathematics. however, the most popular and widely used instrument used in research is the fennema-sherman mathematics attitude scales (fsmas) (sachs & leung, 2013). another instrument that has also attracted considerable attention in mathematics education research is the aiken’s mathematics attitude scales (mas) (aiken, 1976). likewise, the timss 2011 which has three attitude scales that are related to the three motivational constructs that evaluate the intrinsic value of students namely, utility value, the belief, and ability of students towards mathematics scale. more recently, another scale that has received attention is the attitude towards mathematics inventory atmi by tapia and marsh (2004), though this has not gained much ground in its application in research (chamberlin, 2010). nevertheless, this scale was adopted in this study because of its clear and distinct application and identification of the four dimensions that measure the level of attitude towards mathematics among students. attitudes toward mathematics inventory (atmi) scale originally is used for measuring various items in different fields. it consists of 49 different items that measure six domains namely; anxiety, enjoyment, value, motivation and parent/teachers’ expectations (asante, 2012). assessment of scores was done using a five-point likert scale with response options ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree”. tapia (1996), combined the level of confidence and anxiety of students as a single factor influencing student’s attitudes towards mathematics. this result was derived after analysis of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 31 published by scholink inc. data after using the exploratory factor from a sample of 544 students offering mathematics in a private school. the result obtained shows a relatively low item-tototal correlation with items on the parent/teachers’ expectation subscale which depicts a non-significant relationship of the two items, hence was rejected (tapia, 1996; tapia & marsh, 2004). also, another scale comprising of four subscales which include self-confidence, value, enjoyment, and motivation; 40 items including the positive and negative items. tapia and marsh (2002) in their study conducted at different times established the validity and reliability test for both college students and high school students respectively (tapia & marsh, 2004). subsequently, a confirmatory factor analysis (cfa) was conducted using data obtained from 134 college students from the u.s to affirm the four-factor structure as identified by tapia and marsh (2002). the cranach’s alphas derived for the whole scale is within the range of 0.95 to 0.97 (tapia & marsh, 2004). while for each sub-scale self-confidence, value, enjoyment, and motivation have 0.95, 0.89, 0.89, and 0.88 respectively on the scale value (tapia & masrh, 2004). one of the advantages of the atmi is its distinctive and consistent characteristics embedded in the factor structure and its ability to measure a variety of constructs or items which other scales like the fennema-sherman mathematics attitude scales (fsmas) do not possess (byrne, 2001). these items include; attitudes towards mathematics (confidence in learning mathematics scale; mathematics anxiety scale; motivation in mathematics scale; and usefulness of mathematics scale), perceptions about mathematics as a male dominant learning area (male domain scale), and perceptions about parental and teacher support (mother, father, and teacher scales). despite the consistency in the structure of the atmi scale and robust psychometric characteristics, its popularity and usage amongst scholars are still low (lim & chapman, 2012; tapia & marsh, 2004; chamberlin & powers, 2013; lim & chapman, 2012). the need for researchers to further explore the atmi scale from various perspectives using different cultural samples and a smaller version is expedient in creating more awareness on the usage of the atmi scale (chamberlin & powers, 2013). this study, therefore, determined the stability of the atmi scale when applied among a group of students in thailand. it also aimed at providing an alternative to researchers who are solely in measuring the attitude of students towards mathematics. 5. methodology this study was conducted using a quantitative approach in which questionnaires were randomly distributed to 295 primary school students across 10 primary school in in nakhon si thammarat province, thailand. the questionnaire was used as an instrument to examine the students’ attitudes towards mathematics in primary school in the nakhon si thammarat province, thailand. data collection method, the instrument background. in addition to the application of the atmi in this study, the structure of the atmi was also examined in relation to the objective of the present study. this illustration is highlighted in table 1 below. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 32 published by scholink inc. table 1. subscales of atmi versus elements of neale’s definition subscales of atmi elements of neale’s definition self confidence value enjoyment motivation a belief that one is good or bad at mathematics a belief that mathematics is useful or useless an aggregated measure of a liking or disliking of mathematics a tendency to engage in or avoid mathematical activities the questionnaire was translated into the thai language by an expert thai lecturer who specializes in teaching the english language. responses were collected using the likert-scale anchors: (1) strongly disagree, (2) disagree, (3) neutral, (4) agree, and (5) strongly agree were used (tapia & mash, 2004). kramarski and gutman (2006), suggested that that the reliability of the pretest is 0.71 and the reliability of the posttest is 0.86 in the analysis of cronbach’s alpha. therefore, the reliability and discriminatory power of both tests used in the study were good. the details of the atmi showed in table 2. sample of study, total of 295 students participated in this study during the second term of the academic year 2019. the dataset was a part of three data points collected for a longitudinal study conducted over the year 2019. the respondents are 295 students 10 primary schools in nakhon si thammarat province, thailand. the attitude toward mathematics inventory (atmi) was employed to evaluate different underlying perspectives of students’ attitudes toward mathematics (tapia & march, 2004). forty items of atmi consists of four scales: 15 items of self-confidence, 10 items of value, 10 items of enjoyment, and 5 items of motivation (khine & afari, 2014). the whole set of the questionnaire is shown in table 2. table 2. factor analysis result of self-confidence items loadings sc3 .447 sc9 .877 sc10 .835 sc11 .802 sc12 .814 sc13 .794 sc14 .843 sc15 .683 eigenvalues 1.826 percentage (%) of variance explained 35.78 kaiser-meyer-olkin measure of sampling adequacy. .871 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 33 published by scholink inc. bartlett’s test of sphericity approx. chi-square 1977.683 df 105 sig. .000 as seen in table 3, the kmo measuring the sampling adequacy yielded a value of .706 which is above the threshold value of .6 as suggested by kaiser (1974) and the bartlett’s test of sphericity was significant (chi-square=647.667; df=45, p<.001). therefore, the five items loading between .574 and .720 are said to be valid and reliable in measuring value. table 3. factor analysis result of motivation items loadings va2 .574 va3 .588 va4 .691 va7 .669 va8 .720 eigenvalues 2.83 percentage (%) of variance explained 28.29 kaiser-meyer-olkin measure of sampling adequacy. .706 bartlett’s test of sphericity approx. chi-square 647.667 df 45 sig. .000 table 4 also revealed that with the kmo value been .655 which is above .6, the eigen value above 2 and the bartlett’s test of sphericity significant (chi-square=443.371; df=45, p<.001); all the four items loadings between .447 and .770 are said to be valid in measuring enjoyment. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 34 published by scholink inc. table 4. factor analysis result of enjoyment items loadings enj3 -.653 enj8 .713 enj9 .770 enj10 .447 eigenvalues 2.44 percentage (%) of variance explained 24.43 kaiser-meyer-olkin measure of sampling adequacy. .655 bartlett’s test of sphericity approx. chi-square 443.371 df 45 sig. .000 as seen in table 5, the items loading between .554 and .73 which is above the threshold value of .4 as suggested by straub et al. (2004), the eigen value is 2.16, kmo is .696 which are all greater than the threshold value of .6 for kmo and 1 for eigen value and the bartlett’s test of sphericity is significant. therefore, it can be concluded that the four items in table 5 is valid in measuring motivation. table 5. factor analysis result of motivation items loadings mot1 .731 mot2 .580 mot3 .554 mot4 .621 eigenvalues 2.16 percentage (%) of variance explained 43.19 kaiser-meyer-olkin measure of sampling adequacy. .696 bartlett’s test of sphericity approx. chi-square 229.430 df 10 sig. .000 furthermore, reliability test was carried out to ascertain the consistency of an instrument used and according to sekaran (2003), it is one of the indicators of goodness of measure. the degree of inter-correlations among items were by internal consistency through cronbach alpha coefficients (zikmud & babin, 2012). according to nunnally (1978), cronbach alpha value of .6 is generally considered sufficient but a value of .7 and above is more desirable. therefore, as shown in table 6, all www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 35 published by scholink inc. the cronbach alpha value for self-confidence, value, enjoyment and motivation are .837, .757, .787 and .723 which are above the acceptable value of .6. thus, items used for measuring these variables are considered reliable. table 6. reliability coefficients of the variables s/no variable no of items cronbach alpha 1. self-confidence 8 .837 (.859) 2. value 5 .757 (.846) 3. enjoyment 4 .787(.818) 4. motivation 4 .723(.803) in other to determine the factors or items that measures a variable, principal component analysis (pca) with varimax rotation as suggested by meyers et al. (2006) was carried out on the variables of the study to ascertain convergent validity. according to tabachnick and fidell (2007), it is common to use a guideline for a lower limit on item factor loadings to determine whether to delete or retain items. principal component analysis was conducted and absolute value below .4 was suppressed. this was in line with the threshold value of 0.4 as suggested by scholars in social science studies (straub, boudreau, & gefen, 2004). tables 2-5 are the factor loadings for self-confidence, value, enjoyment and motivation respectively. as seen in table 2, the loadings are within the range .447 to .877. the kmo value is .871, eigenvalue of 1.826 and the barttlet’s test of sphericity is significant having p<.05. therefore, the eight items are valid in measuring self-confidence. 6. discussion considering the objectives set at the beginning of this study which was to verify if the items developed by khine and afari (2014) can be adapted and use to examine students’ attitudes towards mathematics in thailand. the empirical findings reveal that the items adapted yielded a positive anticipated result. considering the observed results, the authors conclude that these instruments can be used in the context of thailand to investigate the students’ attitudes towards mathematics. therefore, it can be concluded from the study’s findings that self-confidence, value, enjoyment and motivation are reliable and valid in measuring the attitude of student’s towards mathematics in thailand context. this study contributes to the body of knowledge and academic domain due to its relevance on how to evaluate the level of students’ attitude and performances towards mathematics. it also identifies those factors that can hinder or enhance the approach and techniques of teachers’ in accessing students’ performances in the classroom. the limitation of the study is its scope in location and student’s level in school. the study therefore recommends future study by using other locations and students’ level in school. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 36 published by scholink inc. 7. limitation of the study despite the robust findings in this study, as per the instrument verified, the authors acknowledged that to allow generalizability of the findings, the samples employed in this study must be widen. that is, samples from other thaioland’s province must be investigated. furthermore, the authors suggested future studies to consider other variables such as peer group study, learning environment, curriculum contents needed more attention from scholars in context of nakhon si thammarat province of thailand. 8. recommendations based on the findings, the following researchers can come up with some suggestions related to the stress management of seberang perai utara primary schools in penang. these proposed proposals are considered appropriate to reduce the stress of schoolwork in general. acknowledgements the authors are greatly indebted to those who in one way or the other make this study a success. special thanks to the 10 primary schools management in nakhon si thammarat province, thailand for granting the request to conduct of survey study. from the bottom of my heart, we say thank you. references aiken, l. r. 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(2016). attitudes towards mathematics at secondary level: development and structural validation of the scale for assessing attitudes towards mathematics in secondary education (satmas). electronic journal of research in educational psychology, 14(3), 557-581. https://doi.org/10.14204/ejrep.40.15163 yasar, m., çermik, h., & güner, n. (2016). high school students’ attitudes towards mathematics and factors affect their attitudes in turkey. mathematics, science & technology education, 12(4), 931-945. zikmund, w., & babin, b. (2012). essentials of marketing research (9th ed.). cincinnati, oh: south-western pub. knowledge and later school success. teachers college record, 115(6), 1-29. microsoft word fet-v1n1-p60 frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 60 original paper profile of distance learners in the open university of sri lanka doluweera, d. g. s. k.1* 1 the open university of sri lanka, nugegoda, sri lanka * doluweera, d. g. s. k., the open university of sri lanka, nugegoda, sri lanka received: april 24, 2018 accepted: may 17, 2018 online published: may 25, 2018 doi:10.22158/fet.v1n1p60 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v1n1p60 this is a restructured version of the research paper presented in the 31st aaou conference 2017 in indonesia. abstract independent sri lanka has been making efforts ever since 1948 to expand the provision of educational opportunities to her citizenry. several committees and commissions were set up for this purpose. there recommendations along with the deliberations at the higher levels of policy planning for the country have led to the introduction of several innovative practices in education. one such innovation is “distance education”. conventional face-to-face education is teaching or teacher centered, while distance education is learning or learner centered. it is so because if education is to function as a means of social enlistment and democratization, it cannot but be learner centered. and again, if we accept education to be a life long activity, an activity that constantly engages learners in updating their information and skills, it has to be learner centered. the objectives of the study were: identification of personal characteristics of the distance learners; investigation of the heterogeneity of the students; investigation of the salient trends between the success rates and the student personal and educational characteristics of sri lankan distance student population and identification of the needs and aspirations of distance learners. therefore, a draft copy of a questionnaires were distributed to a pilot sample of 100 students selected at random from degree programmes of 2012/2013 academic year. the responses of the student sample was obtained and served as a data source for the pilot study. the data set obtained from the pilot study was subjected to the reliability analysis (cronbach, 1951). the reliability coefficient, i.e., cronbach’s alpha (α) which indicates the suitability of the questionnaire for the purpose and the higher values (α≥0.50) often considered as an acceptability of the questionnaire. the value obtained for the draft questionnaire was 97% (0.9692). the sample population included 1818 completed questionnaires. most of the students were in the sample population were buddhists 85%. age limit of the students were 26-29 78%. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 61 published by scholink inc. female students exceed the male students 89%. unmarried students exceeds the married students 76%. most of the students were employed 86%. their nature of employment was 56% private companies and 44% work in government departments. most of the ousl learners spend their own course fees that is 67%. the results obtained from this study is useful for the course developers and policy makers when developing courses and implementing policy decisions. when interviewing students they requested to have study area to do group studies. during holidays in many regional and study centers, students do not have sufficient space to peer group interaction. the students have to be provided study areas and self-explanatory course material when the course material is self-explanatory, students can do their studies on their own. if not students have to be provided oer material as supplementary material. keywords support services, delivery, success 1. introduction independent sri lanka has been making efforts ever since 1948 to expand the provision of educational opportunities to her citizenry. several committees and commissions were set up for this purpose. there recommendations along with the deliberations at the higher levels of policy planning for the country have led to the introduction of several innovative practices in education. one such innovation is “distance education”. conventional face-to-face education is teaching or teacher centered, while distance education is learning or learner centered. it is so because if education is to function as a means of social enlistment and democratization, it cannot but be learner centered. and again, if we accept education to be a lifelong activity, an activity that constantly engages learners in updating their information and skills, it has to be learner centered. how can a system of education be learner centered unless it is aware of learner concerns; unless it knows what the learner needs and what the problem are; unless it knows his/her attitudes are. obviously, if the system of distance education is, to flourish in a country, if it is to be socially relevant, and pedagogically effective, it needs to be well informed about the learner concerns. distance education has become one of the principal mode as an alternative method of course delivery being used by colleges and universities as they expand access to higher education at both the national and international level. its characteristic is that technology is used to bridge the instructional gap (willis, 1993) between the instructor and students who are removed from direct, immediate, physical contact (hassenplug & harnish, 1998). through avenues such as distance education, individuals are able to improve their social and economic well being as well as to raise their educational attainment level. the increasing international interest in open and distance learning and the subsequent expansion of the respective institutions and programmers is a most remarkable development in the field of education and training of recent years. there seems to be no doubt that open and distance learning is in a process of establishing itself as an integral part of educational delivery systems all over the world. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 62 published by scholink inc. as has been pointed out by holmberg (1995), there “is no evidence to indicate that distance students should be regarded as a homogeneous group”; however, many distance students do share broad demographic and situational similarities that have often provided the basis for profiles of the “typical” distance learner in higher education. characteristics included in such a profile have varied, but generally have reflected some combination of demographic and situational variables such as age, gender, ethnic background, disability, location, and life roles. although the methods of reporting student ages vary from study to study, researchers agree that distance education students are, on average, older than typical undergraduate students. a study of students enrolled in telecourses at four representative (urban, suburban, and rural). u.s. higher education institutions reported a median age of 36 (hezel & dirr, 1991). citing studies from three decades, holmberg (1995) has stated that the 25-35 age group seems to be the largest in most organizations. 1.1 literature review most reports in the literature focusing on the participation of students from various ethnic groups are program descriptions, rather than comparative studies. although research studies rarely report the percentages of participants from various ethnic backgrounds (dille & mezack, 1991; pugliese, 1994), they generally do not compare these with the percentages of the same groups within the population of traditional students. as a result, making generalizations about the relative participation of ethnic minorities in distance education is difficult. however, there is some evidence, largely qualitative and subjective, that distance education is a particularly appealing way for students from disadvantaged socio-economic groups to enter higher education. for many of these students, courses and programs delivered at a distance are an accessible avenue for upward mobility. satyanarayana (2000) states, though distance study is mainly a form of independent study, it is not and should not be sentenced to solitary confinement. learners of the distance learning system, therefore always need various types of support services, i.e., academic, administrative, informative, personal and motivational to continue their learning smoothly and effectively. they require support services in different stages of their learning, such as in the pre-entry stage, during the learning period and even after completing studies. the institution should make every effort to ensure that appropriate support is available to students as and when they need it. he also showed that the learners had to spend the vast majority of their study time in their homes or the place of work, and they had needed regular ongoing support. this might best be provided through interpersonal contacts with tutors, and fellow students—with these being sustained through such mechanisms as telephone contacts, telephone conferencing and local meetings (melton, 2003). according to subbaiah (2007), the student support services branch is the backbone of the odl system as it takes care of learner from entry to exit. it is a collective process from pre-entry counseling to exit (satyanarayana, 2004). the most important services, which have been identified, are information regarding admission, choosing of the optional courses, academic counselling, delivery of self-learning materials, etc. naidu (2007) has rightly pointed out that the effectiveness of an open www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 63 published by scholink inc. university and distance learning institute can be significantly judged by measuring the expectation of satisfaction level of its students regarding the services provided by the organization. shah (2007) laid emphasis on support services provided through regional and study centres which may play a primary role in helping the learners and providing them ample opportunities to contact with the academic counselors to resolve their difficulties in the study as well as in minimizing the gap between conventional mode and distance mode. a study conducted by doluweera, somaratne and biswas (2010) revealed mixed responses from the students of open university of sri lanka with regard to print and audio-video components of course materials. more attention needs to be given to improve these components the authors suggested. usually, distance education has attracted students whose geographic distance from a higher education institution discouraged or prevented enrollment in on-campus classes (gibson & graff’s, 1992). however, in many institutions the “typical” distance learner is no longer bound to place. there is a trend that students in close geographical proximity to traditional educational institutions are choosing distance study not because it is the only alternative, but rather because it is the preferred alternative. in addition to playing the role of student, most distance learners also fill the roles of worker and spouse. a number of studies reporting characteristics of distance learners have documented the extent of this trend (st. pierre & olsen, 1991). there are number of research attempting to measure the relationship of particular demographic characteristics to student success—as measured by levels of persistence and/or achievement—has resulted in often contradictory conclusions. some studies have reported no correlation between these outcomes and specific demographic variables such as gender (dille & mezack, 1991; fjortoft, 1996), ethnic background (dille & mezack, 1991), or age (powell, conway, & ross, 1990; gibson & graff, 1992). other studies suggest that certain demographic variables, perhaps not in and of themselves but rather as the markers of an accompanying set of generalized characteristics, are related to student success and/or satisfaction. for example, several researchers reporting a positive relationship between success and students’ age (dille & mezack, 1991; souder, 1994) have explained the higher levels of success for older students on the basis of the increased maturity, self-discipline, life experience, and financial responsibility for their educations that are likely to characterize older students. additionally, older students are more likely to have higher levels of education at the time of enrollment, another factor which has been correlated with success (dille & mezack, 1991; gibson & graff, 1992). higher success rates among female distance education students have been related to (1) the lower proportion of women working full time outside the home, (2) the higher rates at which women access institutional support structures, (3) the potentially higher level of motivation that might operate among women, who more often work in occupational sectors in which career advancement is closely tied to academic upgrading, and (4) the appeal of the distance format to woman who must integrate education into lives characterized by multiple roles (ross & powell, 1990; powell, conway, & ross, 1990; robinson, 1992). ahmed (2009) laid stress on the short message service facilities of mobile www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 64 published by scholink inc. technology by which instant communication should be made with the learners, not only that, the message can be saved and reviewed. it is cheaper than postal communication. besides, 95% of learners have mobile phone for themselves. this technology may be extensively used for quick information delivery. amaneddine (2009) had proposed a model to overcome the troubles of learners living in rural areas where there is insufficient access through the internet. the idea is based on the integration of a geographic information system, an e-learning management system and the short message service which has been developed ad tested at the arab open university in lebanon. the result is positive. the significant development was observed in the area of communication. chibambo (2009) presented his experience of using mobile phone technology in supporting open and distance learning in malawi. it is very useful in delivering student support services on tutorials, counselling and guidance and so on. besides, cell phones do indeed support open and distance learning learners through participation, registration, completion and cohort socialization among others. famuyiwa (2009) and satya sundar sethy (2009) gave their support in favour of extensive use of mobile technology for enhancing support services. however, there is a growing need in such studies in the developing countries. especially for a country having different ethnic composition, geographical regions and also cultural composition, india might need more and more studies on the personal and educational characteristics of the distance learners. therefore, it is believed that the present proposed research will throw light on such under-studies areas of the distance education in sri lanka as a developing country. 1.2 objectives the objectives of the study were: 1) identification of personal characteristics of the distance learners. 2) investigation of the heterogeneity of the students. 3) identification of the needs and aspirations of distance learners. 4) investigation of the salient trends between the success rates and the student personal and educational characteristics of sri lanken distance student population. the findings of the this study will: (a) provide vital information to course designers and administrators in distance educational institutes in the developing countries, (b) use to build up a student profile which could be use for comparison of regional, national and international scales, (c) provide key information for policy makers in distance education and for politicians for implementation of the recommendations made by policy makers. 2. methodology the survey method were used by issuing a questionnaire (annex i) which includes the following aspect of the student population. i. general information, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 65 published by scholink inc. ii. reasons for selecting distance mode of education, iii. aspirations, iv. learning or study habits and study skills, v. study circumstances. it has been well-known that the draft questionnaire should be administered to a pilot sample to assure increase reliability, validity and practicability of the questionnaire (oppenheim, 1992; morrison, 1993; wilson & mclean, 1994; ritchie, 2003; ritchie et al., 2003). therefore, a draft copy of a questionnaire was distributed to a pilot sample of 100 students selected at random from degree programmes of 2012/2013 academic year. the responses of the student sample was obtained and served as a data source for the pilot study. the data set obtained from the pilot study was subjected to the reliability analysis (cronbach, 1951). the reliability coefficient, i.e., cronbach’s alpha (α) which indicates the suitability of the questionnaire for the purpose and the higher values, (α≥0.50) often considered as an acceptability of the questionnaire. the value obtained for the draft questionnaire was 97% (0.9692) and it was decided to use the draft copy of the questionnaire as the final version. the population and sample size of the study was 2000 undergraduate students of the ousl the questionnaire could be considered as reliable enough to distribute to the selected students sample. the data gathered from the study were analysed by the use of spss 19 and the minitab package. 3. results & discussions table 1. canter wise distribution of the students in the sample population name of the regional/study centre bsc b.tec b ed ba in social studies total no. colombo 327 312 32 152 823 kandy 187 129 122 14 452 matara 51 79 20 17 167 anuradapura 40 32 15 20 107 baticaloa 8 7 5 2 22 jaffna 27 22 39 41 120 rathnapura 2 4 3 3 12 kurunagala 26 18 7 5 57 gampaha 15 12 6 5 58 total no 683 615 249 259 1818 according to the table 1, 1818 completed questionnaires were received. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 66 published by scholink inc. for the triangulation of data an in-depth interviews were conducted for twenty students in each programme interweaved. responses were more or less same as the interview responses. most of the students were in the sample population were buddhists 85%. age limit of the students were (26-29) 78%. female students exceed the male students 89%. unmarried students exceeds the married students 76%. most of the students were employed 86%. their nature of employment was 56% private companies and 44% work in government departments. most of the ousl learners spend their own course fees that is 67%. the highest level of qualifications when entering the ousl were the g...c., .e (al) qualifications. most of the learners had their early education in sinhala 89% or tamil medium 10%. most of the students have tv, radio, and news papers like facilities at home. many students stay within the (10-25) km range. mode of traveling of the open university students were the public transport (76%). available study time for students per day were 3 hours. reason for registering at ousl was to get the promotion (68%) and professional growth (56%). the reason for selecting the distance mode of education was they missed the traditional university education due to competition (.85%). most of the students take part in group study during holidays (70%). they study for the continuous assessment tests and final examinations (80%). 4. conclusion the results obtained from this study is useful for the course developers and policy makers when developing courses and implementing policy decisions. when interviewing students they requested to have study area to do group studies. during holidays in many regional and study canters students do not have sufficient space to peer group interaction. the students have to be provided study areas and self-explanatory course material. the services of the open university have to be decentralized and regional and study canter facilities to students have to be improved. when the course material is self-explanatory, students can do their studies on their own. if not students have to be provided oer material as supplementary material. the learners must be provided with sufficient space and facilities for group studies in the colombo regional center ( seating facilities, etc.). questionnaire using for data collection (annex 1) profile of distance learners in sri lanka (a research study undertaken by mrs. d. g. s. k. doluweera) dear student, we seek your kind cooperation in improving the quality of the study material and the student support services of the university. therefore please fill in the following questionnaire and return it to us. thank you mrs. d. g. s. k. doluweera www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 67 published by scholink inc. questionnaire general information please write the answer or tick appropriate box where relevant. 1. religion: buddhist□ hindu□ muslim □ christian □ others □ 2. age: <25□ 26-39□ 40-54□ >55□ 3. sex (gender): male □ female □ 4. are you married? yes □ no □ 5. are you employed? yes □ no □ if the answer is “no” for question no.6, please go to q. no. 8. 6. what is the nature of your employment? i) government department □ ii) corporation/board □ iii) private companies □ iv) other (please specify) ............................................ 7. who spends for your studies? i. parents □ ii. spouse (husband / wife) □ iii. by yourself □ iv. any others □ 8. highest level of qualification attained intermediate □ i.t.i. □ secondary school certificate □ eligibility test □ 9. what is the medium of instruction of your studies? your mother language □ english □ 10. do you have the following facilities at home? t.v. □ radio □ satellite/cable □ news papers □ 11. what is the distance between the study centre and your home? ………. km 12. mode of travelling by bus □ by train □ on foot □ any other □ 13. available study time per day: 2-4 hours □ 5-7 hours □ more than 7 hours □ more than 1 0 hours □ aspirations 14. what are the reasons for registering in the ousl? for promotion in work/increment in salary □ to apply or qualify for a new position □ for an interest □ for professional growth □ other please state ………………………………………………….. 15. why did you opt for the distance mode of education? i missed the traditional university education due to competition □ i was unable to go to school because of the lack of financial assistance □ i was unable to go to school because of the long-term illness □ any other ………………………………………. 16. what are your objectives in following this programme? to acquire personal skills □ to acquire paper qualifications □ www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 68 published by scholink inc. to obtain employment □ any other ……………………………… 17. do you take part in group study? yes □ no □ 18. how often do you study? regularly □ study only for the assignments □ study only for the examinations □ any other ............................................ references amaneddine, n. (2009). using geographic information system (gis) technologyto support open learning in the developing countries. proceedings of the 12th cambridge international conference on open and distance learning. chibambo, k. (2009). how mobile phone technology can support open and distance learning: malawi’s own context. the cambridge international conference on open and distance learning 2009, the von hügel institute, st edmund’s college. cronbach, l. j. (1951). coefficient alpha and the internal structure of tests. pychometrika, 16, 297-334. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf02310555 dille, b., & mezack, m. (1991). identifying predictors of high risk among community college telecourse students. american journal of distance education, 5(1), 24-35. https://doi.org/10.1080/08923649109526729 doluweera, d. g. s. k., somaratne, s., & biswas, p. k. (2010). an examination of selected student support services of the open university of sri lanka. in k. das (ed.), odl system in transition-experiences and reflections (pp. 213-222). new delhi: vikash publishing house pvt. eastmond, d. v. (1995). alone but together: adult distance study through computer conferencing. cresskill: hampton. gibson, c., & graff, c. (1992). impact of adults’ preferred learning styles and perception of barriers on completion of external baccalaureate degree programs. journal of distance education, vii(1), 39-51. hassenplug, c. a., & harnish, d. (1998). the nature and importance of interaction in distance education credit classes at technical institutes. community college journal of research and practice, 22(6), 591-606. https://doi.org/10.1080/1066892980220602 hezel, r., & dirr, p. (1990). understanding distance education: identifying barriers to college attendance. eric document reproduction service no. ed 340335. holmberg, b. (1995). theory and practice of distance education (2nd ed.). london and new york: routledge. jortoft, n. (1996). persistence in a distance learning program: a case in pharmaceutical education. the american journal of distance education, 10(3), 49-59. https://doi.org/10.1080/08923649609526940 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 69 published by scholink inc. naidu, s. (2007). instructional design or optimal learning. in g. moore (ed.), handbook of distance education (2nd ed., pp. 247-258). mahwah, nj: lawrence erlbaum associates, publishers. powell, r., convey, c., & ross, l. (1990). effects of student predisposing characteristics on student success. journal of distance education, 5(1), 20-37. satyanarayana, r. (2004). student support services and open learning. new delhi: mittal. souder, w. e. (1993). the effectiveness of traditional vs. satellite delivery in three management of technology master’s degree programs. the american journal of distance education, 7(1), 37-53. https://doi.org/10.1080/08923649309526809 st pierre, s., & olsen, l. (1991). student perspectives on the effectiveness of correspondence instruction (vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 65-71). https://doi.org/10.1080/08923649109526764 stinchfield, r. (2003). reliability, validity and classification accuracy of a measure of dsm-iv diagnostic criteria for pathological gambling. american journal of psychiatry, 160, 180-182. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.160.1.180 subbaiah, m. (2007). learner friendly-services through information communication technology: experience of dr. b. r. ambedkar open university. paper presented at the national seminar on choice and use of ict in odl: impacts, strategies and future prospects, b. r. ambedkar open university, hyderabad. subbaiah, m. (2007). role of regional coordination centres in providing effective student support services. the experience of dr. b .r. ambedkar open university. paper presented at the three day international conference on open distance education (icode), hyderabad-33, andhra pradesh, india. willis, b. (1993). distance education: a practical guide. englewood cliffs, nj: education al technology publications. frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no.4, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 106 original paper research on the innovation of english teaching mode based on artificial intelligence baohan sheng1 1 school of foreign languages, jiangsu university, zhenjiang, jiangsu, china received: october 30, 2023 accepted: november 22, 2023 online published: december 6, 2023 doi:10.22158/fet.v6n4p106 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v6n4p106 abstract this article presents a research on innovative approaches in english language teaching through the application of artificial intelligence (ai). the aim is to address the issues found in traditional english language teaching methods by utilizing ai technology. the article begins by identifying the problems in traditional english language teaching and exploring the current applications of ai in education. then, it specifically discusses the application of ai technology in english language teaching, such as interactive listening training, intelligent error correction and personalized post-class guidance, and cloud-based intelligent english translation teaching. subsequently, a proposal is put forward to construct a new english language teaching system based on ai technology, including modules for engaging explanations, interactive english assignments, and creating scenarios for cross-cultural communication oral training. lastly, an evaluation method for assessing the innovation of english language teaching models based on ai is introduced, which includes feedback and perceptions from both teachers and students, as well as an assessment of teaching outcomes. the research findings of this article can provide a more intelligent, personalized, and effective english language teaching approach, thus positively impacting the quality of english language teaching and enhancing students’ interest in learning. keywords artificial intelligence, english language teaching model, innovation 1. introduction in the era of rapid development of information technology, artificial intelligence is widely applied in various fields, including education. as english serves as an important international communication language, its teaching mode also needs to keep up with the times. however, traditional english teaching methods are faced with a series of problems, such as lack of personalized teaching and low student engagement. with the maturity of artificial intelligence technology, it brings new opportunities and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 107 published by scholink inc. challenges for english teaching. therefore, this study aims to explore the innovation of the english teaching mode based on artificial intelligence, providing more personalized, interactive and effective teaching methods for english teaching through the application of artificial intelligence technology. this article will introduce in detail the specific application modes of artificial intelligence in english teaching, and evaluate the innovation of the english teaching mode based on artificial intelligence. this will help to improve the quality of english teaching and stimulate students’ interest and enthusiasm for learning. 2. problems of traditional english teaching traditional english teaching methods face challenges and issues in the current educational environment. firstly, due to the diverse learning needs and backgrounds of students, traditional one-size-fits-all teaching approaches often fail to meet the needs of all students. each student has different learning abilities, styles, and interests, requiring personalized teaching methods to help them better understand and grasp english knowledge. secondly, traditional english teaching lacks real-time feedback and monitoring of students’ learning processes. teachers typically can only assess students’ learning progress through quizzes and assignments, failing to promptly understand their doubts and issues during the actual learning process. this lag in feedback not only affects students’ learning outcomes but also limits teachers’ ability to adjust and optimize teaching content and methods. additionally, students’ motivation in traditional english teaching is often not high. traditional teaching methods typically revolve around the teacher, with students passively receiving knowledge and lacking active participation and interaction. this teaching approach easily leads to a decrease in students’ interest and motivation in learning, affecting their initiative and persistence in english language learning. another issue is that traditional english teaching lacks contextual and practical teaching environments. the language knowledge students learn in the classroom often cannot be effectively applied in practical situations, lacking opportunities and environments for actual communication. this detachment from real-life language environments limits the development and improvement of students’ language abilities. therefore, we need to explore new english teaching models, leveraging artificial intelligence technology to address these issues and achieve more personalized, interactive, and practical english teaching methods. by applying artificial intelligence technology, we can provide students with personalized learning paths and real-time learning feedback, stimulating their interest and motivation in learning, and improving their english language skills and application abilities (jing et al., 2023). 3. state of the artificial intelligence in education with the continuous development of artificial intelligence (ai) technology, its applications in the field of education are becoming increasingly widespread. currently, ai is mainly applied in three areas: teaching support, teaching management, and educational assessment, of which teaching support is one of the most extensively used and promising areas. in terms of teaching support, ai applications can www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 108 published by scholink inc. help teachers provide more personalized and accurate teaching aids and resources to enhance teaching efficiency and effectiveness. for instance, ai technology can analyze students’ learning situations and habits to offer them customized learning plans and teaching resources, thereby stimulating their learning interests and motivation and ultimately improving learning outcomes. ai can also provide teachers with relevant teaching aids and resources, such as natural language processing, intelligent question banks, and virtual simulation platforms, to diversify and enhance teaching support. in terms of teaching management, ai technology can optimize teaching management mode and improve management efficiency by analyzing and mining large amounts of student learning data and information. based on students’ grades, learning behavior records, and other data, ai technology can offer comprehensive assessments and analyses of students’ learning situations, learning paths, and learning outcomes, helping teachers gain better insight into students’ learning situations and results and perform timely adjustments and improvements to teaching content and methods. furthermore, ai can also provide corresponding support and solutions for classroom management, student evaluation, student archives, and teacher teaching evaluations. regarding educational assessment, ai technology can provide more accurate and objective educational assessment results for students and teachers by analyzing and comparing student learning data and information. for instance, essay evaluation systems based on natural language processing technology can provide accurate evaluations of grammar, logic, and vocabulary usage by comparing students’ writing pieces with excellent examples using deep learning and machine learning techniques, thus providing more comprehensive evaluations of students’ writing abilities. moreover, ai can also be used for the evaluation of course quality, teacher teaching effectiveness, and student comprehensive qualities. in conclusion, the applications of ai technology in the field of education are extensive and diverse, with teaching support showing the most widespread and promising prospects. in english teaching, the application of ai technology can provide teachers with more personalized and accurate teaching support and resources to help students better master language knowledge and improve language abilities. 4. specific models for the application of artificial intelligence technology in english language teaching 4.1 interactive listening training model interactive listening training mode is a specific application of artificial intelligence technology in english language teaching. traditional listening training usually involves teachers playing recordings or combining them with questions, but due to the large number of students, it is difficult for teachers to provide personalized guidance and feedback to each student. in contrast, the interactive listening training mode utilizes artificial intelligence technology to provide students with personalized and autonomous listening training. in this mode, students can engage in listening exercises anytime and anywhere using devices equipped with ai-assisted systems, such as smartphones or tablets (chernysh et al., 2023). the system offers different levels and types of listening materials, such as news, dialogues, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 109 published by scholink inc. and speeches, based on the students’ proficiency and needs. students can autonomously choose the listening materials and practice their listening skills through the system at their own pace and according to their needs. during the listening practice, the ai-assisted system monitors and assesses the students’ listening performance in real-time. through speech recognition technology, it automatically recognizes the students’ listening answers and provides feedback. for example, in multiple-choice listening exercises, students can select the heard content or answer questions, and the system instantly judges the correctness of their answers, providing the correct answer and explanation. in fill-in-the-blank listening exercises, students can input their answers through speech, which the system will automatically recognize and evaluate. through this approach, students can promptly understand their listening scores and identify any issues, enabling targeted training and improvement. the interactive listening training mode not only provides personalized learning content and real-time feedback but also offers various auxiliary functions and learning resources. for instance, the system can provide subtitles, vocabulary explanations, and voice readings to help students better understand and master the listening materials. additionally, based on the students’ needs, the system can recommend relevant learning resources such as related reading materials, grammar explanations, and exercises to further reinforce and expand their listening skills. the application of interactive listening training mode can enhance students’ listening skills and their ability to cope with real-life language environments. through personalized training and real-time feedback, students can effectively improve their listening comprehension and dictation abilities, and confidently and fluently utilize their learned english knowledge in practical communication. furthermore, due to the flexibility of training anytime and anywhere, students can choose suitable listening exercises according to their own time and location, enhancing the convenience and efficiency of their learning. in summary, the application of interactive listening training mode provides a more personalized, flexible, and effective teaching approach in english language education. 4.2 intelligent correction and humanized after-school guidance model the application of artificial intelligence technology in english teaching also includes the intelligent error correction and personalized after-class guidance mode. traditional essay correction is usually done by teachers, but their time and energy are limited, and they cannot provide detailed correction and guidance for every student’s essay. however, the intelligent error correction and personalized after-class guidance mode, utilizing artificial intelligence technology, can offer students personalized essay correction and guidance, thereby improving their writing skills and language proficiency. in this mode, students can submit their essays through an intelligent writing platform, and the system will automatically check and correct aspects such as grammar, spelling, and punctuation. through natural language processing technology, the system can identify and correct errors in students’ essays and provide corresponding explanations and demonstrations. students can learn about their mistakes and make revisions based on the system’s feedback, thereby not only enhancing language accuracy but also deepening their understanding of grammar rules and writing techniques. unlike traditional essay correction, the intelligent error correction and personalized after-class guidance mode also provides www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 110 published by scholink inc. more personalized and humanized after-class guidance services. the system can provide targeted suggestions and guidance for essay improvement based on students’ essay characteristics and needs. it can analyze the problems and shortcomings in students’ essays and offer tailored writing techniques and suggestions. the system can also adjust the difficulty and content based on students’ levels and progress, providing them with stage-specific tasks and training. the intelligent error correction and personalized after-class guidance mode can not only enhance students’ essay writing skills but also stimulate their interest and enthusiasm for writing. through timely feedback and personalized guidance, students can better understand their writing problems and make improvements. additionally, the system can share excellent sample essays and writing techniques, inspiring students’ creativity and thinking abilities. furthermore, the intelligent error correction and personalized after-class guidance mode can provide online guidance and assistance from teachers (ren, 2022). teachers can track and analyze students’ essays through the system, understand their writing levels and progress, and provide personalized guidance and feedback. the system also offers evaluation tools for teachers to grade and evaluate students’ essays, helping them better understand students’ writing abilities and issues and develop corresponding teaching strategies and plans. in conclusion, the intelligent error correction and personalized after-class guidance mode provides a more personalized and effective approach to essay training and guidance in english teaching. through intelligent error correction and personalized writing guidance, students can enhance language accuracy and writing skills while also stimulating their interest and thinking abilities in writing. this mode not only offers convenience and flexibility for students’ learning but also provides better essay teaching management and guidance tools for teachers. 4.3 intelligent english translation teaching model based on cloud platform the cloud-based intelligent english translation teaching model is another significant application of artificial intelligence technology in english education. traditional english translation teaching often relies on paper dictionaries or translation software, requiring students to constantly search for words and phrases in dictionaries or on computers, wasting valuable study time. however, the cloud-based intelligent english translation teaching model utilizes cloud computing and artificial intelligence technology, providing more convenient, real-time, and accurate translation tools and aids. in this model, students can perform real-time english translation through translation applications or web interfaces on smart phones, tablets, and other devices connected to the cloud platform. they can not only input words, sentences, or paragraphs that need to be translated but also utilize speech recognition technology for oral translation. the ai translation system on the cloud platform can instantly translate the input english content into the target language and provide accurate translations along with contextual explanations. students can flexibly use this tool for translation practice and language application according to their own needs and progress. in addition to providing real-time translation tools, the cloud-based intelligent english translation teaching model can also offer personalized learning resources and auxiliary functions. based on the students’ learning needs and levels, the system can recommend relevant vocabulary, grammar explanations, as well as provide related examples and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 111 published by scholink inc. exercises. the system can also provide deeper word associations and explanations of word meanings to help students better understand and use the translated text. at the same time, the system can offer auxiliary functions such as voice reading and pronunciation correction to help students improve their speaking and listening skills. the cloud-based intelligent english translation teaching model not only provides students with convenient translation tools and personalized learning resources but also offers teachers better teaching management and assessment methods. through the system, teachers can track and analyze students’ translation content, understand their translation abilities and problems, and provide appropriate guidance and feedback. teachers can also utilize the evaluation tools provided by the system to score and assess students’ translation quality, helping them better understand students’ translation levels and issues and develop corresponding teaching strategies and plans. in conclusion, the cloud-based intelligent english translation teaching model provides english learners with more convenient, real-time, and personalized translation tools and learning resources. through the use of intelligent translation systems and auxiliary functions, students can improve translation accuracy and language application abilities. this model not only saves study time and effort but also provides teachers with better teaching management and guidance methods. 5. building a new english teaching system based on artificial intelligence technology 5.1 interesting explanation module for english vocabulary and grammar the innovative english language teaching system, founded on artificial intelligence technology, offers students a more enjoyable and interactive learning experience in the fascinating modules of vocabulary and grammar explanations. traditional methods of teaching vocabulary and grammar often emphasize rote memorization and mechanical exercises, leading to dull and tedious learning. in contrast, the ai-based teaching system, with its creative teaching methods and engaging learning content, stimulates students’ interest and motivation to learn. within these modules, the ai system utilizes multimedia technologies such as images, animations, audio, and videos to present english vocabulary and grammar concepts to the students. through immersive visual and auditory effects, the system captivates students’ attention and makes the learning content more vivid and interesting. for example, the system can animate vocabulary concepts, transforming abstract words into entertaining images or characters, aiding students in deeper memorization and comprehension. the system can also simulate real-life contexts and incorporate interactive games, enabling students to practice grammar rules and turning learning into an enjoyable experience. beyond its entertainment value, the ai-powered english teaching system can also provide personalized learning content and progress arrangements tailored to students’ needs and proficiency levels. by analyzing students’ learning history and performance, the system identifies their weaknesses in vocabulary and grammar and offers targeted explanations and exercises. through intelligent recommendations and adaptive learning features, the system provides students with appropriate learning resources and difficulty levels, enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of their studies. furthermore, the ai-based english teaching system offers instant www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 112 published by scholink inc. feedback and assessment. as students engage in the learning process, the system can evaluate their answers or oral expressions in real-time, providing corresponding feedback and suggestions. students can promptly adjust their learning strategies based on the system’s assessment results and further strengthen and improve their skills. in conclusion, the ai-based english teaching system, with its captivating and interactive modules for vocabulary and grammar explanations, offers a more charming and engaging learning experience. through its innovative teaching methods and captivating learning content presented through multimedia technologies, students can enhance their interest and learning outcomes. these modules not only ignite students’ passion for learning but also help them master english vocabulary and grammar knowledge, ultimately improving their language proficiency (belhassena, 2022). 5.2 designing english assignments with high interactivity designing highly interactive english assignments is one of the important modules in constructing a new ai-based english teaching system. traditional english assignments often focus on delivering knowledge points and mechanical exercises, lacking sufficient interactivity and practicality. however, with the application of ai technology, we can design english assignments that are more interactive and allow students to learn and apply the knowledge they have mastered through practical exercises. such interactive english assignments can leverage ai technologies such as speech recognition, natural language processing, and speech synthesis to provide oral and listening practice. for example, the assignment system can set oral questions, requiring students to answer questions or converse in english, and the system can convert the students’ answers into text through speech recognition technology and provide immediate feedback and evaluation. at the same time, the system can also use speech synthesis technology to play standard english pronunciation for students, helping them correct pronunciation errors and improve their oral expression skills. in addition, interactive english assignments can also incorporate the human-machine dialogue function in ai systems for conversational practice. the system can generate corresponding questions based on the students’ answers, provide multiple options or prompts, guide students to answer and communicate. through interaction with the system, students can practice language expression and comprehension skills. the system can analyze and evaluate the students’ answers based on natural language processing technology, provide appropriate encouragement and guidance, and help students further improve their language skills. in addition to oral and listening practice, interactive english assignments can also include writing and reading comprehension exercises. the system can check grammar and vocabulary based on the students’ writing, and provide correction and suggestions. in terms of reading comprehension, the system can provide relevant questions and answer analysis based on the students’ reading content, helping students better understand and apply the information they have read. by designing highly interactive english assignments, we can stimulate students’ learning interest and participation, making learning more interesting and practical. students can improve their language skills through interaction with ai systems and better apply the knowledge they have learned. this interactive assignment module not only helps students improve their english www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 113 published by scholink inc. proficiency but also provides timely feedback and personalized learning advice, promoting the realization of learning effectiveness. 5.3 creating oral training scenarios for intercultural communication creating cross-cultural communication training scenarios is one of the key elements in building a new english teaching system based on artificial intelligence technology. in the context of globalization, cross-cultural communication skills have become increasingly important for students. by creating cross-cultural communication training scenarios, students can practice their language expression and cross-cultural communication skills in simulated situations, enhancing their communication abilities and cultural adaptability. these scenarios can simulate real-life situations in different countries and regions, such as tourism, business, and social situations. through speech recognition and natural language processing in artificial intelligence technology, the system can interact with students in real-time, simulating authentic cross-cultural communication scenarios. for example, the system can act as a foreign tour guide, a business partner, or a friend in a social setting, engaging in spoken dialogue with the students. students can answer questions, offer suggestions, or engage in social activities based on the system’s dialogue or questions, simulating a genuine spoken exchange. in this training scenario, the artificial intelligence system can analyze the student’s spoken language expression such as syntax, vocabulary, and pronunciation through natural language processing technology and provide instant feedback and corrections. the system can point out inaccuracies and lack of fluency in spoken language, offer appropriate advice and improvement plans, and continually improve students’ spoken expression skills by interacting with the system. additionally, to better simulate authentic cross-cultural communication scenarios, the training scenario can be combined with real cultural backgrounds. the system can provide diverse cultural background elements such as festivals, cuisine culture, and etiquette customs to help students understand differences and characteristics between different cultures and to develop their cultural adaptability and cross-cultural communication skills. through creating cross-cultural communication training scenarios, students can exercise their language expression and cross-cultural communication skills in a virtual environment, enhancing their communication abilities and cultural adaptability. this training scenario not only provides students with the opportunity to practice oral language but also allows them to better understand and appreciate communication rules and etiquette in different cultural contexts, promoting effective cross-cultural communication. 6. evaluation of artificial intelligence-based english teaching model innovation the innovation of ai-based english teaching models holds great promise and potential. initially, it can provide personalized learning plans and resources tailored to students’ needs and proficiency levels. moreover, ai systems can promptly offer targeted feedback and suggestions to help students better understand and master english knowledge. furthermore, ai-based english teaching models can enhance students’ practical skills. by creating diverse learning scenarios, students can apply their www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 114 published by scholink inc. learned knowledge in practice, thereby improving their speaking, listening, and writing abilities. simultaneously, the intelligent functions of ai systems can promptly correct students’ language errors, aiding them in improving grammar and pronunciation accuracy, ultimately making the learning process more efficient and effective. lastly, ai-based english teaching models can promote the development and progress of global education, providing a stronger foundation for transcending linguistic and cultural barriers and facilitating wider communication and collaborative efforts. it contributes to cultivating english learners with intercultural communication abilities and enhancing their competitiveness, thereby driving global education forward. in conclusion, the application prospects of ai-based english teaching model innovation are vast and can bring new opportunities and challenges to english education. however, it is crucial to address potential issues such as the value orientation and privacy concerns related to ai systems. therefore, strict management and guidance are necessary during promotion and implementation to ensure the quality and effectiveness of teaching (wei, 2022). 7. conclusion the adoption of artificial intelligence technology in the field of english education is bringing about a series of exciting innovations and opportunities. through intelligent teaching systems, students can experience a more personalized, interactive, and practical learning environment. this innovative research not only stimulates students’ interest in learning but also enhances their language application skills. a.i. systems can provide customized learning resources and plans based on students’ learning needs and abilities, making learning more targeted and efficient. moreover, the system can provide targeted feedback and suggestions in real-time, helping students better understand and grasp english knowledge. moreover, innovation research based on the a.i. english teaching model can also enhance students’ practical language skills and strengthen their language application skills. by creating a rich and diverse learning environment, such as simulated dialogues in virtual situations, role-playing, and simulated real-life scenarios, students can apply what they have learned to practical situations, improving their oral expression, listening comprehension, and writing skills. the intelligent functions of a.i. systems can timely correct students’ language errors, helping them improve the accuracy of grammar and pronunciation, making the learning process more effective and efficient. overall, innovation research based on a.i. english teaching model has brought new development prospects to english education. with continuous innovation and improvement, we hope to build a more intelligent, personalized, and efficient english education system, cultivating english learners with a broad cross-cultural communication ability. this will promote the progress and development of global education, and create a more powerful foundation for crossing language and cultural barriers, achieving wider communication and cooperation. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 115 published by scholink inc. references belhassena, d. (2022). cbi in algeria’s higher education institutions: using the adjunct model to teach physics. international journal of applied linguistics and english literature, 11(4), 41-46. https://doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.11n.4p.41 chernysh, v. et al. (2023). rationale for a conceptual model of teaching english for special purposes. journal of language teaching and research, 14(4), 893-902. https://doi.org/10.17507/jltr.1404.05 jing, y. et al. (2023). educational metaverse: an exploration and practice of vr wisdom teaching model in chinese open university english course. interactive technology and smart education, 20(3), 403-421. https://doi.org/10.1108/itse-10-2022-0140 ren j. (2022). research on the application of tesol teaching model in english teaching. journal of educational research and policies, 4(9), 29-31. https://doi.org/10.53469/jerp.2022.04(09).25 wei, c. (2022). a study of college students’ foreign language anxiety in english learning based on the teaching model of sheltered instruction observation protocol. best evidence in chinese education, 10(1), 22. https://doi.org/10.15354/bece.22.or010 https://doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.11n.4p.41 https://doi.org/10.17507/jltr.1404.05 https://doi.org/10.1108/itse-10-2022-0140 https://doi.org/10.53469/jerp.2022.04(09).25 https://doi.org/10.15354/bece.22.or010 frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no.2, 2021 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) original paper a new school with spaces inclusive pedagogics josé manuel salum tomé, phd1 1 doctor of education, cautin, chile received: march 17, 2021 accepted: april 1, 2021 online published: april 12, 2021 doi:10.22158/fet.v4n2p53 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v4n2p53 abstract the current public policies in education matters of the chilean state have declared within their focus the educational inclusion and a new public quality education that offers the best opportunities to all its inhabitants, especially to the most vulnerable socially, culturally and economically. in this way, it takes the international commitment mandated by the united nations in the 2030 agenda for sustainable development, in particular the sustainable development goal 4, whose objective is to guarantee an inclusive and equitable quality education and to promote opportunities of permanent learning for all. the objective of this investigation considers studying the attitudes of pedagogy students to promote the inclusive school's development. it is necessary, therefore, to know what they think and feel one of their main actors that will lead these changes, future teachers. this study was developed under a quantitative, multivariate, descriptive and correlational model of the phenomenon based on the general perceptions of the sample according to the studied construct. the data collection was carried out through the adaptation to the chilean reality of the “questionnaire for future secondary education teachers about perceptions of attention to diversity” (colmenero & pegalajar, 2015). the results show a positive perception towards inclusion of students, but it is necessary materialized them in a better initial teacher training and in real inclusion practices. keywords inclusive education, teacher educator training, quantitative analysis 1. introduction since the middle of the last century educational systems around the world have increased with varying intensities and through various mechanisms—their ability to integrate more students. one of the most important consequences of this process is that schools have progressively become more diverse and complex spaces to develop teaching processes. thus, the convergence of children and adolescents of 53 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 different social, ethnic, racial, country of origin or physical, sensory and intellectual capacities challenges one of the main tasks of school communities: to ensure that all students participate and learn from the process learning. disparities in academic results and psychosocial skills and the prevalence of disruptive milestones in the school trajectory of minority or subordinate populations only exacerbate the diagnosis (glick, yabiku, & bates, july, 2008; román & perticará, 2012). the change in educational centers is transformed into an inclusive improvement when it is based on inclusive values. doing the right thing involves relating different school practices and actions to values. linking your actions to your values may be the most practical step toward better school buying. in the case of chile, the issue of school integration and, later, inclusive education has been present in the national discussion since the return to democracy. the main way in which this discourse has been installed in the country has been through the creation of a series of regulations, policies and technical-pedagogical guidelines, developed mainly by the state (ministerio de educación de chile, mineduc, 2005; mineduc, 2007; mineduc, 2015). in this way, the recognition of the diversity of students in the school system has been promoted, seeking to generate guidelines for the implementation of measures and concrete actions that allow providing relevant support to respond to educational needs within schools and classrooms. thus, efforts have been made to put into practice one of the internationally shared ways of understanding educational inclusion, considering it as: a process to address and respond to the diversity of needs of all children, youth and adults by increasing the the participation in learning, cultures and communities, and the reduction and elimination of exclusion dentr or from unesco and education (2009, p. 8). the previous definition moves away from the traditional understanding of inclusive education as one that addresses specific groups of students, moving to a more complex understanding, based on the conviction that the responsibility of the regular education system is to provide quality learning opportunities for everybody. however, and despite the importance of this definition, chilean educational policies have been developed mainly from a traditional perspective of inclusion, circumscribing it to specific topics such as students with special educational needs or students of ethnic origin, without fully considering the need to incorporate social, cultural, political and academic differences in the teaching process (infante & matus, 2009). in the pedagogy of inclusion education increasingly seen interest from the perspective of their own children and young people , consistent with the recognition of the rights of the child as part of the fundamentals ethical and filosofic years of quality education (white, 2006). in this sense, in recent times considerable attention has been paid to the interpretation and implementation of the right of the child to be heard as one of the fundamental principles on which the convention of the rights of the child is based, recognizing them as active protagonists, with the right to participate in decisions that affect their lives (lansdown, 2005). more specifically, it has been argued that narrative perspectives that seek to give a voice to excluded young people can illuminate issues that are not visible to the researchers’ own academic world (parrilla, 2009). 54 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 on the other hand, in the development of policies that seek to address the diversity of students in chile, a response based on the identification of specific groups and on the implementation of compensation strategies for the alleged individual deficits has predominated. this restricted way of approaching the response to diversity entails a static conception of development, which categorizes students based on their learning difficulties and grants them little or no participation in the actions that affect them (infante, 2007). therefore, educational practices based on the intervention of specialist professionals in a remedial and individual way persist with children identified as carriers of a problem (lópez et al., 2014). in this way, the policies developed in recent years to address diversity constitute a scenario that is not very conducive to the development of an inclusive perspective of the school, where many challenges arise. these challenges can be summarized in the idea of the need for a profound cultural change in national inclusion policies, pedagogical practices in schools and the conceptions of educational actors. part of this cultural change means overcoming what slee (2011) calls the “rationality system” of integration, that is, that although there are adjustments in the language that proposes a more inclusive approach to education, the way of thinking and operate in practice remains that of integration. in the framework of the research, we understand inclusive education as the continuous process of seeking a quality education for all, responding to diversity and the different learning needs, abilities, characteristics and expectations of students and communities, eliminating all the forms of discrimination. the concepts of learning and participation, therefore, are fundamental to understand the perspective of educational inclusion. in this context, “learning” refers to all students progressing in their capacities and developing their maximum potential, through broad educational experiences, relevant and meaningful for their lives, which not only aim at academic performance (ainscow & miles, 2009). in this sense, as has been proposed in the universal learning design (cast, 2008), in order to favor the learning of all students, it is necessary to ensure that the design of curricular materials and activities considers multiple means of representation of the contents by of the teacher, multiple forms of expression and communication of the content by students and multiple forms of motivation that respond to their diverse interests. as one of the inclusive values, participation means being and collaborating with others, being actively involved in decision-making, recognizing and valuing a variety of identities, that all are accepted for who they are (ainscow et al., 2006). the participation involves learning together with others and collaborate on lessons shared by implication active with what they learned and taught, being recognized and accepted for who they are (black-hawkins et to the, 2007). the participation involves all aspects of school life, it requires an active and collaborative learning for all and is based on relationships of mutual recognition and acceptance. the focus on participation contributes to inclusion the notion of active involvement, which implies: access (being there), collaboration (learning together) and diversity (recognition and acceptance). to address both learning and participation, it is relevant to pay attention to the development process of boys and girls and the conditions in which it occurs. in this regard, the sociocultural perspective provides 55 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 an understanding of development that is more consistent with a rights-based approach (lansdown, 2005). development is conceived from this perspective as a process of transformation of the child and his environment through the appropriation of tools that culture offers and participation in the problems and challenges of everyday life (rogoff, 1997). therefore, as argued by smith and taylor (2010, p. 33), “the capacities of children are strongly influenced by the expectations and opportunities for participation that their culture offers them, as well as by the amount of support they receive when acquiring new competences”. from the sociocultural perspective, the child is conceived as an active agent, actively constructing meanings from the stories and narratives in which the culture incorporates them (bruner, 1990). the education, then, is understood as a process of dialogue and transaction between adult and child, where both negotiate and recreate the meaning of the action together, and where the child has a voice protagónica, becoming a member of a creative community culture (bruner, 1986). following a similar argument, wells (2001) proposes that classrooms should become “communities of inquiry where the curriculum is seen to be created in an emergent way in the many modes of conversation with which the teacher and students understand in a way dialogic issues of inter e s individual and social through action, the construction of knowledge and reflection” (p. 113). however, as has been raised in the debate on the relationship between development theories and social practices directed towards childhood, what underlies many of these practices are certain theories of child development that conceive of the child as lacking in skills of communication , regulation and resolution of problems (bruner, 1986), as well as also conceptions of learning understood as transmission of objective knowledge of the teacher to the students that they should receive without interrogating (pozo et to the., 2006). these conceptions do not contribute to the development of an education that respects the child’s right to be heard. knowing the perspective that children have of educational processes, would allow to have a practical vision of what aspects to change and improve in the implementation of strategies that promote inclusion. as point out rudduck and flutter (2007, p. 40) “ideas of their world can help us see things that normally do not pay attention , but [that] if they matter.” after what has been raised and with the aim of understanding the possibilities and limits of the restructuring processes that educational inclusion implies, an element that is fundamental is the understanding of the meanings that students attribute to their daily experiences at school, assigning it to these play a leading role in the definition of the diagnosis of the situation, as well as the proposals for its improvement. in this regard, fullan (2002) in the framework of the discussion on educational reforms warns that adults rarely think of students as participants in organizational life and the processes of change in school, but simply see them as beneficiaries of these processes. the conclusion of his analysis on the role of students in initiatives for change, improvement or innovation in education is that “if we do not assign them some significant role in the work, most of the educational change -and indeed of education it will fail”(p. 178). 56 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 consequently, the objectives of this paper are to describe the meanings students construct about learning and participation, with the purpose of providing elements for an evaluation critical of policies that seek to explicitly promote inclusion. 2. the context of inclusion policy in chile the international agreements in force in chile allow the quality of education to be assumed, at least in general terms, as the condition of the training processes that allow the incorporation of the members of the social framework to the socio-cultural codes and understandings, in order to favor their dignified and active participation in society, thus being able to contribute in a real way to the permanent and effective improvement of democratic coexistence (unicef, 1994; unesco, 1990), which has also been extensively worked on in specialized documents on the subject (unesco-oei, 2005; delors, 1996; unesco/unicef, 2008, among others). although recent studies (muñoz, 2011) show that an ideal development on the subject has not been achieved at the latin american level, in chile public policy guidelines have been developed that intend to contribute to the improvement of equity in the training process (mineduc-chile, 2012). based on regulations previously indicated in chile, it has been established, in relation to the field of education, that actions of arbitrary discrimination correspond to: any distinction, exclusion or restriction that lacks reasonable justification, made by state agents or individuals, and that causes deprivation, disturbance or threat in the legitimate exercise of the fundamental rights established in the political constitution of the republic or in international treaties on human rights ratified by chile and that are in force, in particular when based on reasons such as race or ethnicity, nationality, socioeconomic situation, language, ideology or political opinion, religion or belief, union or participation in union organizations or the lack of them, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, age, affiliation, personal appearance and illness or disability (mineduc-chile, 2012). given the above, it is assumed that the decisions of educational establishments should consider not violating the right to education of the student for any of the reasons indicated. the foregoing should favor the generation of a climate in educational establishments, which allows the constitution of favorable conditions for student learning, considering the factors established by current research on educational achievement (backhoff, bouzas, contreras, hernandez, & garcía, 2007; unesco, 2010; unesco-oei, 2005; unesco, 2013; lópez, julio, & morales, 2011, among others) and its link with the school climate, as well as the generation of educational experiences that favor learning in diversity and the valuation of inclusive societal spaces (unesco, 2013; talou, borzi, sánchez, borzi, & talou, 2010; valenti, 2009, among others). specifically, within the regulations issued by the ministry of education of chile, regarding the operation of educational establishments, the implementation of management processes has been determined, with the support of financing through the special grant (mineduc-chile, 2008 and its subsequent refinements), guiding the permanent improvement of educational work, through the improvement plans. 57 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 within the framework of these plans, the space is established, within the sub-axis of coexistence, for the installation of guidelines that allow the establishment to advance in the achievement of educational experiences that favor inclusion. in this regard, research shows us, on the one hand, that we still have significant tensions and barriers to overcome in order to achieve an inclusive culture in our establishments, but at the same time, they provide us with interesting clues to reflect on. for example, urbina (2013) regarding the implicit theories of teachers in relation to educational inclusion establishes the existence of organizing axes that lead them to give an important weight to the role of individual differences in the results of the teaching and learning processes, over the teacher’s own role. however, at the same time, teachers present a positive assessment of innovation and the permanent improvement of their own doing, as well as of collaborative work, being what the author calls “ethics of care”, as a concern for emotional and general well-being on the other, an element of the school culture that would promote inclusive educational work. for their pate liñan and melo (2013), also on implicit theories in relation now to integration, they indicate that the majority of teachers positively value work with the sen approach, presenting an orientation, which the author calls, of pedagogical understanding, in which an interest in the effective learning of the student is expressed, from the perspective of the assessment of said student as a subject. regarding the representations of teachers on educational inclusion, morales (2011) and gallo (2010), point out the existence of positive evaluations. 3. the problem of inclusive education in the new constitution the convention on the rights of persons with disabilities calls on the signatory states to adapt their educational systems to be inclusive and of quality. many of you may wonder, is it necessary that we have to ratify something so obvious and dignified internationally? well, it is. and to illustrate it, i will give you a couple of examples that will help you to have an idea of the current reality, almost 10 years after the convention was signed: people with disabilities have 25% fewer years of schooling than the rest of the population. if the chilean population achieves 11.6 years of schooling, people with disabilities barely reach 8.6 years. in other words, on average they barely exceed basic general education. if you are a woman with a severe disability from the most vulnerable quintiles of the population or the rural population, the outlook for schooling is further diminished, with schooling gaps of up to 40% compared to the rest of the population (ine; 2018). although in the last 15 years there have been numerous support and benefits implemented by the state towards educational establishments, little is known about their availability in opportunity and necessary quality. above all, in adolescent populations or those who attend secondary education. in the latter case, the main problem is given by the high levels of school absenteeism that will necessarily influence their academic trajectory. 58 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 4. inclusive school environment but what do we need to implement an educational and inclusive school environment? first, a powerful plan for universal access to the curriculum. unfortunately, society tends to underestimate the possibilities of children and young people with disabilities to access knowledge related to the sciences, humanities and arts. even more so in the technical professional levels that can have a good relationship with the world of work from the time they leave the establishments. although there are initiatives led by universities on this line, their implementation and execution in the educational plans of the different levels is still incipient. second, the school climate as a factor of adherence to the educational system is configured as another critical element. school violence against students tends to be more recurrent in certain more vulnerable groups of young people and children and adolescents with disabilities are extremely exposed to it. it is widely known that those communities in which children live in diverse and inclusive environments are more tolerant and peaceful in childhood and adolescence. for this reason, it is essential that schools implement measures on the school climate strongly based, among some factors, on the fulfillment of the right to inclusive education that people with disabilities have. third is physical activity and recreation. familiarizing ourselves with the paralympic, special and unified sport through the various media has helped us to understand that people with disabilities not only can, but also seek spaces for physical activity and sport. but let’s not get confused, what we see there is that high performance that is destined for an elite that has the physical and attitudinal potential for competition at an international level. the most important drop should be focused on the development of instances of physical activity and healthy habits of people with disabilities. this, based in the first place that the presence of disability can be a factor of other diseases or unhealthy habits. second, because physical activity strengthens self-care behaviors, coexistence, sense of belonging, among others. for the same reason, the establishments must be articulators of instances of sport and healthy habits that allow people with disabilities to develop and share the recreational sports experience with their peers. the current chilean educational system has a high component of segregation and people with disabilities have been greatly affected, especially at the levels of secondary and higher education where state support and benefits present significant access gaps in terms of opportunity and quality. this will impact your adulthood and obviously, your ability to be productive and live with autonomy and independence. disability has been taken as part of the group of “bad students”, “those who screw up the school at simce”, “those who will not be able to give the psu”, among other epithets. for all the above, within a stage of profound social changes we must not forget to include them in the new public policies and also within the social agenda in favor of a better education and based on the rights of all. 5. origin of inclusive education the first milestone to advance educational inclusion that is declared today as a need felt in many developing countries, including chile, had its origin in the world declaration on education for all 59 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 developed in jomtien (thailand), where 155 met states in 1990 to raise the voice of those who for many years remained on the margins of society, be these children and young people and adults deprived of a basic education due to different conditions: immigrants, workers, populations in remote and rural areas, displaced by wars, refugees, ethnic, racial and linguistic minorities and peoples subjected to an occupation regime. this declaration established as a priority to universalize access to basic education, promote equity, give priority attention and build an environment conducive to learning and respect the essential right that all people have to education. it is recognized in it that “education can contribute to achieving a safer, healthier, more prosperous and environmentally purer world and that at the same time it favors social, economic and cultural progress, tolerance and international cooperation” (unesco, 1994, p. 6), but also that it will not be easy to achieve these objectives without a long-term commitment by all societies, especially the most developed ones, to actively contribute to the fight against poverty and social inequality. thus, during the following years various conferences will take place to reaffirm this first declaration of education for all (efa), reminding the signatory states and collaborating organizations of the commitments assumed. with the declaration on special educational needs: access and quality of salamanca (unesco, 1994), a qualitative leap was made to the political and educational process of an efa, considering the integration of vast sectors of the school population that for years were postponed and marginalized, how were people with sen. this salamanca declaration recognizes that all children, of both sexes, have the fundamental right to education in ordinary schools and that these must design programs that recognize the characteristics, interests, capacities and learning needs that are specific to each individual. it also incorporates as a force idea the participation and collaboration of families within educational centers and that of guaranteeing initial and permanent training programs for teachers in accordance with the new demands of an inclusive school. within the framework of action established to put this declaration into practice, it is demanded that, schools must welcome all children, regardless of their physical, intellectual, social, emotional, linguistic or other conditions. they should accommodate disabled children and well-endowed children, children living on the street and working children from remote or nomadic populations, children from ethnic or cultural linguistic minorities and children from other disadvantaged or marginalized groups or areas. (unesco, 1994, p. 6) the dream of an education for all began to gain momentum by including many more people who, in one way or another, have been systematically excluded within their societies. the challenges of inclusion have been posed since then for those in charge of designing educational policies and mainly for the educational system and schools that will have to modify their practices in favor of attending to the new diversity and the educational demands resulting from overcrowding of education in the last three decades (esteve, 2003). the world forum on education for all: meeting our common commitments, held in dakar (unesco, 2000) reaffirmed this idea of equal access and preferential attention to those students 60 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 with the greatest needs and the most vulnerable. a 15-year term was established as an agreement to consolidate and achieve the goal of basic education for all and gender equality in education. the 48th international conference on education entitled inclusive education: a way forward, held in geneva in 2008 in the middle of the process to achieve efa, member states and intergovernmental organizations, ngos and civil society institutions affirm that inclusive education it must also be of quality, equitable and effective, thus updating the concept of quality education for all (unesco, 2009). the idea that only with access and coverage would the goals of achieving human, social and economic development be achieved is overcome and progress is made towards what we currently understand by the concept of educational inclusion, which is much greater than the idea of assimilation, integration or tolerance that arose in the early nineties. the main recommendations delivered to the member states, as a result of the 4 regional discussions held prior to the conference, covered several areas, giving an account of the scope of this inclusion policy led by unesco. regarding the focus and scope of the concept, it is recognized that, inclusive education is a permanent process, the objective of which is to offer quality education for all, respecting diversity and the different needs and abilities, characteristics and learning expectations of learners and communities, eliminating all forms of discrimination. (unesco, 2009, p. 19) in addition, it mentions the fight against poverty and social inequality and the need to promote school and cultural environments that respect gender equality and the participation of the students themselves, their families and their communities. for public policies, it calls for gathering information on the various forms of exclusion that affect people, especially in the school context, where educational practices should be diversified in quality and equity. it is therefore necessary to design effective curricular frameworks from infancy onwards and formulate pedagogical support policies aimed at educational reforms aimed at inclusion and to develop national monitoring and quality assurance mechanisms. it highlights the leadership role that governments should play in promoting inclusion, ensuring the participation and consultation of all stakeholders to generate broad social commitment that reinforces, for example, the links between schools and families and that they can contribute to the educational process of their children. there are also recommendations for improving the status and working conditions of teachers, since they play a fundamental role in raising awareness and educating on and for inclusion. the paradigm shift will only be achieved with the commitment of the entire educational system, and this includes the continuous training of teachers on practices and learning towards inclusive education (essomba, 2006). it should therefore promote research on it and instances of work with the other educational actors of the educational act, establishes the mandate of the conference. finally, in this journey of the education for all (efa) movement, the un declaration of 2015 stands out, with the agreement of 193 countries to advance the 2030 agenda for sustainable development. objective 4 of said agenda seeks to guarantee an inclusive, equitable and quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all based on the development of goals such as: universal primary and 61 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 secondary education, access to care and development services in early childhood and preschool education, equal access to quality technical-vocational and higher education, increase the skills necessary to access decent work, eliminate gender disparities in education and ensure equal access at all levels of the education and vocational training for vulnerable people, including people with disabilities, indigenous peoples and children in vulnerable situations, literacy and youth and adults and better civic education that upholds human rights and creates a culture of education for the peace and appreciation of cultural diversity (un-eclac 2016). the historical journey of these multiple conferences and international agreements highlights the importance of valuing education as a means for the sustainable development of the world, but it also makes us aware of the need to transform our pedagogical practices in an increasingly complex and complex world changing. we must rethink what we understand by education (unesco, 2015) and therefore what the school and its main actors represent. since the 48th international conference on education on inclusive education, we can appreciate with greater force the training need required by teachers to realize the dream of an inclusive education, to train teachers by equipping them with the skills and materials necessary to teach different student populations and meet the different learning needs of different categories of learners, using methods such as school-level professional development, initial inclusion training and an instruction that takes into account the development and strengths of each learner. (unesco 2009, p. 21) higher education centers that train teachers have been affected by educational inclusion as an idea that seeks to transform pedagogical practices and have received demands in relation to incorporating new concepts such as sen, diversity, interculturality, integration and inclusion, as well as changes at the level of curricular networks and training programs in basic education, kindergarten and specialty careers (infante, 2010). the initial teacher training is responsible for reviewing and harmonizing the training plans of pedagogy careers to provide coherence and integration between the learning trajectory, modules, syllabus, among others. in favor of improving quality as well as the development of capacities aimed at inclusion, both in its theoretical aspects, but also practical as part of the daily work of pedagogical practices. the teachers of the school system are responsible, for their part, for the implementation of current public policies on inclusion (law 20.845), and also for creating the conditions for a school without barriers by updating their projects internal (educational, coexistence, evaluation, inclusion among others) and to achieve those challenges require ongoing training that enables them in the optimal exercise of their professionalism. the most representative authors of educational inclusion coincide in pointing out teacher training as a cornerstone in inclusive schools. nothing will be done if we do not have well-trained teachers in the dynamics of educational inclusion. the research carried out by gonzalez-gil (2016) concludes that the attitudes towards the inclusion of teachers are very positive and with high expectations in all their students, but they do not know or show resistance when modifying their daily educational practices in favor of inclusion, either due to lack of time, lack of resources and support from the educational 62 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 administration and families, as well as organizational obstacles of the school itself. in this same sense, they recognize that they are not sufficiently prepared, at the training level, to take on the challenge of inclusion and attention to the diversity of students in general. in the chilean case, the specialists trained in inclusion issues are special or differential educators, but the current challenges for all teacher training institutions is to take charge of the entire complexity of the educational system to guarantee the right to education for everyone. 6. educational inclusion concept the concept of inclusion was represented in the beginning to that of assimilation and then integration, because its origins are linked to traditional special education. the limited notion provided by this view of reality based on a medical vision of difference guided the educational policies of the states during the eighties and nineties, mainly in europe and north america, according to (slee, 2001). the concept of inclusion for echeita and sandoval (2002) refers to the right that all children and people have, not only those with special educational needs, to benefit from education so as not to be excluded from school or culture and society in general. stopping social exclusion therefore helps us to have greater dignity and equality, fundamental human rights. they reflect the same opinion (stainback & stainback w., 1999) when they establish that there has been a change in current schools that previously focused their efforts on integrating and meeting the needs of students with disabilities, but now the center is it has expanded the attention of all members of the educational community, thus increasing the possibilities of greater social cohesion. it should be remembered that at the end of the nineties the concept of integration of students with sen has been overcome and there has been a firm step towards educational inclusion, “the deficit paradigm is more focused on the subject’s shortcomings, on their weaknesses ; while the paradigm of knowledge, more current, more focused on the subject and his needs, opens and enables the person to deploy all their potentialities in the social environment where they live in participation with others”. (escribano & martínez, 2013, p. 21). ainscow, booth and dyson (2006) define educational inclusion as a process of continuous improvement that must be faced institutions to diagnose their exclusionary barriers and thus be able to eliminate them and promote student learning and participation. it is in this same sense that unesco (2005) will define educational inclusion as a process that attempts to respond to the diversity of student needs based on practices in schools, culture and communities, thereby reducing exclusion. the very concept of educational inclusion today will therefore depend on what its actors, within the communities, mean them both in their speeches and in their practices, hence the need to know inside what they think, what they believe and what what all the actors do inside the classrooms and educational centers, reveal the locally situated models of inclusion (mateus, vallejo, obando, & fonseca, 2017). and student participation processes in the chilean case is a challenge and current research should focus on its actors. inclusive education for public policies should be a priority since with them we not only transform and improve the school, but also society itself (slee & allan, 2001). 63 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 the objectives of the research are: • identify the attitude towards educational inclusion of pedagogy students from a chilean public university. • identify the quantitative weight of the variables: conditioning elements of the educational inclusion process, evaluation of teacher training in relation to educational inclusion and educational practice towards educational inclusion within the attitude towards educational inclusion of students in initial teacher training of a chilean public university. • identify the attitudinal levels towards educational inclusion and existing differences by: careers and years of admission to higher education in a chilean public university. 7. conclusion we can affirm that having a positive reach (84.7%) in the perception towards educational inclusion, this showed significant differences in the different variables that compose it, where the most positive perception is on the elements that condition and define educational inclusion (96.6%), followed by the perception of teacher training in relation to educational inclusion (71.3%), leaving in last place the perception of training teaching practices towards educational inclusion, where students show a reach lowest (65.5%). the consideration of a construct composed of variables of different nature, showed that each one of the variables has a certain weight with which its membership and consideration in the measurement carried out is confirmed, the variable with the greatest weight being the educational practice towards inclusion education that represents 77.6% of the global concept, followed by teacher training in relation to educational inclusion that represents 67.4% and the conditioning elements of the educational inclusion process, which only represent 41.8% of the concept. this would show an inclination of university students for the development of practices that strengthen inclusion, not from theory, but rather thinking about the role of constant interaction that they will play in their role as educators. the characterization of the different careers reflected that the positive perceptions in relation to educational inclusion maintain an order, where the first places are occupied by careers that do not correspond to specialties, so that the specific sciences are located in a second place and the students of careers belonging to pedagogies in languages or with a mention in languages other than english, have the lowest score. regarding the year of entry of the students, for the perceptions of the students about educational inclusion, three years of entry are considered, where the closer the year of entry, the students have more positive perceptions towards educational inclusion, which coincides with the considered variable 1 (elements that condition and define educational inclusion) and that totally disagree with variables 2 and 3 (teacher training in relation to educational inclusion and teacher training practice towards educational inclusion), which order inversely your results. 64 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 we can also affirm that, since there are differences in the means achieved by the different courses taught and the different years of admission, these are mostly significant at the level of comparison in the different careers, where the variable elements conditioning the process of educational inclusion, has a higher value for f, followed by the variables teacher training in relation to educational inclusion and educational training practice towards educational inclusion respectively. regarding the results obtained in the search for significant differences at the level of the students’ years of entry, the results show that the f value is significant only for the conditioning elements of the educational inclusion process, the only value obtained being greater than 1, where the variables teacher training in relation to educational inclusion and educational teaching practice towards educational inclusion and the value given to the complete questionnaire are not considered significant. finally, and by way of reflection, these results are an approach to the analysis of the complex relationships that are established in the training of future teachers, their attitudes towards educational inclusion and their possible actions in a context of pedagogical practice, so they should be taken with caution as it is limited to a sample contextualized to a recently created faculty. however, it provides elements that can be discussed by all the actors who want a paradigm shift towards a society that is rebuilt by looking directly at diversity, interculturality and inclusion of all. as stated by unesco (2015), it is necessary to rethink the aims of education and the construction of knowledge in a changing and complex world, and for this the figure of educators will continue to be a factor of change and transformation. the possibilities for sustainable and inclusive development should move us to focus on new approaches to learning for all, and that promote social equity and global solidarity. the work of attention to inclusion is urgent and it is necessary for teacher training institutions to consider the variables described for the improvement of their professional paths, both at the curricular and extra-curricular levels. institutions of higher education through initial teacher training require constant practice in issues of inclusion and attention to diversity and for this it must build bridges with the permanent training of teachers, teacher unions, education administrators, grassroots organizations and especially schools, in order to ensure continuity of innovations and improvement processes that are pursued for a new quality public education with a real sense of social justice. references ainscow, m., booth, t., & dyson, a. (2006). improving schools, developing inclusion. london: routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203967157 blanco, r. (2006). equity and social inclusion: one of the challenges of education and school today. iberoamerican electronic magazine on quality, efficacy and change in education, 4(3), 1-15. bruner, j. (1986). mental reality and possible worlds. barcelona: gedisa. https://doi.org/10.4159/9780674029019 bruner, j. (1990). acts of meaning. but beyond the revolution cognitive. madrid: editorial alliance. 65 published by scholink inc. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203967157 https://doi.org/10.4159/9780674029019 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 caro, a., escalante, e., & barahona, l. (2002). analysis and treatment of data in spss. valparaíso: editions university of playa ancha. colmenero, m. j., & pegalajar, m. c. (2015). questionnaire for future secondary education teachers about perceptions of attention to diversity: construction and validation of the instrument. studies on education, 29, 165-189. https://doi.org/10.15581/004.29.165-189 chiner, e. (2011). the perceptions and attitudes of teachers towards the inclusion of students with special educational needs as indicators of the use of inclusive educational practices in the classroom (doctoral thesis). university of alicante, spain. echeita, g., & sandoval, m. (2002). inclusive education or education without exclusions. education magazine, 327, 31-48. escribano, a., & martínez, a. (2013). educational inclusion and inclusive teachers: learning together to learn to live together. madrid: narcea. essomba, m. (2006). leading intercultural and inclusive schools: management teams and teachers in the face of cultural diversity and immigration. barcelona: graó. esteve, j. (2003). the third educational revolution: education in the knowledge society. barcelona: paidós ibérica. gonzález-gil, f., martin-pastor, e., poy, r., & jenaro, c. (2016). teachers’ perceptions about inclusion: preliminary study. teaching staff. interuniversity electronic journal of teacher training, 19(3), 11-24. https://doi.org/10.6018/reifop.19.3.219321 infante, m. (2010). challenges to teacher training: educational inclusion. pedagogical studies, 36(1), 287-297. kerlinger , e., & lee, h. (2002). behavioral research. mexico city: mcgraw-hill. lópez, v., julio, c., pérez, m. v., morales, m., & rojas, c. (2014). cultural barriers to inclusion: integration policies and practices in chile. journal of education, 363, 256-281. manghi, d., julio, c., conejeros, m., donoso, e., murillo, m., & díaz, c. (2012). the teacher of differential education in chile for the xxi century: transit of paradigm in professional training. educational perspective magazine, 51(2), 46-71. https://doi.org/10.4151/07189729-vol.51-iss.2-art.109 mateus, l., vallejo, d., obando, d., & fonseca, l. (2017). perception of inclusive culture and practices in a school community. advances in latin american psychology, 35(1), 177-191. https://doi.org/10.12804/revistas.urosario.edu.co/apl/a.4854 mineduc. (2007). quality of school integration and associated factors. mineduc. (2008). framework for good teaching. mineduc. (2015). law no. 20,845. school inclusion law that regulates the admission of students, eliminates shared financing and prohibits profit in educational establishments that receive contributions from the state. 66 published by scholink inc. https://doi.org/10.15581/004.29.165-189 https://doi.org/10.6018/reifop.19.3.219321 https://doi.org/10.4151/07189729-vol.51-iss.2-art.109 https://doi.org/10.12804/revistas.urosario.edu.co/apl/a.4854 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 nunnally, j. (1973). introduction to psychological measurement. mexico city: regional center for technical assistance. nunnally, j. (1987). psychometric theory. city of mexico: trillas. oecd. (2009). talis report. creating effective teaching and learning environments. synthesis of the first results. un/eclac. (2016). 2030 agenda and the sustainable development goals. an opportunity for latin america and the caribbean. santiago de chile: eclac. richardson, v. (1996). the role of attitudes and beliefs in learning to teach. in j. sikula (ed.), handbook of research on teacher education (pp. 102-119). new york, ny: macmillan. sanhueza, s., granada, m., & bravo, l. (2012). attitudes of teachers in chile and costa rica towards educational inclusion. cadernos de pesquisa, 42(147), 884-899. https://doi.org/10.1590/s0100-15742012000300013 slee, r. (2001). inclusion in practice: does practice make perfect? educational review, 53, 113-123. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131910120055543 slee, r., & allan, j. (2001). excluding the included: a reconsideration of inclusive education. international studies in sociology of education, 11(2), 173-192. https://doi.org/10.1080/09620210100200073 stainback, s., & stainback, w. (1999). inclusive classrooms: a new way of approaching and living the curriculum. madrid: narcea. tenorio, s. (2011). initial teacher training and special educational needs. pedagogical studies, 37(2), 249-265. unesco. (1990). world declaration on education for all and the framework for action to meet basic learning needs. paris: unesco. unesco. (1994). declaration on special educational needs: access and quality of salamanca. paris: unesco. unesco. (2000). world forum education for all. paris: unesco. unesco. (2005). guidelines for inclusion: ensuring access to education for all. paris: unesco. unesco. (2009). 48th session international education conference: inclusive education: a way forward. paris: unesco. unesco. (2015). rethink education. towards a global common good? paris: unesco. 67 published by scholink inc. https://doi.org/10.1590/s0100-15742012000300013 https://doi.org/10.1080/00131910120055543 https://doi.org/10.1080/09620210100200073 original paper microsoft word fet-v2n2-p120 frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 120 short paper comparison on training mode of graduate education between france and china wang yuanbin1* & liu shulin1 1 school of electrical and control engineering, xi’an university of science and technology, shaanxi, china * wang yuanbin, school of electrical and control engineering, xi’an university of science and technology, shaanxi, 710054, china received: april 30, 2019 accepted: may 6, 2019 online published: may 7, 2019 doi:10.22158/fet.v2n2p120 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v2n2p120 abstract france and china both are of typical power centralization with similar political management systems, and there are same and different aspects existing in higher education. so comparison between the two countries is meaningful. curriculum provision, innovation ability cultivating and training mode are compared between france and china. development trend of graduate education is also presented. some enlightenment may be obtained to improve chinese higher education level further. keywords graduate education, france, cultivating, education quality 1. introduction with the continuous attention about education, education quality is becoming a new focus recently. it is also the main way to improve scientific research and promote productivity. it plays an important role in social development. graduate education is a significant method for high level talents training all over the world. now in new age, education quality and quantities appeared, graduate education is confronted with new chance and challenge. there is still some deficiency existing. education quality is concerned by all walks of life, and it is a novel and complicated project. higher education in france has a long history. the first higher divinity school was built in 1257, and was developed quickly in renaissance. it was helpful and significant in world war ii. the structure of higher education in france is complicated, and education level is advanced. therefore, education quality is investigated and analyzed between france and china in order to improve our cultivating level of graduates. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 121 published by scholink inc. a. now the cultivating of graduates has some problems like the following. (1) funding is not sufficient education investment is the guarantee for education development. equipment of scientific technology should be reinforced and updated, learning condition of graduates should be improved. the training of graduates is related with scientific research, at the same time scientific equipment and environment should be provided, and all of the above is associated with national funding. however, funding is limited, and funding channel is narrow. graduates cannot join academic meeting and exchange with others due to the lack of funding. the scientific resource is unfair between different universities. it is harmful for the training. (2) fundamental teaching facility is not sufficient library and experiment equipment are scanty. there is no special space for the learning of students. some of them cannot find appropriate room for learning. many books and materials are old, electric sources are not complete, books about frontier knowledge are scarce, and this will influence their learning. therefore fundamental teaching facility should be provided sufficiently. (3) curriculum provision is not reasonable there are three kinds of courses, required course, optional course and common required course. students can master basic theory and technique after learning required courses. optional courses are selected according to their research focus and interest. some courses are old and not updated, and scientific dynamic research is not presented in the class. this kind of teaching mode and content is not easy for students to master the logic system of the subjects. theory knowledge is behind the new technology, and theory learning cannot match with practice. (4) graduates are short of innovation ability innovation is a source for country’s development, and is an important index of international competitiveness. the cultivating of innovation ability is a requirement for social development, international competitiveness, and scientific activity is a good way to cultivate innovation ability. firstly, graduates are short of scientific research training, and it is not easy for them to cultivate the ability of scientific thinking. secondly, exchange and cooperation between teams are scarce, thus innovation ability and independent research ability are insufficient. b. according to the successful experience in graduates’ cultivating from france, we can do like the following combined with our national situation. (1) increase the funding input, and improve scientific research environment education funding is a guarantee to improve scientific environment, and enhance the scientific ability of graduates. therefore our government should pay more attention to the cultivating, increase the funding input, and improve the scientific environment actively, such as purchasing new books, new experiment equipment and new network resources. on the other hand, allocating scholarship to the poor students will make them do research work earnestly. fair education environment may be created for all the graduates. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 122 published by scholink inc. (2) improve the curriculum provision according to the training goal, social requirement and employment requirement, curriculum provision should be improved. students can select courses interdisciplinarily, even select courses between different colleges. furthermore, they can select courses based on the demanding of enterprise and market. thus theory can be combined with practice better. it is easier for students to be adaptive for the future work. (3) enhance the innovation ability innovation is the soul of a nation, and a drive for economic development. therefore the people with innovation ability is precious wealth for a country. in the period of course learning, the thinking and training of innovation should be paid more attention to. in the period of writing thesis, graduates should be good at putting forward, analyzing and solving problem creatively. on the other hand, guiding students into practice, finding problems and solving problems is the source of innovation. when students are confronted with some practical problems which are crossed and permeated each other. tutors may guide students to widen their basic theory and knowledge structure firstly, then solve the projects together and enhance their innovation ability. therefore guiding students into the frontier of subjects is a significant premise. 2. development trend of graduate education now we have entered into 21st century. how to face the future world and future society is a great project, such as education goal, courses, teaching method, administration and quality evaluation. graduate education is developing in these ways: (1) diverse training goal firstly, the training goal of graduate education is to cultivate higher level academic researcher, secondly, cultivating professional talents many-sided is our direction. thirdly, people can relearn in their later life. it can be predicted that under social pressure, adults must improve themselves by continuous learning. in this course, they must go there and back between colleges and society. graduate education must face the people who pursue new knowledge and technology and relearn in future. (2) the trend of internationalization on one hand, graduate education is internationalized widely. many world-class universities pay much attention to international exchange, and they have many overseas students who are also cultural ambassadors. the overseas students promote the exchange and permeating in the aspects of culture, science and technology. on the other hand, teachers should also be internationalized. they should go abroad for exchange, and at the same time foreign famous teachers should be invited to our country. in all, countries should be studied from each other to enhance the training quality of graduates and make them fit for the international requirement. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 123 published by scholink inc. of course, it must be pointed out in the course of internationalization, we must keep our own excellent tradition and develop our advantages, thus we can exchange with other countries equally, we can stand in the world by ourselves, and we can achieve acknowledge and esteem from international society. 3. conclusion the probing of chinese characteristics education mode should be summarized on our chinese successful experience of graduate education. on the base of comparative analysis between china and france, advanced experience and method of france can be taken example, and chinese administration mode of graduate education will be innovated and improved. discussing and perfecting on graduate education is also the direction of establishing modern higher education. references mao, c. j., & li, p. (2007). a comparative study on higher education of china and french—from the perspective of factor analysis. meitan higher education, 25(1). yang, k., & zhan, y. h. (2012). a comparative study of chinese and french graduate education for professional degrees. journal of higher education management, 6(1). yu, l. m., ma, j. m., zhang, x. t., wang, l. m., duan, f., & xu, p. (2019). on the comparison and blend between the teaching methodology of the pre-undergraduate course in france and that of the undergraduate course in china. research in higher education of engineering. microsoft word fet-v3n2-p31 frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 31 original paper the contribution of collaborative tasks to the development of mediation competencies through learning management systems euphrosyne efthimiadou1* 1 department of aeronautical sciences, hellenic air force academy, dekeleia, greece * euphrosyne efthimiadou, e-mail : efrosin13@yahoo.com received: april 26, 2020 accepted: april 30, 2020 online published: may 7, 2020 doi:10.22158/fet.v3n2p31 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v3n2p31 abstract in our digital era the adoption of innovative pedagogical approaches is based on the active involvement through collaborative tasks of the participants in the pedagogical process. in this context, mediation skills in the process of cultivating learning strategies play an essential role to the educational process and upgrade the contribution of the mentor-teacher, since the socio-emotional dimension of interpersonal relationships positively contributes to awareness and self-awareness. in addition, in an action-oriented approach, the creation of pedagogical scenarios through learning management systems focuses on mediation skills through the exchange of experiences, skills and good practices, enabling each participant to exploit the group’s potential and to create strategic partnerships, which bring added value to the dynamic integration of the learners in social and professional frameworks. keywords mediation competencies, collaborative tasks, action-oriented approach, socio affective strategies, mentoring, learning management systems 1. introduction at the threshold of the 21st century, the development of new technological tools increasingly manifests the need for communication and interaction between people by cultivating their digital skills. more specifically, in the pedagogical context, the adoption of views and attitudes is influenced by the degree of awareness of the participants and their active presence through collaborative actions, in order to cultivate mediation skills with the support of new it systems. on the one hand, communication skills www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 32 published by scholink inc. and above all, the development of mediation skills such as the socio-emotional one, aims at raising awareness and cultivating learning strategies, beyond acquiring knowledge. on the other hand, the contribution of collaborative activities can lead to the acquisition of good practices and experiences and upgrade not only the cognitive and socio-emotional level of the participants but also modify behaviors and attitudes, by integrating and adopting learning management systems in the teaching and learning process. 2. the contribution of collaborative actions to the development of mediation skills in recent years, the new pedagogical methodology which is based on action-oriented approach, suggesting a holistic method focusing on participatory models and dynamic interventions to upgrade learning, has enabled educators and learners to actively participate in the pedagogical process by developing collaborative tasks, which not only highlight the acquisition of more knowledge but also underline the socio-emotional dimension of interpersonal relationships through the two-way relationship that is created, allowing the diffusion of ideas, beliefs and attitudes towards cultivating mediation skills and bridge differences in mindset by broadening reflexion and frames of mind. 2.1 the importance of mediation through the development of collaborative tasks in an action-oriented approach the adoption of the actional approach enables the activation of microand macro-commands in micro & macro-tasks by cultivating communication skills, in order to respond effectively to the social and professional reality. in this context, learners act and co-act to give themselves the opportunity to carry out micro-expertises through simple and/or complex tasks while attributing a praxeological dimension to the act of learning. according to puren (2004, p. 21), the social action focuses on adapting learners to the environment and on the teacher’s choices of a certain teaching/learning method which intervenes through combined or articulated tasks to optimize mutual expectations. in this way, flexibility is achieved at the level of the perception of the individual involved in collaborative actions and an opportunity is given to him/her to invest in the pedagogical process since, at an individual level, he/she would not have the courage to take initiative to implement original ideas and intervention plans by engaging in new actions. in addition, he/she can meet co-learners who, would appear reserved or even characterized by distancing in a traditional learning framework. as efthimiadou puts it, “in this way, communication is constructive because learners are gradually trained through tasks that encourage information management but also controlling attitudes, which allow to cultivate emotional and behavioral values without neglecting the pluralistic interpretations of the learners” (efthimiadou, april 2018, p. 637). the ultimate goal of cultivating mediation skills is to address the new challenges of modern societies by better managing uncontrolled situations and adopting strategies to eliminate differences by transferring collaborative actions in a pedagogical learning environment. in this context, the cultivation of mediation skills requires, in addition to acquiring knowledge, the development of awareness and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 33 published by scholink inc. mutual understanding in interpersonal relationships developed by a collaborative action plan. as a result, the cultivation of mediation techniques aims to increase the capabilities of the learners by supporting the participants at each stage of the intervention plan. it is underlined that proper information management, dynamic cooperation and problem-solving process allows participants to: a. invest in the action plan by positively negotiating the challenges that are being raised; b. self-control and increase confidence not only in themselves but also in all group members by increasing the dynamics of everyone involved; and c. perform creative actions daring to make decisions characterized by divergence and originality. for this reason, the action-oriented approach is defined as a multidimensional and holistic approach, which aims to cultivate the physical and emotional aspect but also the mental and psychological state of the participants in the pedagogical process. according to the action-based approach, group interactions give a cognitive, socio-emotional and behavioural dimension to the implementation of collaborative tasks linking conviviality and pragmatism (efthimiadou, 2017, p. 178). 2.2 the role of mentor in the development of the socio-emotional dimension of mediation skills it is understandable that the cultivation of mediation allows the development of a certain degree of awareness to all those involved in the learning process because the development of mediation skills has as its ultimate goal the ability to interpret and associate attitudes and behaviors adopted in forms of modern and asynchronous education at the same time. it is notable that oxford, r. (2011) uses emotional strategies to combat blockages and work on problem solving by reporting 1) activation of supportive emotions, beliefs and attitudes and 2) generating and maintaining motivation. in this respect, the role of mentor-teacher is considered a catalyst because it strengthens mutual trust between members of the educational community by contributing to reciprocal understanding and mutual respect, aiming to systematically guide and prepare the target group for the new challenges that arise in the social and professional surroundings. as efthimiadou notes, “in this case, the mentor takes on a mediating role, which will allow people in training to develop their professional skills and take care of themselves continuously to acquire new skills, in order to guarantee the self-confidence and energy necessary to fight against any potential failure” (efthimiadou, 2019, p. 41). in addition, the contribution of the mentor-educator facilitates the cooperation of the members of the target group towards the proper transmission and processing of information, in order to guide those involved in the management of data through collective thinking by regulating the emotional behavior of the learners. furthermore, lasnier (2000) proposes a taxonomy where emotional strategies such as reception, motivation, anxiety management, cooperation and conflict resolution remain linked to time, material resources, human resources and environmental management strategies. in fact, it is important to note the research conducted since 1950 by gregory bateson—founder of the mental research institute in palo alto, california in the 1960s and 1970s—which explores the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 34 published by scholink inc. systemic interactional approach to studying human behaviour and especially the interactions that are being forged in his/her surroundings. currently the gregory bateson institute, founded in 1987 for french-speaking europe, is extending innovative research into the strategic systemic approach to study human behaviour and possible interactions of people within the system while respecting their worldview (efthimiadou, 2018). 3. the importance of mediating skills in a modern and asynchronous environment through learning management systems nowadays, taking into account the fact that digital skills for using computer systems have already been integrated into the schools’ curricula, as well as in social and professional contexts, we must ask ourselves how the mediating skills can raise awareness among those involved, by promoting an active pedagogical approach. in this way collaborative tasks through learning management systems allow participants to act by themselves by adopting techniques as well as to aim at the development of learning strategies. 3.1 mediation skills and harmonisation with contemporary requirements through the development of digital skills due to globalisation it would be interesting to focus on a broader framework of exchanging ideas and sharing values in order to develop the communication channels for understanding, processing and producing new information in a demanding environment of modern and asynchronous education. it is important that groups of individuals who will be engaged in the process of mediation understand more and more the processes of continuous change, when they communicate either live or online in a modern and asynchronous form of education using innovative communication tools, such as discussion forums, blogs and chat rooms, which promote mediation skills and thus the cooperation of group members. one of the primary objectives in a digital learning environment is to take strategic decisions when designing good practices and effective tasks, encouraging the active participation of the target group through multiple channels of communication and the establishment of harmonious relations between members. online training offers the opportunity to combine flexible communication tools with applications to be managed easily such as forums, e-mails, video conferencing, virtual classes (e-class). in addition, it is possible to offer collaborative interactive activities enriched through the use of wikis or blogs but also by sharing information and communicating online to develop simulations or even online educational scenarios (efthimiadou, 2019, pp. 45-46). the exchange of experiences and good practices lays on the group’s potential to perform complex commands by developing a sense of responsibility and professionalism. the implementation of learning management systems either in a mixed learning model context or in a context of open and distance learning plays an essential role in the personal level of developing learning strategies and at the collective level of cultivating professional skills of learners. it is certain that the involvement of the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 35 published by scholink inc. learners in multiple collaborative tasks stimulates coherence and solidarity between them and at the same time emphasis is placed on the importance of mediation skills through the cultivation of team spirit in the design and development of complex commands through learning management systems. 3.2 learning management systems: the development of project pedagogy and the creation of digital pedagogical scenarios in an action-oriented approach, the subjects assume their responsibilities as agents in a social contract while taking part in a cooperative action project. “in that case the global simulations are defined as a technique that allows, on the one hand, to promote the development of ideas by evidence of divergence in the dramatization of more or less fictitious situations while, on the other hand, to create links in balance with the other members towards the realization of the collaborative tasks.” (efthimiadou, april 2018, p. 638) collaborative learning based on information and communication technologies provides participants with digital resources to design and mediatize educational scenarios. the use of the moodle collaborative platform makes dynamic and effective scenarios implemented because the members of the class group are psychologically involved in achieving the progressive stages where their level of motivation is strengthened thanks to the cooperative spirit and positive interdependence among participants. (efthimiadou, 2017, p. 184). to support collaborative projects, the learning environment incorporates awareness tools that help learners become aware of their activity and that of their partners. the tools to make this diagnosis are often referred to as “dashboard”. they inform the subjects about the state of their actions and interactions within the group through a series of indicators (janssen et al., 2011). in the learning environment, it gives them the opportunity to visualize, in graphic and encrypted form, information about how they collaborate within their team (temperman, g. hare, & b. de stercke, 2012, p. 322). in the digital era new computer tools, multimodal and open approaches can facilitate exchanges about different topics putting into practice actual time learning methods and ensuring new training requirements through the adoption of good educational practices that cultivate a knowledge-based acting focused on creative potential. finally, the adoption of tactics to perform strategic experiential training encourages the class group to assume its responsibilities to interact in a climate of collaboration and development (efthimiadou, 2017, pp. 185-186). 4. discussion the ultimate goal is to address the new challenges of modern societies by better managing uncontrolled situations and adopt strategies to eliminate any differences in divergences in terms of understanding and undertaking targeted actions to effectively integrate all those involved in the learning process in the socio-professional environment. in this way, a two-way interaction is implemented to active and conscious citizens who become aware of their personal attitude and behaviour and as a result, they take initiative or even act through coordinated collaborative tasks eliminating negative attitudes, by www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 36 published by scholink inc. selecting the appropriate emotional response and dynamic involvement of any student through learning management systems which act as regulators. references efthimiadou, e. (april 2018). creative interaction in an actional approach on second language acquisition. journal of literature and art studies, 8(4), 635-639. https://doi.org/10.17265/2159-5836/2018.04.012 efthimiadou, e. (2018). communication interactionnelle: remédier les dysfonctionnements et gérer les émotions dans l’espace éducatif. annals of the university of craiova, series psychology, pedagogy, 38(2), 23-33. efthimiadou, e. (2017). cultiver les tâches collaboratives pour une pédagogie de projet dans une perspective actionnelle. in enseigner/apprendre le français à l’université. quelles applications pour la perspective actionnelle? de la construction individuelle à l’action collective (pp.175-188). coord.: aphrodite maravelaki, khalil moussafir, jean donckers, geneviève geron. ed: le langage et l’homme. louvain-la-neuve: eme editions. efthimiadou, e. (2019). la contribution du mentor. gérer le parcours de formation des enseignants par l’adoption de pratiques éducatives novatrices à l’ère du numérique. in mentoring and flexible pathways in education. proceedings of the 4th edition of the international conference on education and spirituality (pp. 40-48). teacher training department (dppd) and centre for psychological and pedagogical research, university of craiova, editura universitară, bucureşti. janssen, j., erkens, g., & kirschner, p. (2010). group awareness tools: it’s what you do with it that matters. computers in human behavior, 27, 1046-1058. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2010.06.002 lasnier, f. (2000). réussir la formation par compétences. montréal: guérin éditeur. oxford, r. (2011). teaching and researching language learning strategies. harlow: harlow, pearson education limited. puren, ch. (février 2004). de l’approche par les tâches à la perspective coactionnelle. les cahiers de l’apliut, xxiii(1), 10-27. https://doi.org/10.4000/apliut.3416 temperman, g., de lièvre, b., & de stercke, j. (2012). collaborer et s’autoréguler à distance pour acquérir une formation pédagogique de base: analyse de la progression des étudiants (pp. 319-332). in karsenti, thierry; garry, raymond-philippe; benziane, abdelbaki; ngoy-fiama balthazar bitambile et baudot, fabienne. montréal: réseau international francophone des établissements de formation de formateurs (rifeff)/agence universitaire de la francophonie (auf). frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no.4, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) original paper pedagogical efficacy of connections-og in 3-d®: a reading program based on the science of reading carol klages1* & mary-margaret scholtens2 1 university of houston-victoria, victoria, texas, united states 2 kelly fowler, cherry frierson, the apple group, jonesboro, arkansas, united states * carol klages, university of houston-victoria, 3007 n. ben wilson street, victoria, texas, 77901, united states received: august 12, 2020 accepted: september 5, 2020 online published: october 7, 2020 doi:10.22158/fet.v3n4p10 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v3n4p10 abstract no one disputes the importance of reading to life, career, and success. what is under debate is how to teach one to read. this research investigation analyzes the pedagogical efficacy of the connections-og in 3-d® reading program. connections: og in 3d® is a structured literacy curriculum that systematically teaches the entire structure of the english language. each lesson provides direct, explicit instruction in the five components of reading, as outlined in the nrp report (2000). five elementary schools, in arkansas and missouri, used this program with fidelity to teach all their early elementary students how to read. the application of the connections: og in 3d® began in 2017 and continues to present day. each school conducted its own assessments to determine student reading success. these assessments were collected, analyzed, and reviewed by sources outside the school district and connections: og in 3d®. the results of utilizing a structured literacy program based on the science of teaching reading is shared. 1. introduction the cost of illiteracy and reading difficulties in american society is widely accepted and largely incontrovertible. being an illiterate adult in the united states can be costly. according to the 2019 national assessment of educational progress (naep) or better known as the nation’s report card, 35% of american fourth graders read at a proficient level and 34% of american eighth graders read at a proficient level. research compiled for the national conference of state legislatures (2020) third graders who are not reading on grade level are most likely to eventually drop out of school. illiteracy has a monetary influence on people as well. american employers spend $125.9 billion dollars to train 10 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 potential employees in the areas of remedial reading, writing, and mathematic skills (proliteracy, 2020). educators must act on scientific research in order to prevent reading failures. illiteracy stems from lack of appropriate reading instruction in the early school years. since reading is not a natural process, literacy must be taught through the lens of the science of reading. literacy teaching must encompass all the elements and modalities in one comprehensive, research-based program. one such program is from the apple group connections: og in 3d® (frierson & scholtens, 2014 (connections: og in 3d®)) science-based reading. connections: og in 3d® is an efficacious methodology for addressing reading difficulties with proven reading results. multiple modalities have been developed to address the process of teaching children to read and address reading difficulties. the most successful, however, are predicated on science-based reading instruction and evidence-based approaches. according to the national reading panel (nrp) report (national institute of child health and human development (nichd), 2000) states that effective reading instruction focuses on five critical areas: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. while many schools may use different approaches to these five components, the nrp (2000) determined that systematic and explicit instruction is best. teaching reading effectively, especially to students who are struggling, requires considerable knowledge and skill. a valuable approach for teaching children to read is that of the connections: og in 3d® program. this program has produced significant reading results for years with recent data over the last three years in grades kindergarten, first and second thus, making it a significant research-based literacy program. 2. review of literature 2.1 the science of reading while the approaches to teaching reading may vary, the foundation of those approaches cannot. the nrp report made it very clear that effective reading instruction must address five specific components that are taught systematically and explicitly: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension (nichd, 2000). the first component is phonemic awareness. phonemic awareness is significant to learning an alphabetic language (wagner, torgesen, & rashotte, 1994). phonemic awareness is understanding that spoken words consist of separate parts of sound that can be blended together to make words. by measuring the degree to which children develop phonemic awareness, researchers can identify who would learn to read with ease and who would have difficulty (share, jorm, maclean, & matthews, 1984). phonemic awareness plays a significant role in learning to read. the second component is phonics. appropriate phonics instruction supports the skills children need to read and spell words automatically. jeanne chall (1967) began important research that supports the systematic phonics instruction. phonics is more than mastery of simple relationships between letters and sounds. it includes lessons in word structure and origin (moats, 2007). phonics instruction promotes the relationship between graphemes, which are letters or letter combinations and phonemes which are individual speech sounds. a strong literacy program is not limited to phonics instruction. 11 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 the third component in effective teaching of reading is fluency. fluency instruction should be built on understanding, “reading fluency that supports comprehension is built on automaticity in word recognition, accurate word reading, prosody, and expression” (moats & tolman, 2009). according to kilpatrick (2019), “the elusive key to reading fluency is sight word vocabulary”. without a sight word vocabulary, reading is effortful and often incorrect. fluency is a product of efficient reading instruction. the fourth component in efficient reading instruction is vocabulary. vocabulary is a set of words children must know to communicate with others. vocabulary encompasses four types: listening, speaking, reading, and writing (learning point, 2004). two instructional strategies that improve reading comprehension are based on ongoing, long-term vocabulary instruction (beck, perfetti, & mckeown, 1982) and teaching vocabulary before making a reading assignment (brett, rothlein, & hurley, 1996; wixson, 1986). scarborough (2001) lists breadth and depth as important during vocabulary study. breadth affects reading comprehension while depth affects fluency (tannenbaum, torgeson, & wagner, 2006). vocabulary knowledge is vital to becoming a successful reader. the fifth component of effective reading instruction is comprehension. comprehension is understanding what one reads. the content of comprehension is the sum of its parts. gough and tunmer (1986) depicted reading comprehension as the sum or word recognition (or decoding), multiplied by language comprehension. skills upon which comprehension is dependent should be taught. word reading, vocabulary, syntax, background knowledge, inferencing, and attention are skills that are important for making sense of text (kilpatrick, 2015). reading comprehension relies on many covert mental activities. again, all of the components of effective reading instruction must be taught in a systematic, explicit manner (nrp, 2000). these specific guidelines can be a challenge but are necessary for successful reading instruction. systematic instruction is done in a planned, logical progressive sequence (learning point associates, 2004). certain sounds that are easier to learn should be taught before those that are more difficult. the lesson objectives are clear and specific in terms of what students must be able to do. according to the international dyslexia association (2020), the organization of what is taught to students should follow the logical order of the language. carefully created tasks give students learning opportunities to apply what they have been taught. any assessments are designed in a timely manner to check skill attainment as well as the application of new skills and their retention over time as students work independently. explicit instruction requires that the teacher state clearly what is being taught. the student does not have to guess what he/she is supposed to know from the lesson. explicit instruction requires teachers to model how a skill is to be used. carefully created tasks give students learning opportunities to apply what they have been taught (international dyslexia association, 2020). in this approach, the student’s attention is focused on what is important to know or do. the connections: og in 3d® reading program is based on the five components of effective reading instruction that is systematically and explicitly delivered. 12 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 3. connections: og in 3-d® connections: og in 3d® is a structured literacy curriculum that systematically teaches the entire structure of the english language. each lesson provides direct, explicit instruction in the five components of reading, as outlined in the nrp report (2000). lessons are cumulative and follow a logical order. the scope and sequence present the alphabetic principle in order of frequency of use, from simplest to most complex. concepts are taught from concrete to abstract, through hands-on lessons with 3-d materials. the 3-d materials evolved from the multisensory approach of orton-gillingham (gillingham & stillman, 1960, 1997) for teaching reading. students can “hold” and manipulate sounds in their hands with 3-d objects. an example of a 3-d object used in this literacy program would be an actual apple. the student would hold this apple, smell the apple, and even taste the apple, if appropriate, in order to learn the short vowel sound of /a/. connections: og in 3d® follows the principles and content of a multisensory structured language approach. connections: og in 3d® stands apart from other orton-gillingham (gillingham & stillman, 1960, 1997) (og) because it incorporates phonemic objects. by holding the object, which represents the sound he/she is learning, the student can actually “feel” the sound, helping to make more connections to the brain in order to remember that sound. in addition to visual, auditory, tactile, and kinesthetic teaching, connections: og in 3d® also incorporates teaching sounds by smell and taste, senses that are often overlooked in multisensory programs. connections: og in 3d® teaches students to attend to sound, spelling, meaning, and etymology. in addition to phoneme-grapheme correspondence and orthographic mapping, students become aware that the english language is morphophonemic, as layers of etymology and morphology are added. application of sound to symbol knowledge, spelling rules and patterns, grammar, comprehension, and fluency are practiced using nonsense words, real words, phrases, sentences, and connected text. 100% decodable, personalized readers provide decoding practice. vocabulary (including multiple meanings and figures of speech) is learned by developing semantic networks or ideas and relationships. to ensure automaticity, frequent distributive practice and checkpoints for mastery are built into each lesson. when decoding becomes automatic, students are able to use their cognitive energy for higher level comprehension. students learn syntax and semantics using material they are actually able to decode. connections: og in 3d® gets its name from the connectivity of the neural pathways from orthography, phonology, and semantics, following the research of seidenberg (2017). the elements of effective reading instruction are “connected” and work together to produce readers. 4. purpose of investigation the purpose of this investigation is to identify student literacy growth over an academic school year calendar using the science-based, connections: og in 3d® literacy program in grades kindergarten, first grade, and second grade in arkansas elementary schools and one missouri elementary school. 13 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 5. research design for the purpose of this investigation, a quasi-experimental (cook & campbell, 1979), one group pretest-posttest design was used. rather than have some students not receive reading instruction in the classroom, no randomized control group was used. every student in the classroom was taught using the same connections: og in 3d® program which was the treatment. each teacher had completed connections: og in 3d® training and signed a statement as to the fidelity of the program. for these reasons, the variable, connections: og in 3d® training, was measured as it naturally occurred in the classroom setting. the pretest was considered to be the first time the students were assessed for a reading skill. the posttest was each time after the initial test that students were assessed. basically, the beginning of the school year was the pretest, and every time after was a posttest. throughout the school year as reading instruction continued, each school used its own form of reading assessment based upon individual school district requirements. the data reported for this investigation was gathered by the schools and sent to the investigators for analysis. 6. participants the participants in this investigation were five elementary schools in five different districts in the state of arkansas as well as one elementary school in the state of missouri. each school district had only one elementary school with a differing number of grade levels involved in the connections: og in 3d® program because only one elementary school was needed in that district or the elementary school is divided into other campuses, but still classified as an elementary school. each teacher of kindergarten, first grade, and/or second grade completed the required connections: og in 3d® training in order to use the program with their students during the school year and/or future school years. the participant teachers were all certified educators in the states of arkansas and missouri who were required by their school district to participate in the training for use in the coming school year. south side bee branch elementary school is a kindergarten through sixth grade campus. on their campus, 60% of the students are considered from low-income homes. the student to teacher ratio is 13:1. the class size is 15 students. the school has an overall campus rating of c according to state data. for the investigation, kindergarten through second grade used the connections: og in 3d® program. blytheville primary school is a kindergarten to second grade campus. on their campus, 82% of the students are considered from low-income homes. the student to teacher ratio 14:1. the average class size is 16 students. the school has an overall rating of d according to state data. mountain home kindergarten is a kindergarten only campus. on their campus, 58% of the students are considered from low-income homes. the student to teacher ratio is 13:1. the average class size 17 students. the school has an overall campus rating of b according to state data. nelson wilks herron elementary is a first and second grade campus in the mountain home school district. on their campus, 57% of the students are considered from low-income homes. the student to 14 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 teacher ratio is 16:1. the average class size is 20 students. the school has an overall campus rating of b according to state data. park elementary school is a kindergarten to second grade campus in the corning school district. on their campus, 75% of the students are considered from low-income homes. the student to teacher ratio is 12:1. the average class size of 12. the school has an overall campus rating of b according to state data. southwest elementary school in dexter, missouri is the only school in this investigation from missouri. the school is a pre-kindergarten to second grade campus. on their campus, 58% of the students are considered from low-income homes. the student to teacher ratio is 13:1. the average class size is 13. the campus has an accredited rating. 7. context of the investigation as researchers seek to gather and address research in how to best teach reading to students, it is important for those involved to establish a snapshot of a literacy program’s ability to prepare readers. evidence must be an essential part of teaching. as such, the connections: og in 3d® program must assess itself on a regular basis to identify student success as well as those who are not as successful. what matters is the modality of the pedagogical approach taken in addressing learning to read. science and evidence-based methods are quantitatively superior to those not predicated on consistently replicable approaches. a successful literacy program can only be purposeful if it is preparing students to be readers. 8. data sources for this investigation, the arkansas elementary schools, south side bee branch, mountain home kindergarten and nelson wilks herron elementary, involved collected data on their students by using the dibels® reading assessment. dibels® is an acronym for dynamic indicator of basic early literacy skills. it is a short assessment tool to monitor student success with early literacy skills and reading skills. the use of dibels® can identify if a child is going to struggle with learning to read (center on teaching and learning (n.d.)). in order to determine that connections: og in 3d® represents a scientific pathway to teaching students how to read, it is necessary to analyze objective data from whole-class applications in school districts which have adopted connections: og in 3d®. blytheville elementary school assessed their students using the istation (n.d.) reading assessment. this assessment tool measures reading ability as well as identifies reading deficiencies based on given student responses. skills can be measured across different grade levels, kindergarten through eighth grade as it is computer-adaptive in nature. park elementary school used the star assessment tool. this tool was developed by thoughtco. it is an online-based reading assessment program that uses the cloze reading tool as well as traditional comprehension reading passages to determine student reading progress. this tool can be used for grades kindergarten to twelfth that gives teachers immediate, individual student data to inform instruction. it is 15 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 an assessment tool as well as a diagnostic and monitoring tool for teachers to see if there is student reading growth (meador, 2020). southwest elementary from missouri used the aimswebplus (n.d.) assessment tool by the pearson company to monitor student progress in reading and mathematics. for this investigation, only the reading reports were used. the students take the assessment primarily online and the results are reported in real time. common core standards and state standards are aligned within the assessment process. the data is reported three times a year. for this investigation, only the fall or beginning of the school year reports and the spring or end of the school year reports were used. the results are reported in a figure 1, figure 2, and figure 3 risk level. figure 1 is a low risk for reading failure. figure 2 is a moderate risk for reading failure, and figure 3 is a high risk for reading failure. 9. data results south side bee branch elementary school participated in the connections: og in 3d® program in grades kindergarten through second grade. the year they used the program was 2018-2019 school year. the 2019-2020 results have not been completed as yet. the results were assessed with the dibels assessment tool. students in the kindergarten class of 2018-2019 were assessed eighteen times throughout the school year. there was no assessment report that indicated any negative growth. at every assessment period the growth at least doubled. at the end of the school year, eighty-three percent of the class was reading on grade level and seventeen percent below grade level. these results were better than the state average. the first-grade classroom experienced similar results. this group was assessed twenty times throughout the school year. at the end of the year, seventy percent of the students were reading on grade level and thirty percent were below grade level. these results were better than the state average. the second-grade classroom was assessed fifteen times over the course of the 2018-2019 school year. their results were similar to those of the previous two grade levels. at the end of the school year, eighty percent of the students were reading on grade level and twenty percent were below grade level. these results were better than the state average. due to the success of the early elementary grades at south side bee branch elementary school, the fourth through sixth grades decided to add the connections: og in 3d® program in the 2019-2020 school year. the end of year reading scores prior to connections: og in 3d® were 40% of the fourth -grade reading at or above grade level. in the fifth grade, 39% of students were reading at or above grade level. at the end of the school year for the sixth-grade students, 33% were reading at or above grade level. once the connections: og in 3d® program was added the following school year, the middle of the year results changed: 52% of fourth grade, 71% of fifth grade and 42% of sixth grade were reading at or above grade level. 16 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 figure 1. south side bee branch reading growth mountain home kindergarten class began using the connections: og in 3d® in the 2018-2019 school year. prior to use, 2017-2018, 46% of their kindergarten students were reading at or above grade level. once connections: og in 3d® began in the following year, 84% of the kindergarten students were reading at or above grade level. because the kindergarten class of 2018-2019 was successful with the connections: og in 3d® program, the first grade was added to the 2019-2020 school year. in the 2018-2019 school year, 46% of the first graders were reading at or above grade level. in the following school year, to date february 2020, 67% of the first graders are reading at or above grade level. 17 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 figure 2. mountain home reading growth kindergarten figure 3. mountain home reading growth first grade 18 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 southwest elementary school in missouri started the connections: og in 3d® program with second grade students in the school year 2018-2019. their entire school year was reported. in the fall, 55% of the students were at figure 1, 28% of the students were reported at figure 2, and 17% of the students were reported at figure 3. in the spring, 84% of the students were reported at figure 1, 5% were reported at figure 2, and 11% were reported at figure 3. at the end of the academic year, tier1 experienced 60% growth which means less students are at risk for reading failure. figures 2 and 3 also experienced positive changes. in the fall 45% of the students were either at moderate for high risk for reading failure. at the end of the academic year, only 16% were at moderate or high risk for reading failure therefore, 166% positive change for the those with reading struggles. because the second-grade class showed such incredible reading growth in the previous school year, kindergarten and first grade were added to those students receiving reading with the connections: og in 3d® program in the 2019-2020 school year. as the school year is still in progress at the time of this article, the results are for the fall, or beginning of the school year and the winter break, which is in december. the spring results will be added to this article as they are available. the first results to share are for the kindergarten group. in figure 1, 25% of the students are at low risk of reading failure. for figure 2, 18% are at a moderate risk for reading failure and figure 3, the highest risk of reading failure was 57% of the class. the winter assessment results identified 42% of the class was now at a low risk of reading failure. figure 2 had 30% at moderate risk of reading failure and figure 3, the highest risk of reading failure was now 28%. the positive growth rate for those at figure 1 was now 42% which is a 63% change from the fall assessment. those students in figures 2 and 3 with the highest risks of reading failure where now 58% change. as such, figures 2 and 3 showed positive growth in reading by 34% over a few months period of time. the first-grade class also showed positive results. again, these results are for the fall and winter assessment period of the 2019-2020 school year. in the fall assessment period, 48% of the students were identified as figure 1. students identified as figure 2 for the fall semester totaled 12%, and 40% students were recorded as figure 3. the winter assessment results are as follows: 55% at figure 1, 14% at figure 2, and 31% identified at figure 3. for the figure 1 students, that is an 11% increase in the number of students who are now considered to be at low risk for reading failure which means some students moved from either the second or third tiers which are identified to be at a moderate or his risk of reading failure. figures 2 and 3 also showed positive growth. students moved from figure 3, which is at a high risk for reading failure into the figure 2 category which is moderate risk. the second grade at southwest elementary continued their use of the connections: og in 3d® program. their results for the 2019-2020 school year are positive again. in the fall assessment report, 59% of the students were identified figure 1. for figure 2, 21% of the second graders were at a moderate risk for 19 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 reading failure. in figure 3, 20% of the students were at high risk for reading failure. in december 2019, the winter assessments were given. 69% of the students were assessed at figure 1. 19% of the students were identified at figure 2, and finally, 12% of the students were identified at figure 3. for figure 1, that is 16% positive growth in the number of students who are now at low risk for reading failure. for figures 2 and 3, the growth was 32% who moved out of the higher risk tiers. figure 4. southwest elementary reading growth kindergarten 20 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 figure 5. southwest elementary reading growth first grade 21 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 figure 6. southwest elementary reading growth second grade the kindergarten and second grade classes at blytheville elementary all participated in the connections: og in 3d® reading program in school years 2018-2019 and 2019-2020. kindergarten was assessed in letter knowledge and phonemic awareness (two important aspects of learning to read) using the istation reading assessment. the second-grade class was assessed in spelling using the istation reading assessment. beginning in september to february, every month of the 2018-2019 and 2019-2020 school years were assessed except the month of october for the kindergarten class. 22 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 figure 7. blytheville elementary reading growth kindergarten in the 2018-2019 school year the kindergarten class saw 20% of the students mastering letter knowledge. in november, 22.5% mastered it. december saw 45% of the students mastering letter knowledge. january saw a downturn to 40%, but february was back up to 45%. when the 2018-2019 school is compared to the next school year 2019-2020, the positive growth becomes more evident. in september, 20% mastered the letter knowledge needed to learn to read. november saw 45% of the students mastering that knowledge. in december the growth continued with 50% of the students able to identify letters needed for reading. again, in january a dip occurred down to 45%, but it rose in february to 68%. the kindergarten class was assessed in phonemic awareness in 2018-2019 and 2019-2020 school years. in the 2018-2019 school year, the results are as follows: 28% of the students met the criteria for phonemic awareness needed in order to read. again, in october no testing was done. november saw assessment remain the same in terms of percentage points. in december and january, 40% of the students possessed phonemic awareness skills. in february, that percentage rose to 45%. no negative results were reported in terms of phonemic awareness skills. in the 2019-2020 school year the kindergarten students had to demonstrate their phonemic awareness skills. in september, 31% of the students demonstrated proficiency in phonemic awareness skills. in november, phonemic awareness skills rose to 43% and again in december to 45%. in january, there was a slight drop in percentage points to 43%. in february, the percentage points rose again to 50% proficiency in phonemic awareness skills. 23 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 figure 8. blytheville elementary reading growth kindergarten the blytheville elementary second graders were assessed in the school years 2018-2019 and 2019-2020. they were assessed on their spelling knowledge. the 2018-2019 scores are as follows: september 35%; october 40%; november 44%; december 45%; january 42%; and february 45%. the spelling assessment for the blytheville in the next year are as follows: september 42%, october 56%, november 46%, december 45%, january 47%, and february 47%. the second graders were assessed during the month of october unlike the kindergarten class. park elementary school first and second graders (one of each class at the school) participated in the connections: og in 3d® program beginning in the school year 2017-2018 with the program following the students to second grade. the results show double digit growth in both school years. 24 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 figure 9. park elementary reading growth first and second grades 10. limitations of the investigation in this investigation due to the type of design, there are several limitations that must be explored. while every teacher was trained in the connections: og in 3d® program and signed an agreement to use the program with fidelity, without direct, constant observation, it is difficult to prove fidelity. another limitation of this investigation is the difference in assessment tools used by each school. regardless, two of the schools were in arkansas, neither used the same type of assessment tool to record student results. while each assessment tool assesses the five necessary components of learning to read, it was not consistent in how students demonstrated their knowledge. however, it can also be stated that the difference in assessment tools used throughout the various school districts bodes to the strength of the connections: og in 3d® program. regardless of the assessment tool selected, the connections: og in 3d® program participants scored significant growth. connections: og in 3d® program is not biased toward one particular type of reading assessment tool. while each teacher who used the connections: og in 3d® program was trained to do so, there is no guarantee from the schools that the people who assessed the students for the pretest and posttest were certified teachers or had sufficient training in using the assessment tool. as such, this lack of information could influence assessment tool results. 25 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 11. discussion overwhelmingly, the results when using the connections: og in 3d® program are significant. each individual grade level at each of the elementary schools saw reading growth from the previous school year when using the connections: og in 3d® reading program. the change in reading on grade level saw significant growth at each grade level for each school. the students at blytheville elementary were not consistently assessed in the month of october, so that data was not provided to the investigation. for the kindergarten students, the month of january reported a slight negative dip in the scores of letter knowledge and phonemic awareness for both school years. as the students are off for almost two and a half weeks from school, they are not consistently reviewing and addressing their letter knowledge and phonemic awareness skills. the scores rebounded in the month of february and were even higher than that of the december scores. the growth in spelling skills for the second graders from the beginning of each school year to middle of the next semester is overall positive with the exception of december to january of 2018-2019 and october to november of 2019-2020. the dip in skills from december to january of 2018-2019 could be attributed to the winter break that students have for close to twoand one-half weeks where they did not actively practice those specific skills. the dip in percentage points for the month of january 2019-2020 school year is attributed to the same reason as stated previously; winter break with the time off from school. it is noted that the scores rose in february. the connections: og in 3-d® reading program supports the science of teaching reading in a systematic, direct manner. each teacher taught the program in the same manner, with the same materials, objects, lessons, and sequencing. as the program teaches to mastery, the students may need different amounts of time to be successful, but the score results indicate positive results. it is significant to note that regardless of the school’s demographic data, students produced close to or at double digit growth in their reading on grade level scores when the connections: og in 3d® reading program was used to teach them to read. the score results for all students involved with learning to read via the connections: og in 3d® program were higher than the average state scores in both arkansas and missouri. another important element of the data results is that regardless of assessment tool used, the student growth remained positive and consistent with connections: og in 3d®. evidence supports connections: og in 3d® does not favor a particular type of reading assessment. the results of connections: og in 3d® are positive and significant regardless of the school district’s assessment tool choice. 26 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 12. future research research efforts are ongoing. as other school districts adopt connections: og in 3d®, their assessment data will be reviewed and shared. as this research effort was in progress, schools in two other states, pennsylvania and minnesota, have selected the connections: og in 3-d® program. as the demographic information in states differs as well as their reading base scores, comparing assessments from those states can provide further evidence of connections: og in 3d® being a science-based reading program. 13. conclusion the ability to read is too precious of a skill to allow any student to fail at the task. as more and more students learn to read, regardless of personal background or socio-economic level, the propensity within the education system to embrace teaching fads and unproven programs must offer a way to a more effective practice of teaching students to read on a more evidenced-based foundation. the science of reading is solid scientific research on how reading should be taught to read. the connections: og in 3d® program was developed on that scientific research. student reading success has been proven based on solid effective reading practices that connections: og in 3d® utilizes. based on the evidence presented, the connections: og in 3-d® reading program has significantly increased scores in multiple school districts made up of different demographics. connections: og in 3d® has proven that all students can learn to read. references beck, i., perfetti, c., & mckeown, m. (1982). effects of long-term vocabulary instruction on lexical access and reading comprehension. journal of educational psychology, 74(4), 506-521. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.74.4.506 brett, a., rothlein, l., & hurley, m. (1996). vocabulary acquisition from listening to stories and explanation of target words. elementary school journal, 96(4), 415-422. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.74.4.506 center on teaching and learning. (n.d.). uo: dibels data system. retrieved february 10, 2020. dibels.uoregon.edu chall, j. (1967). learning to read: the great debate. new york: mcgraw hill. cook, t. d., & campbell, d. t. (1979). quasi-experimentation: design and analysis issues for field settings. chicago, il: rand mcnally publishing company. frierson, c., & scholtens, m. (2014). science-based reading connections: og in 3d. jonesboro, ar: the apple group. gillingham, a., & stillman, b. w. (1960). remedial training for children with specific disability in reading, spelling, and penmanship (6th ed.). cambridge, ma: educator’s publishing service. 27 published by scholink inc. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.74.4.506 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.74.4.506 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 gillingham, a., & stillman, b. w. (1997). the gillingham manual: remedial training for children with specific disability in reading, writing, and penmanship (8th ed.). cambridge, ma: educators publishing service. gough, p. b., & tunmer, w. e. (1986). decoding, reading, and reading disability. remedial and special education, 7(1), 6-10. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.74.4.506 international dyslexia association (2020). effective reading instruction. retrieved february 10, 2020, from https://dyslexiaida.org/effective-reading-instruction/ istation reading (n.d.). powerful research-based assessments and instruction based on the science of reading and the big five. retrieved february 10, 2020, from https://www.istation.com/reading kilpatrick, d. a. (2015). essentials of assessing, preventing, and overcoming reading difficulties. hoboken, nj: john wiley & sons. kilpatrick, d. (2019). recent advanced in understanding word level reading problems: implications for instruction and intervention. paper presented at the 47th arkansas literacy conference, little rock, arkansas. retrieved from https://www.slideplayer.com/slide/17795239/ learning point associates, (2004). a closer look at the five essential components of effective reading instruction: a review of scientifically based reading research for teachers. ed-01-co-0046/0001. meador, d. (2020, february 11). a comprehensive review of the star reading program. retrieved february 29, 2020, from https://www.thoughtco.com/review-of-star-reading-3194776 moats, l. c., & tolman, c. (2009). language essentials for teachers of reading and spelling: module 5 getting up to speed: developing fluency (2nd ed.). dallas, tx: sopris west educational services. moats, l. c. (2007). whole language high jinks: how to tell when “scientifically-based reading instruction” isn’t. thomas b. fordham institute (eric document reproduction service no. ed 498005). moats, l. c. (2017). can prevailing approaches to reading instruction accomplish the goals of rti? perspectives on language and literacy, 37(4), 21-24. national conference of state legislatures. (2020). retrieved february 10, 2020, from https://www.ncsl.org/research/education/pre-kindergarten-third-grade-literacy.aspx national institute of child health and human development. (2000). report of the national reading panel. teaching children to read: an evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction: reports of the subgroups (nih publication no. 00-4754). washington, d.c: u.s. government printing office. pearson. (n.d.). aimswebplus. retrieved february 17, 2020, from https://www.pearsonass essments.com/store/usassessments/en/store/professional-assessments/academiclearning/brief/ai mswebplus/ p/100000519.html proliteracy. (2020). adult literacy facts. retrieved february 10, 2020, from https://proliteracy.org/adult-literacy-facts 28 published by scholink inc. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.74.4.506 https://dyslexiaida.org/effective-reading-instruction/ https://www.istation.com/reading https://www.slideplayer.com/slide/17795239/ https://www.thoughtco.com/review-of-star-reading-3194776 https://www.ncsl.org/research/education/pre-kindergarten-third-grade-literacy.aspx https://proliteracy.org/adult-literacy-facts www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 tannenbaum, k. r., torgesen, j. k., & wagner, r. k. (2006). relationships between word knowledge and reading comprehension in third-grade children. scientific studies of reading, 10(4), 381-398. https://doi.org/10.1207/s1532799xssr1004_3 scarborough, h.s. (2001). connecting early language and literacy to later reading (dis) abilities: evidence, theory and practice. in s. neuman & d. dickinson (eds.), handbook for research in early literacy (pp. 97-110). new york: ny guilford press. share, d., jorm, a., maclean, r., & matthews, r. (1984). sources of individual differences in reading acquisition. journal of educational psychology, 76(6), 1309-1324. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.76.6.1309 seidenberg, m. (2017). language at the speed of sight: how we read, why so many can’t, and what can be done about it. ny: basic books. the nation’s report card (2019). 2019 naep reading assessment. retrieved february 9, 2020, from https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/highlights/reading/2019/ wagner, r., torgesen, j., & rashotte, c. (1994). development of reading-related phonological processing abilities: new evidence of bi-directional causality from a latent variable longitudinal study. developmental psychology, 30(1), 73-87. https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.30.1.73 wixson, k. (1986). vocabulary instruction and children’s comprehension of basal stories. reading research quarterly, 21(3), 317-329. https://doi.org/10.2307/747712 29 published by scholink inc. https://doi.org/10.1207/s1532799xssr1004_3 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.76.6.1309 https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/highlights/reading/2019/ https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.30.1.73 https://doi.org/10.2307/747712 original paper 2. review of literature 2.1 the science of reading 3. connections: og in 3-d® 4. purpose of investigation southwest elementary school in dexter, missouri is the only school in this investigation from missouri. the school is a pre-kindergarten to second grade campus. on their campus, 58% of the students are considered from low-income homes. the student to ... 7. context of the investigation 8. data sources 9. data results park elementary school first and second graders (one of each class at the school) participated in the connections: og in 3d® program beginning in the school year 2017-2018 with the program following the students to second grade. the results show doubl... 10. limitations of the investigation in this investigation due to the type of design, there are several limitations that must be explored. while every teacher was trained in the connections: og in 3d® program and signed an agreement to use the program with fidelity, without direct, const... another limitation of this investigation is the difference in assessment tools used by each school. regardless, two of the schools were in arkansas, neither used the same type of assessment tool to record student results. while each assessment tool as... however, it can also be stated that the difference in assessment tools used throughout the various school districts bodes to the strength of the connections: og in 3d® program. regardless of the assessment tool selected, the connections: og in 3d® pro... while each teacher who used the connections: og in 3d® program was trained to do so, there is no guarantee from the schools that the people who assessed the students for the pretest and posttest were certified teachers or had sufficient training in us... 11. discussion 12. future research references beck, i., perfetti, c., & mckeown, m. (1982). effects of long-term vocabulary instruction on lexical access and reading comprehension. journal of educational psychology, 74(4), 506-521. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.74.4.506 brett, a., rothlein, l., & hurley, m. (1996). vocabulary acquisition from listening to stories and explanation of target words. elementary school journal, 96(4), 415-422. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.74.4.506 center on teaching and learning. (n.d.). uo: dibels data system. retrieved february 10, 2020. dibels.uoregon.edu gillingham, a., & stillman, b. w. (1960). remedial training for children with specific disability in reading, spelling, and penmanship (6th ed.). cambridge, ma: educator’s publishing service. gillingham, a., & stillman, b. w. (1997). the gillingham manual: remedial training for children with specific disability in reading, writing, and penmanship (8th ed.). cambridge, ma: educators publishing service. gough, p. b., & tunmer, w. e. (1986). decoding, reading, and reading disability. remedial and special education, 7(1), 6-10. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.74.4.506 istation reading (n.d.). powerful research-based assessments and instruction based on the science of reading and the big five. retrieved february 10, 2020, from https://www.istation.com/reading learning point associates, (2004). a closer look at the five essential components of effective reading instruction: a review of scientifically based reading research for teachers. ed-01-co-0046/0001. moats, l. c., & tolman, c. (2009). language essentials for teachers of reading and spelling: module 5 getting up to speed: developing fluency (2nd ed.). dallas, tx: sopris west educational services. moats, l. c. (2017). can prevailing approaches to reading instruction accomplish the goals of rti? perspectives on language and literacy, 37(4), 21-24. national institute of child health and human development. (2000). report of the national reading panel. teaching children to read: an evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instructi... scarborough, h.s. (2001). connecting early language and literacy to later reading (dis) abilities: evidence, theory and practice. in s. neuman & d. dickinson (eds.), handbook for research in early literacy (pp. 97-110). new york: ny guilford press. share, d., jorm, a., maclean, r., & matthews, r. (1984). sources of individual differences in reading acquisition. journal of educational psychology, 76(6), 1309-1324. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.76.6.1309 seidenberg, m. (2017). language at the speed of sight: how we read, why so many can’t, and what can be done about it. ny: basic books. the nation’s report card (2019). 2019 naep reading assessment. retrieved february 9, 2020, from https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/highlights/reading/2019/ wagner, r., torgesen, j., & rashotte, c. (1994). development of reading-related phonological processing abilities: new evidence of bi-directional causality from a latent variable longitudinal study. developmental psychology, 30(1), 73-87. https://doi.... wixson, k. (1986). vocabulary instruction and children’s comprehension of basal stories. reading research quarterly, 21(3), 317-329. https://doi.org/10.2307/747712 frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no.4, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) original paper do academically marginal students benefit from emotional and blended learning support? pamela m. h. kwok1* & paula hodgson2 1 college of professional and continuing education (cpce-bhm), the hong kong polytechnic university, hong kong sar, china 2 educational consultant at university of wollongong college hong kong, hong kong sar, china * pamela m. h. kwok, college of professional and continuing education (cpce-bhm), the hong kong polytechnic university, hong kong sar, china received: august 31, 2020 accepted: september 27, 2020 online published: november 25, 2020 doi:10.22158/fet.v3n4p128 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v3n4p128 abstract engaging all students at the same pace of learning is impossible for educators, and many low academic achievers commonly have low self-perception, low motivation and a lack of self-regulation for academic study. this paper attempts to explore the academic performance problems faced by generation z in the bottom quartile studying service marketing and their successful transformation story for their study at a community college in hong kong. a series of learning design activities, such as weekly online exercises (self-evaluation), weekly online videos and etutorials were arranged for the class. this paper examines how students with low academic achievement responded in activities. data archived in the learning management system on how they participated in activities and academic data performed by these students in mid-term test, quiz grade and final examination were used for analysis. apart from the outside classroom activities, the teacher carried out individual consultations to address individual needs and provided additional time and effort to motivate students to learn. they subsequently made significant improvements in their final examination and recorded high satisfaction about their performance. keywords emotion, blended learning, chinese students, generation z, marketing subject 128 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 1. introduction generation z (genz) are learners who were born after 1995 and who have never known a world without internet access (crappell, 2013; schroer, 2008). they can spend up to twelve hours a day using various media, including television, music, computers, game consoles and watching videos on the internet (lai, khaddage, & knezek 2013; margaryan, littlejohn, & vojt 2011; rideout, foehr, & roberts, 2010). many have experience of instant messaging, texting, mp3 players, ipods, tablets and smartphones for social and recreational purposes (lai & hong, 2015; palley, 2012). they may spend much of their waking time with their devices (hope, 2016). many genz learners seek being different (culén & gasparini, 2012) and are ready to communicate with anyone not present in the same physical space through facebook, google hangout, skype and facetime (cross-bystrum, 2010). they experience fear of missing out (fomo) (strong, 2016). they are seamlessly connected with friends, data and entertainment (wiedmer, 2015). however, skills used in a social context in digital technologies, such as blogging, photo sharing and social networking do not mean that genz learners can transfer their skill sets to academic use (cole, napier, & marcum, 2015; lai & hong, 2015; margaryan, littlejohn, & vojt, 2011; rickes, 2016). they tend to have short attention spans compared with millennials (gibson, 2016). unsurprisingly, they feel overwhelmed with information, and are often not competent in evaluating it because of a lack of critical thinking skills (lorenzo & dziuban, 2006; mohr, 2017), and some adolescents may become more impulsive in hong kong (greydanus & greydanus, 2012). despite genz learners indicating the need for face-to-face instruction in the learning environment (caruso & salaway, 2008), educators may experience difficulties in engaging their attention in a classroom setting. in addition, they expect more hands-on learning experiences that are not restricted to regular lectures (roberson, 2011). they prefer learning through an active approach (wiedmer, 2015), and they can be content creators rather than content consumers (cole, napier, & marcum, 2015). nevertheless, all educators share a common challenge: that there is a mixture of high and low academic achievers in every class of genz learners. high-achieving students show greater confidence in themselves, with stronger motivation and intention to exercise self-regulation towards challenging learning tasks, than low achieving students (mccoach & siegle, 2001). some high achievers adopt a variety of strategies that assist them, from memorization to connecting concepts visually, whereas some low achievers focus primarily on how to regurgitate facts (ruban & reis, 2006). this means that high achievers show the ability to demonstrate both retention, which requires short-term memory, and recall, which requires long-term memory, while low achievers depend on short-term memory (gorjian, moosavinia, kavari, asgari, & hydarei, 2011). on the other hand, low achievers believe that they are born with low ability and fixed intelligence (vispoel & austin, 1995). they may spend time and effort in superficial information processes, focusing on isolated details and not being able to synthesize concepts (butler & neuman, 1995). given that genz learners tend to favour multimodal stimuli in the 129 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 learning process, educators can consider designing various learning and assessment activities that fit genz characteristics and build reinforcement for both high and low achievers. educators can design a series of pedagogical actions so that the sequence of learning tasks enables learners to gain conceptual knowledge and professional skills in these activities (lockyer, heathcote, & dawson, 2013). the intended outcomes can then be acquired through the assimilation of information, communication with their tutor and peers, the application of concepts in the real world or simulated settings, and a mixed mode of assessment, with a sequence of academic design decisions (conole, 2009). a learning design taxonomy with seven learning descriptions, which is derived from the open university learning design initiative (cross, galley, brasher, & weller, 2012) include (1) assimilative activities; (2) finding and handling information activities; (3) communication activities; (4) productive activities; (5) experiential activities; (6) interactive/adaptive activities; and (7) assessment activities (table 1) (nguyen, rienties, & toetenel, 2017; rienties & toetenel, 2016). however, educators can consider some activities in the classroom and take advantage of the online environment so that genz students can carry out alternative tasks before and/or after class. table 1. learning design taxonomy type of activity example assimilative attending to information read, watch, listen, think about, access finding and handling information searching for and processing information list, analyse, collate, plot, find, discover, access, use, gather communication discussing module-related content with peer or tutor communicate, debate, discuss, argue, share, report, collaborate, present, describe productive actively constructing an artifact create, build, make, design, construct, contribute, complete experiential applying learning in a real-world setting practise, apply, mimic, experience, explore, investigate interactive/ adaptive applying learning in a simulated setting explore, experiment, trial, improve, model, simulate assessment all forms of assessment write, present, report, demonstrate, critique source: data adapted from cross, galley, brasher and weller (2012) 2. background of the study the paper examined students attending the course “service marketing” in a two-year higher diploma business program offered by a self-financed college in hong kong in 2017. the course aimed to enable students to acquire key knowledge and skills in service marketing so that they can provide quality 130 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 services in various service industries and manage to resolve problems, customer complaints and service recovery. the 13-week course comprised a two-hour lecture and a one-hour tutorial each week. students were well informed about the assessment tasks, with 50% for continuous assessment and 50% in the final examination. the assessment components of the course are provided in table 2. table 2. assessment components of service marketing assessment methods component percentage (a) continuous assessment 50% test 20% individual assignment 10% group assignment 15% participation 5% individual assignment 10% (b) final examination 50% total 100% to pass the course, students were required to obtain grade d or above in both continuous assessment and the final examination. however, students needed to achieve grade c or above in order to demonstrate a satisfactory standard of academic performance according to the assessment and outcome-based grading system of the college. sixty-seven business students were enrolled in the course in 2017, and there was a clear indication that this cohort was unprecedentedly weak in academic performance compared with previous cohorts. nineteen (28%) awarded with unsatisfactory results, with seven scoring d+ (barely satisfactory), six scoring d (barely adequate) and six scoring f (inadequate) in the mid-term test. unsurprisingly, this group of low academic achievers often came late to or skipped class. they were very passive even when they were present, and they made no effort to contact the course leader before or after class. despite a variety of learning activities being set in class, extra learning activities were arranged to reinforce concepts, facilitate group work, and alternative support was provided for learners after class and before the examination. 3. study objectives this paper reports on how the low achievers responded and explores whether purposeful learning design activities would be able to transform these low academic achievers from failing in the mid-term test to achieving satisfactory or good academic performance in the final examination. 131 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 4. method and data collection 4.1 online survey an anonymous online survey was arranged via survey monkey to identify student needs, including any prior knowledge of the subject and their view on online platform experience at the beginning of the semester. students were invited to take part in the study on a voluntary basis. 4.2 observational study adopting a natural setting for the study, unobtrusive observation was conducted to track their online activities compiled of weekly online exercise, viewing of video cases, and postings in forum discussion in etutorial in the learning management system (lms) on their participation throughout the course. data on student downloading materials were not included for this study. 4.3 data collection data collected in the study included (1) results in mid-term test which was in the of format of multiple-choice questions, (2) all online participation activities were tracked after the course has closed, and (3) results of multiple-choice questions (mcqs) in the final examination. the points scored in mcqs were converted to grades such that they were compared with the mid-term quiz results in the study. 5. learning design a series of learning activities were thoughtfully designed in the service marketing course to align with the course objectives. however, before designing learning activities in the course, the course leader needed to anticipate the potential issues or problems that students might encounter, such as workload and level of complexity of concepts. considering that genz learners have shown a different pace of learning and learning styles, and diverse academic abilities in class, inand out-of-class learning activities were arranged to allow for a variety of learning experiences that could match the pace and style of learning. in addition to in-class activities, some online activities were arranged in the lms so that students could have further study flexibility. learning design addressed two major aspects: conceptual knowledge and emotional support, so that the genz learners could learn effectively. 5.1 assessing student needs the course leader arranged an anonymous voluntary online survey via survey monkey at the beginning of the semester to gather prior knowledge related to service marketing and identify the need for alternative arrangements through the lms. all students were encouraged to response, and the response rate was 75%. of those who responded, 14% had basic knowledge, and 58% had little or very little knowledge of service marketing. based on the survey results, the course leader made some adjustments and provided extra online materials and examples on the more complex concepts and theories. 132 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 5.2 building conceptual knowledge in the face-to-face sessions, images and graphics were built into powerpoint presentations for genz learners because they tend to prefer a visual format (rickes, 2016; wotapka, 2017). however, “where students had once called a large number of their classes death by lecture, now they were calling them death by powerpoint” (oblinger & oblinger, 2005, 9.1). in the lecture sessions, videos were used to gain students’ attention and stimulate their interest in the assimilative activity, because these genz learners were so readily connected to video-based materials (cameron & pagnattaro, 2017; nouri, 2016; wiedmer, 2015). some local cases were used to demonstrate concepts on service marketing using youtube videos produced by cathay pacific (an airline), queen mary hospital (hong kong), tsui wah (local restaurant), dah sun life (local insurance company), and dinner in the sky. genz learners did not respond well to lectures and have become accustomed to interactivity (feiertag & berge, 2008). watching videos was still a one-way communication with multimodal stimulation, and communication activities were deployed, including peer discussions on core concepts, sharing personal experiences, matching games for concept application and inviting students to ask questions. in addition, formative assessment was set in class because this could allow informal feedback to both learners and the course leader. some quiz questions were set after watching videos like mr. bean and pink panther to assess their ability in concept application. during term time, the course leader continued to collect student feedback verbally regarding their learning experiences at break time in lectures. students were more readily to post questions during break time, and the course leader addressed them spontaneously. 5.3 reinforcement of conceptual understanding apart from in-class activities, weekly materials were uploaded in the lms for students to study at their own pace, including videos, supplementary materials and samples of service blueprints. videos covered mostly difficult concepts, but they also included cartoons and real-life business cases. weekly online exercises (self-evaluation) were designed as one of the major online activities. all students were required to complete an online exercise that was due at midnight on the day of a lecture. all suggested solutions were posted in the lms the following day. late submissions would not be accepted. a participation mark was provided to those who participated in order to motivate the genz students to learn outside the classroom. to cultivate an active elearning attitude, students were encouraged to upload their tutorial outputs to the lms after each tutorial for record purposes. to extend the elearning experience, one etutorial session was arranged in week 5, and students could watch videos and have online discussion. participation of the bottom quartile students in the additional online activities is shown in table 3. 133 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 table 3. participation of low academic achievers in additional online learning activities student ref. no. mid-term result weekly online exercise (max. 11) no. of videos viewed (max. 14) no. of times viewed no. of access to etutorial 1 d+ 7 1 1 3 2 d+ 7 1 1 6 3 d+ 8 2 3 0 4 d+ 11 5 7 12 5 d+ 10 3 3 21 6 d+ 6 1 1 6 7 d+ 2 1 1 1 8 d 3 0 0 1 9 d 11 5 6 45 10 d 6 1 1 3 11 d 7 4 4 23 12 d 7 11 14 2 13 d 5 2 6 53 14 f 9 6 9 2 15 f 7 3 3 12 16 f 5 0 0 1 17 f 3 0 0 7 18 f 6 4 4 3 19 f 8 1 1 1 5.4 providing emotional support the emotional aspect is essential, because genz students tend to be emotional. for instance, genz learners show low interest in working in groups but show fear of missing out (fomo) (strong, 2016). staying in “close touch” with students, the course leader regularly posted messages, reminders and updates via the lms. apart from connecting them via electronic messages, the course leader believed that it was essential to have some personal communication with students when teaching a large class. students had to collect results of the mid-term test individually or in groups in her office. majority of the low academic achievers collected the test result in groups. the course leader took the opportunity to provide encouragement and emotional support. additional consultations were arranged after the mid-term test, and they could consider contacting the course leader via office telephone. this allowed the course leader to stay in “close touch” with them, especially the low achievers, and to provide more attentive emotional support. 134 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 5.5 facilitating group processes genz students can be better engaged through project work because they can be actively involved (wiedmer, 2015), so 30% of the continuous assessment was on a group project in the course. considering that students may be good at digital communication and prefer working independently, the course leader provided clear guidelines for the group assignment, including a declaration of individual responsibility to prevent free-riders and miscommunication. to enhance teamwork and time management in the group project, the course leader included the two components in the assessment rubrics so that they paid special attention during the process. a briefing on assessment rubrics was conducted at the beginning of the semester so that students had a clear understanding of assessment information and the expectations from the course leader. she allocated one tutorial session in week 9 to facilitate student groups to discuss problems or issues related to the group projects. student groups could consult her in the earlier stages about the project if they encountered any difficulties. the low academic achievers worked well with their team members, and they all submitted their projects on time. no complaints or time management issues were reported to the course leader. 5.6 lowering assessment stress students in hong kong are very familiar with public and in-house tests and examinations. it is inevitable that they experience anxiety naturally. to lower the stress level on assessment, they were given mock quizzes for both the mid-term test and the final examination. the aim was to enable them to experience a mock summative assessment. all answers were then discussed in class. two past examination papers were posted in the lms for students to practise them at their own pace before the examination. participation of the lower quartile students in the past examination papers is shown in table 4. suggested solutions were provided to them in the last tutorial session. in addition, a two-week pre-examination buddies eforum was also arranged in the lms for students to share their revision queries. it was a peer-to-peer eforum, and all students were encouraged to post their queries or difficult concepts to the forum when doing revision. participation was on a voluntary basis, and additional participation marks were provided to those making contributions in forum discussion (table 4). table 4. participation of low academic achievers in online assessment preparation activities student ref no. no. of access to two past exam papers no. of views in buddies eforum student ref no. no. of access to two past exam papers no. of views in buddies eforum 1 0 0 11 0 0 2 3 3 12 1 9 3 0 0 13 0 5 4 5 4 14 4 0 135 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 5 2 11 15 5 2 6 0 0 16 1 1 7 0 0 17 5 0 8 3 1 18 6 3 9 4 3 19 0 0 10 3 1 6. discussion and conclusion learning design taxonomy provides a framework for educators to design a variety of learning opportunities to engage students at timely manner (nguyen, huptych, & rienties, 2018). nevertheless, low academic gen z learners needs not only opportunities but more support from both teacher and peers. majority of the low academic achievers kept in close communication with the course leader after the mid-term test so that she could keep monitoring their study progress and provide support. many of these students were motivated and encouraged by the course leader during the consultation sessions and were positively influenced by peers in the online forum activities. of the 67 students, the 19 low academic achievers were identified in the mid-term test results. seven out of 19 (36.8%) scored d+, six out 19 (31.6%) scored “d” and six out 19 (31.6%) scored “f”. through learning design, the course leaders arranged a variety of online activities and resources to provide alternative support. students engaged in formative assessment can increase their self-regulation, reasoning and planning, and all these are important for effective learning (clark, 2012). as shown in table 3, 11 out of 19 (61%) students participated seven times or more out of 11 required weekly exercises. four of the 19 (21%) students watched five or more online videos; five (26%) students watched six or more. in fact, six students (#3, #4, #9, #12, #13, #14) revisited the same video more than once. in week 5, an etutorial was arranged in which six students (#4, #5, #9, #11, #13, #15) were very active, with 12 or more accounts of access. the lms offered students the possibility of having an alternative mode to test and review concepts. to lower student stress in the preparation for the examination, they were given the chance to practise past examination papers and discuss them in buddies eforum (table 4). nine out of 19 (47%) of students accessed past papers three times or more, and seven out of 19 (37%) accessed the eforum during the two weeks. the results of the alternative learning path show different degrees of academic improvement. after completing the 13-week course with holistically designed learning activities (assimulative, communication and assessment activities), some impressive progress was observed from the low academic achievers. seventeen out of the 19 (89%) were able to attain grade c or above in the mc section of the final examination (table 5). ten out of the 19 (53%) reached grade c or above in the overall examination grade, and that c means reaching a satisfactory standard of academic performance in the college. students #6, #9 and #16 made extraordinary improvements. it was recognized that 136 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 student #9 made great efforts in the weekly online exercise, online videos, etutorial forum and pre-examination activities, and was able to achieve significant improvement in terms of the final examination performance (i.e., grade a+). student #6 made an outstanding improvement and attained grade b+ in the final examination (from grade d+ in the mid-term test). of the six who failed in the mid-term test, three reached grade c or above. noticeably, student #16 jumped from grade f to b+, and student. #14 improved from grade f to c+, and students #15 and #18 scored grade c. the study showed that those who made consistent efforts in the online activities were able to obtain satisfactory or good grades in their final 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(2017). how to teach genz students—prepare for the next generation arriving on campus. extra credit newsletter. retrieved april 12, 2018, from https://www.aicpa.org/interestareas/accountingeducation/newsandpublications/how-to-teach-gener ation-z-students.html 140 published by scholink inc. original paper do academically marginal students benefit from emotional and blended learning support? pamela m. h. kwok1* & paula hodgson2 1 college of professional and continuing education (cpce-bhm), the hong kong polytechnic university, hong kong sar, china abstract engaging all students at the same pace of learning is impossible for educators, and many low academic achievers commonly have low self-perception, low motivation and a lack of self-regulation for academic study. this paper attempts to explore the acad... keywords table 1. learning design taxonomy source: data adapted from cross, galley, brasher and weller (2012) table 2. assessment components of service marketing table 4. participation of low academic achievers in online assessment preparation activities microsoft word fet-v3n1-p1 frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 1 original paper corporate governance and company directors: are they alice in wonderland? associate professor lisa barnes1* 1 avondale business school, avondale university college, australia * associate professor lisa barnes, avondale business school, avondale university college, australia received: september 16, 2019 accepted: october 31, 2019 online published: december 6, 2019 doi:10.22158/fet.v3n1p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v3n1p1 abstract corporate governance is not a new concept. in fact the last 15 years has seen a surge in academic publications and case law in relation to the lack of corporate governance. research gap is that company directors are attending a “mad hatters’ tea party” when it comes to the implementation of governance codes, with the recent spate of court cases involving breaches of directors fiduciary duties. methodology used was review of case law using archival data. this research looks at the type of case law issues of corporate governance in australia and in particular accountability, and relates the case law to the corporations act (2001) to find where company directors are getting corporate governance wrong. the findings indicate that perhaps the “if not why not” prescription, should not be an option for corporate governance for some boards. for some boards the invitation from alice to jump down the rabbit hole into creative accounting and bad board behaviour at the “mad hatters’ tea party” is just too great an incentive. implications show that this review of important corporate governance case law will assist boards to concentrate their efforts on improving the environment they operate in, as good governance equates to good business. “in another moment down went alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again.” carroll, lewis (1865) alice’s adventures in wonderland. keywords corporate governance, accountability, transparency, directors duties 1. corporate governance introduction corporate governance refers to the relationship among different participants, and defining the corporation’s direction and performance, which includes the ceo, i.e., the management team, the board of directors, and the shareholders (prasad, 2006). from the agency perspective, corporate www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 2 published by scholink inc. governance is “a system of law and sound approaches by which corporations are directed and controlled focusing on the internal and external corporate structures with the intention of monitoring the actions of management and directors and thereby mitigating agency risks which may stem from the misdeeds of corporate officers” (sifuna & anazett, 2012). separation of ownership and control in the modern corporations became an issue by berle and means (1932). recent research shows that there are lots of concentrations of ownership among the largest american companies (demsetz, 1983; shleifer & vishny, 1986; morck, shleifer, & vishny, 1988), and that a relative higher level of ownership concentration exists in other developed and developing countries outside the us (la porta, lopez-de-silanes, shleifer, & vishny, 1998). corporate governance has been the subject of extensive scrutiny and controversy, particularly after the corporate collapses of the 2000s and the recent global financial crisis. much of the controversy started in the western countries, inspired by the early study of berle and means (1932). this classic analysis of corporation control call into question the justification for shareholder wealth and raise a problem of social ethics. but berles’ observation shows a lack of empirical justification for the claims held by the shareholders. fama and jensen (1983) advocate the financial theory of risk-bearing which hinges on the separation of decision management and residual risk-bearing in the corporation. this separation and specialization of decision management and residual risk-bearing leads to an agency problem between agents and principals (fama & jensen, 1983). the governance problem is that those who bear the residual risk have no assurance that the managers will act in the shareholder best interests, and therefore bring in the costs of monitoring and preventing the exercise of such discretion described as agency cost. the pre-occupation for corporate governance then is to mitigate the agency problem and agency cost between shareholders and managers. one of the possibilities is to use corporate governance as the mechanism for governing including boards of directors and to ensure sustainability through the financial structure as proposed by jensen (1986). the world bank defines corporate governance as the set of mechanisms available to shareholders for influencing managers to maximize the value of shareholder’s stock and to fixed claimants for controlling the agency costs of equity. the organisation for economic co-operation and development (oecd) defines corporate governance as a set of relationships among management, company board, its shareholders and other stakeholders. both of them imply the principal-agent model of the corporation, and emphasise the importance of shareholder interest and company value. shleifer and vishny (1997) define corporate governance as a set of mechanisms to assure financiers that they will get a return on their investment. corporate governance then is an evolving concept. it dates back to the code of hammurabi back in 1800bc when bartering traders agreed to the basic rules of business transactions. the following table shows some of the international corporate governance regimes currently in place. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 3 published by scholink inc. table 1. timeline date document name date document name 1800 bc code of hammurabi 1999 oecd principles of corporate governance 1991 bosch committee – corporate practices and conduct (1995) 2001 ramsay report (australia) 1992 cadbury committee report (uk) 2002 sarbanes oxley act 2002 (us) 1993 hilmer report (australia) 2003 combined code corporate governance (uk) 1995 vienot report (france) 2003 asx good corporate governance and best practice 1995 toronto stock exchange recommendations on canadian board practices (canada) 2003 2004 as 8000 2003 standards (australia) clerp 9 act 2004 (australia) 1996 report on corporate governance in hong kong 2004 corporate governance in new zealand principles and guidelines 1997 king report (south africa) 2010 corporate governance principles & recommendations 2010 amendments (asx) 1997 netherlands report (netherlands) 2012 uk corporate governance code 1998 hampel report (uk) 2017 amendments as necessary 1998 olivencia report (spain) 2019 corporate governance principles & recommendations 2019 amendments (asx) 2. method this research uses archival data to compare current case law activities to that of the prescribed corporation act 2001 and the corporate governance recommendations by the asx (2019). it also uses case studies of each of the case law to develop an in depth analysis of the case to enable the comparison to be made to legal obligations of corporations act 2001 and the corporate governance recommendations by the asx (2019), as described by creswell and creswell (2018). countries that have good corporate governance systems become not only attractive locations for domestic companies to develop and invest (la porta et al., 1998), but also for foreign investors, and thus promote economic growth (levine, 1999). however, corporate governance practices are different from country to country. companies in different countries are operating in different social, cultural, legal and economic environments, as a result, each country has developed its own corporate www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 4 published by scholink inc. governance system that serves its business operations best (la porta et al., 1998). this paper investigates the most significant cases that have helped to shape the current corporate laws in australia in relation to corporate governance. it also shows the link between the directors’ duties as imposed by law (corporations act 2001) and the australian securities exchange corporate governance recommendations (2019) that listed companies must comply with. “how puzzling all these changes are! i’m never sure what i'm going to be, from one minute another.” carroll, lewis(1865), “alice’s adventures in wonderland”. this leads to the research problem of “how have the corporations act (2001) for company directors duties and the corporate governance regimes recommended by asx (2019), been complied with by listed companies in australia in the last 10 years”. research question 1: can the directors duties outlined in the corporations act (2001) relate to the corporate governance recommendations by the asx (2019)? research question 2: what directors’ duties have been breached and resulted in court activity in the last 15 years? to address the research problem, an organised, systematic and logical process of research method, using secondary data will be used. the use of archival data involves the research into case law of court cases involving the corporations act (2001) breaches. 3. results in order to answer research question 1: “can directors duties outlined in the corporations act (2001) relate to the corporate governance recommendations by the asx (2019)” directors duties must be investigated in terms of the specific references in the corporations act (ca) 2001 legislation. the difference between common law duties and equitable fiduciary duties must be ascertained, and specifically linked to a section of the act. directors duties are broken down into common law duties and equitable fiduciary duties. under the corporations act (s185), there are specific sections on directors’ duties, such as s180 reasonable care and diligence, s181 good faith and proper purpose, s182 conflict of interest, s183 confidential information, s184 criminal liability, s588g2/3 insolvent trading and personal liability, and s1043a insider trading. specifically then under common law duties, a breach of section 180 reasonable case and diligence or section 181 good faith and proper purpose, will result in the use of section of s588g(2) which will result in personally liable penalties. under the equitable fiduciary duties section of the corporate act (2001), section 182 conflict of interest and section 183 confidential information will able be in breach of director duties. other penalties under the act include criminal liability (s184), as well and other breaches such as insolvent trading s588g (3) and insider trading (s1043a). the commonwealth government recognises that all of these laws place a heavy burden on directors, and has encouraged the council of australian governments (coag) to review these in light of state legislations. nicholson and underhill (2012) discuss the “personal liability for corporate fault reform bill” that imposes personal liability on company officers for offences committed by corporations. the reforms came from the 2009 council of australian governments (coag) which www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 5 published by scholink inc. intends to harmonise corporate wrongs with personal criminal liability. this has been replaced by the miscellaneous acts amendment (directors’ liability) act no. 2, 2011 (nsw) (2011 act) and was subsequently replaced by the miscellaneous acts amendment (directors’ liability) act 2012 (nsw) (2012 act), which commenced on 11th january 2013. particularly after the corporate collapse era of 2000s, many countries have adopted some form of governance code such as that of the corporate governance council of australia, with their best practice recommendations for listed companies on the australian securities exchange (2019). although these are recommendations only, for listed companies in australia, listing rule 4.10 dictates that companies must address each of these governance initiatives, and explain if they have not adopted the recommendation (if not why not). in particular for listing companies in australia it is important to link the corporate governance recommendations by the asx (2019) to that of their corporations act (2001) obligations as shown in table 2. in order to answer research question 1: “can directors duties outlined in the corporations act (2001) relate to the corporate governance recommendations by the asx (2019)”, table 2 suggests there is a direct link between the application of the good governance recommendations by the asx (2010) and the application of the corporations act (2001) for any breaches of those recommendations by directors. directors therefore should be aware that even though the governance recommendations have an “if not why not” regime, that a breach of the recommendation can be directly linked to a breach of the corporations act (2001) which could lead to criminal or civil personal liability for directors actions. “i don’t think... “then you shouldn't talk, said the hatter.” carroll, lewis (1865) “alice in wonderland”. table 2. asx (2019) and ca (2001) asx 2019 corporations act 2001 1: solid foundations for management & oversight reasonable care and diligence s180, good faith and proper purpose s181 2: structure board to be effective and add value personally liable s588g(2) 3: instil a culture of acting lawfully, ethically & responsibly criminal liability s184, reasonable care and diligence s180 personally liable s588g (2) 4: safeguard integrity of corporate reports reasonable care and diligence s180 5: make timely and balanced disclosure conflict of interest s182, confidential information s183 reasonable care and diligence s180 6: respect the rights of security holders insolvent trading s588g (3), insider trading s1043a good faith and proper purpose s181 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 6 published by scholink inc. 7: recognise and manage risk insolvent trading s588g (3), insider trading s1043a, good faith and proper purpose s181. reasonable care and due diligence s180, conflict of interest s182, confidential information s183 8:remunerate fairly and responsibly reasonable care and diligence s180 in order to answer research question 2: “what directors’ duties have been breached and resulted in court activity in the last 15 years?” the following tables have been divided by sections of the corporations act in relation to breaches of directors duties, and then linked to the corporate governance recommendations. table 3. personally liable s588g (2) case name breach of law companies act commonwealth bank of australia v friedrich 5 acsr 115: 9 aclc 946 s588g(2) director found to be personally liable for debts incurred by the company, as the loan was fraudulent and he should not have signed annual report. asx 2 & 3 breach. asic v narain fcafc 120 misleading information regarding chemicals and claims it could stop spread of disease that was not backed up by medical advice. managing director held personally liable for the statements 588g(2). asx 3 breach. table 4. good faith and proper purpose s181 case name breach of law companies act r v byrnes and hopwood (1995) 183 clr 501; (1995) 130 alr 529 court found that officers could still be in breach of duties even when they thought it would benefit the company, but for an improper purpose s181. asx 1 & 7 breach. asic v rich44acsr 341: 21 aclc 450-one.tel non-executive chair failed to act with proper case and diligence, it also deals with the business judgement rule s181. asx 1 & 6 breach. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 7 published by scholink inc. table 5. confidential information s183/insider trading s1043a case name breach of law companies act r v firns 51 nswlr 548: 38 acsr 223 held that it is was insider trading under s1034a as the information was publically available even if no one had observed it. asx 6 breach. asic v southcorp wines 203 alr 627: 22 aclc 1 contravened continuous disclosure rules by communicating the analysts before notifying asic s674(2), s183. asx 3 breach. r v rivkin 198 alr 400: 45 acsr 366 insider trading held s1043a as information that was material and not publically available was used to buy shares. court imposed detention and a fine. asx 3 & 7 breach. asic v wizard 145 fcr 57: 219 alr 714 insider trading breach s183, s1043a in that information obtained as a director that was not publically available was used for their own purposes to purchase shares in other companies (even though they made losses). fined $400,000 and disqualified from being a director for 10 years. asx 3, 6 & 7 breach. table 6. minority shareholder rights s136 case name finding/description breach of law companies act 2001 gambotto v wcp 182 clr 432: 127 alr 4147 minority shareholder case where a proposed amendment to the constitution and subsequent compulsory acquisition was invalid. to avoid administration and taxation costs was not a valid and proper purpose s136. asx 6 breach. table 7. reasonable care and due diligence s180 case name finding/description breach of law companies act 2001 awa ltd v daniels t/as deloitte haskins and sells 7 acsr 759 problems with delegated authority and incorrect procedures for reporting to a company board. an equal duty of care for both executive and non-executive directors. that all should be familiar with the business of the company. asx 1 & 7 breach. vines v asic 55 acsr 617: 23 aclc 1387-gio chief financial officer (cfo) duties of care and diligence, s180 negligence, and lack of due diligence in forecasting made public. asx 4 breach. the bell group ltd (in directors duties to consider the interests of creditors in a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 8 published by scholink inc. liquidation) v westpac banking corporation (no 9) [2008] wasc 239 restructure for corporate debts. banks were also found to assist in the directors breach of duties and were fined. asx 3 breach. asic v narain fcafc 120 misleading information regarding chemicals and claims it could stop spread of disease that was not backed up by medical advice. managing director was held personally liable for making the statements. asx 7 breach. jubliee mines nl v riley 253 alr 673: 69 acsr 659 continuous disclosure should be balanced with no misleading or deceptive conduct. principle of “when in doubt disclose” should be considered carefully as company should not also mislead the market with incomplete information. asx 5 breach asic v healy 2011 fca 717 centro case s180(1) directors breach as inaccurate financial accounts were approved. asx 4 breach. asic v fortescue metals group ltd fcafc 19 held fmg and managing director andrew forrest breach of continuous disclosure for engaging in misleading or deceptive conduct concerning asx releases and investor briefings to the signing of framework agreements with chinese companies. in 2012 this was overturned on appeal. asx 5 breach. table 8. insolvent trading s588g(3) case name finding/description breach of law companies act 2001 commonwealth bank of australia v friedrich 5 acsr 115: 9 aclc 946 s588g(2)/((3) director found to be personally liable for insolvent trading for debts incurred by the company, as the loan was fraudulent and he should not have signed annual reports with assets listed that the business did not own. asx 1 & 3 breach. asic v plymin 46 acsr 126: 21 aclc 700. elliott v asic 10 vr 369: 205 alr 594. breach of statutory duty to prevent insolvent trading. under s588g requires individual directors take reasonable steps to prevent a company from incurring a debt. banned from being a director and fined $25,000 and $15,000 respectively. asx 4 & 7 breach. “if everybody minded their own business, the world would go around a great deal faster than it does.” carroll, lewis (1865) “alice in wonderland”. research question 1: can the directors duties outlined in the corporations act (2001) relate to the corporate governance recommendations by the asx (2019) are demonstrated by table 2. the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 9 published by scholink inc. research question 2 of what directors’ duties have been breached and resulted in court activity in the last 15 years, has been shown by tables 3-8. 4. discussion figure 2 is a model based on the interactions between directors duties as prescribed by corporations law (2001) and the asx good governance recommendations (2019) and court cases from the breaches. entitled the lag/lead model, it represents how company directors can avoid the court system by instead of being reactive (lag) they can be proactive (lead) by exhibiting good corporate governance and compliance with corporations law. figure 2. lag/lead model for company directors the business judgement rule s180(2) states that officers of a company are compliant with s180(1) if they made a judgement in good faith for a proper purpose, they do not have any material personal interest, they inform themselves about the subject matter to a reasonable level and they rationally believe that the judgement is for the best interests of the corporation. bryans (2011) discusses the james hardie case in relation to non-executives breaches of care and diligence in relation to asx announcements that were misleading and failing to request a copy of the announcement. in the centro case for example, giordano stated (2011) that the directors failed to exercise their statutory duty of care and diligence in approving inaccurate accounts s180(1), statutory duty of care and diligence, s344(1) (reasonable steps to comply with financial reporting duties) and s601fd(3) in the failure of classifying $1.75 million usd as non-current when in fact they were short-term liabilities. in 2010 heath in discussing the asiv v rich cases (2009) stated that directors are not responsible for unforeseeable www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 10 published by scholink inc. risks, and a mistake or judgement of error does not automatically invoke s180(1) breaches, however directors still must understand company’s financial statements, a responsibility that cannot be avoided. the answer to the research problem of: “how have the corporations act (2001) for company directors duties and the corporate governance regimes recommended by asx (2019), been complied with by listed companies in australia in the last 10 years?,” would be that every asx governance recommendation (2019) and every company directors duty imposed by corporations law (2001), has in the last 15 years been breached resulting in a court case, with either criminal or civil liabilities imposed, so there is a lack of overall compliance by listed companies in australia. directors’ duties then are imposed on all directors of all entities with serious consequences for breaches both on a civil or criminal basis. this research has shown that corporate governance may mean different things to different entities, but the corporations act (2001) is applied to all directors of all entities. directors should be made aware of these obligations. adams (2004) describes corporate governance as being not unlike a beauty and a beast, and that directors who wish to do “good” should carry out diligence, compliance with regulation and adhere to corporate governance recommendations. all these recommendations however only add more to the burden already held by directors both paid and voluntary. directors of all boards then, need to be vigilant, aware of their obligations, fully informed and ethical in all decisions they make for and on behalf of their boards, the last thing they want to see is their company in the courts, and their decision questioned by a judge. “my dear, here we must run as fast as we can, just to stay in place. and if you wish to go anywhere you must run twice as fast as that.” carroll, lewis (1865) “alice in wonderland”. references adams, m. (2004). the three pillars of good corporate governance. risk management, 8-10. asic v fortescue metals group ltd. (2011). fcafc 19. asic v healy. (2011). fca 717. asic v narain. (2008). fcafc 120. asic v plymin. (2003). 46 acsr 126: 21 aclc 700. https://doi.org/10.1556/ageol.46.2003.1.9 asic v rich. (2003). 44acsr 341: 21 aclc 450-one.tel. https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt0403-341 asic v southcorp wines. (2003). 203 alr 627: 22 aclc 1. asic v wizard. (2005). 145 fcr 57: 219 alr 714. australian securities exchange. (2019). corporate governance principals and recommendations (4th ed.). asx corporate governance council. awa ltd v daniels t/as deloitte haskins and sells. (1992). 7 acsr 759. berle, a., & means, g. (1932). the modern corporation and private property. chicago, commerce clearing house. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 11 published by scholink inc. bryans, p. (2011). james hardie—nsw court of appeal decision. keeping good companies, 63, 92-94. carroll, l. (1865). alice in wonderland. commonwealth bank of australia v friedrich. (1991). 5 acsr 115: 9 aclc 946. corporations act. (2001). australian commonwealth government. creswell, j., & creswell, j. d. (2018). research design, qualitative, quantitative & mixed methods approaches (5th ed.). sage. demsetz, h. (1983). the structure of ownership and the theory of the firm. the journal of law and economics, 26(2). https://doi.org/10.1086/467041 elliott v asic. (n.d.). 10 vr 369: 205 alr 594. fama, e. f., & jensen, m. c. (1983). separation of ownership and control. journal of law and economics, 26(2), 301-325. https://doi.org/10.1086/467037 gambotto v wcp. (1995). 182 clr 432: 127 alr 4147. https://doi.org/10.1179/peq.1995.127.2.182 giordano, f. (2011). financial reporting duties of directors—ten corporate governance lessons from centro for non-executive directors of listed public companies. keeping good companies, 63, 9-11. heath, w. (2010). rich insight into director’s statutory duty of care and business judgement rule. keeping good companies, 62, 9-11. jensen, a. c. (1986). agency costs of free cash flow, corporate finance, and takeovers. the american economic review, 76(2), 323-329. jubliee mines nl v riley. (2009). 253 alr 673: 69 acsr 659. la porta, r., lopez-de-silanes, f., shleifer, a., & vishny, r. (1998). law and finance. journal of political economy, 106(6), 1113-1155. https://doi.org/10.1086/250042 levine, a. (1999). rewarding effort. journal of political philosophy, 7(4), 404-418. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9760.00083 morck, r., shleifer, r., & vishny, r. (1988). management ownership and market valuation: an empirical analysis. journal of financial economics, 20, 293-315. https://doi.org/10.1016/0304-405x(88)90048-7 nicholson, d., & underhill, j. (2012). government releases first tranche of reforms to company officer liability. keeping good companies, 64(2), 70-71. prasad, l. m. (2006). human resource management. new delhi, sultan chand & sons. shleifer, a., & vishny, r. (1986). a survey of corporate governance. journal of finance, 52(2), 737-783. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6261.1997.tb04820.x sifuna, a. p. (2012). disclose or abstain: the prohibition of insider trading on trial. journal of international banking law and regulation, 27(9). frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no.1, 2022 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 1 original paper william dubois’s sociology of empowerment, and black male feminism, as a source of black women empowerment mušić lejla1 1 department of sociology, faculty of political sciences sarajevo, sarajevo university, bosnia and herzegovina received: december 13, 2021 accepted: december 30, 2021 online published: january 21, 2022 doi:10.22158/fet.v5n1p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v5n1p1 abstract famous for black feminism, sociology of empowerment, and black female emancipation, glorified inside his very celebrated museum exhibits, that includes the multimedia representations inherited inside the freedom of speech, vote, and debates around the discrimination of black females: “du bois’s limited views of black women, inhibit his ability to imagine african american women, as race leaders”. du bois adopts a paternalistic stance, as he simultaneously admires, and pities black womanhood. the black women characters he presents in the souls of black folk, are predominantly struggling, overburdened, physically attractive women, who are nevertheless able to support black men. mccaskill notes, “paradoxically, african-american jmen were impressed into a patriarchy, that disclaimed women’s equality to men, in the political, and professional spheres, while simultaneously mythologizing this same sisterhood’s moral, and domestic superiority, over their brothers (p. 23)”. du bois’s descriptions of black women, unintentionally, re-inscribed patriarchal ideals, as he sought racial equality. this research focuses onto the important notion of black feminism, that william dubois was the ancestor, to the black feminist movement. these ideas are confirmed, inside the empirical results, that are based on analyses of opinions, about the dubois’s influence in the contemporary, by youth sociologists. 1. black women emancipation in the dubois’s theory to dubois, black women held moral power over men, and thrived in the domestic sphere (p. 24). “the damnation of women,” similarly, to this letter, finds that the black women’s damnation, lies in their inability to be deemed respectable, delicate, and worthy of the same admiration, as white women. yet unlike his 1920 essay, the letter demonstrates, that as of 1906, du bois had not yet articulated how www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 2 published by scholink inc. racism affected black women’s political, or economic standing. his analyses of race, and gender were limited to black women’s representation, and their need for protection. the foundation of black feminist sociology ida wells-barnett, and anna julia cooper made the radical social change in biographies, history, and sociology. they envisioned the african-american female life’s, and as a contemporaries, they founded the sociology of african-american women, with the special focus towards their real, and practical experiences (lengermann & niebrugge, 1998; pp. 149-184). 2. black feminism, and black male feminism william dubois is considered to be ancestor of black feminist thought. black feminism was branch of broader feminist movement, that was supporting black women emancipation, black women’s vote, but it also supported the family as a locus of support for men, and women of color. in opposition to radical feminist notion, that the family is a locus of female oppression. in his book, dark water: voices from within the weil, dubois questions the suffrage, and the women rights stating: “england has granted the suffrage for women” (1920, p. 787), and while as writing about black women suffrage dubois exemplifies: “the experiment of negro suffrage, has resulted in the uplift of 12 million people, at rate probably unparalleled in history” (1920, p. 572). further, in his explanation dubois elaborates, that american democracy had failed because non granting the rights to black people: “up whites, down blacks to your tents. o white folks and war with blacks, and parti-colored mongrel beasts” (1920, p. 572). the souls of black folk, is the prime foundation for african-american studies. in this fundamental work, dubois discusses the declaration of independence: “here was defenseless people, suddenly made free” (2013, p. 873)! william dubois was part of group of intellectuals, with ida wells barnett: “because of its antidesegregation stance, and it’s radical (agitation) philosophy”. history has all but forgotten, that the league not only acted as a political body, but as an organized “black school of thought.” meetings, and publications of the aal, “became the battle ground for conflicting black leadership philosophies, [which] provided debating platform, for the seminal leadership ideals, of not only fortune himself, but of w. e. b. dubois, william monroe trotter, booker t. washington, bishop alexander walters, ida wells-barnett, and several others, not so well remembered today.” understanding the afro-american league as an active, organized, and verifiable intellectual school of thought, gives present day scholar, a clearer picture, of the agitation philosophy, endorsed by wells-barnett, while simultaneously highlighting the divergent postbellum political theories, against integration, and white participation, in racial struggle (2012, p. 467). william dubois wrote letters with famous antilynching activist, and sociologist ida wells barnett, and corresponded to suffragette mary church terrell. both of them were part of black women’s clubs, and the national association of colored women. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 3 published by scholink inc. 3. empirical investigation sample group was ma students in sociology. the research was conducted in january 2021. the 80% of students were females, 20% were male students. graph 1. dubois’s sociology 1) do you know what kind of sociology did dubois advanced? all of the examinees responded, that they do know, additionally giving following descriptions to their responses: william dubois was an american activist for the human rights, as well as the founder, and the general secretary of an afro-american protestant group, and the founder of the national society for the advancement of colored people. dubois elevated the question of black people, later on racial problems, that was central for his work. for sociology, the analyses of the nature of social problem, by dubois, as well as the black people problems, are grounded theories. his social-constructivist writings on race, and racial differences, as well as his development of the position, that the mechanism of power, constructs structure the relation of social domination. dubois was great suffrage supporter, he advocated the suffragette in his essay, in his early beginnings. i think that dubois championed black people equal rights, and equal rights of all. dubois was equal rights activist, he fought against racism, for black people equal rights. dubois patronized the equality of all people, without superiority, of any race over the other, he eliminated all the differences. he was activist for civil rights of black women, endorsed sociology in field of racism, and race. i learned about william dubois, only recently, since i am into media. i have only begun to discover sociology, in wider scientifically sense, and he was interested in “live” sociology, that would not concern only with theory, but empirical investigations, as well, agitation, protesting, attentively transparent fascination in founding the solution to the problem, predominantly of black women, and men. i have read in brittanica, that dubois was forerunner of the black nationalism, pan africanism, and culture logical nationalism. dubois raised the black people equity, and equality. 2) what is the dubois’s importance for feminism? www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 4 published by scholink inc. the feminist critics evaluated dubois’s work differently, and relaunched with the critic of his opinion, that black women are intellectuals, and race leaders, including the women equality acknowledgment, and contribution to our understanding of black women, and recognition to our awareness of black women marginalization. with “damnation of women”, he supported their security. dubois fought for the black people’s rights, and the education, and he was advocate for black women’s rights, and centers around the women. black feminist consider dubois as preeminent ancestor. the dubois’s importance in his work, where the “souls of black folk”, consider to be the most important work in the history of sociology. the book is consisted of several essays on race, and feminist support. during his lifetime, dubois was a black women’s advocate. he focused to women, mother, activist, and workers, but not on their intellect. because of that, today’s feminist favor his importance, even though they derider some of his atrocities, in the relation to gender, even though he was a great agitator of women’s rights, and was into the black, and racial questions, and was a human rights apostle. i presume that he defended feminism, and black women, and was a human rights proponent, notwithstanding of his certain points around gender. dubois put women on to pedestal, and thought that they are equally important as men. sociologist dubois opens his own male perspective on black women’s rights. graph 2. dubois’s feminism importance 3) do you agree with dubois’s feminist points? 60% of students stated that they support dubois’s feminist points, and gave following explanations: dubois is very important for the formation of our understanding of the black women discrimination. one of the students, partially agrees with dubois’s feminist ideas, exiled in programs from 1903 to 1920, activists for black women’s rights. the group of students that do not agree with dubois’s feminist ideas (30%) give following additional description: leaving aside the author preciseness, there are always very large digressions, and omissions, that are not agreeable. dubois overexposed the ideas of women, and birth. there is not enough information about his theory. black people are facing racial stereotypes, in the contemporary, too. example of that is the recent floyd’s case, that exemplary shows, that there are problems, in the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 5 published by scholink inc. relation to race, still mirroring the age of slavery. most of the respondents, 50% responded that dubois’s positions are implemented in the contemporary, in the field of work, gender, and black women’s rights. dubois patrons the fight against discrimination, freedom, and human rights, altogether with tendentiousness for achieving the equality. graph 3. dubois’s position graph. 4. the importance of william dubois, black sociologist, in contemporary sociology www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 6 published by scholink inc. 4) do you find that william dubois is the most significant black sociologist in contemporary sociology the most of the examinees responded (60%) that william dubois is the most eminent black sociologist, in the contemporary, additionally explaining their arguments for it: dubois was the first black sociologist that gained phd, and become professor of sociology, history, and religion at atlanta university, he founded black community, negated the racial, and other differences, emphasizing that there has to be difference, in between the scientific goals, and the experimental use of the results by “all”, as an american black sociologist, he promoted black culture, and education, as an author, editor, socialist, sociologist. other part of the group (20%) responded that they think that martin luther king, is the most important black sociologist. 5) do you know something about the historical importance of william dubois? all of the examinees (100%) had responded that they know about historical importance of the dubois, in the contemporary sociology. they gave following descriptions: dubois partaken in the first universal congress of races, in london, and wrote the first black african history, that was used as a pan-dan for the black rights revolution, in africa. through the critic of society, dubois championed the rights of minorities, and marginalized groups. american sociologist, that was very influential in black culture, editor, author, with great appreciation in support of black people education, and culture. as a negro movement leader, dubois fought for the black people equality, non discrimination. as a founder in sociology, for racial studies, as a very engaged empiricist, dubois emphasized the importance of researches and investigations, as well as data analysis, for the sociology. dubois is important for sociology, and psychology. dubois championed black human rights, and as a patron influenced the sociology of empowerment, and emancipation of all marginalized: black women, black men, and minority groups. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 7 published by scholink inc. photo 1. ida b. wells-barnett museum, holly springs (available at:https://www.djournal.com/news/leona-harris-director-of-ida-b-wells-museum/article_0540a0ec-819c -5c1f-ad4c-86eb31f9fbf9.html, accessed on 12.10.2021.) 4. conclusion this paper had shown, that the importance of william dubois’s sociology of empowerment, black male feminism, and black women emancipation, in the idea of black feminist movement, that dubois represents the ancestor for black feminist thought. all of the examinees noted the importance of dubois’s thought for contemporary, and all of them stated the multiple different roles, in the society that he had, and described the emancipatory social positions, and actions that he promoted, in championing the democratic, and egalitarian perspective for women human rights. the most of the examinees stated that dubois patronized the equality of all people, without superiority, of any race over the other, he eliminated all the differences. he was activist for civil rights of black women, endorsed sociology in field of racism, and race. dubois’ s house museum, and william dubois’s historical site near new york, as well as william dubois’s memorial centre for pan african culture in accra, ghana along with ida wells barnett museum in holy springs, mississippi, represent the preeminent archeological sociological sites, for cultural, and academic visits, that celebrate the black male feminism, and black feminist movement, in emancipatory sociology, as dubois’s envisioned. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 8 published by scholink inc. references dubois, w. (2013). the souls of black folk. chappell hill: north caroline university press. dubois, w. (1986). dark water: voices from within the veil. new york: harcourt, brace, and company. madoo, l., patricia, n. g. (2007). the women founders. long grove: waveland press. curry, t. (2012). the fortune of wells: ida b. wells-barnett’s use of t. thomas fortune's philosophy of social agitation as a prolegomenon to militant civil rights. transactions of the charles s. peirce society, 48(4), 456-482. retrieved from https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/trancharpeirsoc.48.4.456 https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/trancharpeirsoc.48.4.456 frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no.3, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 91 original paper an exploration of the innovative teaching mode of mixed ideological and political course based on flipped classroom and wisdom classroom xianying dai1 1 anhui huangmei opera art vocational college, anqing, china received: august 5, 2023 accepted: august 27, 2023 online published: september 14, 2023 doi:10.22158/fet.v6n3p91 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v6n3p91 abstract innovation is the theme of the development of the new era. ideological and political education should make good use of new ideas, data, digitization, networking and intelligent technology to promote the reform of teaching mode of ideological and political courses in colleges and universities. flipped classroom realizes the reverse order innovation of the teaching process of ideological and political theory courses. guided by the concept of wisdom education, smart classroom mainly innovates in three aspects: pre-class interaction, immediacy interaction in class and extended interaction after class, and realizes the secondary reverse innovation of teaching reform. keywords flipped classroom, wisdom classroom, ideological and political theory course, teaching model innovation the ideological and political theory course in colleges and universities (hereinafter referred to as “ideological and political course”) needs to undergo the development and transformation from traditional classroom, flipped classroom to smart classroom. data, digital, networking and intelligent technologies have been widely used in the construction of ideological and political courses in colleges and universities, and teaching model innovation has become the only way to deepen the reform of teaching methods and improve teaching quality. the intelligent classroom teaching mode is fully applied to the ideological and political teaching in colleges and universities, and the reform of ideological and political courses in colleges and universities is promoted by means of data, digitization, networking and intelligent technology, which helps to form a co-construction and sharing mechanism of high-quality ideological and political education and teaching resources. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 92 published by scholink inc. 1. development status of flipped classroom and wisdom classroom for ideological and political courses 1.1 development status of flipped classroom flipped classroom is a hybrid mooc that combines online moocs (moocs) with traditional classes. in the process of classroom teaching, teachers are directors and students are actors, which promotes the autonomy of students’ learning and reflects the trend of digital, networked and intelligent development of contemporary education. compared with the traditional classroom, the biggest innovation of flipped classroom is to achieve two reversals: one is the reversal of the learning process. through micro-classes, moocs and videos made in advance by teachers according to the important and difficult points of teaching and hot social issues, students can preview knowledge points before class. in class, teachers pay more attention to students’ ability of group discussion and independent learning. that is to say, the two stages of teaching knowledge in class and internalizing knowledge outside class in the process of learning are reversed, which is that “teaching before learning” is inverted into “learning before teaching”. second, the status of teachers and students is reversed. traditional teaching is “teacher-led”, teachers are “starring actors” and students are “viewers”, that is, teachers teach knowledge in the classroom while students passively accept knowledge in the seats, ignoring students’ active learning and inquiry ability. in flipped classroom, teaching activities are “student-centered”, but both teachers and students are teaching subjects, teachers are “directors” and students are “actors”, that is, the role of teachers is transformed into guiding and stimulating students’ active exploration and learning, realizing the reversal from “infusing” teaching to “heuristic” teaching, and from “receptive” learning to “inquiry” learning. 1.2 development status of wisdom classroom of ideological and political courses: from 1.0 to 3.0 clarifying the teaching mode of smart classroom based on the perspective of new media technology is the premise of building the theory and practice system of smart classroom. from the perspective of new media technology, the development of smart classroom has generally experienced three stages. since 2014, through the literature search of the internet and cnki database, the concept of smart classroom involved in relevant academic research results has been systematically sorted out, and there are various definitions of the concept of smart classroom, which everyone agrees with: “the smart classroom extends the classroom from inside the class to outside the class, from the physical environment to the online virtual environment, forming a smart learning space.” (zhu, 2016) the official definition of smart classroom in 2015 (i.e., smart classroom 1.0) “is an intelligent and efficient classroom based on constructivist learning theory and using new generation information technologies such as big data, internet of things, and mobile internet; its essence is based on big data learning analysis and the application of mobile learning terminals, through data-based teaching decision-making, instant evaluation feedback, three-dimensional interactive communication and intelligent resource push, to comprehensively change the content and structure of classroom teaching, and build an information-based classroom teaching model in the era of big data.” (liu, 2015) with the development www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 93 published by scholink inc. of wisdom classroom in ideological and political course teaching, students’ interest in learning ideological and political course is constantly increasing. in recent years, on the basis of inheriting the definition of wisdom classroom 1.0, the definition of wisdom classroom 2.0 has been proposed: “based on the constructivist learning theory, the” internet + “way of thinking and the new generation of information technologies such as the internet of things, cloud computing, big data and artificial intelligence are used to build intelligent and efficient new classrooms, so as to realize the datatization of teaching decisions, instant evaluation feedback, three-dimensional communication and interaction, intelligent resource push, digital experiment process and visualization of teaching presentation. create a learning environment conducive to collaborative communication and meaning construction, rich in wisdom, promote the reform of classroom teaching structure and subject teaching mode, and realize the wisdom development of all students.” (sun, 2016) in recent years, with the accelerated development and application of digital, digital, networked and intelligent technological means, ideological and political classroom has entered the era of intelligence, and the teaching means of ideological and political smart classroom have been improved qualitatively. on the basis of inheriting the definition of smart classroom 2.0, the definition of smart classroom 3.0 is proposed, which “refers to the learning theories such as constructivism and connectionism as guidance. with the aim of promoting the development of students’ core literacy, intelligent information technologies such as artificial intelligence and big data are used to create intelligent and efficient classrooms; its essence is to create a networked, data-oriented, interactive and intelligent learning environment through the construction of the overall architecture of “cloud-platform -terminal”, which supports the full-scene teaching application of online and offline integration, in-class and extra-class integration, and virtual reality integration. it aims to promote the innovation of subject wisdom teaching model, truly realize personalized learning and individualized teaching, and promote the conversion of knowledge into wisdom and the realization of wisdom development.” (liu & wu, 2019) 2. implementation path of blended teaching of flipped classroom and smart classroom flipped classroom refers to a new teaching model that reverses the two stages of “knowledge transfer” and “knowledge internalization” in the learning process. the flipped teaching mode based on smart classroom refers to the implementation of flipped classroom teaching relying on smart environment, and teachers and students use smart space to cooperate and interact before class to realize pre-learning. in class, teachers identify teaching problems according to the diagnosis before class, guide students to use the functions and resources of the smart classroom online platform to carry out interactive inquiry and collaborative learning, and realize the internalization of knowledge; after class, teachers and students use the function of smart classroom online platform to reflect and share, and carry out targeted expansion and improvement. before class, teachers define the course objectives, provide rich course resources, and publish related preview tasks; the results of students’ pre-class preview tasks are fed back to the smart classroom platform, which can intelligently analyze the students’ preview situation. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 94 published by scholink inc. in addition, the flipped classroom of smart classroom can use intelligent analysis such as cloud computing and big data to understand students’ learning ability, learning motivation, knowledge point mastery, learning process and learning problems, etc., and formulate feasible and personalized learning plans according to students’ individual differences. in class, teachers identify problems according to the pre-learning situation, push relevant resources and tools for students, guide students to use the smart classroom environment to carry out interactive exploration and targeted learning, and promote the internalization of knowledge. after class, teachers and students use the relevant tools in the wisdom class to reflect and share, and carry out targeted expansion and improvement; at the same time, the smart space can dynamically analyze the learning situation of students and provide relevant suggestions for their next learning. 2.1 pre-interaction before class the teacher’s lesson preparation is based on the content of the textbook, organizes the teaching process around the teaching syllabus prepared by the ministry of education, and prepares the teaching plan of the online teaching content. students make use of the materials provided by teachers and related to class content + micro-class resources (related online courses) after class to improve students’ independent learning ability and learn about social hot and difficult issues in advance. the design and production of smart classroom is not only to record some micro videos, but also to include smart classroom teaching plan design, smart classroom photography, smart classroom post production, and smart classroom evaluation system. smart classroom resources are the expansion and extension of micro-video content, including learning task lists, learning resources, training and test questions, expansion materials, etc. its purpose is to clarify the students’ learning tasks, provide the necessary materials to complete the learning tasks and ensure the detection of learning effects, so as to make full preparation for the next implementation of “learning in class”. “compared with the offline ideological and political course teaching activities in colleges and universities, the online teaching mode contains a new operating logic and mechanism.” however, in terms of the continuous characteristics of teaching, the online teaching mode has not completely changed the basic pattern of classroom interaction in the teaching of ideological and political courses in colleges and universities, but also retains the space for the transfer of offline experience to online within a certain range.” (liu, 2023) in addition to recording micro-lessons, teachers can also assign practical teaching assignments. for example, make full use of regional cultural and historical resources, assign students to record a series of practical micro-lessons of “culture casting soul educating people”. with the design and recording of wisdom classroom as the carrier, it highlights the core issues in the course, and achieves the goal of cultivating the soul through practice outside the classroom. 2.2 immediacy interaction in class in the traditional classroom teaching storage cabinet, the students’ expressions and expressions can be used by the teachers of ideological and political courses in colleges and universities to judge whether the interaction is instantaneous, and the interaction is carried out under the students’ intuitive “visible www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 95 published by scholink inc. response”. however, the online teaching of smart classroom loses this advantage. the teaching process is framed by the technical limitations of the platform, and the teacher cannot see the students’ attitude, expression and other factors in listening to the lecture, so as to judge the launching time and launching method of instant interaction. however, the platform functions such as “bullet screen” and “comment” in the online teaching of smart classroom provide a new opportunity for teaching interaction. therefore, in the online teaching of the wisdom classroom, the questions raised by the students themselves and the questions answered by the teachers are more interactive. the amount of barrage, discussion and response can reflect students’ understanding of knowledge points and the “key points, difficulties and hot spots” in ideological and political class teaching to a considerable extent, so as to convert invisible students’ responses into visible concrete data and provide data support for accurately grasping the time of instantaneous teaching interaction. through the content of the bullet screen and the comments, the accuracy of students’ grasp of the teacher’s answers or interaction opportunities can be intuitively displayed, which not only helps the teachers of ideological and political courses in colleges and universities to determine the interaction opportunities, but also provides an important reference for more accurate interaction methods. compared with traditional classroom expressions and expressions, expressions in the form of text have a higher performance rate, and are more likely to arouse the resonance of students and teachers and students. due to the differences in individual understanding and thinking modes, the instant discussion of wisdom classroom online teaching of ideological and political courses in colleges and universities shows a variety of answers to the understanding of problems, and changes with the nature and characteristics of the topics and focus issues involved in the teaching process, showing a variety of states such as consensus or partial recognition, and opposing views. the critical content can help the teachers of ideological and political courses in colleges and universities more clearly understand the degree of students’ understanding of knowledge points, and then follow up and update the teaching content in time, so as to give students immediate feedback information and organize timely and appropriate teaching interaction. 2.3 extended interaction after class the end of traditional classroom teaching activities and the completion of classroom teaching tasks are synchronized, and the after-class interaction around the teaching content is relatively less. in the wisdom classroom of ideological and political courses in colleges and universities, although the existence of time and space distance limits the face-to-face communication, the online platform of the wisdom classroom provides the maximum possibility of interactive communication, thus extending the teaching activities from the classroom to before and after class, thus expanding the new form and new path of teaching interaction. make full use of online teacher-student interaction continuation function. in the traditional teaching classroom, it is difficult for the teachers of ideological and political courses in colleges and universities to grasp the depth of students’ understanding of the teaching content and the reflection of problems in the face of many students. however, ideological and political courses in colleges and universities take moral cultivation as the fundamental task, and its curriculum attributes www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 96 published by scholink inc. determine that the corresponding teaching activities should take the understanding of college students’ knowledge and the solution of the task of bacon casting soul as the internal requirements. therefore, ideological and political teachers should make full use of the online functions of the smart classroom online platform such as “group mutual assessment”, “theme discussion”, “like reply”, “group inquiry”, “interactive question and answer”, “question answering area”, “homework area” and “after-class test” to further extend the smart classroom teaching activities. in addition, the most distinctive functions of the smart classroom online platform such as “private chat between teachers and students”, “group chat” and “group sending” have a positive role in further strengthening the teaching function and feeding back the teaching effect. therefore, the after-class interaction endowed by the function of the smart classroom online platform can create convenient conditions for college students to solve doubts and answer doubts, so as to better fit the intelligent learning characteristics of contemporary college students, enhance their internal motivation for efficient learning, and help colleges and universities to individualize and design different teaching classes. the essence of teaching is a process of special communication activities between teachers and students that lays the foundation for life. there are not only communication activities between teachers and students, but also the surge and growth of life. only in this way can classroom teaching satisfy the development of students in various aspects and give teachers a sense of accomplishment and happiness. (qiu, xie, li, & li, 2018) 3. difficulties faced by blended teaching constructed by flipped classroom and smart classroom 3.1 blended teaching practice needs to be improved although in recent years, in the teaching practice of ideological and political courses in colleges and universities, mixed teaching has had a lot of experience in teaching reform, but the search of knownet found that there are more theoretical studies of mixed teaching, and relatively few have been applied to teaching practice, or mainly as an ornament of teaching mode reform. that is, a number of micro-videos are inserted into the courseware of teachers’ lectures as file packages. in essence, flipped classroom and smart classroom advocate personalized learning, and the implementation of classroom teaching is the process of solving common problems and individual problems in the course of classroom teaching. teachers take classroom theory teaching as the basis, but solve problems as the orientation, and answer the questions raised by students in time through the interaction between teachers and students and students. specifically, in terms of the construction of flipped classroom and smart classroom resources, recording isolated micro-teaching videos (micro-lessons) or recommended micro-lessons is equivalent to smart classes, leading students to focus on pre-class learning. a microlesson can only solve a specific problem in the knowledge system of a certain content, but can not form the internal logical connection between each content. only when flipped classroom and wisdom classroom are presented in the form of complete, serialized and thematic wisdom classroom, can www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 97 published by scholink inc. students carry out targeted learning based on knowledge points. have a clear understanding of the whole system of the discipline. 3.2 poor connection between in-class and extra-class teaching links the more prominent problem in flipped classroom and smart classroom teaching reform is the poor connection between in-class and extra-class teaching links. on the one hand, due to the delayed construction of flipped classroom and smart classroom resources in extracurricular teaching, it is not enough to support the needs of knowledge internalization in class teaching; on the other hand, students’ learning effects before and after class cannot be timely reported to the teachers. there is a key link between the classroom and after-class links of flipped classroom and wisdom classroom, that is, students pre-learn knowledge points through micro-video resources after class, and should feedback the preview effect and difficult problems to the teacher before class. teachers need to take some common questions raised by students to design classroom links, in order to have a target. however, it takes a lot of time and energy to meet the above requirements, which is undoubtedly a huge challenge for teachers who are overloaded with public politics classes. therefore, it is necessary to establish the incentive system and assessment system for the construction and application of flipped classroom and smart classroom in ideological and political courses. on the one hand, corresponding requirements and indicators are added in the year-end assessment of teachers’ teaching work, and two teaching modes are tilted in the evaluation of teaching results. in this transformation process, collective lesson preparation activities are used to emphasize the importance of flipped classroom and smart classroom, and the role of course leaders of ideological and political courses is played well. on the other hand, it is suggested that schools set up a series of teaching reform topics for the flipped classroom of ideological and political courses and the application and promotion of the smart classroom teaching mode, encourage the teachers of ideological and political courses to promote the reform of teaching mode with subject research, and strengthen the training on the construction and application of smart classroom for teachers, so as to closely combine the construction and application of smart classroom and the application of smart classroom with the improvement of teachers’ professional skills. then break through the bottleneck of the development of ideological and political course teaching, and realize the smooth transformation to the new teaching mode. it is urgent to reform and innovate the teaching mode of ideological and political courses in universities, improve the ability of mutual information, digitization and intelligent application, so that ideological and political theories can achieve “into the brain, into the heart and into the practice”, and achieve the unity of cognition, identification and practice. 4. conclusion the development goal of building a smart china and an innovative society in the new era is consistent with the goal of cultivating innovative talents in colleges and universities proposed by the ministry of education. the aim of intelligence education is to train innovative talents, and it also provides new www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 98 published by scholink inc. teaching methods for the innovation of the teaching mode of ideological and political course. it embodies the ideas of the wisdom classroom (3.0): to promote the development of students’ core literacy, using artificial intelligence, big data and other intelligent information technology to create intelligent and efficient classroom; by constructing the overall structure of “cloud-platform-end”, creating a network, data-based, interactive, intelligent learning environment, to support the integration of online and offline, in-class and out-of-class, virtual reality integration of all-scene teaching applications; to promote innovation in the teaching mode wisdom, truly personalized learning and teaching according to students’ aptitude, and to promote knowledge into wisdom, to achieve the development of wisdom to cultivate students’ creativity. about the author dai xianying (1974-), female, born in tongcheng, anhui province, associate professor, famous teacher in anhui province, master of law, research direction is ideological and political education. fund project the key project of teaching and research of provincial quality engineering ideological and political theory course in anhui colleges and universities: “the combination of persuasion and service, infiltration and construction” —a study on the practical path of integrating the communist party of china (cpc) people’s spiritual pedigree into ideological and political course teaching in colleges and universities (2021szjyxm016) and the humanities and social sciences project in colleges and universities in 2021 (sk2021a1017). references liu, b. q. (2015). when wisdom classroom meets big data. china education network, 2015(7), 65-67. liu, b. q., & wu, x. r. (2019). smart classroom: new idea, new model and new practice (p. 69). beijing: beijing normal university press. liu, n. (2023). research on the improvement of online teaching quality of wisdom classroom in ideological and political theory courses in universities. ideological education research, 3, 117-122. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.tecs.20230803.11 qiu, y., xie, y. r., li, s. j., & li, j. (2018). classroom reform towards the era of wisdom. audio-visual education research, 2018(7), 70-76. sun, s. h. (2016). online teaching 4.0: “internet +” classroom teaching. china educational informatization, 2016(14), 17-20. zhu, z. t. (2016). new development of smart education: from flipped classroom to smart classroom and smart learning space. open education research, 2016(2), 18-26, 49. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.tecs.20230803.11 microsoft word fet-v1n2-p164 frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 164 original paper significance of intercultural interdisciplinary projects for the future career of university graduates elena a. makarova1* 1 taganrog institute of management and economics, taganrog, russian federation * elena a. makarova, taganrog institute of management and economics, taganrog, russian federation received: may 16, 2018 accepted: july 1, 2018 online published: august 17, 2018 doi:10.22158/fet.v1n2p164 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v1n2p164 abstract in the 21st century, interdisciplinary research has become a part of modern life. the world surrounding us is interdisciplinary in nature, so scientists have to use methods and insights of several established disciplines to broaden their research area and to find an answer to the problems posed for them. “interdisciplinarity” is a good word to describe scholars and researchers’ combining efforts to solve problems in each separate independent academic field. this process involves university students and teachers, too. students who are going to build their successful careers should know much more than their major. they have to make decisions and solve problems in their professional life, both of these skills demand knowledge of more than one or two single subjects. it can also be applied to complex subjects that can only be understood and investigated by combining the perspectives of two or more scientific disciplines. in professional education, in addition to core courses taught by educational studies faculty, interdisciplinary projects are offered in order to overcome the traditional barriers between sciences and to get practical results. hence is the significance of interdisciplinary knowledge for the career of university graduates who are going to work in the 21st century. keywords interdisciplinary, intercultural, cultural awareness, competences, communication skills, project-based learning, cultural literacy 1. introduction the diversity and global character of modern human connections and interactions, the need for contacts and interchange between nations, communities and cultures in the world created a wide interest among the representatives of the most diverse sciences in the process of interaction and mutual influence of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 165 published by scholink inc. cultures and languages, which led to intercultural communication. the connection between groups belonging to different cultures presupposes the presence of intercultural literacy among their representatives. according to grushevitskaya (grushevitskaya, 2003, p. 229), “this should be aimed at the policy of modern states, which are increasingly becoming multi-ethnic, and hence the problems of acculturation, the formation of intercultural competence go to the forefront in their lives”. globalization is another factor influencing integration and cooperation between countries. changes in the global economy can not but affect young people; there is a gradual integration of local economies into the world economic system. the problems of competitiveness of specialists in the world labor market are acute, which also affects the system of professional training. standards of higher professional education in the russian federation require the consideration of professional specifics, the formation of professional competencies of students, the focus of training on the implementation of the tasks for future professional activity of specialists. particularly relevant in this situation is a professionally oriented approach to learning, which provides for the formation of students’ competencies aimed at the professional knowledge and ability to apply them in professional situations. vocationally oriented education is understood as training based on the needs of students, dictated by the specific features of their future professional activity. it involves combination of academic knowledge, professionally-oriented competences with personal traits (politeness, conscience, leadership abilities) developed in course of project activities. project-based learning (pbl) is an educational process, where learners led by the teacher are motivated to gain knowledge, understanding and skills. learners are actively involved in the learning process by developing projects related to the solution of practically important issues. for many years in university practice, project development has been used as a form of student final assessment (stozhko et al., 2015). using knowledge and skills applied in different academic subjects for the project problem solution leads to knowledge integration and generation of the picture of the world interdisciplinary in its nature. the world is interdisciplinary, so education has to be interdisciplinary, too. the term “interdisciplinary” is applied within education to describe studies that use methods and insights of several established disciplines or traditional fields of study. the issue of interdisciplinary integration in professional education pursues both a radical restructuring of the whole learning process by constructing a model of an innovative education institution, and the introduction of modern pedagogical methodologies and techniques and it (chu et al., 2010; crampton, ragusa, & cavanagh, 2012; di blas et al., 2014; gendjova & yordanova, 2009; sampson et al., 2014). interdisciplinarity involves not only professionals but scholars, researchers, students, and teachers with the goal of connecting and integrating results of separate independent studies in the pursuit of a common problem solution. it can also be applied to complex subjects that can only be understood and investigated by combining the perspectives of two or more scientific disciplines. “interdisciplinary” as an adjective may be used in the sphere of education when instructors show students how to apply methods and approaches from different scientific areas, choosing one that suits better to a particular problem or www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 166 published by scholink inc. when they teach students to understand the subject of one science in terms of a different one, for example, how to understand music from the point of view of acoustics (physics). along with the continuing disciplinary organization of science and increasing specialization, there is an active formation of interdisciplinary knowledge; problematic and project approaches to research are increasingly being applied, and the integrity paradigm is asserted. however, the understanding of interdisciplinarity both at the level of the definition of the concept itself and at the level of its heuristic potential assessment differs significantly. its effectiveness is also evaluated in different ways. often researchers indicate that their work is interdisciplinary, poorly understanding the essence of interdisciplinarity believing that it will add additional relevance and value to their research. in connection with the foregoing, the need arose both for concretization of the term itself and for determining the main advantages of interdisciplinarity and the inevitable problems confronting scientists working at the junction of scientific disciplines. 2. methods the use of the latest achievements in didactics, psychology, informatics and other sciences, the increase in the informative capacity of the content of instruction, the development of general educational skills, the teaching and methodological support, and the provision of high intellectual activity of students are among the essential characteristics of teaching technologies in higher education. one of the conditions for high-quality professional training of future experts in the system of higher education is each student’s involvement in project activity, their practical application of the knowledge gained and a clear understanding of where, how and for what purposes this knowledge can be applied. professionally oriented technologies for teaching the new generation of highly skilled professionals should be aimed, first of all, at qualitative changes in the education system and have as a result the mastery of the students’ professional and communicative competences, the ability of students to take an initiative in any project and to apply their creativity part in any problem-solving assignment. with interdisciplinary approach in use many new scientific disciplines have emerged combining and mixing knowledge of multiple traditional disciplines, expanding on the boundaries of studies. for example, victimology is an interdisciplinary study of victims and offenders from psychological angle of view, legal research describing criminal justice system attitude to both victims and offenders, human rights violation investigation, etc. sociology also takes part in studying social groups, social movements and social institutions as environment for victims and their offenders. the unity of knowledge is one of the greatest ideas of intellectual history. the unity of the world, as well as the unity of nature and man history, is reflected in the ever growing number of sciences expressing this unity. general research productively combines natural science with social sciences and humanitarian sciences; a common understanding is achieved only by applying an interdisciplinary scientific approach that overcomes the traditional barriers between sciences. integration of scientific disciplines and developed methods of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 167 published by scholink inc. interdisciplinary research, contribute to natural and social sciences, enriching the sphere of humanitarian sciences. the design of professionally-oriented technologies should be carried out through the interaction of theory and practice, the combination of individual and teamwork, mentoring, self-evaluation and self-education. the principles of their design include the following: • integration of education into science and production; • professional and creative skills; • development of personality traits; • development of self-discipline and self-education experience. here are some examples of the integration of knowledge from completely different scientific fields for the practical solution of research problems, the projects were carried out by teams consisting of experts of different scientific profiles: 1) integration of psychology, sociology and economics in a research project aimed at problem solution of how to motivate employees of companies to work effectively and to achieve the planned results promptly; 2) integration of sociology, economics and demography in a project aimed at elucidating the reasons for the difference in the material wealth of families of different nationalities; 3) integration of biology, sociology and economics in the project on the very important issues—a) at what age a child should be sent to kindergarten if there are two working parents in the family, b) how to determine the family well-being depending on income, social status, parents education level, children’s health, etc. 3. results the most important feature of the education system today is the fundamental education which includes such important aspects as holistic approach, system thinking, a scientific picture of the world, priority of information components in the prospective education system. as the research shows new technologies for future professionals in higher education are expressed: • in the methodically rational organization of the learning process; • creating the necessary communicative comfort in educational environment; • in a variety of methods and forms of work, which are used taking into account the individual characteristics of students, the type of activity, the nature of the material and the level of ownership, a methodologically appropriate combination of group and individual forms of learning; • emotional inclusion of students in the learning process, which ensures the implementation of the installation to disclose the reserves of each individual student; • in the wide use of educational technologies organically included in the learning process and allowing a qualitative breakthrough in improving the quality of students’ learning and cognitive activities, and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 168 published by scholink inc. also significantly expanding the opportunities for accumulating and presenting information for educational and research activities; • in introduction of educational project technologies into teaching practice in all cases where they can intensify and individualize the learning process. a new model of professionally oriented technology for the training of future specialists meets the requirements of higher professional education in the conditions of its renewal. courses devoted to the study of interdisciplinary approaches should necessarily contain educational and research “virtual laboratories” based on modern computer systems the “virtual laboratory” includes: 1) methodological support (instructions that ensure the functioning of the system, algorithms for research, programs of laboratory work). 2) information support (databases of real and experimental data, data banks, necessary for practical work and project-based learning). 3) software (functional settings and capabilities of the “virtual laboratory” information environment). the core of the “virtual laboratory” is information support, which determines the functioning of the information environment. each work in the “virtual laboratory” has a unified structure, which allows in a short time to configure the information environment to solve specific problems. a particular advantage of “virtual laboratories” is the visualization of the phenomena and processes studied. laboratory and practical tasks are aimed not only at training skills to apply certain methods of cognition in any subject, but also demonstrate a connection with other sciences, which contributes to the development of criticality and flexibility of thinking. laboratory makes it possible to most effectively implement the interdisciplinary approach to the learning process as an activity in which knowledge is not opposed to skills but is considered as an integral part of them. visibility and creative activity of trainees during the implementation of practical assignments create a basis for the effective assimilation of scientific knowledge. the “virtual laboratory” gives an opportunity to receive promptly the necessary theoretical material, instructions for experiments and to carry out the simulation of various natural processes and phenomena. this contributes to the implementation of a systematic approach to solving educational problems. 4. discussion in professional education, in addition to core courses taught by educational studies faculty, the major draws upon selected offerings by participating departments and programs, such as psychology, sociology, anthropology, philosophy, political science, and foreign languages. students also learn through field experiences offered in cooperation with professional clubs, educational centers, and campus-community initiatives. in the new socio-economic conditions, the requirements for communicative competence, for creative thinking at workplace have significantly increased. the strategic direction of the education development in modern society provides that specialists are able to apply knowledge to solve professional problems; think critically, communicate with different social www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 169 published by scholink inc. groups and through cultures, solve skillfully conflict situations; adapt to changing life trends; to carry out international cooperation in the field of professional communication; independently work on the development of morality, intellect, and cultural level. intercultural studies add tolerance as students not only learn about other cultures specificity, but also learn how to respect other countries’ scientists’ achievements and innovations. also, practical use of a foreign language while participating in different intercultural events not only increases cultural level of future professionals, their intercultural communicative competence evolution, but definitely contributes to the future competitiveness of russian graduates in international labor markets as they will be able to skillfully resolve any conflict situations; to adjust to changing life and work situations; to carry out international cooperation in the field of professional communication; to independently develop their own professional ethics, morality, intelligence, and to increase their cultural level in general. to implement the tasks set for the university education, it is necessary to unite the efforts of researchers in different fields of science. the interdisciplinary project is one of the ways to emphasize the principle of the integrity of education and interdependence of sciences, it helps to understand that many problems are solved when being considered from the positions of different sciences, and also to realize that the knowledge and skills acquired and formed in the course of one subject study can greatly facilitate the study of another. there is a deeper study of problems, and sometimes even a new understanding of already known phenomena. such an approach unites representatives of different sciences while working on the same problem requiring joint efforts. certain level of knowledge and skills in a particular field, the ability to apply them in practice are needed for interdisciplinary projects. today we talk about computer, environmental, legal, political, economic, financial projects, meaning the development of a complex of relevant systems and skills to operate students’ activities and to combine different disciplines in order to get required results. any activity is a process of solving problems of this or that level of complexity, and the higher this level, the more important the intellectual-cognitive component of activity, and the more obligatory the preliminary training and professional competencies. in the modern world, the process of integration is intensifying in all spheres. countries and peoples actively cooperate and interact in all areas of life, science and education. this shows that today intercultural interdisciplinary projects are of particular relevance. as experts note, any intercultural activity is complex. its key components are socio-cultural and communicative competences (chernov, 2007). changes taking place in the economic sphere affect the educational system of russia. due to integration of russia in the world labor market, the problems of competitiveness of russian university graduates in this market have become acute, which in its turn affect the system of vocational training in higher education. interdisciplinary approach usually involves combining of two or more academic disciplines into one activity, in education it is usually a research project. the unity of knowledge is one of the greatest ideas of intellectual history. the unity of the world, as well as the unity of the history of nature and man, is reflected in the ever growing number of sciences that express this unity. we live in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 170 published by scholink inc. one of those periods in the history of science, when general research productively combines natural science with social sciences and arts. a common understanding can be achieved only by applying an interdisciplinary scientific approach that overcomes the traditional barriers between disciplines. integration of scientific disciplines, developing approaches and methods of interdisciplinary research that contribute to both natural and social sciences enrich the sphere of scientific studies and provide practical outcomes. an instrument for such studies is an interdisciplinary analysis that considers the question of one science through the prism of the other (for example, how physicists study music and sounds, how sociologists consider religion, etc.). it examines the problem from different perspectives, integrating the system approach into research, instead of considering the problem from a single point of view of a particular academic discipline, which leads to the integration of alternative perspectives into a coherent system of analysis. education takes such an interdisciplinary approach in science as a model. the adjective “interdisciplinary” in education means the unification of two or more academic disciplines in the framework of educational activities, for example, a student’s research project. it involves the emergence of a new product in the scientific field at the intersection of the traditional boundaries of academic studies and considers creative thinking as a prerequisite for professional growth. in professional activity it is used to solve complex assignments that can be investigated only with the combined efforts of experts in different scientific fields. project training simulates situations of real professional search with the aim of complex tasks solving. the aim of project training is to develop students’ creative potential and create the conditions under which they independently acquire missing data from different sources; learn to use the available knowledge and skills for solution of cognitive, practical and professional tasks; acquire communication skills and teamwork abilities; develop their research skills and systemic and interdisciplinary thinking. project-oriented training should contribute to the solution of the following methodological tasks: development of critical thinking skills in the conditions of working with large information content, independent research work, self-education, teamwork, self-control; ability to clarify the task and to outline ways and methods of solution. therefore, in order to fulfill the educational tasks set in the state standards of higher education in addition to the main specialized theoretical and practical courses, education should necessarily be based on interdisciplinary research projects, mainly to strengthen the applied aspect of education, to develop professional competencies on topics jointly selected by the participating faculties and departments, and to develop students’ communicative and cultural competences. the peculiarity of the humanitarian block subjects, such as psychology, sociology, anthropology, philosophy, political science, cultural study and foreign languages, is that their use in interdisciplinary projects gives them a practical focus. students who do not major in humanitarian block disciplines get practical experience in using theoretical knowledge obtained in a classroom for solving applied problems in project-oriented training. when solving multifaceted issues, interdisciplinary perspectives are needed to make a crucial decision and to develop viable theories. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 171 published by scholink inc. interdisciplinary project differs from a single-subject project in the fact that it requires integration, systematic approach (holistic study) and synthesis of different points of view and not just a parallel consideration of several solutions to the problem in order to choose the best of them. research projects that use knowledge from the only field of knowledge alone are often limited in that they apply the laws of a particular discipline without consideration and inclusion of alternative points of view, such approach does not allow to critically evaluate the prospects of another science. in contrast, interdisciplinary projects are based on several disciplines, that makes it possible to acquire profound knowledge and understanding of complex issues and problems, to synthesize what each of the disciplines suggests to researchers before trying to find a solution to the problem posed in the project. the younger the students, the easier and more naturally they combine different areas of knowledge to understand the world around which is complex, interdisciplinary in nature, and not easy to understand. in some cases, students are simply unfamiliar with division into disciplines that are accepted among scholars in the academic world, and although higher education usually organizes training based on the characteristics of different disciplines; our constantly changing world makes it necessary for a professional to integrate knowledge from various fields of knowledge with the help of innovative and creative methods. one of the most important skills to learn is critical thinking. with all the different information available online, it’s crucial that students analyze, question and challenge what they are being offered. they should remain open-minded, evaluate situations and think outside one academic discipline when approaching the problem. as the knowledge and complexity of the information to be processed multiply, critical thinking of students must develop in the direction of integrating individual subject projections to understand complex issues and phenomena of the surrounding world. research in teaching and learning methods has discovered the fact that project-based training arouses student’s interest in the subject course, enhances student motivation and engagement in the learning process, and eventually improves levels of cognition (johnson & delawsky, 2013). interdisciplinary collaboration may have different applications in the university class. barak and dori (2005, p. 117) described the integration of project-based training in the academic courses, each including both theoretical and experimental material to study. students demonstrate interdisciplinary thinking when they use terms, concepts, methods, forms of communication inherent in two or more disciplines, in order to solve a problem, to create a product, to apply a different research problem in a situation when its solution is impossible with the knowledge of only one discipline. project-based training allows students to integrate knowledge and research methods from various academic disciplines while exploring the problem. with implementation of interdisciplinary projects, students are given the opportunity to analyze a particular discipline in terms of its suitability for solving the research task posed in the project, as well as communication and interaction in broader contexts. the interdisciplinary component of the project-based training is intended for students who are seeking a broader understanding of phenomena in order to become teachers, researchers, politicians, or simply informed and competent experts in their field of expertise. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 172 published by scholink inc. english language proficiency is considered as a pre-requisite of a young professional success in the world labor market. one of the important factors of a young professional success in the international labor market is the mastery of a foreign language, especially english. in the modern world of international trade, contacts and diplomacy foreign language communication becomes an essential component of any future professional activity. communication is the skill many students find challenging to acquire, especially in a foreign language, so it is essential for them to get practice. in this regard the role of a foreign language course in non-linguistic faculties of higher educational institutions is hard to overestimate. involving students in international projects helps them develop knowledge, understanding, competence, problem-solving skills, self-confidence, efficiency, motivation for further learning; they also learn how to listen carefully to their partners. these are the overall goals set in the international project; interdisciplinary training and research contribute to the achievement of these goals. training stimulates students’ cognitive abilities and other research qualities development. our research has identified a number of educational benefits of international projects, including: • interdisciplinary training helps students discover a number of prejudices or recognize bias; • critical thinking development stimulates learning when students view and examine existing theories and ideas in their learning process, analyze and evaluate their importance for practical application; • reconciliation with the scientific views existing in world is achieved by recognizing the sources of pre-existing knowledge. this helps distinguish the idea from a number of disciplines contributing to understanding of the issue under consideration, helps develop the ability to integrate ideas from these disciplines into the broader conceptual framework of international research, helps advance students’ critical thinking and promote their cognitive development; • recognition and evaluation of national scientific progress is achieved through international exchange and joint projects, during which students are ready to give up earlier prejudices and bias, to become more open to adopting methods and techniques promoting collaboration and mutual understanding. according to sadkowska (sadkowska, 2013), defining project success factors is most probably one of the most difficult aspects that many teachers face. this is related mainly to a high number of different factors having direct or indirect influence over the project final outcome. the aforementioned factors can be grouped according to many criteria, with those referring directly to project triangle (scope, time and cost) and not. it is also worth mentioning that though elements such as: time, cost and scope are easier to measure, there are also other factors of nonquantitative character, influence of which is definitely more difficult to determine by using quantitative approach. there are many methods of improving the level of students’ intercultural literacy. out of the most common and well-known methods of teaching successful intercultural communication, international projects are the best: students can get first-hand information, listen to the stories of eyewitnesses, meet with representatives of different cultural groups, view and discuss project materials, come to consensus and make decision. these methods allow not only to expand students’ knowledge in the field of intercultural communication, but also to develop their personality and such character traits as www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 173 published by scholink inc. communicability, sociability, interest in surrounding people, openness to different points of view, inclination towards cooperation and collaboration, corporate culture, tolerance, all of these forming the basis for intercultural competences. as a result, students develop the ability to assess not only the differences between disciplines, but also the characteristics of another country’s national scientific school and its scholars. this leads to a broader understanding of the issues within the research, develops the breadth of intelligence, teaches tolerance and gives the opportunity to practically apply a foreign language to receive information and to discuss the results obtained within the project, thereby developing intercultural communicative competence of both sides of communication. in the 21st century, the requirements for communicative competence, for creative thinking at workplace have significantly increased the role of international and intercultural competences in the first place. the strategy of educational development in modern society demands that university graduates should know how to apply theoretical knowledge to professional problems solution; think critically, communicate with different social groups and cultural communities, and solve conflict situations skillfully adapting to changing life trends; carry out international cooperation in the field of professional communication; work independently and creatively in their professional fields. at the moment, the need to maintain intercultural literacy among future graduates is recognized as priority in the system of russian higher education as evidenced by the set of universal competencies required for mastering bachelor’s and master’s degrees at all levels of education in the federal state educational standards of higher education. among the universal competencies such as ability to participate in decision making process or readiness to use modern methods and technologies of scientific research, intercultural interaction competences are required as well as ability to perceive the intercultural diversity of society in the socio-historical, ethnic and philosophical aspects. at present the problem of intercultural learning has acquired special relevance for the russian higher education. by paying attention to students’ intercultural literacy and foreign languages proficiency it is possible to promote national culture inclusion into the global cultural environment without depersonalizing ethno-cultural identity. according to repko (repko, 2009), an indispensable condition for intercultural competence acquisition is tolerance development. the basic concepts of tolerant attitude and respect to people of other cultures are being taught today at all level of education beginning at preschool. however, conscious and more effective development of such important literacy is possible only at the university, which is a particularly significant stage of cultural adaptation and socialization. tolerant behavior in situation of multiethnic and multinational modern society requires such multicultural international project training that develops tolerant attitudes towards people based on ethnic, cultural, religious and other grounds. according to terminasova (terminasove, 2000), this type of relationship between the nations is called the “dialogue of cultures”. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 174 published by scholink inc. 5. conclusion interdisciplinary integration is one of the general trends in the development of tertiary educational systems worldwide. it meets the demands of the competence approach in teaching and learning and contributes to a higher level of professionalism in graduates. an effective form of interdisciplinary integration is interdisciplinary project-based learning, directly implementing the principles of practice (or context)-based learning. one of the most productive methods of teaching intercultural communication skills is to participate in the international students’ exchange. in recent years, russia has been cooperating in the field of youth international exchanges with more than 150 countries. international exchanges take place in various forms: they include participation of young people in international internships, short-term employment abroad, as well as participation in educational exchange programs and intercultural social projects. at the moment, more and more students are leaving for study abroad. some people go for an exchange, others for internships, and more young people go for a bachelor’s, master’s or phd degree. consequently, the number of programs contributing to international academic exchange between universities, such as abroad.ru, grantist, fulbright, erasmus+, tempus, daad and many others, is also increasing. modern students have brilliant opportunities for learning a foreign language, mastering of which becomes not only a must in their education, but also a professionally significant component in the activity of a graduate. they perceive a foreign language as part of the acquired profession and are prepared for competent professional contact with the world, simultaneously mastering both special professional knowledge and intercultural communicative competence in accordance with the state and professional educational standards and the requirements of employers. while working on the international interdisciplinary project, students acquired the research skills necessary for further study and professional activities. when considering, analyzing and solving the problems and tasks in the development and implementation of international interdisciplinary tasks and projects, it is possible to significantly improve the quality of professional training, thus improving graduates’ competitiveness in the world labor market. one of the conditions for high-quality professional training of future specialists in the system of higher education is involvement in the active cognitive activity of each student, practical application of knowledge gained and a clear understanding of where, how and for what purposes this knowledge can be utilized in their future professional career. references barak, m., & dori, y. j. (2005). enhancing undergraduate students’ chemistry understanding through project-based learning in an it environment. science education, 89(1), 117-139. https://doi.org/10.1002/sce.20027 chernov, l. (2007). intercultural literacy. ryazan state university bulletin. retrieved from https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/lingvokulturologicheskaya-traktovka-ponyatiya-mezhkulturnaya-g ramotnost www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 175 published by scholink inc. chu, h.-c., hwang, g.-j., & tsai, c.-c. (2010). a knowledge engineering approach to developing mind tools for context-aware ubiquitous learning. computers and education, 54(1), 289-297. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2009.08.023 crampton, a., ragusa, a. t., & cavanagh, h. (2012). cross-discipline investigation of the relationship between academic performance and online resource access by distance education students. research in learning technology, 20(1), 14-30. https://doi.org/10.3402/rlt.v20i0.14430 di blas, n. et al. (2014). a portal of educational resources: providing evidence for matching pedagogy with technology. research in learning technology, 22. https://doi.org/10.3402/rlt.v22.22906 dmitrienko, t. a. (2009). professional-oriented training of students in the system of higher education (p. 502). мoscow: prometey. gendjova, a., & yordanova, b. (2009). project-based learning in science at the american college of sofia. chemistry, 18(4), 255-267. grushevitskaya, t., popkov, v., & sadokhin, a. (2003). basics of intercultural communication (p. 352). мoscow: unity dana. johnson, c. s., & delawsky, s. (2013). project-based learning and student engagement. academic research international, 4(4), 560-570. repko, a. (2009). interdisciplinary research: process and theory (2nd ed., p. 395). sage publications (ca). sadkowska, j. (2013). selected psychosocial project success factors and their role in building students activities within project management. electronic international interdisciplinary conference. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2334373 sampson, d. g. et al. (2014). digital systems supporting cognition and exploratory learning in 21st century. knowledge management and e-learning, 6(2), 98-102. stozhko, n., bortnik, b., mironova, l., tchernysheva, a., & podshivalova, e. (2015). interdisciplinary project-based learning: technology for improving student cognition. research in learning technology, 23. https://doi.org/10.3402/rlt.v23.27577 terminasova, s. (2000). language and intercultural communication (p. 146). moscow: slovo. frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no.4, 2021 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) original paper student profiling as a tool for inclusive instructional design: a case of a 3rd year biotechnology class, university of namibia timothy sibanda1, nchindo r. mbukusa2* & ezekiel g. kwembeya1 1 department of biological sciences, university of namibia, p bag 13301, windhoek, namibia 2 lifelong learning and community education, university of namibia, p bag 13301, windhoek, namibia * nchindo r. mbukusa, e-mail: nmbukusa@unam.na received: july 30, 2021 accepted: august 17, 2021 online published: october 20, 2021 doi:10.22158/fet.v4n4p12 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v4n4p12 abstract massification of higher education (he) has made it difficult for teachers to design instructional strategies that are responsive to the diverse student needs. we here argue that student profiling is a handy tool that the he teacher can use for inclusive instructional design by thoughtfully selecting learning and teaching strategies, and materials and supports that will maximise student achievement. we designed a student-profiling instrument focusing on capturing students’ biographical information, learning preferences, anticipated learning outcomes, personality traits, and learning related skills-set and administered to students in a 3rd year biotechnology class at the university of namibia. the data on learning style preferences was analysed using the vark questionnaire (version 8.01) while a chi-square (χ2) test of association (spss software version 24) was used to determine whether there was a relationship between students’ preferred learning styles and the other variables. seventy-five percent (75%) of the students had multimodal learning preferences while 25% were unimodal for kinesthetic learning style. no students preferred visual or auditory learning alone. the χ2 test revealed no significant relationship between students’ preferred learning styles and any of the other variables including age, place of origin, home language, home setting, residence during school semester, pre-course anticipation, skills set, and personality traits (p > 0.05). we conclude that profiling students’ learning preferences prior to teaching and learning helps he teachers to tailor their instructional strategies to students’ learning style preferences, maximises epistemological access, as well as enhance inclusivity, equality and equity. keywords student-profiling, higher education, inclusive instructional design, learning preferences, vark 12 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 1. introduction student profiles are mostly shaped by their respective backgrounds (familial, cultural, economic, and academic), personalities (dart, 1994; duffin & gray 2010; hamdani, 2015; bhagat et al., 2019), as well as their learning style preferences (cekiso, 2011; khurshid, 2014; kwembeya & mbukusa, 2019). massification and internationalisation of higher education (he) have brought about a radical diversification of students who “vary enormously in what they bring to any course and what they need from it” (northedge, 2003). for far too long, teachers in he institutions have opted to use a “wide variety of teaching activities, hoping that they will cover most student learning preferences along the way” (diaz & cartnal 1999), which has not necessarily been the case. there still exists a need, therefore, for teachers to consider “student diversity in their mainstream teaching and learning approaches so as to enable students to realise their potential” (nyamupangedengu, 2017). in order to teach in a manner that is responsive to students learning styles, the first part is to know one’s students. nyamupangedengu (2017) argues that “knowledge of one’s students is a pre-requisite if lecturers are to choose teaching strategies that would enable epistemological access.” such knowledge can be obtained when, at the very beginning of a semester/school term, and before teaching and learning commences, teachers profile their students. this way, a teacher will know beforehand which teaching strategies are likely to respond to students learning styles (nyamupangedengu, 2017). not that every learning style suggested by students should be adhered to. but, as biggs and tang (2011, p. 16) point out, “students may use learning activities that are of lower cognitive level than are needed to achieve the outcomes, resulting in a surface approach to learning; or they can use high level activities appropriate for achieving the intended outcomes, resulting in a deep approach to learning. good teaching is that which supports the appropriate learning activities and discourages inappropriate ones.” 1.1 defining learning styles different nuances exist as to what exactly the phrase learning styles entails, especially when applied to students in a higher education (he) context. in this context, we adopted the definition of marcy (2001) who defined learning styles as “methods of gathering, processing, interpreting, organizing and thinking about information.” various models have been used to explain the concept of learning styles. an example is the grasha-reichmann student learning style scales (grslss) which categorises student learning into six styles including independent, dependent, competitive, collaborative, avoidant, and participant leaners (diaz & cartnal, 1999; i̇lçin et al., 2018). fry, ketteridge, and marshall (2003, p. 16) and milanese, gordon, and pellatt (2013) also describe how students’ learning styles vary from convergent, divergent, assimilative and accommodative styles (cdaa), based on the work of wolf and kolb. then there is also debate about the deep versus surface learning approaches (baeten et al., 2013). we drew a line between learning approaches and learning styles on the basis that learning approaches apply to all learning styles that students may identify with, and that it is usually the teachers’ role to use teaching strategies that help learners to adopt deep learning approaches, regardless of their learning styles. without disputing the validity and applicability of the grslss learning styles, 13 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 or of wolf and kolb’s cdaa learning styles, we used the phrases learning styles and/or learning preferences in the context of felder and silverman’s vark model which considers how students assimilate information for cognitive processing (murphy et al., 2004; deale, 2019). li, han, and fu (2019) argue that conscious awareness of students’ learning styles can assist teachers to adjust their teaching strategies to enhance students’ learning and performance. additionally, evaluating student-learning styles provides a means to shifting away from teacher-centered to student-centered learning as teaching is likely to be done in a manner that empowers students to take ownership of their own learning, with the teacher increasingly playing a facilitative role. table 1 summarises the main student learning preferences under the vark model, as extracted from murphy et al. (2004). table 1. student learning preferences under the vark model learning preference characteristics visual or graphic prefer use of diagrams, graphs, flow charts, hierarchies, models, and arrows that represent printed information. they may also explain a concept to others by drawing a diagram or picture. auditory prefer to listen (to what the teacher says) rather than take notes, discuss presented topics with classmates after class as a means to clarify their understanding. to aid their studying, aural learners may talk out their answers or listen to taped discussions about exam topics. read or write prefer printed words and text, lists, glossaries, textbooks, lecture notes, or handouts as a means of information intake. these learners prefer to arrange lecture notes into outlines, paraphrase classroom notes, and study old multiple-choice exams. kinesthetic kinesthetic preference refers to learning achieved with experience and practice. in other words, the kinesthetic learner has to feel or live the experience in order to learn it. a student may prefer one learning style or be multimodal, in which case multimodal learners prefer learning in more than one style. importantly, we also argue that differences in students’ learning styles are partly attributed to individual students’ background environments as well as their personalities. cheaib (2018) states that “personality influences the behavior of the students in different fields, such as in their interactions with colleagues, interactions with teachers, as well as their motivation, academic achievement, and learning.” the big five personality traits of neuroticism (n), extraversion (e), openness to experience (o), agreeableness (a) and conscientiousness (c) have been comprehensively described in relation to their effect on student learning (monteiro et al., 2015; cheaib, 2018; khan, et al., 2018; bhagat, et al., 2019). as such, it is essential that student personality be also considered 14 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 alongside their learning styles to get a holistic understanding of potential barriers to learning in our classes. 1.2 in defense of student profiling in a bid to improve the quality of teaching in he, much emphasis has been placed on student evaluations of teaching. for instance, cho and baek (2019) report that teaching evaluations allow for the identification of the “various factors operating in the classroom that affect the overall learning process, from those that rest with individual students, to those having to do with classroom teaching, individual instructors, to overall satisfaction...” our view is that while this approach is noble, it covers only half the aspect towards the attainment of its set objective, the missing link being profiling of students by lecturers. in profiling students, we acknowledge the fact that “education deals with students as people who are diverse in all respects, and ever changing, and that not everyone learns in the same way, or equally readily about all types of material”, and that, “students bring different backgrounds and expectations to learning” (fry, et al., 2003, p. 9). we argue that a student-profiling instrument helps in planning instructional strategies that acknowledge and honour these differences by providing each student with opportunities to learn in different ways so that each can reach his or her maximum potential. it is a means for thoughtfully selecting learning and teaching strategies, materials and supports that will maximize student achievement. further, we argue that, unlike student evaluations of learning which are usually done retrospectively at the end of a semester (and therefore can only make a posthumous contribution to teaching and learning with respect to the class in question), student profiling proactively contributes to student-tailored learning and teaching in real time since it is done before teaching commences. while a literature search using ‘student profiling’ or ‘student profiles’ as key phrases does produce numerous articles (chansarkar & michaeloudis, 2001; darcan & badur, 2012; stes & van petegem, 2014; tempelaar et al., 2018), few such studies are concerned about pre-module/course profiling of students’ preferred learning styles (cekiso, 2011; kwembeya & mbukusa, 2019). it is against this background that we profiled students in a 3rd year biotechnology course at the university of namibia prior to the commencement of teaching and learning with the aim to understand the students’ preferred learning styles. in addition, we sought to determine if there were correlations between the students’ learning styles and their backgrounds and personalities. by carrying out this study, we sought to address the following questions: a) which learning styles were most preferred by this 3rd year biotechnology class at the university of namibia? b) was there a relationship between students preferred learning styles and either age, place of origin, home language, home setting (living with parents or not), place of residence during school semester, pre-course anticipation, skills set, or personality traits? 15 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 2. methods 2.1 student profiling instrument typically, a profiling instrument seeks to, among other things, capture information about student learning preferences and styles, student interests, differences related to gender, culture and personality, information on student learning strengths, needs and types of supports that have been successful in the past. we designed a student-profiling instrument focusing on the following three parts: part a: biographical information; part b: learning styles and anticipated learning outcomes; and, part c: personality traits and student learning related skills-set. to strike a balance between minimising time demands for the respondents and the need for detail on our part, we designed the instrument in such a way that it consisted of approximately 50% each of closedand open-ended questions. closed-ended questions are less time consuming for the respondents, while open-ended questions encourage spontaneity (desai & reimers, 2019). and, while closed-questions are good to meet the information needs of discontinuous scenarios, open-ended questions result in detailed responses that are unbiased by experimenter expectations, as well as permit respondents to provide ‘socially undesirable’ feelings (singer & couper, 2017). the instrument was administered to 23 students in the 2020 3rd year biotechnology class at the university of namibia using google forms. students were informed of the aim of the survey, including the fact that participation in the survey was voluntary. 2.1.1 data analysis the data on learning style preferences were analysed by the vark questionnaire (vark questionnaire version 8.01) software on the computer at the following site http://vark-learn.com/the-vark-questionnaire/ to determine the preferred learning styles of the 3rd year biotechnology class at the university of namibia. to determine whether there was a relationship between students’ preferred learning styles and any of the other variables including age, place of origin, home language, home setting, residence during school semester, pre-course anticipation, skills set, and personality traits; a chi-square of association was employed using the statistical package for the social sciences (spss software version 24). additionally, a thematic content analysis was used to extract relevant information from the questionnaire responses. consequently, responses with a common theme were assigned a similar code while responses of a discrete nature like place of origin, home language and residence during semester were retained as they were. 3. results 3.1 demographic profile fifty-two percent (52%) of the class responded to the survey, and their biographical information is shown in figure 1. 16 published by scholink inc. http://vark-learn.com/the-vark-questionnaire/ www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 figure 1. biographical information of the participants showing (a) age profiles, (b) student accommodation settings during vacation and school semester, (c) places of origin, and (d) home language the students’ ages ranged from 20 to 31 years with a mean of 22.6 years and a standard deviation of 2.1 years. the modal age group was 20-22 years. in terms of living arrangements, the majority of the students lived with their biological parents (66.7%). during school term, 41.7% lived in their family homes, 33.3% lived in hostels and 25% lived in rented accommodation. most of the students came from windhoek (50.5%). in terms of mother tongue, the oshiwambo speaking students were the majority (50.5%), followed by the afrikaans speaking (25.25%), with english, swati and otjiherero speaking students constituting 8.3% each. 3.2 learning style preferences and expectations table 2 is a presentation of thematically analysed students’ expected learning outcomes upon completion of the biotechnology module. 17 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 table 2. thematically coded student responses about their anticipated learning outcomes student # student response coding 1 i hope to learn ways of identifying microorganisms both in culture and in the environment, learn techniques that will help me lt 2 how to use technology to actually alter genes for the benefit of humans lt 3 improvement of human health, biofuels, industrial development and other more life-based technologies. lt 4 hopefully make a mobile diagnostic kit that is realistically comprehensive. one that a person can use without prior study. the human body is a mystery. if we can get a way to constantly check up on our own health status, maybe humans will try and live better. the need for doctors will still be there, it’s just we will assist them with identification of diseases and infections in our own bodies. much like how women do pregnancy tests but still have to check in at the hospital. lt&a 5 different techniques used in science and not just in microbiology. lt 6 different techniques used in science and not just in microbiology. lt 7 different techniques used in science and not just in microbiology. lt 8 new technology and techniques in biology that better the life of all living organisms. lt 9 the skills and importance of the techniques involved in biotechnology. lt 10 how to manipulate natural processes in order to obtain my goal. or get close enough to it. lt&a 11 i don’t really know coz it seems like a subjective subject, there doesn’t seem to be a unified agreement on anything ns 12 how to apply technology in the different disciplines of biological sciences to benefit humans and other living organisms. lt&a students’ responses fell into three themes. the first comprised of students who hoped to learn the different techniques used in biotechnology (lt); the second comprised of those who hoped to learn the techniques and use (apply) them to produce products (lt&a). responses for the latter group typically contained the words ‘use’, ‘make’, and/or ‘apply’. the third category comprised of those who were not sure of what to expect (ns). next was the students’ learning style preferences, which are presented in figure 2. 18 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 figure 2. learning style preferences of students in a 2020 3rd year biotechnology class at the university of namibia seventy-five percent (75%) of the students had multimodal learning preferences as shown in figure 2. while 25% of the students indicated only kinesthetic learning as their preferred learning style (unimodal), no students preferred visual or auditory learning alone. also, and rather surprisingly, no students preferred the reading/writing learning mode at all. students’ personality traits and perceived skill sets students’ perceived learning-related skills are shown in figure 3. figure 3. students’ appreciation of different learning related skills eighty-three percent (83%) of the students indicated that they were strongly-skilled in information technology (it), and 58% in verbal communication (vc). fifty percent (50%) of the students respectively indicated that they were strongly-skilled in academic writing (w) and study skills (s). only 41.7% of the students were strongly skilled in interpersonal skills (int) and 33.3% in laboratory-based practical skills (p). 19 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 students’ personality taxonomies were deduced by weighing their perceived strengths against their perceived weaknesses as presented in table 3. table 3. students’ personality traits as deduced from their strengths and weaknesses student # students’ perceived strengths student’s perceived weaknesses dominant personality trait(s) 1 1. curious, like to learn new things 1. poor time management 2. lack of motivation in the online studying we are currently doing openness (o) 2 1. cooperative 2. not easily distracted 1. i do not learn easily as i require further explanations or information agreeableness (a) 3 1. attendance 2. punctuality 1. (fear of) asking questions 2. (lack of) studying before lecture begins. introversion (i) 4 1. i am constant my test results remain within a small range 2. i am always trying to participate in class 1. i need to improve my time management skills. conscientiousness (c) 5 1. visual learning and listening 1. memory failure 2. fear of exams introversion/ neuroticism (i+n) 6 1. visual learning and listening 1. memory failure 2. fear of exams introversion/+ neuroticism (i+n) 7 1. visual learning and listening 1. memory failure 2. fear of exams introversion/ neuroticism (i+n) 8 1. not sure yet 1. being overwhelmed by work 2. not doing everything to the best of my ability even though i know i can. neuroticism (n) 9 1. listening and gathering information 1. keeping up with the pace 2. opening up about my difficulties introversion (i) 20 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 10 1. designing experiments and indicating what applications to use during the experiment. 2. understanding the methodology behind experimental applications. 1. have a hard time keeping up with other students socially openness (o) 11 1. finding resources when i’m stuck 1. it’s hard to get used to a lecturers teaching method 2. asking questions neuroticism (n) 12 1. enthusiasm 2. organized 1. time management 2. perfectionist conscientiousness (c) all the big five personality traits (or variations thereof) were identified among the students as shown in table 3. the introversion (i) personality is a variant of the extraversion (e) personality type. for the purposes of determining the possible correlations between the students’ preferred learning styles versus their backgrounds, personality traits, learning related skills, and their anticipated learning outcomes, the coded questionnaire data was cross-tabulated as shown in table 4. table 4. cross table generated from participating students’ responses studen t # learnin g style learnin g related skills language media n age place of origin live with parent s residenc e during semester anticipate d learning outcome personalit y 1 k wp afrikaans 24 karasburg yes renting lt o 2 k intps otjiherero 21 okakarara no renting lt a 3 va itintp oshiwamb o 23 ohangwen a region no family home lt i 4 vak itps afrikaans 23 windhoek yes family home lt&a c 5 vk wvcp oshiwamb o 21 windhoek yes hostel lt i+n 6 vk wvcp oshiwamb o 21 windhoek yes hostel lt i+n 7 vk wvcp oshiwamb o 21 windhoek yes hostel lt i+n 8 ak intvcp oshiwamb 21 namibia yes family lt n 21 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 o home 9 k wints swati 30 manzini no renting lt i 10 vk itintvc p afrikaans 21 windhoek yes family home lt&a o 11 vk intps english 21 malawi yes hostel ns n 12 vak wints oshiwamb o 24 ongwediv a no family home lt&a c the chi-square test of association revealed no significant relationship between students’ preferred learning styles and any of the other variables including age, place of origin, home language, home setting, residence during school semester, pre-course anticipation, skills set, and personality traits (p > 0.05). 4. discussion the students’ biographical information showed that students in this biotechnology class came from diverse backgrounds and cultures. a similar observation was made by kwembeya and mbukusa (2019) while profiling students in a biometrics class at the university of namibia. with increasing student diversity also comes the need for flexible teaching approaches to accommodate students who utilise a wide range of learning style preferences (cekiso, 2011). with regard to students’ learning expectations, we noted that 75% of the students came to class expecting only to learn module content (lt), possibly in preparation for the examinations, with only 25% of the students anticipating channeling their newly-gained knowledge and skills into making products (lt&a) (table 2). interestingly, two of the students with lt&a learning expectations had conscientiousness personality taxonomies while the third one had an openness personality (table 3). further, these students were amongst those staying with their biological parents, both during the school semester and vacation (table 4). khurshid (2014) points out that personality patterns are important for determining students’ success, arguing that “students with higher consciousness and openness to experience may be more enthusiastic for success.” khurshid further points out that the home environment plays a critical role in developing personality taxonomies, and may be a major determining factor in leading individuals towards “higher self-concept, positive self-esteem and confident personality.” we also observed that a student’s learning preferences do not necessarily equal their perceived strengths, and vice-versa. for example, while 92% of the students indicated kinesthetic learning mode among their preferred learning styles, only 33% of the students indicated laboratory practical skills as one of their strong areas of study (figure 2 and 3, table 4). we interpreted the message from the students as saying; we would learn best by doing something, but when it comes to the practical classes, we need help in learning how to do. having this knowledge beforehand prepared us for better teaching this class. for instance, when teaching finally commenced, we set a strong bias towards the practical 22 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 component of the course. we also made more room for enquiry-based learning, making sure that all students were involved in researching about concepts well before they were covered in class. statistically, there was no relationship between students’ preferred learning styles and any other variables shown in table 4 including personality traits. this is despite duffin and gray (2010)’s observation that the “personality traits of any individual will impact on and influence his or her learning behaviours and dispositions.” based on our findings, we here hypothesise that that relationship could perhaps depend on other factors such as setting. 5. conclusions in conclusion, we contend that profiling students’ learning preferences prior to teaching and learning in any course/module helps “lecturers to match instructional strategies to learning style preferences of students, and also to design learning material and activities that respond to the needs of learners in order to enhance student engagement and promote academic success” (cekiso, 2011). in view of student diversity in terms of their backgrounds, skills base, learning styles and expectations, we argue that student profiling is a handy tool for effective design of teaching and learning approaches that maximise epistemological access as well as enhance inclusivity, equality and equity; putting every effort in place to mimimise factors 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(2017). investigating factors that impact the success of students in a higher education classroom: a case study. j educ (university kwazulu-natal), 113-130. singer, e., & couper, m. p. (2017). some methodological uses of responses to open questions and other verbatim comments in quantitative surveys. methods, data, anal, 11, 115-134. https://doi.org/10.12758/mda.2017.01 stes, a., & van petegem, p. (2014) profiling approaches to teaching in higher education: a cluster-analytic study. stud high educ, 39, 644-658. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2012.729032 tempelaar, d., rienties, b., mittelmeier, j., & nguyen, q. (2018). student profiling in a dispositional learning analytics application using formative assessment. comput human behav, 78, 408-420. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2017.08.010 25 published by scholink inc. original paper student profiling as a tool for inclusive instructional design: a case of a 3rd year biotechnology class, university of namibia timothy sibanda1, nchindo r. mbukusa2* & ezekiel g. kwembeya1 1 department of biological sciences, university of namibia, p bag 13301, windhoek, namibia abstract massification of higher education (he) has made it difficult for teachers to design instructional strategies that are responsive to the diverse student needs. we here argue that student profiling is a handy tool that the he teacher can use for inclusi... keywords 3.1 demographic profile fifty-two percent (52%) of the class responded to the survey, and their biographical information is shown in figure 1. figure 1. biographical information of the participants showing (a) age profiles, (b) student accommodation settings during vacation and school semester, (c) places of origin, and (d) home language the students’ ages ranged from 20 to 31 years with a mean of 22.6 years and a standard deviation of 2.1 years. the modal age group was 20-22 years. in terms of living arrangements, the majority of the students lived with their biological parents (66.7... 3.2 learning style preferences and expectations table 2 is a presentation of thematically analysed students’ expected learning outcomes upon completion of the biotechnology module. table 2. thematically coded student responses about their anticipated learning outcomes students’ responses fell into three themes. the first comprised of students who hoped to learn the different techniques used in biotechnology (lt); the second comprised of those who hoped to learn the techniques and use (apply) them to produce product... next was the students’ learning style preferences, which are presented in figure 2. figure 2. learning style preferences of students in a 2020 3rd year biotechnology class at the university of namibia seventy-five percent (75%) of the students had multimodal learning preferences as shown in figure 2. while 25% of the students indicated only kinesthetic learning as their preferred learning style (unimodal), no students preferred visual or auditory l... students’ personality traits and perceived skill sets students’ perceived learning-related skills are shown in figure 3. figure 3. students’ appreciation of different learning related skills eighty-three percent (83%) of the students indicated that they were strongly-skilled in information technology (it), and 58% in verbal communication (vc). fifty percent (50%) of the students respectively indicated that they were strongly-skilled in ac... students’ personality taxonomies were deduced by weighing their perceived strengths against their perceived weaknesses as presented in table 3. table 3. students’ personality traits as deduced from their strengths and weaknesses all the big five personality traits (or variations thereof) were identified among the students as shown in table 3. the introversion (i) personality is a variant of the extraversion (e) personality type. for the purposes of determining the possible correlations between the students’ preferred learning styles versus their backgrounds, personality traits, learning related skills, and their anticipated learning outcomes, the coded questionnaire data was ... table 4. cross table generated from participating students’ responses the chi-square test of association revealed no significant relationship between students’ preferred learning styles and any of the other variables including age, place of origin, home language, home setting, residence during school semester, pre-cours... references microsoft word fet-v1n1-p1 frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 1 original paper educational development in africa: prospects and challenges of teaching/learning history in nigeria oluwaseun o. afolabi, phd1 1 peace and conflict studies programme, institute for peace and strategic studies, university of ibadan, nigeria. received: march 13, 2018 accepted: april 8, 2018 online published: april 18, 2018 doi:10.22158/fet.v1n1p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v1n1p1 abstract the paper discusses the challenges facing history teaching in nigeria. the scope of the study is limited to private/public schools in oyo state, nigeria. the study starts by tracing the problem from the advent of missionaries to nigeria in which their purpose of establishing mission schools was not to teach african history but to evangelize and to produce middlemen who will act as junior officers. the findings show that history as a subject was in the curriculum of both junior and senior secondary school. however, it was removed from junior secondary school curriculum and remained only in senior secondary school curriculum. though only few senior secondary schools in oyo state teach history subject due to lack of adequate knowledge by students in learning african history. also, due to the reviewed policy, history teachers and textbooks are inadequate. thus, in this present dispensation in nigeria, african history education is facing challenges in terms of teaching and learning, apparently on the verge of extinction. the paper concludes by stating the methods of teaching history, prospects and challenges attached to it. keywords history teaching, mission schools, prospects, challenges 1. introduction history serves as bedrock on which a society stands to build its future upon. africa cannot do without history as it is part and parcel of african culture. history is beyond story-telling and collection of past activities. it is about facts based on the unbiased judgment of an historian on the activities of the past in relation to the present and its effects and consequences on the future. it is based on the available evidence with empirical analysis and interpretation of data collected in the field which will help to preserve the past events that is valuable to the present members of the society to know how to avoid www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 2 published by scholink inc. past mistakes, build on past achievements and serve as a pointer for the future. history can be viewed from three perspectives—it connotes the entire human past as it actually happened, it connotes man’s attempt to describe and interpret the significant things about past and lastly, it connotes an academic discipline (osokoya, 1996, p. 5). the first two perspectives of history is what the paper attempt to discuss, most especially the challenges and prospects of history as a subject as regards history education in africa via government/missions schools in nigeria. african history education has not been receiving much attention and academic discourse. before the advent of the europeans in african soil. african had informal education which was termed traditional african education. when the christian missionaries came to introduce civilization through education using evangelism, they introduced many subjects such as writing, arithmetic, reading, english history, european history etc. except african history. they displaced african informal education and replaced it with western education instead of reviewing and revising the african informal education and indigenizing western education. in fact, in the past, the westerners believed that africa do not have history until the introduction of civilization to african society. also, the informal education practiced in africa before the arrival of the christian missionaries was not adequate enough to build a sustainable african society or to compete with the global society. probably, these were the reasons why african history has not received adequate academic recognition and extensive research. teaching and learning history (african history) in schools has not been encouraging due to lack of qualified teachers, prospects of history in the labour market, inadequate african history textbooks and lack of government interest in history education. these challenges posed a greater threat to the prospects on african history, culture and language, in which we are experiencing neo-colonialism. thus, this paper traced the problem of history education from the time of the christian missionaries with their introduction of western education to the establishment of mission schools, the taking-over of mission schools by the government, the place of history among other subjects in the curriculum of secondary schools, methods of teaching history, prospects and challenges of history teaching in nigeria. the scope of the study is limited to private/public schools in oyo state, nigeria. there are 629 and 660 public and private schools in oyo state respectively. only few schools teach history as part of their subjects. 2. traditional education system in nigeria education had begun in nigeria ever since the inception of african traditional religion. indigenous education represents the type of education offered in the pre-literate era, within the community, by community members who possessed specialised skills or abilities in various fields of human endeavour (mkpa, 2011). the main aims of african customary education may be identified as follows: 1) to preserve the cultural heritage of the extended family, the clan and tribe; 2) to adapt members of the new generation to their physical environment and teach them how to control and use it; and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 3 published by scholink inc. 3) to explain to them their own future, and that of their community, depends on the understanding and perpetuation of the institutions, laws, language and values inherited from the past. thus, the content of african customary education grew out of the physical and, what is more important for our present purpose, and social situation. both formal and informal processes were utilized for the transmission of knowledge, skills, ideas, attitudes and patterns of behavior (datta, 1984, pp. 2-3). the intention of education in the traditional african society was to set afoot a man with functional skills that would help him live peacefully among others and contribute his quota to the overall development of himself and his community. fafunwa (1974) observes that: “society used to accord priority to the inculcation of values of social responsibility, political participation, job orientation and spiritual and moral uprightness in the citizens”. thus, indigenous education trained individuals to be educated so as to contribute to the development of their society. ozigi and ocho (1981) corroborated fafunwa when they say, “there is the traditional form of education which has existed in our own societies, as in other societies, for centuries. it has taught our children, formerly and informally, how to behave as members of a group (family, clan, peer, community); the cultural values, norms and beliefs of societies (its traditions, history, legends, folklore, dance, music); and also how to produce certain things needed for the survival of the society (food, clothes, tools, housing, crafts)”. the traditional education system in nigeria is life-long in nature as it aims at equipping individuals with necessary skills and attitudes that would help them function effectively in the society. the system has been and still effective in providing functional training and experience in artistry, farming, fishing and other vocational skills, which are needed for the survival of the society. every responsible member of the community serves as a transmitter-teacher and trainer of the societal norms and skills to the younger generations. they are looked upon as models of good virtues to be emulated by the young ones. the system has clearly demarcated learning experience for each age grade, which culminates into the acquisition of desired values and attitudes, and the specialization of individuals in some specific crafts and/or vocations. there are the farmers, medicine men, fishermen, warriors, carpenters, orators, spiritualists, weavers, cravers and many more who are tested to be highly skilled in their different calling (ozigi & ocho, 1981, pp. 45-46). hence, the traditional education system equips members of the african society with the tools that will make them to function effectively and contribute to the sustainability, growth and development of the society. datta (1984) identifies the characteristic attributes of customary education in africa. a) african traditional societies, except where islamic education was available, laid a heavy stress on information instruction as far as general education was concerned. b) compared to modern education, customary education in africa was marked by limited specialized training. c) except in moslem education, there was no distinct category of professional, full-time teachers for purposes of general education. d) barring koranic schools, instruction was in most cases imparted through oral communication. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 4 published by scholink inc. e) instruction was practical and geared to specific situations. it had little use for abstract theories and generalizations. f) religion, ethics and education were inextricably integrated. g) with hardly any scope for experimentation with ideas and techniques, customary education in africa was basically conservative in nature. this type of education made african society technologically backward, without a literary language, and in most cases with a low level of scientific knowledge (datta, 1984, pp. 13-14). however, olamosu (2000) proved this assertion to be false by arguing that historians and scholars have also confirmed that there was an appreciable progress in the direction of formal education in africa before the colonialist came to disrupt this evolutionary progressive process. a good example was egypt that had invented many forms of hieroglyphic writing, which was still strange in other parts of the continent. also, some countries already had universities. they included al-azher of egypt, university of fez, morocco and university of timbuktu, mali and in yoruba land; there was the ibadan school of history. in addition, the literate culture of the western sudan already in existence for several hundred years flourished and flowered in timbuktu during the tears that saw, in europe, the ravages of the hundred years’ war. one other such scholars that confirm this historical fact was leon africanus, who wrote two centuries later and described the intellectual life of timbuktu (as this): “there are numerous judges, doctors, clerks all receiving good salaries from the kings. there was a big demand for books in manuscript imported from barbey. more profit was made from the book trade than from any other line of business”. studies and findings of other reputable scholars such as wallerstein (1961) and murphy (1974) have further disproved the erroneous and stereotype idea of western historians about africa. according to these findings, during the period that western historians called the dark ages (in africa), there were kingdoms and empires at every point of the compass in the continent of africa. medical practice at the university of sankore in timbuktu “was much advanced, and doctors performed some operations that were not known in europe for another 250 years.” with all these historical facts, it can be safely said that the colonizers did not introduce education into africa. what they introduced was a new set of formal educational institutions, which partly supplemented and partly replaced those that are there before. they also stimulated values and practices which are new to informal education (olamosu, 2000, pp. 5-6). it is noteworthy that all available evidence proved the existence of formal and informal ways of imparting education to meet the desired needs of the people before the introduction of western education though such ways and the education imparted were largely informal. the techniques in traditional africa included knowledge shared among peer groups, age-groups, during marriage and death rituals, training of the youth on the work of the community e.g. farming, craving metal smith, story or history telling etc. the essence and fundamental objectives of education at the period was to develop character, inculcate respect for elders and those in positions of authority, develop intellectual skills, acquire specific vocational training and to develop a healthy attitude towards honest labour, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 5 published by scholink inc. develop a sense of belonging, participate actively in family and community affairs and to understand, appreciate and promote the cultural heritage of the country at large (fafunwa, 1974, p. 20). 3. the advent of missionaries and the introduction of western education in nigeria in the early phase of colonial administration, some missionaries in africa believed that they were bringing education to entirely uneducated peoples, a supposition which would have been valid if education can be equated with literacy and formal schooling. in fact, detailed accounts of africans by anthropologists leave one in no doubt that african societies did posses a kind of customary education, a system which worked reasonably well, given the limits imposed by the society within which it had to operate (datta, 1984, p. 2). missionary activities in western nigeria had its historical antecedent in the second half of the 15th century. it began when the portuguese made contacts with the coastal areas in about 1472 (fafunwa, 1974, p. 74). since then, christian missionary influence started to be felt in various part of western nigeria. then, they taught the children of the oba of benin. however, no meaningful development of western education which was not accepted took root late 18th and early 19th centuries modern education in nigeria dates back to september 24, 1842 with the arrival at badagry of revd thomas birch freeman and mr and mrs william de gaft of the wesleyan missionary society (freeman, 1968). also, the church missionary society (cms) sent mr henry townsend to abeokuta to collect information about nigeria, the sierra leone emigrants and the chances of a missionary establishment. he arrived at badagry on december 19, 1842. both freeman and townsend met in abeokuta for the same similar mission. the cms established a church and a mission house in badagry but they were unable to do the same in abeokuta due to the death of king sodeke of abeokuta (taiwo, 1980, p. 6). the wesleyan entry into abeokuta was deferred until 1848 when a fanti schoolmaster, mr morgue was sent to occupy the station at ogbe. mr morgue was relieved by mr edward bickersteth, an egba sierra leone emigrant who was the sole methodist agent in abeokuta from 1849 to 1859. the presbyterian mission established a station at calabar in 1846 and the southern baptist convention established one station at ijaye in 1853 (bowen, 1857, p. 180). expansion into the interior proceeded along the same pattern of church and school in ibadan, ijaye, ogbomoso, oyo, iseyin, osiele, otta, ketu and isaga. once the land was acquired, the missions were free to set up a school as they liked, teach what they chose and employ anyone who in their opinion could teach. the missionaries reported to their respective missions, but it was clear that they enjoyed the exercise of their own discretion in their administration of the schools, as long as they kept in view the aims of their mission, with the greatest emphasis on evangelization. forty years after the arrival at badagry in 1842 of thomas birch freeman, school education in nigeria was still a monopoly of the church missions. the aims of the christian missions generally were the bible and the plough as well as the development of the local languages and the identification and training of evangelical leaders. to start a school, there was no formality to observe. the important www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 6 published by scholink inc. element was the children. the day-school curriculum comprised mainly, and sometimes entirely, reading, writing, arithmetic and singing. when there was a lady teacher, the girls learnt sewing. the boarding school aimed at an all-round education. the best boys emerged as teachers or catechists (taiwo, 1980, p. 7, p. 10). thus, it was heavily religion-based, intensely denominational and shallow in content. the schools were maintained with grants from the missions, donations from groups and individuals outside the country, contributions by local christians and children’s parents, and with the fees of the children. the fixed unconditional grants made to the missions by government annually since 1877 were used to promote mushroom multiplication of small schools. the schools often used the same building as churches were ill-equipped. blackboards, chalks, and slates were in short supply and the primers were largely religious tracts or information unrelated to local background. literature in the vernacular was still scanty. the traders were critical of the narrow, shallow and extremely religious education given by the missions, the government was equally critical of small denominational schools whose pupils were fit to become clerks who were much needed for the growing administration and expanding commercial enterprises (ade ajayi, 1965). the africans were critical of the denationalizing tendencies of mission education, as a result of this, a bill was proposed for the promotion and assistance of education in the gold coast colony. the bill was passed into an ordinance for the promotion and assistance of education in the gold coast colony on may 6, 1882 (hussy, 1930). the ordinance was the first legislation which affected lagos and which aimed at the control of education by government. the provisions were: 1) the constitution of a general board of education with power to appoint and dissolve local boards of education at such places as they may consider desirable. 2) the constitution, powers and duties of a local board of education. 3) classification of schools into (i) government schools which were maintained entirely by public funds and (ii) assisted schools established by private persons and aided from public funds. 4) freedom of parents as to religious instruction of their children. 5) grants to be used for school buildings and teachers’ salaries. 6) conditions of grant-in-aid to private schools—based on managerial control, attendance of children and examination results in specified subjects. 7) appointment of an inspector on whom the salary commitment of €400 per annum would be shared by the gold coast and lagos in the ration of 2:1. 8) special grants to industrial schools 9) admission of pauper children into government and assisted schools. 10) grants to training colleges and institutions for teachers. the first action on the ordinance was a call for school statistics. the cms maintained 17 elementary and infant schools for boys and girls in various parts of lagos. the subject taught majorly in the elementary schools were scripture, english composition, english grammar, arithmetic, geography, music, singing, reading, writing, dictation, and, for girls, sewing. in the infant classes, the subjects www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 7 published by scholink inc. were scripture, reading, writing, church catechism, ciphering, singing, dictation and object lessons and, for girls, sewing. the medium of instruction in the infant classes was yoruba and in the elementary schools was english. the cms had a boys’ grammar school and two teacher training institutions—one for men and the other for women. the subject taught include scripture, reading, writing, dictation, english grammar and analysis, english composition, arithmetic, algebra, geometry, latin, greek, english history, roman history, greek history, book-keeping, physiology, geography, singing and recitation. the wesleyan methodist society (wms) had six elementary schools. the schools were anglo-vernacular and the textbooks used in teaching were such as used in primary schools in england and were expressly prepared to meet requirements of the educational code of england. the subjects taught were english reading, english writing, arithmetic, english history, bible history, geography, yoruba reading and yoruba composition. in addition, the girls were taught needlework. the wesleyan methodist mission had two secondary schools, one for the boys and one for the girls. the subjects in the boys’ school included “ordinary english subjects”, algebra and mathematics, french, latin, greek and science, and those in the girls’ school were “ordinary english subjects”, french, music, science and needlework. english was the medium of instruction. the southern american baptist mission had only one primary school in lagos in 1882. it was a mixed school. the subjects taught were reading, writing, arithmetic, grammar, geography, singing, scripture and yoruba, and for girls only, sewing (taiwo, 1980, pp. 10-14). from the aforementioned schools and the subjects taught during the 1882 education ordinance, it is very glaring that history (african history) was not taught. and how would they teach it without understanding african history or even believe that african had their own history before their coming. this type of education ordinance was western-oriented without considering the culture and background of the children. the subjects taught functioned as a kind of indoctrination on the african children which serve as a form of physiological and mentally exploitation for indirectly, their own advantage—propagating western culture and civilization at the detriment of african culture and education setting. this view was confirmed by the little success 1882 education ordinance achieved. firstly, it was imitated too closely with the english elementary education act of 1870, which was designed to satisfy the needs of england in the 19th century and was therefore unsuitable for wholesale importation to lagos. the 1882 ordinance was structured with the board of education and the local boards, in imitation of the english board of education and the school boards. in fact, no local board was appointed under the 1882 ordinance, and its successor in nigeria, the 1887 ordinance, contained no reference to local board. secondly, the curriculum, following its english counterpart, was: the reading and writing of the english language, arithmetic and, in the case of females, plain needlework. the grammar of the english language, english history, and geography, especially of the english language, be taught or not, at the option of the teacher, provided that if taught, they shall be taught as class subjects (the education ordinance for the colony of lagos, 1887). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 8 published by scholink inc. there was no provision for the teaching of a local language in spite of the spade work already done by the missions and the fact that english, the main subject and the medium of instruction, was foreign to the colonial child. thirdly, the 1882 ordinance was enacted at a time when african nationalism was being awakened and whipped up. the process of english education had been going on for forty years in the lagos colony and had produced nigerians who had assimilated european ways of life. many of these nigerians had become disillusioned with the attitude of europeans to them and to europeanized africans generally. they realized that no matter how well educated or assimilated they were, there was racial discrimination against them in social relationship and even in the church. africans were looked down upon as inferior and african institutions were down-rated and condemned. lastly, the proposed system of grants-in-aid was cumbersome and found unworkable and ridiculously complicated. due to inability of 1882 ordinance education to meet the needs of african children, on may 30, 1887, a new ordinance—no. 3 of 1887—was enacted as an ordinance to consolidate and amend the laws relating to the promotion of education in the colony of lagos. this was the first effective attempt by government to promote education and control the sporadic expansion of education by the missions. and it should be noted that in 1887, the name nigeria was not yet in existence and the area which is known as nigeria had not been defined. the provisions were: 1) the constitution of a board of education, comprising the governor, members of the legislative council, which was then a small body, the inspector of schools, the governor’s nominees not exceeding four in number. 2) the appointment by her majesty of an inspector of schools for the colony, a sub-inspector of schools for the colony and other education officers. 3) grants-in-aid to schools and teacher training institutions. 4) power of the board to make, alter and revoke rules for regulating the procedure of grants-in-aid. 5) rates and conditions of grants-in-aid to infant schools, primary schools, secondary schools and industrial schools, based partly on subjects taught and partly on the degree of excellence in the schools. 6) safeguards as to religious and racial freedom. 7) certificate of teachers. 8) admission into an assisted school of pauper and alien children assigned to it by the governor. 9) establishment of scholarships for secondary and technical education. 10) power of governor to open and maintain government schools. the ordinance established dual system of education. the government supplemented the effort of the missions, voluntary agencies and individuals by grant-aiding their schools and by establishing and maintaining its own schools where the mission and the voluntary supply was inadequate. freedom of religion was entrenched in the ordinance. the ordinance enforced the teaching in every assisted school of the reading and writing of the english language, and also arithmetic and in the case of girls plain needlework. english grammar, english history and geography could be taught as class subjects. this was a projection of the needs of the government and mercantile houses for clerks and literate assistants. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 9 published by scholink inc. in the protectorate of lagos, where the ordinance did not apply, the missions continued their policy of vernacular education with a view to reading the bible and explaining the scripture to the illiterate folks (taiwo, 1980, pp. 14-18). the missionary expanded educational enterprise to southern nigeria. the united presbyterian church of scotland mission began their educational work in 1846 and established a mission around old calabar (waddell, 1863). the church missionary society established the niger mission in july 1857 with headquarters at onitsha on the river niger in the iboland. in 1886 the roman catholic mission opened stations at onitsha and later at asaba. in the same year, the kwa ibo mission came from fernando po and established a mission at ibeno in the riverine of kwa ibo river between calabar and bonny. the kwa ibo mission was an irish protestant mission of the primitive methodist missionary society (groves, 1954). these missions followed the usual pattern of school education with a view to reading the bible, writing, and some arithmetic, and later some agricultural and handicraft instruction. the schools were run without the intervention of the government (taiwo, 1980, p. 26). the ordinances of the 1877 became reinforced by another ordinance exclusive made by nigeria for the southern protectorate in 1886. the provision of the ordinance spelt out in clear terms the duties and responsibility of the government and the missionaries. the provisions of ordinance are: 1) there shall be a board of education for the colony. the board shall consists of the governor, members of the legislative council, the inspector of schools, and four other members nominated by the governor to serve for not more than three years. 2) it shall be lawful for the board with and out of the monies so placed at its disposal, first to assist schools and training institutions and secondly to institute scholarships: (i) to children who shall have attended primary schools in the colony to enable them to proceed for secondary education; (ii) to natives of the colony who shall have attended either primary and/or secondary education in the colony to enable them to receive a course of technical instruction with a view to the development of natural resources of the colony. 3) no grant shall be made in aid of any school except: (i) that the property and management of the school be vested in managers having power to appoint and dismiss the teachers and responsible for the payment of the teachers’ salaries and of all other expenses in the case of the school; (ii) that the requirements of the board rules with regard to teachers being certificated be satisfied in the case of the school; (iii) that the school, in public examinations shall have attained the requisite percentage of proficiency; (iv) that the schools at all times be open for inspection by the inspector, the sub-inspector or any member of the board; (v) that the school be open to children without distinction of religion or race; www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 10 published by scholink inc. (vi) that the reading and writing of the english language, arithmetic and in the case of females, needlework, be taught at the school and that english grammar, english history and geography be taught as class subjects (vii) that by the rules of the school, no child shall receive any religious instruction to which the parent or guardians of such child objects. 4) it shall be lawful for the board to fix different rates of grants for infant schools, primary schools, secondary schools and also industrial schools respectively, and also in respect of different degrees of excellence in the schools and in respect of different subject of instruction. 5) the board may make a grant-in-aid of any training institution, in respect of every teacher trained at such institution who shall have received at least two years instruction in the particular institution. the impact of this first indigenous education ordinance developed for the southern protectorate was felt in at least five major areas: 1) the provision of the ordinance was more workable than the one of the 1877. 2) a more centralized form of education administration and management was suggested by the ordinance, a policy that was immediately implemented by henry carr, who was later made the principal of fourah bay college. 3) a de jure basis of education, which virtually dealt with the skepticism against the system by many nigerians, was provided. 4) the christian missions were forced to raise the quality/ standard of education in their schools by the provision of the ordinances if only to attract government grant-in-aid. 5) the expansion of schools was curtailed by the standard set by the ordinance which was difficult to attain by the missionary schools (adesina, 1988). the birth of protectorate northern nigeria began january 1, 1900 and the beginning of the second and great constructive period of the administration in nigeria of sir frederick (later lord) lugard, the first high commissioner. the year also witnessed the arrival in nigeria of mr (later sir) hans vischer who later became the first director of education in northern nigeria, and dr w. r. s. miller, a hausa scholar and missionary pioneer (graham, 1966). in the muslim areas, school education was familiar. there were thousands of koranic schools, averaging eight children per school, scattered over towns and villages in all but the pagan areas. the pattern was a group of children, mostly boys, sitting in a piazza and reciting in arabic pieces of the koran under a malam whose own education did not need to go beyond the knowledge of the koran and the religious commentaries (burns, 1929). of the western type of school education, there was nothing at the proclamation of the protectorate of northern nigeria except the cms school at lokoja, the headquarters of the royal niger company and a station of the niger mission of the cms. in 1901, the cms had stations at loko and lokoja where some teaching was done. by 1904, the cms had stations in kabba, nupe and bassa provinces, one each of the first two and three in the last. each station maintained a school and the enrolment in the five schools averaged 120 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 11 published by scholink inc. (taiwo, 1980, p. 43). the first non-mission achievement was the school opened at sokoto in 1905 by major (later sir) john burdon, a hausa scholar and resident of sokoto province. he started with four pupils and a muslim teacher, malam ibrahim, whom he had taken to england to broaden his experience. attendance in the first year averaged four (graham, 1966). although, education in the north can be divided into two: mohammendan schools under government control and government or private schools. the aim of the government of the protectorate of northern nigeria was to place education on national lines with due regard to existing ideas on education, religion and language and to the customs and traditions of the people. religious instruction was to be a special feature of the curriculum. the objections of the nationalists to the aim and policy of education in northern nigeria were many. firstly, the emphasis on islam as the basis of education was excessive. although many people were products of the koranic school, they were still backward, ignorant, poor and had little knowledge of hygiene. the proposed policy of education did not anticipate a social change. rather it tended to keep the people in their backwardness. the people were to keep to their indigenous dress, manners, customs, ways of life, architecture; in other words, there was aversion to innovation and adaptation. secondly, the policy was to turn the face of the people to mecca and the arab world and against the “trousers niggers” of the coast and their western education with its corrupting practices. the nationalists realized that the despised western education was enlightening, progressive and conducive to economic development. the effect of this northern nigeria policy was to widen the gap between the south and the north in educational and economic development. thirdly, the pace was extremely slow and the education content of the elementary vernacular schools too small and inadequate for modern world. the nationalists wanted western education based on african background and traditions which would at the same time equip them for the professions, for commercial business and for effective participation in the government of their country. fourthly, the policy over-emphasized social distinction by the preferential treatment of the sons of emirs and thereby entrenched and perpetuated the feudalistic practices of the emirs to which the nationalists were opposed. on the whole, the nationalists saw the aim and policy of education pursued by visher and the government of northern nigeria as an attempt to keep a colonial people down so as to perpetuate the british domination (taiwo, 1980, pp. 51-52). the consequence of missionary enterprise in nigeria was the eventual european influence in all aspects of life—religion, economy, social, political and education. though various missions adopted different approaches to the implementation of their policies, they all regarded literacy education as indispensable tool in the course of evangelization (ajayi, 1984, pp. 6-7). moreover, nigerian government developed their own education by caving out nigeria’s educational policies from 1919. phelps-stoke’s committee was set up to draft educational policy for the country. however, the ordinance of 1926, the colonial development act of 1929 and the 1948 educational ordinance merely re-echoed the provisions of the phelps-stoke’s recommendations, which led to the decentralization of education and got the government to be more involved in the control and supervision of education. curriculum content became more expanded and the training of indigenous www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 12 published by scholink inc. teachers pursued more vigorously (adesina, 1988). in a nutshell, colonial education in africa, operated jointly by the church and the state, was meagre, both in terms of quantitative and qualitative standards, and had a heavy european bias with major stress on the liberal arts. colonial education was characterized by a pronounced european bias. this was reflected in the provision for the medium of instruction and in the curricula. teaching was generally conducted in the language of the colonial power. thus, students were prevented from expressing themselves in their mother tongues within school premises. similarly, the curricula were heavily europeanized. in history and geography, literature and culture, examples and material were drawn from europe. african history was either not included or was looked down upon as an extension of european history (datta, 1984, pp. 18-19). from the aforementioned analysis of missionary activities across nigeria, it shows that the government was parochial due to the fact that they forgot the importance of african history education as a legacy for generations to come. they place emphasis on producing civil servants that will carry on western civilization form of civil service in africa. thus, many government policies were tailored along western policy. they failed to enact policy that will fit african people. though missionaries were interested in bringing western education to african child, it was for their own selfish reason and not for africans to be able to compile their history which can be taught in schools. thus, missionaries make africans to believe that they were illiterate despite the fact that there exist before the coming of the missionaries african informal education with the use of african language. hence, because africans cannot speak english language, they are tagged “illiterate”. in addition, the ordinance supported english-centred education to the detriment of african-centred education. clerical jobs were given based on ones success in english subjects. this make africans in their own land second class citizen and inferior because it was the western that created what we tagged “white-collar job”. thus, an applicant must be knowledgeable in english subject. government failed to create “black-collar job”. the type of work created (fishing, hunting, farming etc) were not sufficient to compete with the global world. however, the practice of western education has not been smooth sailing. nearly two centuries of the practice of western education has been greeted by sporadic calls for educational reforms in africa (kupferman, 2013), because it has been found that while western education has served to globalize africa, its processes and contents suffer from partial incongruity with african realities when thoughtlessly operationalized within the african environment. even educational statistics bear witness to the fact that western education does not serve africa as well as it does western nations. for example, while an average of 96% of children in western societies are enrolled in schools (oecd. 2012), about 50% of african children of school age are not able to secure placement in primary schools (unesco 2011). additionally, while an average of 62% of qualified candidates in organisation for economic co-operation and development (oecd) countries get placement in universities (oecd, 2012) the gross enrolment for tertiary education in africa stands at a paltry 7% (tilak, 2009). this situation brings to the fore, the question pertaining to the role of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 13 published by scholink inc. education within human society. specifically, what basic benefit are nations expected to deliver through education? what critical mass of the national population is expected to attain education for the expected benefit from education to be manifest? the basic benefit nations are expected to deliver through education is development within the mental, economic and ecological realms. as observed from nations with fully developed western education system, an average of 80% of the population is expected to benefit from basic education and about 40% of the population is expected to benefit from tertiary education before any meaningful social development may be derived (dipholo & biao, 2013, pp. 31-32). currently, africa is far away from these targets. yet, western education has been around africa for about two centuries. if after two hundred years, western education has not been able to deliver the desired level of development, it might be that africa is yet to be pragmatic in its choice of educational model. indeed it has been long suspected that an aspect of the functionalist theory of education has been deliberately promoted within africa over these centuries wherein the interests of western nations are protected in africa through the promotion of an education that is not rooted in african realities (kupferman, 2013, pp. 53-73). 4. establishment of mission and government schools in nigeria there were two types of mission schools that were established by the missionaries—the assisted and the non-assisted schools. the assisted schools were schools which received grants from the government, school fees, church collections, donations, bequests, sometimes mission grants, and sometimes a special contribution from the local community cutting across religious barriers. sometimes the contribution took the form of labour, for example, in the building of a school. the non-assisted schools usually depended entirely on local resources, requirements being items in annual church budgets. sometimes such schools were supported by the missions from special donations and funds from overseas. for instance, the cms grammar school, the cms high school (for girls), and the christ church schools, faji and itolo, were supported by the cms and designated as such. the other cms schools in lagos were maintained by the lagos native pastorate. the non-assisted schools with the notable exception of the baptist academy were staffed with the cheapest teachers. the baptist academy, which was well staffed, rejected the grants-in-aid on religious principles. in the case of the roman catholic schools where the salaries of the missionaries were not included on the school budget, a high quality of work was achieved at little expense. the board rules required each assisted school to have its own budget. it was therefore in the non-assisted schools that funds could be pooled so that the financially weak schools drew on the surplus of the stronger ones. during the period of the missionary, schools were usually small, starting often with just one teacher for all the classes. the schools contained at least one department. they were generally mixed except in the secondary and the roman catholic schools. the curriculum was wide. the core subjects were arithmetic and the reading and writing of english. the other elementary subjects were history, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 14 published by scholink inc. geography, yoruba, spelling, grammar, drawing and, for girls only, sewing. the secondary subjects were the primary subjects and in addition latin, greek, mathematics, phonography, book-keeping, botany, chemistry, physics, natural history, french, physiology, and fancy work. then, textbooks were either not available or not suitable. the learning of english was a declared policy though; yoruba was used only as an aid to the learning of english by yoruba children. in 1889, the numbers of assisted schools increased. anglican had 15, wesleyan 6, and the roman catholic 6 (taiwo, 1980, pp. 20-24). despite this, many of the pioneering elementary schools graduates could not be employed after completion of their studies. many graduates from the few elementary schools developed the interest to further their education. this inevitably gave rise to the establishment of post-primary schools (olamosu, 2000, p. 7). the post-primary schools are the cms grammar school (1859), the wesleyan boys’ and girls’ high school (1876 and 1879) and the catholic st. gregory’s college (1881). the pattern of the secondary schools was based on a primary school but with the senior classes exposed to a multiplicity of secondary school subjects. standards i-iv studied primary subjects only. the pupils in standards v-vi were those usually exposed to secondary as well as primary school subjects. the first set of official non-mission schools came later, though they were for long very weak and in the minority. for instance in 1899, only 33 of the 8,154 primary schools were government-run and only 9 of the 136 secondary schools and 13 of the 97 other schools belonged to government. the secondary schools during this period were small and due to the poorly staffed and ill-equipped of the mission secondary schools, government established king’s college on september 20, 1909. in old calabar, the schools were the duke town school, better known as the mission hill school, the hope waddell institute, the creek town school and the girls’ boarding institute at creek town. in bonny, st. stephen’s school was by far the largest and most important of the eight primary schools. the boys’ high school, bony was established in may 1898 (taiwo, 1980, p. 24, p. 27). administratively, the protectorate of southern nigeria was divided into five regions namely the eastern with headquarters at bonny, the western with headquarters at warri, the central with headquarters at asaba, the cross river with headquarters at arochuku, and calabar with headquarters at old calabar (burns, 1929). government schools were established in the following places: eastern division (bonny, akassa, opobo), western division (sapele, benin city, warri, irrua, owo, agbede, ifon), central division (aboh, aseh), cross river division (arochuku), calabar division (uwot, oban) (colonial report, 1906). on may 1, 1906, the colony and protectorate of lagos was amalgamated with the protectorate of southern nigeria and renamed the colony and protectorate of southern nigeria, with lagos as the seat of government. the new territory was administered in three provinces: the western with headquarters at lagos, the eastern with headquarters at calabar, and the central with headquarters at warri, both corresponding to the old protectorate southern nigeria (taiwo, 1980, p. 34). in that same year, government schools increased rapidly especially in the central and the eastern provinces, and increasing numbers of mission schools were put on the list of assisted schools (imperial education conference papers, 1913, p. 24). in the protectorate of northern nigeria, five missionary societies www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 15 published by scholink inc. carried out educational work, largely in the non-muslim areas. they are the church missionary society, which had ten elementary and three primary schools at lokoja, bida, zaria and kuta, the sudan united mission and baptist organization, which had four elementary schools in muri province, the protestant sudan interior mission, which had seven elementary schools in the niger province, the mennonite brethren in christ, which had three elementary schools and the roman catholic, which had one primary school in lokoja (william, 1906). it should be noted that the missions also established hundreds of primary schools for boys and girls all over the western nigeria. in fact, as late as 1945, over 95% of the schools in western nigeria were mission schools and over 97% of the pupils/students were equally attending these mission schools (ajayi, 1984, p. 9). the missionary aims in western nigeria were not different from their aims and objectives in other parts of the country. hence, all mission schools were similar in context and method. the missions conceived education as a means of proselytization (osoba & fajana, 1980, p. 570). at the dawn of nigerian independence in 1960, the country witnessed the establishment of several government-secondary schools located in 51 provincial headquarters while primary schools existed in both rural and urban centers. by this time, additional primary and secondary schools were established by the missionaries. most of these schools became grant-aided schools and became known as voluntary agency schools (christian education as a vehicle for a national transformation into great nation, 2015). to meet the increasing number of secondary school students, government opened many new secondary schools. generally the curriculum was english language, mathematics, history, geography, religious studies, local languages, fine and applied arts, general science, biology, chemistry and physics. as the manpower need of government increased and more attention was paid to education, deliberate government policy of taking on more responsibility for running of education led to the takeover of the christian schools in the1970s. fabunmi (2005) asserts that the education edicts of 1966-1979, where each state promulgated as edict for the regulation and management of education, had a common ground such as state takeover of schools from individuals and other organization, establishment of school management boards and unified teaching service. moreover, in consonance with the national policy on education 1981 revised edition where private individuals, voluntary agencies, communities were encouraged to own and established schools, private secondary schools thereafter sprang up again in different parts of the country. although, the private secondary schools were small in number in the 1980s as reported by saidu (2009) but later on, they proliferates the country. though in some states, some of the mission schools taken over have been returned to their original christian proprietors while most of these schools have not been returned to their original owners (christian education as a vehicle for a national transformation into great nation, p. 4). most private primary and secondary schools nowadays are faith-based, established by individuals and organizations. presently, churches concentrate on establishing private universities. during the early decades of cambridge local examinations in nigeria, when only a few subjects were www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 16 published by scholink inc. available, history was usually taken by all candidates or a substantial number of them (university of cambridge local examination syndicate, 1910-1954). as the number of examinable subjects increased, the number of candidates taking history began to dwindle. when the west african school certificate examination was introduced in 1955, about 90% of the nigerian candidates took history (west african examinations council, 1955-1980). as a result of the greater emphasis being placed on the teaching of science in the nigerian grammar schools as the country moved towards independence, history appeared to have become less popular as fewer candidates entered for it. the proportion of entries dwindled from the 1960s to 1986 (adeyinka, 1993, pp. 2-5). in addition, it was during the post independence period that the government deemed it fit to introduce history subject to secondary schools curriculum. however, due to the fact that few learners take history subject, students in nigeria failed to have adequate knowledge about africa history or nigerian history as the case may be. government lay much emphasis on science subjects in detriment of history subject which can aid growth and development in understanding the present society with a critical and thoughtful view of the past so as to have a well-grounded future. 5. methods of teaching/learning history history as a school subject is very important to students as it serves as a means to preserve important events, enlightening the students on their immediate environment and broadening their worldview thus, understanding the contemporary world from historical context. it helps them to understand national and international history. it also helps students to understand the origin of subject-matter in their various school subjects. hence, the importance of teaching history cannot be overemphasized. there are several methods that can be used to teach history. they are lecture, discussion, problem-solving, inquiry, project and resource person. lecture method is one of the oldest methods used in teaching. some educationalists termed it as “the traditional method” because during the ancient period, greek philosophers and jewish rabbis used this method to teach their students and listeners that surrounded them. the students would listen raptly while they disseminate words of wisdom. lecture method is a form of teaching in which the teacher communicate to a large number of students while the students listen attentively and write down some important points that the teacher mentioned while teaching. it is a one-way form of communication and it is teacher-centred thus, it does not give room for feedback. lecture method, though widely used in nigerian secondary school system do not result in a noticeable change in attitude held, while retention of information disseminated is also poor. tests of recall applied immediately after lectures have shown that students may retain less than 40 percent of content, falling to 20 percent one week later. the result shows how ineffective the lecture is as a means of teaching especially for students who are below average. unfortunately, in nigeria, over ninety percent of information that pupils receive from their teachers in the history lessons are inform of the lecture method (osokoya, 1996, p. 136). thus, with this form of teaching that is defective, students cannot www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 17 published by scholink inc. gain much in such a class since they are passive and there is little or no room for questions. however, that does not mean that lecture method cannot be use to teach history, it only require a competent history teacher to make use of it. such requirement include adequate preparation by the teacher, preparation of appropriate illustrative materials and related examples, presentation in sequential order, periodic humour, avoiding digression, using the chalkboard to jot down the points, combining other methods and providing follow-up activities. discussion method is a form of dialogue between the teacher and the students in which ideas, opinions and information are shared. it is activity-based, student-centred and provides feedback. this means that students are carried along when the teaching is going on and their ideas and opinions are very important to the success of the lesson. it can be used as a follow-up for lecture method. discussion method can involve the whole class, dividing the class into small group for proper discussion and meaningful learning. it can be use inform of a debate or panel discussion. more importantly, for history teaching, discussion method can help students to learn from each other, having better understanding on the subject matter gaining and more knowledge on political, cultural and socio-economic issues nationally and internationally. thus, it broadens the knowledge of the students. problem solving method embraces a continuous, meaningful, well integrated activity beginning with a problematical situation. it then ends when the problem has been solved and solution checked. the series of actions involved in the process constitute a unit of experience. thus, problem solving is a method in which the students are actively involved by thinking through a particular problem until they find answer to it. it is a mental exercise that can develop the reason faculty of a student. such a method helps in history lesson by making the student to be analytical in his/her argument. it makes the student to be critical in his/her judgment hence; it helps the students to have a comprehensive knowledge on a subject matter that he did not know very well before. inquiry method is about investigating, to find out a fact. it involves problem solving and discovery methods. it is a method that helps student to keep asking and finding more information about a particular subject matter. it allows student to examine and interpret ideas and events that have been identified for teaching-learning purposes. the inquiry method can be in the form of surveys, interviews and field trips. the field trip is very good for history teaching because it can provide experience that cannot be brought to classroom. it also gives the students valuable practical experience as it offers them an opportunity to observe directly and have a personal experience of place which they visit. also, it helps to sustain the students’ interest in the subject and makes learning permanent (osokoya, 1996, pp. 144-146). project method is a process of learning or a study carried out by learners in real life situation. this may be carried out individually, in groups or class, under the guidance of the teacher to achieve set objectives. the project is essentially a learning unit designed and conducted by the learner in true-to-life manner of the environment (onwuka, 1985). the method is strongly recommended for teaching because it makes learning realistic by presenting real tasks for the students to tackle. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 18 published by scholink inc. furthermore, it encourages initiating and providing the chance for the students to contribute their skills, ideas and energy to the work of a group. it also coordinates their skills of hand and mind and provides students with a sense of completion and achievement (osokoya, 1996, p. 147). it enables the students to carry out a task by examining the reason for the study, the problem of the study and the scope of the study. also, the students need to put forward research questions and objectives to be met, stating the methodology to be used and discussing his/her findings and what he/she has added to the body of knowledge. project method is an all-encompassing technique that help learners to carry out an independent study been supervised by the teacher. resource person is very important for history teaching. a resource person is someone with vast experience and knowledge about events that has happened in the past or in the present period. such a person is knowledgeable about a particular issue in the society in which learners can learn from. it helps the students to gather first-hand information from the personality. resource persons include elders, obas, leaders in the community, professionals, academicians etc. resource persons is good for history students because such personality serves as an eye-opener to issues that are not in books or information that is not within their reach. there are several other resources that can be used to teach history however, it should be noted that there is no single method that suit history teaching. teachers need to use the one that suit the topic and also variety of methods enhances history teaching and learning. the selection of any method should adhere to the following educational principles: 1) any instructional procedure should be regarded as an educational tool and not merely for the purpose of entertainment. 2) the technique should be suited to the readiness and the maturity of the group or grade level using it. 3) the method of presentation should be guided by the objectives of the subject field, the purposes of the school, and education in general. 4) adequate time, space and equipment should be available to insure effective implementation. 5) the procedure should provide for sequential growth and development through a planned progression of activities and concepts. 6) there should be adequate planning and preparation on the part of the teacher in the use of any instructional approach. 7) the procedure should be of interest and appeal to the learner and considerate to his problems and needs. 8) the method should utilize or incorporate experiences that assure significance in the thinking and behaviour of each learner. 9) in all instances, the technique or procedure should be a vehicle for facilitating definite learning. more importantly, there are six most important requirements for successful history teaching: (a) it must be methodical (b) it must be well planned (c) it must result from resourcefulness on the part of the teacher (d) it must be activity-based (e) it must be related to the learner’s experience (f) it must www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 19 published by scholink inc. be undertaken by teachers who have the prerequisite competencies and qualities (osokoya, 1996, p. 98, pp. 135-136). 6. prospects and challenges of teaching/learning history in nigeria 6.1 prospects prospects in history are difficult to graduates and prospective students to find. nevertheless, there are many career opportunities for an historian such as journalism, history medicine, diplomatic relations, lecturing, administration, teaching, consultant, historian, banking etc. it should be noted that history is not restricted to a particular profession or career; it is open to many professions because the expertise gained will prepare the students for several occupations and the knowledge gained will help students to develop the ability to understand and analyse issues and events critically. 6.2 challenges challenges of teaching and learning history in nigeria seem to outweigh its prospects. many challenges are facing the subject due to the inability of placing history to where it belong and seeing its importance in national security, economy, politics, growth and development of the country. in fact, inadequate knowledge (or history) about certain issues in the country caused so much failure on the part of the government and the society. the utmost challenge of teaching/learning history in nigeria is that government did not ascribe much importance to history subject. despite the fact that history subject was introduced earlier than government subject in the curriculum, nigerian government and curriculum planners failed to attach much value to the subject. they assumed that history did not have much importance since it deals with past events and issues that might not be relevant in the present however, government subject deals with day-to-day affairs of the society. this wrong assumption has a strong negative impact on the society to the extent that history subject is just dormant in the curriculum, many public and private secondary schools did not teach history subject but every secondary schools teach government/civic education as one of the art subjects. another challenge is the attachment of much importance to science subjects/courses than art subjects/courses. with the advent of industrial revolution and it in-road to african countries, government and african citizens laid much emphasis on science-oriented subject that can advance industrialization. this tell on art subjects/courses in which parents/guidance want their child to undertake science subjects rather than art subjects due to the opportunities in the labour market that lies ahead of a graduate from science-oriented courses. adeyinka (1993; 2015, p. 13) argues that in an attempt to catch up with the developing countries of the world in the areas of science and technology, the nigerian government (at federal and state levels) continue to pay greater attention to the teaching of science subjects, such as physics, chemistry, biology and mathematics, at the expense of arts subject such as history. the society itself, including the employers of labour, tends to discourage the study of history by assigning lower status to historians and history teachers. on their own part, history teachers do not seem to have been adopting the best teaching method which could have made the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 20 published by scholink inc. subject livelier and more interesting to students who have opted for it. in addition, owing to the fact that government laid much emphasis on science subjects than art subjects, many public/private funds on education goes to science-oriented subjects. this make the number of students studying science related subjects/courses to be higher than art students. in senior secondary schools, the number of classes for science students are many than art students. in fact, there is an erroneous belief that unserious and dull students read art subjects. also, students who did not have good grades in their junior school certificate examination are placed under art class. thus, government and teachers saw art classes as a dumping site for dull students and equally believe that art subjects are not difficult compared to science subjects hence, it is meant for dull students. this false impression affect students in art classes thus, parents force their children to study science subjects due to the stigma. lack of good history textbooks is one of the major challenges facing history education. history textbooks that are available are either inadequate or boring to comprehend. scholars, historians and university teachers failed to provide high-quality history textbooks for students in art classes of senior secondary schools. thus, few history teachers in secondary schools are left with little, incomprehensive and voluminous history textbooks. this equally makes the teachers to find it difficult on how they can teach the subject to students. also, history books are not available in the school libraries. furthermore, one of the challenges in history teaching/learning is that history curriculum is very broad for teachers to cover within the specific period of time allocated during the academic school calendar and also very voluminous for students to read and understand. owing to the wideness of the subject and the inability of some history teachers to teach the subject very well, students run away from history class and prefer government subject. it is important to note that many history teachers are not well-trained in handling history subject. they haphazardly teach the subject without proper teaching/lesson plan. thus, lack of qualified history teachers to handle the subject creates a challenge in teaching and learning history in schools. moreover, prospects of history in the labour market are not obvious to prospective students. many students find it difficult to know exactly, what their chances to secure a white-collar job in the labour market would be, if at the end they study history. due to this reason, students prefer science related courses that have many prospects in the labour market to courses in the humanities. in addition, discrimination between science graduates and art graduates by public and private companies added to the challenges confronting history graduates and those in art classes. the society is saturated with the belief that science rules the world thus; history subject is relegated and perceived as ancient that cannot add any value to the industrialized society. other challenges facing history teaching and learning in nigeria are absence of teaching aids and instructional materials. teachers find it difficult to lay their hands on classroom resources and also improvise instructional materials that can aid effective teaching and learning history. also, students are misguided by school counselors about history subjects. many school counselors give wrong counseling www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 21 published by scholink inc. to students by advising them to take government rather than history subject because the former is easier than the latter or both subjects are the same. this misguided advice goes a long way in which students not only see history as a difficult subject but as a substitute/optional. in addition, introduction of new art subjects such as government, social studies and civic education in the curriculum pose a challenge to history subject in which history is now limited to senior secondary schools and few students take the subject in the west african examination council (waec) and joint admission matriculation board (jamb) examinations. 7. concluding remarks according to lee et al. (1984), without history, the past would merely serve practical interests, and so in an important sense, we would be cut off from our own experience. since we cannot escape from the past, we should seek the best knowledge of it for our knowledge of the present world is never an “instantaneous” knowledge, but bring with it some substantive conception of the past. thus, without a sense of history, our personal lives would be poorer and our ability to relate to contemporary world would not be adequate. therefore, there is a need that all pupils in schools are given understanding of the present world in which they live. the inclusion of current affairs or social and environmental studies in the curriculum cannot in themselves provide an adequate foundation for a full understanding of the present. there should be an historical perspective of the origins of contemporary situations in order to arrive at genuine understanding. in addition, by making history teaching and learning a compulsory subject in schools is to develop in students a love for their country, an understanding of its traditions and ways of life; how the society evolved, how its system of government emerged, its distinctive customs and traditions and its economic and social life. in conclusion, history consists of three major processes—collection of facts, organization of facts and interpretation of facts. invariably, history can prove invaluable for students when they attempt to cope with contemporary problems. though not that past experiences would provide them with easy answers to present issues and crises, but a reasonable knowledge of history can greatly assist in gaining a better insight into a contemporary controversial issue. in a nutshell, for a people to be without history, or to be ignorant of their own history, is to be without memory and thus condemned forever to make the same discoveries that have been made in the past, invent the errors and condemned too, to forfeit the rich pleasures of recollection. therefore, history is beyond story-telling. the future of a nation lies in the hands of the people that are well-grounded in her history and making use of it to develop a strong nation, bounded in love and unity. references ade ajayi, j. f. (1965). christian missions in nigeria, 1841-1891. london: longman. adesina, s. (1988). the development of modern education in nigeria. ibadan: heinemann educational books ltd. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 22 published by scholink inc. adeyinka, a. a. (2015). the place of history in the nigerian secondary grammar school curriculum. retrieved september 8, 2015, from http://www.unilorin.edu.ng/journals/education/ ije/dec1993/the%20place%20of%20history%20in%20the%20nigerian.pdf adick, c. (1998). formal and informal basic education in africa: complementary or competitive. education, 58. 50-64. ajayi, s. a. (1984). the development of free education in western nigeria, 1951-1960. an historical analysis (a dissertation in the department of history, university of ibadan). assie-lumumba, n. t. (2006). higher education in africa: crises, reforms and transformation. dakar (senegal): codesria. bowen. t. j. (1857). adventures and missionary labors in several countries in the interior of africa (p. 180). charleston, south carolina: southern baptist publication society. burns, a. c. (1929). history of nigeria. london: allen & unwin. commager, h. s. (1965). the nature and the study of history. ohio: charles e. merill publishing company. datta, a. (1984). education and society: a sociology of african education. london and basingstoke: macmillan publishers. dipholo, k. b., & biao, i. (2013). rethinking education for sustainable development in africa. the african symposium, 13(2), 31-32. https://doi.org/10.5430/wje.v3n6p46 fabunmi, m. (2005). historical analysis of educational policy formulation in nigeria: implications for educational planning and policy. international journal of african and african studies, 4, 2. freeman, t. b. (1968). journal of various visits to the kingdom of ashanti, aku and dahomi in western africa. london: frank cass. graham, s. f. (1966). government and mission education in nigeria, 1900-1919. ibadan: ibadan university press. groves, c. p. (1954). the planting of christianity in africa (vol. iv). london: lutterworth. ityavyar, d. (2011). christian education as a vehicle for a national transformation into great nation. in speech presented at the epc academy. jos on 23 july, 2011 by professor dennis ityavyar, university of jos, nigeria. retrieved september 12, 2015, from http://www.epcjos.org/sermons/christian%20 schools%20as%20a%20vehicle%20for%20transformation.doc. kupferman, d. w. (2013). disassembling and decolonizing school in the pacific. new york: springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4673-2 lee, p. j., dickinson a. k., & rogers, p. j. (1984). learning history. london: heinemann educational book. mignanwande, h. h. (2012). histoire de l’education en republique du benin: des origines a nos jours (unpublished seminar papers, universite’ nationale du benin). occiti, j. p. (1988). indigenous education today: the necessity of the useless. adult education and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 23 published by scholink inc. development, 30(3), 53-73. oecd. (2012). employment: organisation for economic cooperation and development. https://doi.org/10.1787/migr_outlook-2012-5-en olamosu, b. (2000). crisis of education in nigeria. ibadan: books farm publishers. onwuka, u. (1985). curriculum development in africa. onitsha: africana–fep publishers limited. osoba, s. o., & fajana, a. (1980). educational and social development during the twentieth century. in o. ikime (ed.), groundwork of nigerian history (p. 570). ibadan: heineman. osokoya, i. o. (1996). writing and teaching history: a guide to advanced study. ibadan: laurel educational publishers. ozigi, a., & ocho, l. (1981). education in northern nigeria. london: george allen & unwin ltd. saidu, a., amali, i. o., & bello, m. b. (2013). challenges and prospects of privatization of education in nigeria: focus on secondary education. african journal of historical sciences in education, 9(1), 37-38. taiwo, c. o. (1980). the nigerian education system past, present and future. lagos: thomas nelson (nig.) ltd. tilak, j. b. g. (2009). financing higher education in sub-saharan africa. retrieved september 11, 2015, from http://www.gracembipomfoundation.org university of cambridge local examination syndicate (ucles). annual report for each of the years 1910-1954. waddell, h. m. (1863). twenty-nine years in the west indies and central africa (p. 228). edinburgh: nelson publishers. west african examinations council (waec). annual report for each of the years 1955-1980. frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no.1, 2021 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) original paper female sociology as a source of empowerment of women in academia, sociology, and society lejla mušić1* 1 department of sociology, faculty of political sciences sarajevo bosnia and herzegovina * lejla mušić, associate prof., department of sociology, faculty of political sciences sarajevo bosnia and herzegovina received: november 25, 2020 accepted: december 12, 2020 online published: december 21, 2020 doi:10.22158/fet.v4n1p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v4n1p1 abstract even though there are many influent female sociologists, they are not well introduced in literature, and academic journals, because of double standards, in recognition of academic works of women. jessie bernard (wharton, 2012, p. 5) strives for the female enlightenment, questioning the sociology as male stream, and therefore focused only to male experiences, in famous statement: “can sociology become science of society rather than science of male society?” (wharton, 2012, p. 5). dorothy smith wrote her famous work sociology for women as antecedents of later formed discipline of sociology of gender. she was lecturer at university of oregon, where in the academic staff of 44 persons she was the only woman: “the chilly climate for women” (ritzer, 1997, pp. 308-309), is the way in which dorothy smith explains her experience in teaching gender studies in early seventies. radical feminism, with its notion of violence over the women in public and private sphere, demands the identification of these spheres, in order for women to be involved in academic life with overcoming the negative stereotypes regarding the roles of women and man. keywords sister founders in sociology, radical feminism, sociology of gender, femina sociologica, femina academica 1. introduction deegan (1990) states: “even though there are more than 52 women considered to be founders in sociology, they are still not recognized in sociology”. mary jo deegan wrote referral in early 1980-ties early women sociologists and the american sociological society: the patterns of exclusion and participation, the american sociologist, 1981, vol.16, february: 14-24, investigates the early women 1 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 sociologists’ position in sociology and in asa organization. questions that were raised by deegan (1981) were following: “1). how and why did this men keep women out of the organization (asa). 2). which women participated in spite of these obstacles? 3). were there efforts to open the organization for female participation? 4). what happened if these efforts were made?” rather to remove obstacles of gender based marginalization, female sociologists decided to form the coin term sister’s founders in sociology as opposition to founding fathers in sociology, emphasizing the importance of sisterhood in discipline rather than motherhood in disciplines, therefore also marking the places of exclusion of women in sociology. sister’s founders in sociology are as a coin term formed by mary jo deegan, in order to explain, de marginalization of female stream sociological theory. even though there are more than 52 women considered being founders of sociology, they are still not recognized in sociology, aristotle’s distinction between male/female. shipley represents the key moment to ideological foundation of the women exclusion from academia and public life, because theirs identification with natural and irrational. small albion advocates the doctrine of separate spheres believing that men and women are different distinctly, “separate but equal”, comparing this difference to difference in between two musical instruments, having the same relation to the notes in scale, but could not be replaced, or supply place, in their own separate series (1981, p. 15). even though, as the chair of department, he employed women at university, it as only in separate themes: “household administration, sanitary science, social settlements and statistics” (deegan, 1981). 2. method: sexism against female sociologists small was chair of the first sociology department, american sociological association and american journal of sociology, he influenced the policy of acting towards female sociologists. asa “then was men’s club”; women could come to be participant, if they were called by male presidents, and organizers. female network in sociology, four presidents invited female sociologists to speak: ward, small, ross, and thomas. even though ward believed in separate spheres doctrine, he also believed that “women were dominant first, and men were a variation of her“ (1981, p. 16). ward supported work of charlotte perkins gilman, and supported the inclusion of women. charlotte perkins gilman, as a respectful female sociologists, and economist was even three times involved, as discussant, next to first women, included in first asa meeting was mrs j. oldenwalrd-unger. small invited jane addams, to speak as major speaker, at the asa conferences, in years 1911, 1912, 1913. “the other speakers were lucy salmon, from vassar college (1913) and emily greene balch, wellesley college, 1914” (deegan, 1981, p. 16). but in some years, none of women was included, because they did not get more important roles, in meetings. ross invites jane addams to speak on war, and militarism, in their sociological aspects, in 1915, but emily green balch (note 1) came instead of her, and meeting becomes controversial meeting. addams and balch were against war, and supported pacifism, and also were both nobel prize winners. jane addams won the award in 1931, and emily green balch, in 1946. the men of chicago school did not want to discuss her papers, and 2 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 ross found two women, after calling fifteen male sociologists: lillian wald (head residents of henry settlement, nyc), and anna garlin spencer (meadville theological seminar, ohio). even though these women were sociologists, they could not work inside the sociology, only inside the social work network. no women had highest offices, during the first year of asa until 1931, even though 8 women were involved. deegan (1981). even though there are many influent female sociologists they are not well introduced in literature and academic journals because of double standards in recognition of academic works of women. jessie bernard strives for the female enlightenment, questioning the sociology as male stream, and therefore focused only to male experiences, in famous statement: “can sociology become science of society rather than science of male society?” (wharton, 2012). 2.1 sister founders vs. founding fathers the significant study, bio-bibliographical source book on women founders in sociology (deegan, 1990) gives information on 53 women founders in sociology. even +66 are mentioned for further investigations (to be investigated), in the appendix of this work. these women are rarely mentioned, in male stream sociology. only pro feminist masculine authors mention works of women in sociology. only three female sociologists are mentioned by pitter scot (available from https://www.scribd.com/document/68384897/fifty-key-sociologists) accessed [accessed 23 april 2010], in his study he mentions only several female sociologists, inside the 50 key sociologists. in comparison to mary jo deegan’s work, that in total mentions even 118 female sociologists, his work is male stream, and even discriminating. there are different forms of violence over the women, but this form of exclusion is academic femicide, in sociology. these women rarely are mentioned, in male stream sociology. other academic works, have several names involved. pro feminist sociologists such as giddens or ritzer, and authors involved, within sexuality studies such as altman, weeks, rubin, and masculinities studies connell, stoltenberg, mention even more. examples of famous sociologist are: jane addams—founder in sociology, annie marion maclean first female to master, in sociology at chicago university, and earn a phd in sociology (could not work at university, she conducted written correspondence, with thousands of students) (deegan, 1990). there are also female sociologists, that had written, but that were hidden in sociological annals, such as (1990, pp. 18-19): “jessie bernard, ruth shonle cavan, frances donavan, helen hughes, dorothy thomas, fay karpf, mabel eliot, ellen black, vivien palmers”. the leading person, and one of the pioneers, in the field was jane adams, america noble prize winner, phd in sociology, and establisher of hull house homes, and developer of technique of mapping. “hull house was intellectual commune and salon” (deegan, 1990) and it involved some of the “brilliant female sociologists, who lived, and worked there such as edith abbot, emily green balch, sophonisba breckinridge, charlotte perkins gilman, florence kelly, frances kellor, julia lathorp, mary mcdowell, and annie marion maclean”. “many female sociologists were removed, from their sociological positions, states deegan (1990): emily green balch in 1919, and anna garlin spencer in 1920”. founding fathers were against involvement of female sociologists, at universities. the only one mentioned usually as female founder in sociology, harriet martineau, 3 published by scholink inc. https://www.scribd.com/document/68384897/fifty-key-sociologists www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 translated comte’s work into english. happy housewife myth as stereotype, from early fifties till now, was questioned by the results of several empirical studies, that involve the quality life of housewife’ s vs. life of working women, and males. women that do not work are more stressed, and that even influences the health problem, and depression, as well as with young employed man. discrimination against women in sociology involves: male stream sociological approaches, there is no female sociology, female history or female sociology. the most eminent early female sociologists, jane addams, sociological pragmatist and american nobel prize winner, who had established hull house for investigation of immigrants’ behavior, had introduced technique of mapping for doctoral thesis. this female sociologist had influenced all of the men of chicago school and dewey, mead and american pragmatists. some of the authors, such as mary jo deegan believes that there was female chicago school first because the hull house, an intellectual center of chicago was formed three years before department of sociology was founded, and therefore mary jo deegan forms hypothesis, that jane addams was leading female sociologist, who was marginalized by male colleagues, and female chicago school is formed before male school. her book jane addams and the men of chicago school is considered as book of century by international sociological association/isa/. emily green balch, as a first female officer, was hired to read papers at wellesley college, in 1889, as a chair and professor, but fired from position in 1919, because of pacifism, and later on worked for united nations. the famous active sociologists were julia lathorp (executive committee of asa in 1917), and grace abbott (close associate of jane addams worked at chicago university), susan kingsbury and lucille eaves (note 2) were research directors of women’s educational, and industrial union. female sociologists’ network was very important network for the women sociologist, and organization of participation of female sociologists, at the meetings in the first period of formation, of american sociological association. the representatives of this network were: dummer, lathorp, balch, abbott, with addams as patron: “they represent sociological worldview, that has been neglected, and their contribution and recognition to sociology being denied” (deegan, 1981). family section was a first section that was founded by ethel s. dummer founder, with the panel entitled “delinquent girl”; out of seven panelist, three of them were women in this section. answer to the exclusion questions by deegan are, that women were employed by women only, they were second class citizens in academia, small believed they belong to separate sphere, included women were part of female network, extreme sexism influenced exclusion, and institutional pattern of ostracism was difficult to destroy (deegan, 1981). but, if it is to the investigation conducted by mary jo deegan, and group of authors, there is history of women in sociology and eras of women in sociology: 1) “founding sister professional definition era”-1840-1890 2) “golden era”-1890-1920 3) founding sisters in the dark era of patriarchal ascendancy (1920-1965) 4) “the contemporary era: the battle for women’s equal opportunity in sociology (1965-1990)” (deegan, 1990). 4 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 in contemporary era, 1969-sociologists for women in society was established, and first women was elected president of asa (1948), and second one in 1973, afterwards supreme court (1989) struggles for permanent place for women professionals in sociology. founding sisters had changed the relations toward the female sociologists, and sociologists for women in sociology publishes books and journals, and helps affirmation of female sociology. contemporary american society involves presidency of women, over the asa (american sociological association). female sociologists were not invisible they were simply written out of the sociological history, even though they were famous public figures, and public professional sociologists. lengermann and brantley (1998) stated that disappearance of women founders in sociology, is connected with the discrimination in regards to race, class, gender, in order for academy to become place of affirmation of only white male sociologists, who order for women “to disappear” in “the retelling” of sociological history. in order to understand ecofeminism in sociology, it is necessary to involve theoretical knowledge of two famous female sociologists, rarely mentioned in sociological textbooks, such as contemporaries charlotte p. gilman (1860-1935), and caroline bartlett crane (1858-1935). 2.2 ecofeminist pragmatism of female founders in sociology as source of women empowerment in academia and society charlotte p. gilman and an ecofeminist pragmatism perspective herland and with her in our ourland is gilman’s saga written in order to give explanations inside the intersection of ecofeminism, and feminist pragmatism. deegan and podeschi (2001) state that charlotte perkins gilman was “forerunner and perhaps a foundation for contemporary ecofeminism”. the theory of these professional female sociologists is important for distinguishing of eco-feminist pragmatism, eco-pragmatism, and environmental pragmatism. important and significant idea, emphasized by deegan and podeschi (2001) are found in statement by joanna macy, that eco feminism represent “a radical change from a millennia-long amnesia as to who we really are”. the eco feminism is historically developed and based on texts of feminist pragmatist who were mainly female professional sociologists. this writings are rarely mentioned in traditional sociological textbooks, and involve writings and documents from historical period in between 1890-1930-ties. gilman’s saga herland and with her in our ourland, is “a powerful exploration of gender relations which also includes commentaries on nature and the human relation to nature” (deegan & podeschi, 2001). society that is consisted only of women, with balanced approach in between women and environment is herland. ellador, is the main protagonist of this tale, and she travels, in part entitled with her in our ourland. unlike, the life in herland, in this travel ellador experiences the destruction and waste in patriarchal organized society where females are dominated and controlled over by male. “patriarchy is central to understanding the domination of women, races, and nature due to the patriarchal drive to conquer, master, manipulate, oppress and exploit what is feared and seen as less powerful” (deegan & podeschi, 2001). feminist pragmatism is developed as opposition and international alternative thought for patriarchal perspective, and it is based on women centered culture and values. this theory is mainly 5 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 developed in sociological mecca, chicago’s department of sociology, university of chicago and hull house project in period between 1989-1918. jane addams, florence kelley, charlotte perkins gilman, and marion talbot, are main female pragmatist and supported and developed this ideas. nobel prize winners, emily greene balch and jane addams, strongly advocated equality in between males and females, believing that democracy and education are strong force of changes in society. many female sociologists supported this ideas which resulted in “thousands of books and articles” (deegan & podeschi, 2001). ecofeminism is also defined as “a major intellectual enterprise about women, the self, and community” (deegan & podeschi, 2001). the most important idea of feminist pragmatism was also investigation of matriarchal societies, focusing towards the great mother and female representation of goddesses. figure 1. mother earth/pacha mama (available on line at http://www.artsbymia.com/art-gallery/goddess-and-warrior-series/accesses (1.3.2016)) 6 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 gilman’s difference in comparison to other feminist pragmatist, who had been exclusively white and elite, is that her theory was based on darwinist reformist theories, based on biological female distinctions in culture, reproduction, nurture, etc. saga written by gilman is not only pro-feminist, and matriarchal, but also pacifistic, and anti-militaristic. ecofeminism and eco-feminist pragmatism are sharing the eco-feminist equation ideas, and therefore are used as synonyms inside the eco-feminist pragmatist sociological theories of female professionals in sociology. “herland is a social and environmental utopia, at least reminiscent of the pre patriarchal societies eco feminist scholars discuss” (podeschi & deegan in mušić (2016)). as herland in feminist utopia, the ourland is patriarchal society that is destructive and without ecological consciousness. the male pair for ellador is named van. ellador has notions on environmental disastrous spirits in ourland commenting that “in ourland we have robbed, neglected, and wasted the soil, and that overpopulation is destroying the land in places…the environment in the united states specifically, ellador remarks, neglect, waste, awful, glaring waste. it makes me sick. it makes me want to cry. as for water, neglect and waste again, and hideous, suicidal defilement” (ibid in mušić (2016)). these ideas are similar to hawaiian native cultural traditions where goddess papa (papahānanaumoku), earth mother is torched by evil acts of humans, especially towards the nature. this goddess is specially adored by native hawaiian women, and her place of worshipping is called hale o papa (mušić, 2017). in comparison to experience of male, in saga, when coming to herland, van is astonished by the natural resources and beauty of the urban towns, reproduction, and mothering. 3. caroline bartlett crane, ecofeminist pragmatism and conservation projects deegan and rynbrandt (2002) investigated the research projects and importance of caroline bartlett crane’s work, namely giving her academic heritage following remarks: “applied sociologist and noted progressive era reformer, was an eminent figure, national leader in municipal sanitation, forerunner of the ecology and eco feminism movements of today, crane is part of women’s hidden heritage and her life exemplifies the theory of eco feminism pragmatism”. important fact about biographical notes from crane’s life was that she becomes part of ministry despite the wishes of her family. in her devotion she formed settlement in church named crane’s institutional church in kalamazoo, michigan that was similar to jane adams’s hull house settlement, chicago. crane was social reformist, active sociologists that dedicated her life to suffrage, human rights, and sanitationconservation projects. importance of caroline bartlett crane’s professional work in sociology, is emphasized since her “claim to the title of sociologist is less obvious to contemporary professionals who are trained to emphasize men’s abstract, objective practices in the academy” (deegan & rynbrandt, 2002). kasler and deegan founded criteria for naming female professional, founder in sociology, and crane meets all seven of them: “because crane consulted with sociologists, wrote about sociology, taught sociology, did sociology, self-identified as a sociologist, and was identified by others as a sociologist, she was a sociologist” (deegan & rynbrandt 2002). therefore, mary jo deegan and linda j. rynbrandt, stated 7 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 that crane represent an early american pragmatism movement founder. on the basis of the greta gaard’s historical approach to women achievements in history, it has been noticed that binary dichotomies are elevating male accomplishments and devaluating female achievements in order to identify females with animals, and nature, and rationalizing the dominance over them. crane’s ideas are mainly supporting the ideas of charlotte p. gilman, with one move forward, since the crane was practicing eco feminist pragmatism with interracial focus, rather than supporting the hierarchical society. feminist pragmatist, namely crane, perkins-gilman and adams, still, did not believe that women are helpless victims; they saw women as a social reformist and environmental reformist, even though their quest for this later reform was mainly ignored and not well understood. crane shared her ideas with her male colleagues such as henderson and zueblin, that better aesthetics of the town and environment would create better people (mary jo deegan and linda j. rynbrandt in mušić (2016) one of the themes that is discussed inside the notion of logic of care vs. logic of dominance, and therefore herland is practicing the ideal of care ethics vs. human, natural and animal world, while as in ourland patriarchal society destruction is causing the motherhood and nature as having less importance. gilman continues to discuss, social relationships inside the female utopia, that is academic and more civilized that other since it is “truly humane and truly civilized” (deegan, podeschi in mušić, 2016). therefore the social relations are based on the idea of communalism and interconnections. all children are children of all mothers, and after first year of their life, they are educated inside the community, by professional educators and co-mothers, and their biological mother is given less importance. the fundamental idea of education is presented only in connection with motherhood: “education and nurturing of children clearly demonstrate a belief in communal living as well as a celebration of interconnectivity and unity: motherhood and mothering bind herlanders together, it is their religion” (deegan and podeschi in mušić (2016)). since this saga develops in historical comparison of matriarchal societies with newer patriarchal society. ellador travels with van through time, and harshly criticizes i world war seeing it as absurd and destructive, and so different from peaceful, caring, and respectful for human, animal and all sorts of life, matriarchal societies of earlier periods. deegan and podeschi, forming the final conclusions on herland saga state: “charlotte perkins gilman’s herland/ourland saga is a powerful statement condemning patriarchal society and its ill-effects, a classic example of the eco feminist equation”. but yet, they also make notions of gilman’s exclusions and preferences for hierarchical societies that are not eco feminist ideas. “crane actively promoted these ideas when she founded women’s civic improvement league in kalamazoo, michigan in 1904 in order to educate individuals in civic goals of public health, charity, and civic beauty”. she influenced the development of sociology of education, play and environment, and explained her devotion to civic improvement with notion that everybody will help their own children if they protect their environment. crane strongly supported the development of playgrounds with emphasizing the importance of recreation and enjoyment in aesthetics and beauty of the environment. as jane addams did, crane as well supports idea that we can understand the individuals, if we can be part of their social world, and 8 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 therefore for social and physical health the recreation and play, and healthy vegetarian diet are necessary. she held ironical speeches and spoke for better treatment of shop girls and horses, since she strongly believed in interconnectedness of all parts of the world. but crane’s interest for the environment was deep and scientifically supported, and therefore she: “earned the public title of america’s housekeeper, as a result of her studies of municipal sanitation problems, thereby including an important element of environmental concern. crane conducts sanitary social surveys regarding the public health and safety of over six american cities in her career in municipal sanitation” (mary jo deegan and linda j. rynbrandt in mušić (2016)). club of women to which crane belonged, organized cleaning of the street, together with sharing the leaflets, such as following one shared in 1904: “please! the women civic improvement league had undertaken to keep main street clean. we ask you to help us. please do not throw anything-paper, fruit skins, peanut shells or any other litter, in the street; put it in the waste-paper can at the corner”. and, gentleman, “please do not spit on the sidewalk, or in the gratings, or anywhere but in the gutter. now, please don’t throw this in the street!” deegan and rynbrandt (2002). crane supported the idea of recycling. influenced by the idea of american transcendentalism of ralf waldo emerson, she also promoted a feminist theology, and natural and rational approach towards the religion, since she referred to god as mother and father ((mary jo deegan and linda j. rynbrandt in mušić (2016)). she had different understanding of difference in between sexes, and unlike adams and gilman, she did not think that women are more moral and more angelic in comparison to males. professional sociologist, crane working in progressive era, had deep interest in conservation projects of forest and environmental disasters. these ideas are only recently being acknowledged in articles of female sociologists, such as emerita mary jo deegan, from nebraska lincoln university. crane very actively opposed to destruction of the environment by henry ford, and held speeches actively being involved in reforestations tours, in michigan area. supporting the idea of suffragette anna howard shaw who collected the seeds from different trees during the traveling all around the world, she anticipated sustainable development idea: “shaw’s forest should act as an emblem and incentive for american women to mother all little trees-protects them from marauding ex and fire-that they may be to future generations” (deegan, rynbrandt, 2002). crane offered the perspective of looking from home, other than looking from business side of building projects that involve destruction of nature. despite her strong approach in social and environmental reforms, crane had faced the disappointment and also was not successful in caring out all of her conservation project ideas. “around 1930, crane was actively seeking to have rowe’s island in the kalamazoo river become a state park. she was concerned about the preservation of michigan’s forests, and parklands. her attempts were ultimately unsuccessful” (linda j. rynbrandt, mary jo deegan in mušić, 2016). even though her conservation project was not successful, caroline bartlett crane is considered as leader of american pragmatist movement of early period, and active social reformer, included in female founders in sociology. 9 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 3. discussion the initial hypothesis in this work dedicated to investigation of eco-feminist pragmatism of female founders in sociology as source of women empowerment in academia and society, had confirmed that eco-feminist pragmatism authors had influenced the affirmation of female principles, in society and academia. the discussion had been divided into four subsections. sexism against female sociologists focuses towards the historical position of female sociologists in their profession, the reasons for their exclusion from sociology. doctrine of separate spheres was one of the main reasons for segregation of women in sociology, and american sociological association at first stage of development was similar to male club with only few women participating around theme of sociology of family. sister founders vs. father founders focuses towards the formation of new definitions followed by the question raised by mary jo deegan, patricia madoo libermann, jill brantley, christopher w. podeschi and linda j. rynbrandt, which resulted in conclusion that there were female founders in sociology, and therefore female sociologists as professionals and workers inside the academia were not invisible but had been written out of sociological textbooks. in order to understand the notion of “being written out”, it is necessary to discuss theoretical knowledge of two famous female sociologist, rarely mentioned in sociological textbooks, such as contemporaries charlotte p. gilman (1860-1935) and caroline bartlett crane (1858-1935). both of these authors were famous and active social reformists and professional eco-feminist pragmatist and sociologists. in their work the experience of marginalization and discrimination is described in different forms. the eco feminism is historically developed, and based on texts of feminist pragmatist, who were mainly female professional sociologists. this writings are rarely mentioned, in traditional sociological textbooks, and involve writings and documents from historical period in between 1890-1930-ties. gilman’s saga herland and with her in our ourland, is “a powerful exploration of gender relations which also includes commentaries on nature, and the human relation to nature” (deegan, podeschi, 2001). charlotte perkins gilman’s herland/ourland saga is a powerful statement condemning patriarchal society and its ill-effects, a classic example of the eco feminist equation. but yet, they also make notions of gilman’s exclusions, and preferences for hierarchical societies, that are not eco feminist ideas. crane formed settlement in church named crane’s institutional church in kalamazoo, michigan that was similar to jane adams’s hull house settlement, chicago. crane was social reformist, active sociologists that dedicated her life to suffrage, human rights, and sanitation-conservation projects. importance of caroline bartlett crane’s professional work in sociology, is emphasized since her “claim to the title of sociologist is less obvious to contemporary professionals who are trained to emphasize men’s abstract, objective practices in the academy” (deegan, rynbrandt, 2002). kasler and deegan founded criteria for naming female professional, founder in sociology, and crane meets all seven of them: “because crane consulted with sociologists, wrote about sociology, taught sociology, did sociology, self-identified as a sociologist, and was identified by others as a sociologist, she was a sociologist” (deegan & rynbrandt, 2002). supporting the idea of suffragette anna howard shaw who 10 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 collected the seeds from different trees during the traveling all around the world, she anticipated sustainable development idea. these two biographical examples, confirmed the initial idea formed in this investigation, that only thorough in depth analyses of contemporary sociological biographical recoveries of female founders in sociology, are possible. beck and beck-gernsheim (2010) stated that female educational liberation happened from 1960-ties and on: “what is new is the individual female biography……the individualized biography assumes that everyone can update and optimize his, and hers decisions “in order to be open to new educational challenges with constant willingness to study, and focus toward lifelong learning project”. references beck, u., & beck-gernsheim, e. 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(2016). female sociology as academic discipline: problems and gender based marginalization against female sociologists. paper presented at international congress gender studies in debate: pathways, challenges and interdisciplinary perspectives, cieg, lisbon, portugal. mušić, l. (2016). female scientists position in sociology. saarbrucken: lambert academic publishing. mušić, l. (2017). femina sociologica. sarajevo: tdp. wharton, a. (2012). sociology of gender. new york/singapore: wiley and blackwell. lengermann, p. m., & niebrugge-brantley, j. (1998). the women founders: sociology and social theory 1830-1930. london: mcgraw-hill. scot, p. (2007). fifty key sociologists: the contemporary theorists. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203128909 notes note 1. our slavic fellow citizens, on immigration. note 2. eaves thought sociology at stanford and nebraska university, as the only women in coeducational system, left because she was not paid. 11 published by scholink inc. https://doi.org/10.5840/enviroethics200123136 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12108-002-1011-5 https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203128909 original paper frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 62 original paper research on the matching of supply and demand of basic public education services in the main urban area of zhengzhou based on accessibility haoyu luo1 & menghao guo1 1 college of urban and rural planning, henan university of economics and law, zhengzhou, china received: july 30, 2024 accepted: august 24, 2024 online published: september 21, 2024 doi:10.22158/fet.v7n2p62 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v7n2p62 abstract there is an imbalance between urban and rural people in basic public education services. at present, there are few studies on the matching of supply and demand considering the actual living population of residential communities at the street level and the number of degrees provided by basic public education services. from the perspective of the matching of supply and demand of basic public education services in space, taking zhengzhou as an example, this paper makes an in-depth analysis of the accessibility of primary and secondary schools in the main urban area of zhengzhou by improving the two-step mobile search method, and further analyzes the spatial imbalance of supply and demand matching. the results show that most of the central areas in the main urban area belong to high demand and high supply areas, but they still cannot meet the needs of educational resources, and the matching degree of supply and demand of educational resources in primary and secondary schools is low. the periphery of the central area, namely the southwest of erqi district, the north of huiji district and the northeast of jinshui district, belongs to the low-demand high-supply or low-demand medium-supply area, and the supply and demand matching degree is high. the competent authorities need to pay close attention to the development trend of the city and the change of the resident population, so as to adjust the layout of educational resources in time. encourage and support the flow of high-quality educational resources to marginal areas, narrow the educational gap between regions, and steadily promote the goal of high-quality and balanced basic public education services. keywords basic public education services, improved two-step mobile search method, accessibility, supply and demand matching, zhengzhou www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 63 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction basic public education service (note 1) refers to the basic public service provided in the field of education. it has four main characteristics: public, inclusive, basic and developmental. it is the basic premise and foundation for realizing the lifelong development of human beings. equalization of basic public education service is one of the core contents of public service planning in china (jia & li, 2023). the central committee of the communist party of china clearly proposed to “optimize the allocation of regional education resources and establish a basic public education service supply mechanism coordinated with population changes”. this deployment aims to promote education equity and enhance the balance and accessibility of basic public services. supply and demand matching is a concept often used in economics (wang & mo, 2024). the application of in the field of education refers to the fact that the supply and demand of educational resources can achieve a coordinated state in quantity and structure. there is neither a waste caused by the surplus of educational resources nor a social injustice caused by the shortage of educational resources, that is, the supply of educational resources can fully meet the social demand for educational resources. the existing research mainly focuses on the three dimensions of supply, demand or the combination of supply and demand. the research on the supply dimension of educational resources often uses accessibility to evaluate the service level of facilities (sheng & cai, 2018). the commonly used accessibility calculation methods include the nearest distance method, the supply and demand ratio method, the potential model , the cumulative opportunities measure, two-step floating catchment area and the optimal supply and demand allocation model (wei, yang, & hong, 2023; wang et al., 2020; guagliardo, 2004; yan, 2016; luo & wang, 2003; kim & wang, 2019; williams & wang, 2014). in summary, the basic assumption of the nearest distance method is that individuals tend to choose to use the nearest public service facility, but this method ignores the multiple factors that affect decision-making in real life, and does not take into account the service capacity of the facility itself; the law of supply and demand ratio evaluates the allocation of resources by calculating the ratio of supply and demand of facilities in a specific area. it assumes that the facilities only serve the residents within their preset service radius, but in fact there may be cross-regional use; the potential model aims to estimate the use pattern by quantifying the attenuation of facility attraction with the change of geographical distance, but in practice, it is difficult to find the distance attenuation coefficient that matches the reality. the cumulative opportunity measure is based on a fixed upper limit of time or distance to count the number of public service facilities that can be reached from a certain location, but ignores the willingness to visit that decreases with the increase of distance; the optimal supply and demand allocation model is that the overall service capacity of public service facilities should reach or exceed the level of total demand. in contrast, the two-step floating catchment area better reflects the supply and demand situation of the facility and its spatial accessibility by introducing the concept of threshold, and is more and more applied in the study of accessibility (wei, yang, & hong, 2023; wang www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 64 published by scholink inc. et al., 2020; guagliardo, 2004; yan, 2016; luo & wang, 2003; kim & wang, 2019; williams & wang, 2014; zhai et al., 2022; song et al., 2010). however, the imbalance of basic public education services between different groups in urban and rural areas is still prominent. the existing literature pays more attention to the imbalance of educational resources between urban and rural areas, ignoring the accessibility and convenience of education services among different groups in urban areas (zhang et al., 2023; li, yang, & wu, 2021; han, li, & zhang, 2015; xue, 2016). at present, there are few studies on the matching of supply and demand considering the actual living population of residential communities at the street level and the number of degrees provided by basic public education services. taking zhengzhou, the capital city of henan province, a populous province, as an example, this paper studies the matching of supply and demand of basic public education services in the main urban area of zhengzhou according to the educational needs of the actual residential population size of the residential area, and clarifies the direction of supply and demand optimization of basic public education services in the next step, which can provide reference for the high-quality and balanced development of basic public education services in various regions of the main urban area of zhengzhou. 2. overview of the study area and data description 2.1 overview of the study area zhengzhou is the capital of henan province, the national central city and the core city of the central plains urban agglomeration. the main urban area of zhengzhou includes erqi district, zhongyuan district, guancheng district, huiji district, jinshui district and shangjie district. since shangjie district is an enclave, this paper will not discuss it for the time being. at the end of 2022, the permanent population in the main urban area of zhengzhou was 7.109 million. according to the notice of the state council on adjusting the standard of urban scale division in 2014, zhengzhou has entered the ranks of megacities.figure 1 is the research location map. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 65 published by scholink inc. figure 1. research location map 2.2 data source and processing 2.2.1 residential quarter and population data the spatial location of the residential area, the number of households and other information are obtained from the residents by python crawler technology. after data cleaning, the residential area is divided according to the administrative division of the main urban area of zhengzhou. taking the resident population data of residential quarters as the demand side of basic public education services, in order to obtain the population data of each residential quarter, the steps are as follows: the first step is to count the total number of residential quarters collected in each administrative district of the main urban area of zhengzhou city. the size of the population collected in each administrative district of the main urban area of zhengzhou city = the total number of residential quarters collected in each administrative division of the main urban area of zhengzhou city * the average population of each household (the seventh national census bulletin of zhengzhou city shows that the average population of each household in zhengzhou city is 2.82); in the second step, due to the error between the population size collected by each administrative region in the main urban area of zhengzhou city and the resident population size of each administrative region in the “zhengzhou statistical yearbook 2023”, it is necessary to correct it. calculate the correction coefficient, the correction coefficient = the resident population size of each administrative region in the “zhengzhou statistical yearbook 2023”/the population size collected by each administrative division; the third step is to calculate the size of the resident population in each residential area, the resident population in each residential area = the number of households in each residential area * correction coefficient * average population per household. figure 2a is the spatial distribution of residential quarters in the main urban area of zhengzhou, and figure 2b is the spatial distribution of population in residential areas in the main urban area of zhengzhou. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 66 published by scholink inc. 2.2.2 basic public education service data taking the number of degrees in primary and secondary schools in the main urban area of zhengzhou as the supplier of basic public education services, the list of compulsory education is derived from the zhengzhou municipal government data disclosure network, and its spatial location information is obtained through python crawler technology. the steps to obtain the number of degrees in primary and secondary schools are as follows: the first step is to obtain the number of classes in primary and secondary schools. the information of the number of classes is partly derived from the zhengzhou municipal government data disclosure network, and partly from the public number that can be searched. if the number of classes in individual schools is not searched, it is calculated according to the number of students shown in the zhengzhou municipal government data disclosure network and the average class size in the “statistical bulletin of zhengzhou education development in 2023”; the second step is to obtain the supply of degrees in primary and secondary schools. the supply of degrees = the number of school classes * the standard class size of primary and secondary schools (according to the ‘urban ordinary primary and secondary school building construction standards’ “rural ordinary primary and secondary school construction standards,” the current standard class size of primary and secondary schools is 45 primary schools and 50 junior high schools ). figure 2c is the spatial distribution of basic public education services in the main urban area of zhengzhou. 2.2.3 road network data the road network data is derived from openstreetmap and the obtained data is subjected to network data set construction and topology processing. figure 2d is the distribution of roads in the main urban area of zhengzhou city. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 67 published by scholink inc. figure 2. basic public education service supply and demand in the main urban area of zhengzhou and road data 3. research method 3.1 nuclear density analysis kernel density analysis is a spatial analysis method commonly used in geographic information system (gis), which is mainly used to calculate the distribution density of point or line elements in geographic space. this method calculates the density contribution of each point to the surrounding area by setting a smooth surface defined by the kernel function around each feature point, taking the point as the center and according to the principle of distance attenuation. when implemented in gis, kernel density analysis uses the specified search radius to determine the influence range, and superimposes the contribution value of each point on each grid. the core is that the closer the grid element is to the point element, the higher the density value is obtained, and the density value of the grid element exceeding the search radius is zero. if the kernel surfaces of multiple point elements overlap at some grids, the density values of these grids will be accumulated, and finally the density distribution map of the entire study area will be formed. this process can convert discrete data into continuous spatial density www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 68 published by scholink inc. expression, which is convenient for visual presentation and further analysis. the calculation formula of nuclear density is ) 1 ( 1  = − = n i h i xx k nhn f (1) in the formula: for )( h i xx k − the kernel function; n the number of factor points in the study area; h is bandwidth parameter; ixx − is the distance from the center point of the grid to the element point. 3.2 od cost matrix analysis od cost matrix analysis is a spatial analysis method used to calculate the network distance between origin and destination in gis. in the two-step floating catchment area, the travel cost between the supply point and the demand point is the key variable. it is more practical to select the road network distance as the travel cost. this paper uses the od cost distance to calculate the shortest path network distance from the residential area to each school. because the service radius of primary school is not more than 500 meters in principle, and the service radius of junior high school is not more than 1000 meters in principle, the travel distance threshold of primary school is 500 meters, and the travel distance threshold of junior high school and 9-year consistent school is 1000 meters. according to the analysis results of this step, it is concluded that the basic public education service facilities can be reached in the residential area within the travel distance threshold. 3.3 gauss two-step mobile search method the gaussian two-step floating catchment area is based on the supply point and the demand point respectively, and sets a maximum travel distance or time as the critical value, that is, the search radius (set as the actual road network distance threshold in this paper). the mobile search is performed twice, and the resources available in the residential area within the threshold are compared. the higher the value, the better the accessibility. considering the availability of data and drawing on relevant research, this paper selects the number of school degrees as a measure of basic public education services. the specific calculation steps are as follows. first, the center of gravity j of each school is selected, and the actual road network distance threshold 0d is selected as the search range, calculate the number k of each demand point falling in the region, obtain the number j of demanders that the supply point can meet, then divide the number of degrees of the supply point j by the total number of demanders, and calculate the supply and demand ratio jr of the service provided by the school. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 69 published by scholink inc.   =           0 d kj dk k p j s j r (2) in the formula, js represents the degree supply of the supply point school j ; kjd represents the travel distance between the residential area k and the school j ; kp denotes the total population of the residential area in the search area. secondly, for the center of gravity of each residential area i , the actual road network distance threshold 0d from it to each school j is set as the demand range. the supply and demand ratio jr of school j falling in this area is calculated, and the weight is given by gauss equation. finally, the weighted ratio is summed to obtain the spatial accessibility ai of point i to obtain educational resources service. 0 , 0 ,0 2 1 1 2 1 2 0 2 1 0 , d kj d d kj d e e d kj d e d kj dg              − − − − − =                    (3) ( )0,ddg kj is a gaussian equation function that adds a distance decay function. j rd ij di d kj dg i a        =           0 0 , (4) in the formula, ijd is the road network distance between the residential area i and the supply school j ; the greater the value of ai , the better the accessibility of the services obtained by the residential area, and the closer the distance between the residents and the actual road network of the school ; the smaller the value, the worse the accessibility. 4. results and analysis 4.1 spatial distribution analysis of supply and demand of educational resources 4.1.1 the spatial distribution of educational resources demand side as the demand side of basic public education services, the residential area and its resident population in the main urban area of zhengzhou show a strong agglomeration state in the central area of the main urban area and weaken outward, forming a small-scale residential and population agglomeration center www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 70 published by scholink inc. in other areas of each administrative region. the residential density in the central area is higher, and with the increase of the distance from the central area, the residential density gradually decreases. it may be because the central area belongs to the old urban area of the main urban area of zhengzhou. it is the earliest area of urban development. it has a relatively mature urban infrastructure and social service system. because of its superior location, convenient transportation and rich resources, it has become the preferred place to live. with the increase of distance from the core area, the attractiveness of the residential area gradually weakened. with the passage of time, urban expansion, new urban areas have gradually developed. in the process of urban expansion, some specific areas have developed into secondary residential centers because of certain location advantages or planning orientation. however, due to the historical accumulation and functional completeness of the old city, it still maintains a high population density. 4.1.2 the spatial distribution of educational resource suppliers the spatial distribution of primary and secondary schools in the main urban area of zhengzhou shows a pattern of strong center and weak edge. in terms of spatial distribution, jinshui district, zhongyuan district, erqi district and guancheng district are the areas with the largest number of primary and secondary schools in the main urban area of zhengzhou. the center formed by the four districts in the location is the area with the highest distribution density of primary and secondary schools in zhengzhou. the spatial distribution of primary and secondary schools in the marginal areas of other main urban areas is relatively scattered. although multiple sub-centers are formed, the overall concentration is low. it may be due to the high population density in the central region, the residents’ demand for education is greater, while the population in the marginal area is relatively sparse, the demand for schools is naturally lower, and because of the development history and traditional comprehensive advantages of the central region, it has more school resources, while the marginal area is due to the limited level of development and other reasons, the distribution of schools is more dispersed. on the whole, the spatial distribution of primary and secondary education resources in the main urban area of zhengzhou is generally consistent with the population density distribution of residential areas and residential areas. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 71 published by scholink inc. figure 3. spatial distribution of supply and demand of educational resources 4.2 analysis of matching between supply and demand of educational resources more than half of the residential areas in the main urban area of zhengzhou have low accessibility to basic public education services, more than 20 % of the residential areas have poor accessibility, less than a quarter of the general residential areas have poor accessibility, and less than 2 % of the residential areas have high and high accessibility. the areas with better matching of supply and demand are only the southwest of erqi district, the north of huiji district, the northeast of jinshui district and a small part of each administrative district. the reason for the better matching of supply and demand in the southwest of erqi district and the northeast of jinshui district is that there are fewer residential areas in these areas, but there is a certain amount of educational resources supply, which can just meet the needs of local residents. the northern part of the huiji district may be because the northern part of the huiji district is close to the yellow river area. due to geographical location and natural conditions, there are fewer residential areas and fewer educational resources. the reason for the good matching of supply and demand in a small part of each administrative region is that although these residential areas have a large demand for educational resources, they also have a large supply of educational resources. most of the main urban area of zhengzhou city, especially the central area of the main urban area, has a poor matching of supply and demand, because these areas have a large residential area and a large residential population. although the supply of educational resources is also large, it still cannot meet the demand. table 1. the supply of basic public education services in each administrative region counties number of townships number of primary schools supply of primary school places number of junior high schools supply of lower secondary school places erqi district 14 68 66420 36 52600 zhongyuan district 17 80 119020 43 67125 guancheng district 16 76 103860 32 48350 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 72 published by scholink inc. jinshui district 25 103 164160 36 62250 huiji district 8 42 43560 12 19500 total 80 369 497020 159 249825 table 2. the accessibility of residential quarters in each administrative region counties number of residential quarters number and proportion of residential community accessibility low ratio lower ratio average ratio higher ratio high ratio erqi district 780 280 35.90 % 294 37.69 % 205 26.28 % 0 0.00 % 1 0.13 % zhong yuan district 879 438 49.83 % 168 19.11 % 256 29.12 % 16 1.82 % 1 0.11 % guan cheng district 874 400 45.77 % 178 20.37 % 263 30.09 % 32 3.66 % 1 0.11 % jinshui district 1724 1089 63.17 % 287 16.65 % 315 18.27 % 32 1.86 % 1 0.06 % huiji district 231 142 61.47 % 36 15.58 % 47 20.35 % 6 2.60 % 0 0.00 % total 4488 2349 52.34 % 963 21.46 % 1086 24.20 % 86 1.92 % 4 0.09 % 4.3 analysis of the mismatch between supply and demand of educational resources some streets in the erqi district, such as dehua street street, jiefang road street and yima road street, do not have primary and secondary education resources, which may be related to the nature of land use, but there are individual residential areas; the residential areas of huaihe road street and jianzhong street are the most, but the supply of educational resources is general, which belongs to the general area of high demand supply; songshan road street has the most sufficient supply of educational resources, but the number of residential areas is also large, which belongs to the high supply and high demand area. there are a large number of residential communities in tongbai road street, central plains district, but the supply of secondary school education resources is insufficient; the matching of supply and demand in most areas of xiliuhu street and xushui street is poor. it may be because the new development areas in these areas have formed a small-scale agglomeration center to generate certain demand for educational resources, but the allocation of educational resources has a certain lag, which can not meet the demand for educational resources for the time being. longhai road street, east street street, west street street and chengdong road street in guancheng district have www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 73 published by scholink inc. less supply of educational resources, which belongs to the area of medium demand and low supply. there are many residential communities in fengchan road street of jinshui district, but the supply of educational resources is very small, which belongs to the area of high demand and low supply. the accessibility of longhu street, longzihu street, boxue road street and jinguang road street in the east of jinshui district is poor. it is because it is still in the early stage of construction and the nature of regional land is different. most of them are higher education land, but they have formed a strong aggregation effect. local residents and teachers’ children also form a certain scale of education demand, while the supply of educational resources is lagging behind. the number of primary and secondary schools is still insufficient, and the imbalance between supply and demand is more obvious. the residential area of guoji road street in the northern part of jinshui district has formed a scale, but the supply of secondary school education resources is insufficient. it may be because it belongs to the urban expansion area, and the supply of education resources cannot keep up with the demand. the matching of supply and demand in the southern part of huiji district is general, because it is closer to the center of zhengzhou city and other important economic zones, has better infrastructure, has more residential areas, and the number of primary and secondary schools and the number of degrees are limited. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 74 published by scholink inc. figure 4. supply and demand matching analysis 5. conclusions and suggestions 5.1 conclusion the accessibility of basic public education services in more than half of the residential areas in the main urban area of zhengzhou is low, more than 20% of the residential areas have poor accessibility, the accessibility of general residential areas is less than one quarter, and the accessibility of higher and higher residential areas is less than 2%. the areas with good matching between supply and demand of basic public education services are only the southwest of erqi district, the north of huiji district, the northeast of jinshui district and a small part of each administrative region. most of the areas have poor matching between supply and demand, and there are many areas with high demand and low supply, medium demand and low supply. 5.2 proposal the competent authorities need to pay close attention to the development trend of the city and the resident population, regularly carry out detailed statistical data collection and analysis, understand the actual changes in educational needs in different regions, and timely adjust the layout of educational resources. although the current school district policy and the lock-up admission policy are aimed at www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 75 published by scholink inc. achieving a balanced distribution of educational resources, they also bring some challenges, such as the phenomenon of “giant schools” and “large classes.” more scientific and reasonable allocation rules can be explored in the following ways: regularly reassessing and adjusting the boundaries of school districts according to population changes and urban development, and ensuring that the number of students in each school district is moderate. carry out multi-school enrollment policy, disperse the number of students, and reduce the pressure of a single school. through the teacher rotation system, we ensure that excellent teachers can flow between different schools, thereby improving the quality of teaching in all schools, rather than focusing on only a few schools. encourage social organizations, enterprises and other third-party forces to participate in the distribution of educational resources, through public-private cooperation and other ways to supplement the lack of educational resources. references basic public education service system [eb/ol]. 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(2016). the institutional innovation of balanced supplying of urban-rural basic public services under the new-type urbanization. journal of dalian university of technology (social sciences), 37(2), 88-93. yan, j. (2016). research on spatial accessibility evaluation method of urban public service facilities. southeast university. zhai, s. y. et al. (2022). measuring the spatial accessibility of public services by optimal supply-demand allocation. acta geographica sinica, 99(4),1082-1038. zhang, y. q. et al. (2023). digital economy, population mobility and equalization of basic public services in urban and rural areas. statistics & decision, 39(20), 35-39. note in this paper, basic public education services only refer to 9-year compulsory education. frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no.4, 2021 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) original paper managing english language classroom for meaningful teaching and learning: a case study for hochland high school in windhoek martha hakaya1, nchindo richardson mbukusa2 & earle sinvula mudabeti3 1 english language teacher, university of namibia, namibia 2 senior lecturer, department of higher education and lifelong learning, faculty of education, university of namibia, namibia 3 language centre: head of department (hod), lecturer, university of namibia, namibia received: july 30, 2021 accepted: august 17, 2021 online published: october 20, 2021 doi:10.22158/fet.v4n4p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v4n4p1 abstract total management of overcrowded classrooms have across-the-board effects for english as a second language teaching and learning environments as in any subject. greater attainment and achievements in schools depend on the choices made with regard to teacher-learner ratios that consider of classroom management. recruitment of learners and teachers should ensure that classrooms are enabled to meet the demands of professional teaching challenges, amongst other, inidvidualised teaching and learning. the aim of the research was to explore the challenges and related matters in managing english as a second language overcrowded classrooms. a qualitative approach, steered by a case study design, purposively guided the study. it was deemed fit in order to understand the phenomena with deeper understanding of beliefs and situated lived experiences. semi-structured interviews and nonparticipant observations were used as methods to generate data for analysis. the research exposed that copious problems were experienced by teachers and leaners who were subjected to overcrowded classrooms. amongst many, noise and unruly behaviour, poor time management and teaching approaches result in such classes. guiding principles regarding sound teacher-learner ratios should be put in place by policymakers and schools in order to support both teachers and learners for the success of teaching and learning. keywords overcrowded classrooms, teaching and learning, time and space management 1 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 1. background of the study several authors define classroom management as the wide variety of skills and techniques that teachers use to keep learners systematized orderly, focused, attentive, on task and academically productive during a class (bolick & cooper, 2006; oliver & reschly, 2011; korpershoek; harms; de boer, van kuijk, & doolaard, 2014). a large amount of a child’s time is spent sitting in a classroom where they will learn the innumerable skills believed to be necessary and proper for them to achieve success in the greater world (lane, menzies, bruhn, & crnobori, 2011; hannah, 2013). with the classroom being such an important place for the growth of the learner, it is important to understand the traditions in which the environment affects teaching and learning in order to receive maximum effective instruction (hannah, 2013). the main aim of this paper is therefore to explore the ways in which grade 10-12 english language classrooms are managed at hochland high school in windhoek, namibia. magwa and ngara (2014) found that learners’ behaviours in a classroom can be categorised into two groups of home and school factors. children that come from broken and disorganised families, with lack of leadership, guidance and control have more disruptive behaviour patterns in schools. often in such family settings violence is used as a form of discipline. school factors that influence disruptive behaviours in classroom include drugs abuse, crime, and physical abuse that is transferred from societies. overcrowded classrooms where numbers of learners can exceed 45 for one teacher are part of the factors that overburden management of classrooms. the southern african development community (sadc) corridor has showed some trends of higher learners to a teacher, leading to over crowdedness in classrooms. though sadc countries such as madagascar, malawi, mozambique and tanzania have showed significant changes in learner-teacher ratios, one can still find ratios of 1:39 to 1:36, some classrooms still register class sizes above 1:50 (unesco, 2012). south africa, for example, shows learner-teacher ratio in primary schools standing at about 1:40 and for secondary schools 1:35 (motshekga, 2012). john (2013) reports that in some schools in the eastern cape, learners are sitting three or four to a desk meant for two, thus upsetting traffic flow in the classroom and demanding extraordinary manoeuvres to move around the classroom. some schools in the eastern cape have more than 130 learners squeezed into one classroom and teachers are obliged to present lessons with their backs pressed up against the blackboard (guardian africa network, 2013). furthermore, it is noted in nigeria that learners cannot rely on individual care from teaching (boyi, 2014, p. 69). a similar trend is noticed by gideon (2014) in kenyan schools, where class sizes can reach about 200 per teacher (bayat, louw, & rena, 2014, p. 49). drame and kamphoff (2014) reveal that the average class sizes in senegal are between 50-60 learners per classroom. the prescribed teacher-learner ratio in namibia is 1:35 for primary school, while for secondary education it is 1:30. but sometimes teachers are forced to teach more than 44 learners per classroom (unicef, 2018) overcrowded class sizes have negative impacts on the life of teachers and later the learners. overcrowded classes could overwhelm inexperienced teachers if they lack exposure to teaching such type of classes (opoku-asare, agbenatoe, & degraft-johnson, 2014, p. 123). the level of experience in 2 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 teaching plays a role when it comes to the factors that lead to difficulties in managing an english as a second language (esl) classroom. andreou and rapti (2010) teachers need experience to try to gain a child’s confidence and trust in order to reduce his or her problem behaviour. young teachers generally prefer interventions related to the social or emotional wellbeing of students rather than those requiring curricular or environmental adaptations based on the belief that good teachers should be caring, trustworthy, patient and polite. mustafa, mahmoud, assaf, al-hamadi and abdulhamid (2014, p. 178) point out that overcrowding learners in one classroom could promote indiscipline in classrooms. overcrowded classes are noisier and more prone to pushing and shouting to the extent that the classroom is negatively disciplined. valuable lesson time is spent by teachers most of the lesson time trying to control rowdy learners. little time is left for real teaching (imtiaz, 2014, p. 251; davis, 2013). teachers cannot practise a multiplicity of methods, such as higher-order questioning and active learning approaches as they are just restrained to the ‘chalk and talk’ instructional method (opoku-asare et al., 2014, p. 128). teachers who teach in overcrowded classrooms devote less time to instruction and integrated reading and writing tasks, because instruction time is often wasted by administrative tasks, such as checking attendance lists, and managing behaviour, thus leaving less time for actual instruction (imtiaz, 2014, p. 251) and mustafa, et al. (2014, p. 178). cortes, moussa and weinstein (2012, p. 25) highlighted that class size affects student performance. overcrowded classrooms hinder teachers to pay attention to all the learners (imtiaz, 2014, p. 251; kiggundu and nayimuli (2009, p. 350) and sosibo and nomlomo (2014, p. 89), as teachers cannot inspire or take all learners to task to participate at the expense of the passive. teachers do not easily get to teach students and find out their needs and weaknesses” (ellis, limjoco, & johnson, 2011). learners cannot pay attention or participate at the required level of intensity because classmates are noisy and restive (benbow, mizrachi, oliver, & said-moshiro, 2007; mustafa, et al., 2014, p. 78; qasim & arif, 2014, p. 145), with the result that academic achievement is negatively affected (bayat, louw, & rena, 2014, p. 49). imtiaz (2014, p. 251) as well as khumalo and mji (2014) agree that overcrowded classrooms are unsupportive learning environments, and may even affect the learners’ physical health and hygiene, especially where infectious diseases are observed. eventually, teachers in zimbabwe (mapfumo, mukwidzwa, & chireshe, 2014, p. 191) and in ghana (opoku-asare et al., 2014, p. 123) found unruly classes as a source of stress and burnout. they have never showed signs of enjoying their teaching and learning life chosen profession. both the teacher and the learners suffer in a poorly managed classrooms (marzano, marzano, & pickering, 2003) klamer-hoogma (2012). it is for this reason that for learning and teaching to take place in the learning environment, the english classroom should be well-managed and welcoming. kayikci (2009) conducted a survey of 450 teachers in the city of antalya with the aim to examine the important of relation between the dimensions regarding classroom management skills of teachers and disciplinary behaviors of students. kayikci concluded that the beneficial outcomes of a well-managed 3 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 physical environment enables the comfort of the learning and teaching process, fostering classroom participations. therefore, good classroom management is beneficial to both learners and teachers and mismanaged classrooms negatively affect learner’s performances and outcomes as well as teachers attitude toward teaching. strategies that esl teachers can use in order to manage their large classes include interactive activities with learners as well as to give penalty but they ensured that seating arrangements, effective instructions, sequencing of activities, choice and access to preferred activities increases engagement and reduced problem behaviour therefore, using children’s own special interests as the basis for activities can significantly increase engagement (pungki & suwartono, 2018) suggested that teachers be this study focused on the factors, effects and strategies of managing overcrowded english second language teaching and learning in a classroom at hochland high school. 2. methodology the study was carried out using a purposefully sampled qualitative research approach. qualitative methods are concerned with how humans’ behaviour can be explained within the social structures in which the behaviour takes place (austin & sutton, 2014). the researchers used the case study approach as it increased credibility and trustworthiness of the study. a sample size of 6 participants were interviewed. all 3 grade 10-12 english as second language teachers at hochland high school were semi structurally interviewed, as they were holders of knowledge in the area the research intended to investigate. the non-participant observation supported the interviews in collecting data. content analysis was done by organising, analysing and interpreting the data in four stages: (1) identifying keywords such as ‘challenges’, ‘problems’ ‘noise’, ‘disruption’ and ‘tests’; (2) categorising responses according to keywords, such as ‘poor discipline’ and ‘academic achievement’; (3) consolidating categories into subthemes such as ‘learners’ lack of motivation’; and (4) organising subthemes under a main theme, such as ‘the influence of overcrowded classrooms on academic achievement’. the analysed data is presented, and then discussed and interpreted with reference to the literature review. 3. results of the study teachers and learners had opportunities to share their views and experiences on how english as a second language classrooms are managed in namibia. 3.1 absenteeism teacher b stated that “learners stay out of school for simple reasons such as the inadequacy of proper siting spaces in the classroom”. teacher c also mentioned that “sometimes you are not even aware of the fact that the learner is absent from school, you only get to notice when his/her question paper is missing and when the mark is not recorded” (teacher transcript 1). learner c noted “my class has a lot of late comers and absentees that is why it is difficult for anyone to quickly notice that someone is 4 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 missing” (learner transcript 2). “it is very difficult to manage a class that has learners who stay out of school at any time they want. when they come back the organisation of the class and the interest of those that always go absent disrupts the atmosphere of the classroom”, teacher a said “learners deliberately stays out of school, even during important test and examinations. at times it is impossible for teachers to notice that learners are absent from school until when they notice that the learners’ mark for the test and examination is missing”. learners stay away from school without providing a genuine reason for not attending classes. this is one of the many factors that affect classroom management; it also negatively affects the performance among learners. this can also mean that learners choose to stay ways from school because of the lack of interest in the study, which can be a result of difficult subject content that learners find difficult to comprehend. absenteeism can lead to drug abuse, early pregnancies and unruly behaviour. learners who are absent lag behind with school work, on test scores and other measures, not only this but the good attenders can suffer academically when their classmates stay out of school as teachers might slow down instruction to make sure that the absent learners catch up. 3.1.1 noise nosie also appeared as a factor that disrupts teaching and learning. teacher c said, “learners’ behaviour if not controlled can lead to noise and a mismanaged classroom.” (transcript 1, teachers). learner b mentioned that, “we basically contribute toward the noise pollution in the classroom as we do not listen; we are too many”. learner c also noted that, “we make a lot of noise and contribute to chaos in the classroom and because of that the classroom becomes completely disorderly.” (transcript 2, learners). this is supported by simic (2018), who opined that a mismanaged classroom is frequently accompanied by a lot of noise which leads to non-conducive learning environment and poor learner-teacher relationship. the factor that flowed from the finding showed that learners at hochland high school believe that noise is a popular factor that leads to difficulties in managing an english second language for teaching and learning. observer a observed that “some learners shout answers out loud, few learners’ talk while teacher was teaching as well as the dragging of chairs and tables. from the observation it is indicated that few learners had mini-conversations in between the lesson”. (transcript 3, observation). noise hinders classroom management practices as well as effective teaching and learning in a classroom. the teacher should therefore be ready to implement effective strategies that will lessen the influence of negative behaviour and noise pollution in the classroom. teachers should be ready to instil discipline among learners in the classroom, motivate learners, exercise control over learners in order to teach effectively and in return learners should be prepared to follow the rules. teachers should alert the learner’s on the do’s and the don’ts of the classroom, if they understand and know what is expected of them it will lead to less chaotic lessons, more learner discipline, friendly communication between the teachers and their learners as well as excellent classroom rapport. 5 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 3.1.2 learners behaviours teacher c mentioned that, “most of the challenges are that some learners do not want to do the work, come late to class, and disturb others,” (transcript 1, teachers). learner a also noted “we do not respect due dates, which causes us to be in trouble with the teacher when the project or homework is incomplete. to avoid detention, we just copy from our friends the following day”. “no one easily see who is making noise. we cover each other because we are too many to be noticed”, learner c. some learners show that they lack of motivation and have no drive to learn. they bully others in the classroom. learners disrupt learning and they are not accommodative. there is chaos and that leads to unconducive learning environment. classroom time is wasted and misused because teachers spend more time dealing with discipline rather than teaching (simic, 2018). 3.1.3 overcrowded classroom our findings also indicate that the class size at hochland high school is a contributing factor that affects classroom management. the size of learners per classroom can range from 35 to 50 in a class, resulting in negative effects on the management of teaching and learning processes and the conduciveness of classroom environment. comments obtained from the findings clearly demonstrate this: teacher b stated that “one of the big factors that lead to mismanagement and other several forms of behaviour is (sic) the overcrowding of learners in the classrooms. a teacher may not have individual attention to learners. …” (transcript 1, teachers). learner b stated that “sometimes i feel like the number of learners in our classroom are too many, making it impossible for individual assistance from the teacher, also the more the learners’ in the classroom are, the more chaotic it gets if it is not governed by classroom rules” (transcript 2, learners). “there is no individualised attention given to learners”, teacher a. “teaching a language requires a lot of giving attention to individual learners. aspects of speaking, writing and reading requires the highest attention given to individual learners. a teacher should not just assume that all learners can speak, write and read well when their language at home and in the larger community is different from the medium of instruction (english) at school and that english as a subject is a second or foreign language. there are several errors that need one on one situations with learners. an overcrowded class is just a trap for failure”, teacher c. classroom observations also indicated that a great number of classes are heavily crowded. “there is little or no space for movement. the teacher’s movement is limited and learners are tightly packed together” (transcript 3, observations). it is highly difficult to manage or control a fully packed language classroom. language classrooms demand higher interactions between learner and learner and learner and teacher. the absence of interaction builds mismanagement and less productive learning. learners are unique, different and they all learn differently. a big classroom limits and worsens the ability for the teacher to differentially manage the classroom as individual differences and uniqueness are not accommodated. the teaching process will be substituted with the teacher’s effort to establish a conducive learning and teaching zone 6 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 where teaching can take place without disturbances. for example, teaching english as a second language focusing on writing skills involves developing linguistic and communicative competence of the learner which is quite a challenging task (hafiz, tariq, din, latif, & anjum, 2013). 3.2 effective strategies to classroom management 3.2.1 seating arrangement irrespective of the hardships that teachers go through at hochland high school, english teachers have tackled classroom management issues by implementing arrangement of tables in classrooms for control. as said by teacher b “to maintain focus and full class participation. we arrange our tables in such a way that the teacher will be able to move around the classroom for control. it also enhances group work.” (transcript 1, teachers), (transcript 3, observation). the findings insist that seating arrangements, effective instructions, sequencing of activities, choice and access to preferred activities increases engagement and reduced problem behaviour therefore, using children’s own special interests as the basis for activities can significantly increase engagement. 3.2.2 punishment and detention some teachers mentioned the use of punishment as a way of keeping order or to remedy disturbing situations when they occur in the classroom. according to the literature reviewed andreou and rapti (2010) said that it seems that teachers who do not feel competent to handle behaviour problems in the classroom are more likely to respond punitively or neutrally to the students perceived. the findings from learners’ that were interviewed showed that detention is another strategy frequently use by english teachers to remedy learner’s behaviour in the classroom. this is illustrated by teacher c said “because the policy does not allow us to chase the child out, i ask them to stand up and face the wall and at the same time they can still hear what is going in the class. but if it still continues let the child sit in for detention or take him or her to the office or call the parents”. (transcript 1, teachers). learner a mentioned, “sometimes we get detention or forced to cut glass around school premises.” learner b noted that “the teacher does punish us through detention and she only let us go on condition that the work is completed.” (transcript 2, learners). as indicated by the observation: two grade 10 boys and 1 girl got detained because they failed to complete homework. (transcript3, observation). detention is important in putting an end to negative behaviour within a classroom. it would not be effective to chase out a learner out of class because some learners enjoy being outside of the classroom than being inside. 3.2.3 calling parents parents and teachers should work together into bringing up a learner for better results, punishments should be more content related, such as doubling homework, giving learners fun and creative activities to keep them busy also could work. this is showcased by the comments that are made from the interviews. teacher c said “take him or her to the office or call the parent” (transcript 1, teacher). learner a also mentioned that, “what the teacher does is take us to the principal or call in our parent 7 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 which is scary and so we are forced to behave.” learner b stated that, “our parents are called in for meetings and informed on our bad behaviour” (transcript 2, learners). 3.2.4 rules learners and teachers at hochland high school showed the importance of having classroom rules as well as the consequences of breaking the rules of the classroom. these are the following comments that reflect the importance of having classroom rules as mentioned by teacher a “you should stipulate class rules, talk to them about general behaviour, indicate punishment and practice it, be fair, give activities and brings in creativity” (transcript 1 teachers). learner a noted, “rules help keep the class in order and we actually help our teacher set them” learner b stated that, “there are rules put in place to help keep the class in order”, learner c also noted that, “there are rules in our classroom that we are expected to follow.” (transcript 2, learners). the finding shows that rules are important in keeping a classroom in order, and it is important for teachers to lay down rules in every classroom. it is helpful for teachers and it is important for learners to be aware of what they are expected to do and what they should not be doing in the classroom, this means that no rules in the classroom are associated with chaos. marzano, marzano and pickering mentioned that, effective leaning and teaching cannot take place in a poorly managed classroom, such as if learners are disorderly and disrespectful and no apparent rules. this means that classrooms are the steering wheel of a properly functioning classroom, just like we have rules governing households, a classroom needs the same rules to be able to at least function on a daily basis. 4. conclusion and recommendations 4.1 conclusion overcrowded classes have serious impacts on the management of teaching and learning environments. the aim of teaching and learning is to achieve learning. the presence and evidence of management helps teaching and learning achieve its desired goals. individualized learning also helps community development. values and morality are shared when individual teaching and learning takes place in friendly and accommodative environments. the naturally delinquent individuals learn from their teachers and fellow learners and fill up where the larger communities have failed. the study found that there also consequences that come with the mismanagement of english language classroom. mismanaged classrooms tend to be unconducive and unsupportive for learning and teaching. learners will not be able to reach their full potential or academic capabilities in the classroom as a result of others’ behaviours. teachers are unable to finish requirements in time for examinations as most of the time is spent on dealing with disciplinary as well as misbehaviour issues other than spending that time teaching and assisting learners individually as they should have. 4.2 recommendations classroom sizes (teacher-learner ratios) should be pronounced in all levels of schools to help teachers and learners focus on the matters of teaching and learning. modules on classroom management should be 8 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 implemented at universities, colleges and many other institutions of higher education that offer the educational degrees in namibia. this will get the teachers equipped with the necessary knowledge and horn skills that are needed in the field. the aim for these modules will be to equip teachers with various approaches and strategies for classroom management. teachers should demonstrate positive behavioural patterns to learners that could be emulated for smooth management of large classes. school rules should be negotiated with learners so that they have an input in the management of a classroom. they should also incorporate creativity in their lesson at learners tend to get bored. references andreou, e., & rapti, a. 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(2014). comparative analogy of overcrowded effects in classrooms versus solving ‘cocktail party problem’ 10 published by scholink inc. http://scholarworks.wmich.edu/honors_theses https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2009.01.218 https://doi.org/10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n20p1521 https://doi.org/10.15700/saje.v29n3a129 https://doi.org/10.1080/09751122.2014.11890131 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 (neural networks approach). international journal of engineering science and innovative technology (ijesit), 3(2), 175-182. accessed 23 may 2019. opoku-asare, n. a., agbenatoe, w. g., & degraft-johnson, k. g. (2014). instructional strategies, institutional support and student achievement in general knowledge in art: implications for visual arts education in ghana. journal of education and practice, 5(21), 121-134. accessed 28 may 2019. pungki, d., & suwartono, t. (2018). english teacher’s strategies in managing large classes. retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/324601335_english_teaching’s_strategies_ in_managing_large_classes sosibo, l., & nomlomo, v. (2014). teachers’ conceptions of standards in south african basic education and training: a case study. perspectives in education, 32(1), 73-87. unesco. (2012). efa country profiles explanatory note. dakar office regional bureau for education in africa. retrieved november 15, 2019, from http://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/multimedia/field/dakar/pdf/recprofilesadc_eng .pdf. unicef. (2018). the fifteenth school day report for 2018. education management information system (emis) division within the ministry of education, arts and culture. windhoek. emis. retrieved november 15, 2019, from https://www.unicef.org/namibia/na.unicef_moeac_15th_school_day_report_2018.pdf 11 published by scholink inc. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/324601335_english_teaching's_strategies_in_managing_large_classes https://www.researchgate.net/publication/324601335_english_teaching's_strategies_in_managing_large_classes https://www.unicef.org/namibia/na.unicef_moeac_15th_school_day_report_2018.pdf original paper frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 51 original paper autism spectrum disorder (asd) law in chile jose manuel salum tome, phd1* 1 phd in education, catholic university of temuco, chile * jose manuel salum tome, phd, e-mail: josesalum@gmail.com received: january 29, 2025 accepted: february 10, 2025 online published: february 27, 2025 doi:10.22158/fet.v8n1p51 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v8n1p51 abstract the tea law ensures the right to equal opportunities and safeguards the social inclusion of children, adolescents and adults with asd, eliminating any form of discrimination. it promotes a comprehensive approach in the social, health and education areas, and raises awareness in society on this issue. the law is based on fundamental principles such as dignified treatment, progressive autonomy, gender perspective, intersectorality, participation and social dialogue, early detection, continuous monitoring, and neurodiversity. keywords asd, inclusion, diversity, neurodiversity 1. introduction law 21,545, known as the autism spectrum disorder (asd) law, has come into force in chile, marking a significant advance in the inclusion and protection of the rights of people with asd. this law, enacted by president gabriel boric on march 2, 2023 and published in the official gazette on march 10 of the same year, is the result of intense legislative work initiated in 2019 by the autism federation of southern chile ( fedausch ) and the interregional roundtable on autism law (mila). the tea law aims to ensure the right to equal opportunities and safeguard the social inclusion of children, adolescents and adults with asd, eliminating any form of discrimination. it promotes a comprehensive approach in the social, health and education areas, and raises awareness in society on this issue. the law is based on principles such as dignified treatment, progressive autonomy, gender perspective, intersectorality, participation and social dialogue, early detection, continuous monitoring, and neurodiversity. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 52 published by scholink inc. 2. development in the educational field, the law ensures the exercise of the rights of people with asd under equal conditions. the necessary conditions are promoted for the access, participation, permanence and progress of autistic children, young people and adults in educational establishments, both public and private. educational establishments must develop inclusive educational communities, make adjustments to their internal regulations and procedures, and provide adequate social and emotional support to autistic students. the law allows adjustments to the school day, such as longer breaks or rest time, and the reduction of the school day for a certain period, always in agreement with the family and formalized in the individual curricular adjustment plan (paci) or individual support plan (pai). in terms of health, the law mandates the ministry of health (minsal) to implement rooms for specialized care of asd in each of the health services. the minsal must incorporate asd in the design of the first national study of child health (ensi), which will allow estimating the prevalence of the disorder in the population aged 0 to 14 years, 11 months and 29 days. early detection and continuous monitoring are essential to ensure comprehensive care. the law recognizes the importance of caregivers of people with asd and establishes measures to support them. workers can go to the educational establishments where their children attend in case of emergencies regarding their safety, without this affecting their work day. this is established in the amendment to the labor code. the state undertakes to promote the necessary actions to ensure the educational and social inclusion of autistic people, promoting the gradual elimination of barriers to learning, participation and socialisation. the different ministries must report annually to the national congress on the progress made in the implementation of the law. the law will be financed through the budget allocated to this regulation and what is contemplated annually in the budget law. the enrollment of autistic students in the school integration program (pie) has grown significantly, from 3,751 students in 2015 to more than 43,428 in 2023. this increase reflects greater awareness and detection of asd, but also poses new challenges in terms of resources and support for these students. training centers and technical-vocational education institutes are adapting spaces, teaching materials and pedagogical guides to ensure more inclusive and accessible education. the story of alejandro wasiliew, a primary school teacher diagnosed with autism at the age of 33, is an inspiring example of the importance of early diagnosis and ongoing support for autistic people. his experience highlights the importance of neurodiversity and the need for a more inclusive and respectful society towards people with asd. the law was signed into law by president gabriel boric at a ceremony held in the plaza de la constitución on march 2, 2023, marking its entry into force and the duty of all chileans to respect and fully comply with it. during the ceremony, president boric stressed the importance of integrating autistic society, stating that “it is the whole society that has to integrate... today we open the arms of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 53 published by scholink inc. the institutionality and we say what should have always been: welcome, you are part of it, we are proud of you.” the tea law is a significant step towards inclusion and respect for the rights of people with asd in chile. with its entry into force, the country is moving towards a more inclusive society, where the right to equal opportunities is guaranteed and any form of discrimination is eliminated. although there are still challenges to overcome, such as training more professionals and adapting resources, the path towards quality and accessible education for all is clear and promising. chilean society is committed to respecting and complying with this regulation, ensuring a more inclusive and equitable future for all people with asd. *autism in chile: advances and challenges in education and inclusion** autism in chile has become increasingly relevant in recent years, prompting a reflection on the integration and support needed for people living with this condition. in the first image, alejandro wasiliew, a primary school teacher and diagnosed with autism at the age of 33, shares his personal experience. alejandro, who is also a student of educational psychology, explains that upon receiving his diagnosis, he understood many of his past experiences. since then, he has worked for the wazz foundation, focused on the autistic community, and on the basic education team of the same foundation. alejandro’s story reflects a constant struggle to break down stigmas and work towards a more inclusive society. his story highlights how, after his diagnosis, he felt relief at better understanding his behaviors, which led him to advocate for the rights of autistic people. her experience is a reminder that late diagnosis can be liberating, but it also represents a challenge in terms of adjustments and supports for the adults who receive it. on the other hand, recent data shows a significant increase in the enrollment of autistic students in the school integration program (pie). in the second image, a report reveals that between 2015 and 2023, the enrollment of autistic students in the pie grew by more than 1,000%, from 3,751 students to more than 43,428. this increase is a reflection of both population growth and greater awareness and detection of autism spectrum disorders (asd). however, this increase also poses new challenges in terms of resources and support for these students. educational institutions face a growing demand for specialized programs and trained professionals who can provide the necessary supports to autistic students. finally, the third image addresses how training centers and technical-professional education institutes in chile are embracing inclusion, not only of autistic students, but also of those with other disabilities. the importance of implementing strategies that consider special educational needs is highlighted. to this end, spaces, teaching materials, and pedagogical guides are being adapted with the aim of ensuring a more inclusive and accessible education. the article underlines the importance of having support programs that can guide both students and teachers, ensuring that inclusion is not just a theoretical principle, but a reality in chilean classrooms. in summary, chile is moving towards greater inclusion and support for people with autism, especially in the educational field. life stories such as that of alejandro wasiliew and the growth in the enrollment of autistic students in the pie are examples www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 54 published by scholink inc. of these advances, although there are still challenges to overcome, such as the training of more professionals and the adaptation of resources. 3. a step towards inclusion the autism spectrum law in chile is an important step towards inclusion and respect for the rights of people with asd. it recognizes the value of neudivergence and seeks to promote comprehensive inclusion and protection of the rights of people with asd in the social, health and education spheres. 4. a shared challenge the implementation of this law is a challenge shared by the government, civil society and families of people with asd. it requires a joint effort to ensure that people with asd have access to the support and resources necessary for their full development. 5. an inclusive future the autism spectrum law in chile is a step towards a more inclusive and diversity-respectful future. we hope that this legislation will be a starting point for greater awareness and support for people with asd, and that it will contribute to creating a more just and equitable society for all. 6. conclusion the tea law is a significant step towards inclusion and respect for the rights of people with asd in chile. with its entry into force, the country is moving towards a more inclusive society, where the right to equal opportunities is guaranteed and any form of discrimination is eliminated. although there are still challenges to overcome, such as training more professionals and adapting resources, the path towards quality and accessible education for all is clear and promising. chilean society is committed to respecting and complying with this regulation, ensuring a more inclusive and equitable future for all people with asd. references foundation against work. (2023, june 16). tea law: what you need to know about regulation 21,545. retrieved from https://fundacioncontrabajo.cl/blog/cultura-inclusiva/ley-tea-21545/ mineduc. (2023). tea law general presentation. retrieved from https://ayudamineduc.cl/sites/default/files/ley_tea_-_presentacion_general.pdf ministry of health of chile. (2023, march 10). tea law. salud responde. retrieved from https://saludresponde.minsal.cl/ley-tea/ national disability service. (2023). frequently asked questions law no. 21,545. retrieved from https://www.senadis.gob.cl/descarga/i/7345 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 55 published by scholink inc. national disability service. (2023, may 9). we invite you to review the frequently asked questions of the tea law. retrieved from https://www.senadis.gob.cl/sala_prensa/d/noticias/8956 salum tome, j. m. (2023). autism spectrum disorder (asd) law in chile. catholic university of temuco. retrieved from https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2894-5538 microsoft word fet-v2n2-p63 frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 63 original paper relationship between school location and secondary technical students’ acquisition of knowledge-based skills in cross river and imo states of nigeria lebo, monica p.1, okonkwo, dyke a. r.2, ejiogu, stella i.3 & osakpa, david u.4* 1 department of business management, university of calabar, calabar, nigeria 2 students’ affairs department, federal polytechnic, owerri, nigeria 3 department of physical science education, imo state university, owerri, nigeria 4 department of social science education, imo state university, owerri, nigeria * osakpa, david u., department of social science education, imo state university, owerri, nigeria received: november 21, 2018 accepted: january 4, 2019 online published: march 19, 2019 doi:10.22158/fet.v2n2p63 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v2n2p63 abstract this paper investigated the influence of school location on students’ acquisition of knowledge-based skills in selected secondary technical schools in cross river and imo states of nigeria. the objective of the study was to ascertain the influence of location (urban and rural) of secondary technical schools on students’ acquisition of knowledge-based skills (creative thinking, innovation, ict and entrepreneurship skills) in the two states. a correlation design was adopted for the study. the population constituted 1328 ss ii students drawn from 11 secondary technical schools across the two states out of which a stratified random sample of 330 was identified. two research questions and two corresponding hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. a twelve-item multiple choice students’ aptitude test on skills acquisition (satsa), validated by five experts in instruments construction, and was administered on the sample for data collection. data were analyzed with one sample test and anova to ascertain the relationship between school locations and students’ acquisition of knowledge-based skills in the identified knowledge-based skill subjects. the paper recommended that principals and teachers of secondary technical schools should sustain and improve the performance of students in the two states. it further recommended that further investigations be conducted to ascertain students’ acquisition of knowledge-based skills irrespective of school location. keywords school location technical, students’ acquisition knowledge-based skills www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 64 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction teachers, principals of secondary schools and secondary education policy makers are concerned with not only students’ academic achievement in respect of cognition, application and synthesis of knowledge but also other factors that enhance or impede students’ academic achievement. this paper set out to explore one area which could positively or negatively impact on students’ academic achievement: school location. in cross river and imo states of nigeria, some factors are considered in locating secondary grammar or technical schools: proximity to students from community catchment areas, accessibility of the schools, availability of electricity, domains of abandoned deities, confiscation of land in conflict between communities for locating secondary technical schools, government take-over of community schools, conversion of secondary grammar schools to technical, and so on. none of these factors appears to have an impact on students’ academic achievement. it may be argued that the establishment of secondary technical schools is in pursuit of meeting the requirements of scientific and technical manpower needs of nigeria that will serve in different capacities and contribute positively to the nation’s technological, socio-economic and political development (abdulkareem, fasasi, & akinubi, 2011). nigeria has a clear policy on providing education for her citizens and this is reflected in the objectives of her national policy on education 2014. the development of nigerian secondary technical education is based on the realization of the early nationalists that the country could not develop without a proper grounding in a national technical education system that can guarantee the production of the desired high quality scientific, technological and business management workforce. consequently, the country encourages the location of secondary technical schools in as many strategic places as possible: both urban and rural. this is why some community secondary schools are taken over by government and transformed into technical schools to ensure an even distribution of this category of secondary schools. this is also the reason why conscious efforts are made to equip secondary technical schools without preference. according to the national policy on education (2014), an ideal secondary technical education should address the whole child; the whole person; and should not be limited to on-the-job professional development in the workplace (commeyras, 2011) argued that the focus and objectives of education generally and technical education specifically, are to develop natural talents to enhance the quality of environment; production of skilled manpower and generation of knowledge necessary for knowledge-based economy; inspiring and enabling individuals to develop capacities to the highest level throughout life so that they can grow intellectually and contribute effectively to society; create a learning society necessary for participation in a world undergoing phenomenal changes; inculcation of the right attitude and values in the youths for fostering a democratic and civilized society, and finally, to increase knowledge and understanding for their own sake and foster their application of the acquired knowledge (skills) for the benefit of the economy and society. this was responsible for education authorities in nigeria to restructure the senior secondary school (sss) curriculum to have 42 subjects and 35 vocational trades/entrepreneurship skill areas. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 65 published by scholink inc. in this paper, the researchers define knowledge as a construct that enables a person to internalize the mastery of facts: nature, structure and distinctive properties of a word, an idea, an object or action through one or a combination of sense organs such that those details become the learner’s nature and can vividly be recalled, described or action(s) performed without hesitation, mistakes or inaccuracies in such a way that subsequent repetitions exactly depict the original word, idea, object or action(s) without misleading or giving wrong experience to another person who does not know. therefore, knowledge-based skills are a compendium of skills that enable secondary school students acquire practical knowledge or skills (facts) that are utilized with the brain in creative, innovative and entrepreneurship activities such as ability to integrate, apply acquired knowledge, synthesize and solve problems as well as contribute to the improvement of themselves and society (quinones & ehrenstein, 1997). in this regard, acquisition of knowledge-based skills, therefore, addresses the whole child; the whole person and is not limited to on-the-job professional development in the workplace. 2. definition of acronyms in this paper, the following acronyms, unless otherwise stated, have the connotative and denotative meanings attached to them: ict (information and communication technology), anova (analysis of variance), pmccc (pearson product moment correlation coefficient), satsa (students’ aptitude test on skills acquisition), sss (senior secondary school), ss ii (senior “secondary” students in second year), ct (creative thinking), inv (innovation), ee (entrepreneurship education), es (entrepreneurship skills) and spss (statistical package for social sciences). 3. statement of the problem it was observed that a large number of secondary technical students in cross river and imo states could not find paid employment or become self-employed. for example, the annals of statistics (2016) documented that nigeria’s unemployment rate rose for the seventh straight quarter to 13.9 from 13.3 percent in the third quarter of 2016 as against the same period last year. it was the highest level since 2009. unemployment rose to 11.2 million as the labour force increased to 80.7 million. meanwhile, youth unemployment rate increased to 25% from 24% in the previous period. secondary technical school leavers from cross river and imo states constitute a significant portion of these unemployment statistics. 4. objective of the study the objectives of this paper were to: (1) ascertain the acquisition of knowledge-based skills (creative thinking, innovation, ict and entrepreneurship skills) by secondary technical students in cross river and imo states; (2) ascertain if the location of secondary technical schools (urban or rural) had any influence on students’ acquisition of these knowledge-based skills. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 66 published by scholink inc. 5. research questions based on the stated objectives, the following research questions were posed for the study: (1) what is the level of acquisition of knowledge-based skills by secondary technical students in the identified knowledge-based skills as measured by their aptitude test scores? (2) what is the influence of secondary school schools location (urban and rural) on students’ acquisition of knowledge-based skills in the identified skill subjects as measured by their aptitude test scores? 6. hypotheses the following two corresponding hypotheses were formulated to guide the study: ho1technical students’ level of acquisition of knowledge-based skills as measured by their aptitude test scores in the identified knowledge-based skill subjects is not statistically significant (at p < 0.05). ho2school location (urban or rural) does not significantly influence secondary technical students’ acquisition of knowledge-based skills as measured by their aptitude test scores in the identified knowledge and skills-based subjects (at p < 0.05). 7. literature review a study carried out by arnold, newman, gaddy, and dean (2005) on “a look at the condition of rural education research: setting a direction for future research” concluded that the educational aspirations of rural students lag behind those of urban students. another investigation by haller and virkler (1993) titled: “another look at rural-non-rural differences in students’ educational aspirations” supported anold (2005) and his colleagues khattri, riley and kane (1997) who investigated “students at risk in poor, rural areas: a review of the research” and concluded same. other researchers who have conducted studies in this area include: cobb, mcintire and pratt (1989); haas (1992); hektner (1995); kannapel and deyoung (1999); ley, nelson and beltyukova (1996); stern (ed.). (1994); and sarfo, amartei, adentwi and brefo (2011). 8. methodology a correlation design was adopted for this study. the populations of the study constituted 1,328 validly registered ss ii students for the 2017/2018 academic session (appendix 1). the samples for this study were 11 secondary technical schools and 330 ss ii students drawn from the senior secondary technical level across the two states (appendix 1). cluster and random sampling methods were used to identify the samples. these methods were used because secondary technical schools were intact units. random sampling was used to identify ss ii students. the instrument used for data collection was a students’ aptitude test on skills acquisition (satsa) with 12 multiple-choice objective items in four sub-constructs of creative thinking, innovation, ict and entrepreneurship skills. data collected with the instruments were analyzed using pearson product moment correlation coefficient (ppmcc) and multiple linear correlation analysis to answer research questions so as to determine the linear www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 67 published by scholink inc. relationship between and among the variables of the study. the hypotheses were tested using t-test of significance of correlation and one way analysis of variance (anova) at p < 0.05 level of significance. this helped to ascertain if the linear relationships were significant or not. 9. results data generated from the students’ aptitude test on skills acquisition (satsa) were analyzed with the statistical package for social sciences (spss). results obtained were presented in tables 1 and 2. further information on the result of this hypothesis is given in appendixes 2 and 3. table 1. secondary technical students’ acquisition of knowledge-based skills in the identified knowledge-based skill subjects as measured by their aptitude test scores (n = 330) one-sample test test value = 0 t df sig. (2-tailed) mean difference 95% confidence interval of the difference rural 27.194 179 .000 12.82982 12.3523 13.3072 urban 22.380 149 .000 12.63939 12.0639 13.2148 table 2. anova on influence of location (urban or rural) on secondary technical students’ acquisition of knowledge-based skills in the identified knowledge-based skill subjects as measured by their aptitude test scores (n = 330) anovab model sum of squares df mean squares f sig. 1 regression residual total 378.654 25232.190 25610.754 2 179 149 75.713 28.224 0.894 .020a a. predictors (constant), ct, inv, ict, es. b. dependent variable: app. test scores. 10. findings and discussion the objective of the first research question/hypothesis was to ascertain students’ acquisition of knowledge-based skills in the knowledge-based skill subjects as stated in research question one and hypothesis one. the result in respect of null hypothesis one (table 1) showed t-calculated values of rural, 27.194 and urban 22.380. compared to the critical t-value of 1.96, these values were greater; thus, indicating that the result was significant. based on this result, the null hypothesis was rejected and the alternative accepted. the finding indicated that students’ acquisition of knowledge-based skills as www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 68 published by scholink inc. measured in their aptitude test scores in the identified knowledge-based skill subjects was statistically significant. the objective of research question two/null hypothesis two was to ascertain if the location of secondary technical schools (urban or rural) had any influence on students’ acquisition of knowledge-based skills (creative thinking, innovation, ict and entrepreneurship skills). the finding in table 2 was derived from a combined anova (overall) and t-test for specific variables (components of the knowledge based skills tested). in addition, this result showed that some components, example ct, ict and es, were weightier than the inv component that had a negative contribution. this hypothesis was, consequently, adjudged not significant since the f—calculated of 0.894 was less than the f—critical value of 1.96 at p < 0.05. the finding, therefore, was that location did not have influence on students’ acquisition of knowledge-based skills as measured by their aptitude test scores in the identified knowledge and skills-based subjects. 11. conclusions the first finding on the significant students’ acquisition of knowledge-based skills implied that this was the level of acquisition of knowledge-based skills by the students. moreover, it indicated that students in both urban and rural areas applied themselves to their studies, classroom assignments and other practical training. students were not influenced by environmental factors. it further implied that the theoretical value derivable from the structure of the new federal government secondary school curriculum; namely, that students should study a compulsory four cross-cutting subjects (english, mathematics, civics and one trade or entrepreneurship subject), select and major in one of four fields of studies (senior secondary science, senior secondary business, senior secondary humanities and senior secondary technology), was paying off as they graduate with the requisite basic knowledge-based skills that could enable them secure paid employment or become self-employed. the second objective was to ascertain if the location of secondary technical schools (rural or urban) influenced students’ acquisition of knowledge-based skills as measured by the aptitude test scores in sampled knowledge and skills-based subjects. the insignificant result of f-cal = 0.894 against f-crit = 1.96, was a surprise finding because calabar, owerri, aboh mbaise, ogoja and ugep are in urbanized schools with the highest number of teachers (both qualified and professionally trained) in all subject areas. ordinarily, the presence of these factors should have influenced urban secondary technical students to perform at a better level of acquisition of knowledge-based skills. besides, technical schools in these areas have better infrastructure and equipment to complement a coterie of well qualified and experienced teachers. for example, zhang (2017) found that there was an overall better academic performance difference between urban, suburban, and rural districts as a result of the presence of these factors. this was not the case in this study. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 69 published by scholink inc. 12. recommendations the first recommendation is that secondary technical school principals and teachers should sustain and improve students’ acquisition of knowledge-based skills in the two states. the second recommendation is that further investigations should be conducted to ascertain the extent to which secondary technical students acquire knowledge-based skills irrespective of the location of their schools (rural or urban). references abdulkareem, a. y., fasasi, y. a., & akinnubi, o. p. (2011). human resource utilization and internal efficiency in state-owned universities in nigeria. international journal of academic research in business and social sciences, 1(1), 26-34. annals of statistics. (2016). arnold, m. l., newman, j. h., gaddy, b. b., & dean, c. b. (2005, april 27). a look at the condition of rural education research: setting a direction for future research. journal of research in rural education, 20(6). retrieved from http://www.jrre.psu.edu/articles/20-6.pdf cobb, r. a., mcintire, w. g., & pratt, p. a. (1989). vocational and educational aspirations of high school students: a problem for rural america. research in rural education, 6(2), 11-23. commeyras, n. (2011). promoting a culture of reading, 4th distinguished lecture series of adeniran ogunsanya college of education, otta/ijanka. haas, t. (1992). what can i become: educational aspirations of students in rural america (no. ed 345 931). eric digest. haller, e. j., & virkler, s. j. (1993). another look at rural-non-rural differences in students’ educational aspirations. journal of research in rural education, 9(3), 170-178. hektner, j. (1995). when moving up implies moving out: rural adolescent conflict in the transition to adulthood. journal of research in rural education, 11(1), 3-14. kannapel, p. j., & deyoung, a. j. (1999). the rural school problem in 1999: a review and critique of the literature. journal of research in rural education, 15(2), 67-79. khattri, n., riley, k. w., & kane, m. b. (1997). students at risk in poor, rural areas: a review of the research. journal of research in rural education, 13(2), 79-100. ley, j., nelson, s., & beltyukova, s. (1996). congruence of aspirations of rural youth with expectations held by parents and school staff. journal of research in rural education, 12(3), 133-141. national policy on education. (2013). newhouse, d., & beegle, k. (2005). the effect of school type on academic achievement: evidence from indonesia. world bank: world bank policy research working paper 3604. https://doi.org/10.1596/1813-9450-3604 quinones, m. a., & ehrenstein, a. (1997). research. washington, d.c.: american psychological association. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 70 published by scholink inc. sarfo, f. k., amartei, a. m., adentwi, k. i., & brefo, c. (2011). technology and gender equity: rural and urban students’ attitudes towards information and communication technology. journal of media and communication studies, 3(6), 221-230. stern, j. d. (ed.). (1994). the condition of education in rural schools. washington, dc: u.s. department of education, office of educational research and improvement, programs for the improvement of practice. zhang, h. (2017). geographic locales, neighborhood characteristics and public school performance. applied geography conferences, 29. appendixes appendix 1. population and sample distribution by lgas, schools and number of students state local governments schools in each local govt. population sample no. of students cross river state calabar community technical college 206 30 ugep community tech. college, ugep 102 30 boki ekpashi tech. college, ntamante 88 30 etung government technical college, ajasor 86 30 ogoja government technical college, ajasor 201 30 obanliku bendi technical college, bendi 81 30 imo state owerri government technical college, owerri 212 30 mbaise nguru secondary technical school, aboh-mbaise 171 30 orlu okporo technical school, orlu 95 30 mbano obollo secondary technical school, mbano 97 30 njabar okwudor secondary technical sdchool, njabar 89 30 total 1,328 330 source: secondary technical education boards, cross river and imo states). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 71 published by scholink inc. appendix 2. summary of secondary technical students’ acquisition of knowledge-based skills in the identified knowledge-based skill subjects as measured by their aptitude test scores (n = 330) model summary model r r square adjusted r square std error of the estimate 1 .041a .005 .003 3.0672 a. predictors (constant), es, ict, inv, ee, ct b. source: researchers’ field work, 2018 appendix 3. coefficients of secondary technical students’ acquisition of knowledge-based skills in the identified knowledge-based skill subjects as measured by their aptitude test scores (n = 330) coefficients a model non-standardized coefficients standardized coefficients t sig. b std error beta 1 (constant) ct ee ict inv es 12.533 .117 .206 .005 -.179 .022 0.542 .084 .084 .082 .083 .087 .014 .027 .001 -.024 .003 7.702 0.645 0.817 .019 -.072 .085 .000 .055 .005 .318 .010 .266 a. dependent variable: app. scores significance p < 0.05 with t or f = 1.96. source: researchers’ field work, 2018. appendix 4. students’ aptitude test on skills acquisition (satsa) q.1 the aim of keyboard training in ict and communication skills is to: a. locate keys on the keyboard b. know that there are many keys on the keyboard c. know that the computer keyboard is like that of a typewriter d. know that each key performs only one function q.2 what are task and tool bars in a computer? a. they are one and the same bar. b. they perform the same functions www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 72 published by scholink inc. c. they are different and perform different functions d. when one bar is not functional, the other is used q.3 basic packages of ict and communication skills include: a. dbase + ms word + spss + ms excel b. ms word + ms excel + keyboarding + internet networking c. keyboarding + analog + pagemaker + ms word d. pagemaker + dbase + spss + ms excel q.4 internet operations involve: a. sending messages + computer + computer repairs + watsap b. browsing + downloading docs + sending messages + e-commerce c. chatting + analog + mainframe computers + money transfer d. mainframe computer + browsing + money transfer + chatting q.5 self-employment skills include the following: a. establishing own-business + managing it + partnership + cooperative b. self-employment + partnership + taking risks + initial capital c. initial capital + taking risks + managing business + profits d. government grant + loans + cooperative partners + profits q.6 maintaining business day books includes making entries in: a. general journal + purchases journal + sales journal + cash book b. general journal + incomplete records + trial balance + returns c. purchases journal + sales journal + bank reconciliation + trial balance d. general journal + cash book + trial balance + profit & loss account q.7 becoming self-employed means: a. i work for myself, take risks, make profits and don’t earn any salary. b. i work for i, hire consultants, receive grant from government, employ others to work for me. c. i take risks, own my business, receive government grants, and work with partners. d. work in my business, don’t employ anybody, engage in cooperative ventures, and make profits. q.8 originality in creative thinking means: a. ability to dream up, invent, and to think up to conceptualize new ideas or products. b. ability to create fresh, unique, unusual, totally new, or extremely different ideas or products c. ability to dream up, invent, or to see, to think, to conceptualize new value to services or products d. ability to generate a number of ideas so that there is an increase of possible solutions or related products. q.9 when a creative thinker is not distracted by worries or conflicting priorities, he is experiencing: a. immediate feedback b. merged action and awareness c. creative flow www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 73 published by scholink inc. d. distractions excluded from consciousness q.10 when a creative activity becomes an end in itself; that is when/it is/a: a. autotelic b. self-consciousness disappears c. balance between challenges and skills occurs d. distractions are excluded from consciousness q.11 entrepreneurship skills involve all but one of these: a. employing and managing staff in small ventures. b. rendering practical business services or goods that have value c. submitting audited accounts as required by the companies’ act. d. open and maintain basic day books q.12 a willingness to provide goods or services that people may need or want means: a. identifying people’s needs/wants b. risk taking c. satisfying people’s needs or wants d. rendering practical business services or goods that have value frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no.1, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 39 original paper research on the integrated practical teaching model of cross-border e-commerce professional knowledge and innovation and entrepreneurship education zhou jun1, su chao-yan2 & wu feng1* 1 shiyuan college, nanning normal university, nanning, china 2 guangxi university of foreign languages, nanning, china * corresponding author, wu feng, shiyuan college, nanning normal university, nanning, china received: march 7, 2023 accepted: march 19, 2023 online published: march 31, 2023 doi:10.22158/fet.v6n1p39 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v6n1p39 abstract the development of cross-border e-commerce has stimulated a growing interest in related education. in response to this trend, a practical teaching approach that merges cross-border e-commerce expertise with innovation and entrepreneurship education has arisen and gained widespread traction. this innovative approach emphasizes the cultivation of students’ innovation skills and entrepreneurial ability through task-driven teaching that integrates professional knowledge and practical training. by participating in enterprise operations and completing assignments, students are able to master both theoretical knowledge and professional skills. this paper aims to explore the effectiveness of the task-driven teaching method in the integrated practical teaching of cross-border e-commerce and innovation and entrepreneurship. practical suggestions for teaching reform in cross-border e-commerce are provided to meet the needs of application-oriented undergraduate colleges and to cultivate the application skills that enterprises require. keywords cross-border e-commerce, professional knowledge and innovation and entrepreneurship education, integrated teaching model 1. introduction the advancements in internet technology are progressing at an accelerated rate, with projections indicating that the number of global internet users will reach 5.16 billion by 2023, representing 64.4% of the world’s population. as of december 2022, china has experienced a surge in internet users, with www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 40 published by scholink inc. a total of 1.067 billion users, up by 35.49 million compared to the previous year’s figure, bringing the internet penetration rate to 75.6%, which is 2.6 percentage points higher than the preceding year. the proliferation of internet technology, coupled with an expanding number of internet users, has propelled the global economy to new heights, leading to the emergence of cross-border e-commerce as a rapidly growing trend. the scope of global e-commerce sales is predicted to surpass the us $5 trillion mark for the first time in 2022, with e-commerce penetration (i.e., global e-commerce sales as a percentage of total global retail sales) expected to reach 20.3%, representing an increase of 2.4 percentage points from 2020. in 2021, china’s cross-border e-commerce industry recorded a trading volume of 14.2 trillion yuan, which represents a 13.6% increase from the previous year, and a compound annual growth rate of 14.69% from 2015 to 2021. it is anticipated that the scale of china’s cross-border e-commerce market will reach 7.1 trillion yuan in 2022, with a projected market size of 15.7 trillion yuan set to be achieved by 2022. the transaction volume of china’s cross-border e-commerce will make up for 35.85% of china’s total import and export value of goods trade. since the cross-border e-commerce market is vast and expanding rapidly, the demand for cross-border e-commerce professionals is on the rise, with a talent gap of 6 million in china alone. in today’s rapidly evolving “internet +” era, the e-commerce industry is undergoing continuous development, with the establishment of an increasingly rich ecological environment. as a result, application-oriented undergraduate schools bear the responsibility of cultivating innovative, entrepreneurial cross-border e-commerce talents who can quickly integrate into the company’s operations. 2. the existing cross-border e-commerce teaching problems the improvement of innovation quality of cross-border e-commerce needs to be cultivated by the integrated education method of professional knowledge and innovation and entrepreneurship education. traditional teaching attaches great importance to the teaching of theoretical knowledge but ignores the cultivation of students’ practical and hands-on ability, or purely relies on virtual training software for teaching. although teaching software also plays a certain role in practical training, students still have no way to start at once when it comes to the job. therefore, it is necessary to cultivate cross-border e-commerce innovation and entrepreneurship talents who meet the requirements of the post and have real practical ability. educators need to design a set of innovative professional knowledge and innovation and entrepreneurship education integration of teaching mode. 2.1 traditional lecture-based teaching method the traditional teaching and learning, students are used to passive learning, learning for learning, learning for examination, completely divorced from the actual application of innovation and entrepreneurship environment, students lack initiative and creativity in the learning process. first of all, emphasizing results over process is a very prominent drawback of traditional teaching. how to complete the transformation from emphasizing results to emphasizing process? secondly, how to guide students to change from focusing on test scores to focusing on skills and abilities? quality education www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 41 published by scholink inc. not only requires teachers to spread professional knowledge in the classroom, but also to cultivate and stimulate students’ innovative thinking and entrepreneurial ability, re-examine students’ application ability, so as to apply what they learn and learn with innovation. therefore, application-oriented undergraduate colleges and universities should actively update their ideas and create conditions. the task-driven teaching mode under the mode of school-enterprise cooperation is a good practical training method, which not only helps to improve students’ practical ability, but also cultivates students’ innovation and entrepreneurship ability, and fully reflects the function of integrating professional knowledge and innovation and entrepreneurship education with practical education. 2.2 the problem of cross-border e-commerce simulation teaching so far, the teaching of cross-border e-commerce in almost all colleges and universities in china is mainly based on simulation platforms. first, teachers themselves lack entrepreneurial experience and cannot distinguish the difference between simulation and practice. secondly, the teacher’s thinking of talent training in teaching is not clear, the target positioning is not clear; moreover, students have weak awareness of “mass entrepreneurship and innovation” and weak ability. therefore, whether the teaching of cross-border e-commerce can adopt the task-driven practical teaching mode under the school-enterprise cooperation to cultivate students’ professional skills and practical ability for the purpose of innovation and entrepreneurship, and the teaching mode centering on innovation and entrepreneurship task-oriented and taking students’ practice as the main body. if so, the teaching mode of integration of professional knowledge and innovation and entrepreneurship education under the school-enterprise cooperation mode, the design and marketing task is the key, which is related to the effect of practical teaching. during the cooperation with enterprises, schools can participate in the actual cross-border e-commerce practice in the name of enterprises, assign marketing tasks to students to complete the operation, and teachers participate in the teaching guidance and cooperate with the operation guidance of enterprise experts. 3. reform of practical teaching mode for integration of cross-border e-commerce professional knowledge and innovation and entrepreneurship education cross-border e-commerce practice is a professional course with strong application and practice. in order to build a practical teaching model integrating professional knowledge and innovation and entrepreneurship education, it is necessary to clearly understand the influencing factors of the choice of talent training mode for cross-border e-commerce merchants. its factors include the influencing factor of direction choice school type, the influencing factor of basic support teacher ability, the influencing factor of core subject student ability, and the influencing factor of promoting force enterprise cooperation. it is necessary to formulate different practical teaching models according to different situations and types of influencing factors, including schools, teachers, students and enterprises. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 42 published by scholink inc. 3.1 practical teaching integrating cross-border e-commerce expertise with innovation and entrepreneurship education 3.1.1 adjust the structure and system of teaching materials for the integration of professional knowledge and innovation and entrepreneurship education first of all, we should choose suitable applied teaching materials. the textbooks edited jointly by universities and e-commerce platforms are better. the learning content of this kind of teaching material will fully conform to the operation content of the e-commerce platform due to the participation of the enterprise personnel of the e-commerce platform, which strengthens the real combination of professional knowledge and practical operation. therefore, through the study of the specific content of e-commerce platform, the practical training of innovative thinking methods and skills of e-commerce management should be strengthened. secondly, adjust the selection system and use connection of the series of teaching materials. for the professional courses of cross-border e-commerce, we can start from the introduction course of e-commerce, choose the introduction textbook of cross-border e-commerce, the b2b three-dimensional practical training textbook of cross-border e-commerce, the supporting cross-border e-commerce simulation platform course and the talent training plan course of alibaba international station, so as to build the integrated teaching material system of professional knowledge and innovation and entrepreneurship education of cross-border e-commerce courses. in addition, through direct contact with enterprises, the college can clarify the demand for professional talents and job skills requirements of enterprises, so as to guide the teaching reform and make the curriculum and teaching content more targeted and applicable. 3.1.2 combination of traditional classroom explanation and practice traditional classroom explanation has its natural advantages, which is conducive to knowledge decomposition and theoretical discussion, and allows in-depth learning of professional knowledge of cross-border e-commerce. classroom explanation is also convenient for teachers to give full play to their advantages of abundant theoretical knowledge, rationalize the coherence and understanding of professional knowledge, clearly show the structure of knowledge and the relevance of knowledge points, easy for students to understand and further theoretical research, but at the same time, it also lacks specific practical application. practice is specific operation and application, which can further deepen the understanding and cognition of knowledge. through the combination of traditional classroom explanation and practice, professional knowledge can be fully understood and reflected in specific application scenarios, which promotes the improvement of students’ ability to apply what they have learned. 3.1.3 combine professional knowledge with innovation and entrepreneurship the understanding of professional knowledge can be achieved through the combination of explanation and practice. however, in addition to understanding professional knowledge points, the innovative expansion and entrepreneurial application of knowledge can not be achieved by understanding alone. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 43 published by scholink inc. to improve students’ innovative consciousness and entrepreneurial ability through innovation and entrepreneurship education. specifically, the interdisciplinary teaching mode can be adopted to integrate the knowledge of different disciplines and realize the communication and exchange of knowledge, so as to stimulate students’ innovation consciousness. it is also possible to guide students to improve their entrepreneurial awareness through the study of successful entrepreneurial cases combined with the application of professional knowledge. 3.2 design of practical links for integration of cross-border e-commerce expertise and innovation and entrepreneurship education 3.2.1 in the design of practical teaching tasks, according to the goal of integration of professional knowledge and innovation and entrepreneurship education, combined with the talent training goal of applied undergraduate colleges and the requirements of cross-border e-commerce posts, the basic law of students’ vocational ability cultivation is followed, and through cooperation between schools and enterprises, enterprise teaching tutors are introduced to clarify the job content and vocational ability requirements of posts. in teaching, the professional theory is based on the degree of sufficient, and the innovation and entrepreneurship practice is based on the application. in the design of practical teaching tasks, the traditional teaching mode of pure virtual practice is broken, and the practical teaching content of cross-border e-commerce professional knowledge combined with the cultivation of innovation and entrepreneurship ability is reconstructed as the actual work content of cross-border e-commerce posts. it includes special activities on selling products on cross-border e-commerce platforms, developing overseas customers, negotiating business with overseas customers, reaching deals, customer service and other practical work. design practical teaching tasks according to the work content of actual cross-border e-commerce posts, realize the effective connection between practical teaching and actual cross-border e-commerce posts, and master cross-border e-commerce skills by completing actual sales tasks. according to the knowledge unit of cross-border e-commerce, combined with the software and hardware conditions of the school, effective teaching practice tasks are designed. 3.2.2 group the students into groups of 4-6 according to the actual cross-border e-commerce team operation mode of the enterprise. according to different business links, the students divide the labor by themselves, and the teachers and the enterprise mentors jointly provide targeted skill training guidance. practice task 1: store opening and management. group to complete shop opening and decoration, product management, order management. because store opening and decoration, product management and order management are the necessary working skills for cross-border e-commerce personnel, they should be trained. store opening and management tasks include store opening, setting store recruitment, setting carousel chart, setting multi-language plate, product release, shopping commission, processing orders to be paid, processing orders to be shipped, processing orders to be received, etc. these activities contain knowledge and skills such as the planning and implementation of cross-border e-commerce store opening and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 44 published by scholink inc. decoration, and students’ ability of implementing and responding to cross-border e-commerce has been fully trained. practice task 2: complete cross-border marketing in groups, including basic marketing, advanced marketing and sns marketing. cross-border marketing tasks include window product setting, store activities, platform activity marketing, beautification and decoration, image ps processing, product optimization, pricing, product detailed description, freight template setting, creation of promotion plan, facebook page marketing, vk community marketing, pinterest pin marketing, etc. design a number of cross-border e-commerce marketing tasks, take the group as a unit, and the group leader directs the group members to complete the operation and conduct group defense in the form of briefing to summarize the experience and lessons. practice task 3: complete customer service in groups, including question answering, order processing, after-sales service, dispute handling, and improvement of praise rate. customer service tasks include product consultation, payment consultation, delivery consultation, problem orders, customer messages, tariff issues, remarketing of old customers, initial response, follow-up of customers, telephone contact, cancellation of disputes, general disputes, quality disputes, comment guidance, handling of poor ratings, etc. the specific task of customer relationship coordination shall be handled by students themselves, and the enterprise tutor shall follow up the whole process. for example, to design the situation task of return dispute, let the students play the role of customer and customer service personnel respectively, and examine the students’ customer service handling skills. 3.3 specific implementation and evaluation of cross-border e-commerce practice teaching the integration practice of professional knowledge and innovation and entrepreneurship education needs to be combined with the implementation of enterprise business tasks, and the implementation of task-driven school-enterprise practice teaching should be carried out concretely. we mainly talk about the implementation steps and methods of the task. steps are the guarantee to complete the task, and methods are the way, which is the key to realize the practice teaching of cross-border e-commerce. the task-driven teaching mode of the integration of professional knowledge and innovation and entrepreneurship education is guided by the designated tasks and requirements, and students carry out planning, decision-making, step-by-step implementation, and carry out inspection, summary, evaluation and other implementation processes. the implementation, planning and decision-making stages of each cross-border e-commerce business are to clarify the practice tasks, make decisions according to the tasks assigned by the instructor, group, select group leaders, and formulate work plans; the step-by-step implementation stage is to carry out the operation of cross-border e-commerce platform work, and make good records to form a phased work report; relevant knowledge and attention to problems, and put forward suggestions for modification; the summary stage is to discuss and summarize the practical work, and write a summary of the work report; in the examination stage, the teacher explains the problems in each group’s work; in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 45 published by scholink inc. the evaluation stage, each group introduces the work situation of the group, raises questions and comments on the work and cooperation, and professional teachers and enterprise mentors make specific comments and evaluations. in practical teaching, through the integration of professional knowledge and innovation and entrepreneurship education, students can not only learn the professional knowledge and skills of cross-border e-commerce, but also complete the practical tasks of enterprises, which improves the ability of work innovation and cultivates the awareness of entrepreneurial teamwork. through the practical drill method of task-driven practical teaching, the combination of practical learning and practical work is truly realized. the practical drill teaching method of school-enterprise cooperation is an effective practical teaching method to implement the task-driven innovative teaching mode. 4. the feasibility of cross-border e-commerce practice teaching the innovative training mode of school-enterprise cooperation and virtual simulation teaching is the objective requirement of social and economic development for professional education in colleges and universities. learning professional theory course teaching and simulation skills training on campus and participating in enterprise practice outside campus not only rapidly improves operation skills, but also enhances quality awareness, working hours concept and benefit concept. thus, the comprehensive ability of students to adapt to the needs of enterprises is improved, and the innovative education function of the practice base is fully reflected. the implementation of the training mode of the combination of school and enterprise and the combination of work and study also has a guiding function for the professional construction and curriculum reform of the school. through direct contact with the actual work of enterprises, we have made clear the demand for professional talents and job skills requirements of enterprises, so as to guide our teaching reform and make our curriculum and teaching content more targeted and applicable. 4.1 it is conducive to the training of double-qualified teachers in colleges and universities teachers in applied undergraduate colleges and universities are mainly highly educated teachers, who have rich professional theoretical knowledge but obviously lack enterprise training experience. therefore, through on-site teaching and practice with students in enterprises, students not only learn the practical knowledge of enterprises, but also have the practical experience of enterprise operation and management and technical skills, which can be used to test the teaching effect of teachers and find and make up for the shortage. effectively improve teachers’ innovation and entrepreneurship practice teaching ability. as a practice base and employment base, the enterprise not only has the function of professional knowledge education, but also undertakes the function of innovation education and entrepreneurship education, and has the ability to solve the problem of student employment. 4.2 it is conducive to cultivating talents that meet the requirements of the enterprise the teaching mode of integrating professional knowledge and innovation and entrepreneurship education with enterprise participation can not only establish a stable off-campus practice base, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 46 published by scholink inc. improve students’ innovation and entrepreneurship ability, but also create a variety of employment and entrepreneurship conditions and channels for students. at the same time, it also improves students’ entrepreneurial ability and provides a foundation for comprehensively improving college students’ entrepreneurship. it can not only solve the employment problem but also foster more innovative enterprises. in terms of professional knowledge cultivation, through the teaching mode combining work and study, it not only improves the quality of skilled personnel training in the school, but also provides realistic labor force for enterprises, enriches the production force of enterprises, alleviates the current situation of talent shortage in enterprises, and achieves the win-win goal of schools and enterprises. the combination of work and study can make students better familiar with the requirements of the post in study and practice, master practical skills, obtain the ability to adapt to the working environment and solve practical problems, and adapt to the needs of the job as soon as possible after graduation . students are paid for their work, which reduces the financial burden on their studies and enables children from poor families to receive better education. it is difficult for students to meet the needs of society by focusing on theory and neglecting practice. under normal circumstances, graduates need to go through three or five months of training before they can take the post. if the practical teaching in school can be jointly cultivated with enterprises, then the students are equivalent to the pre-job training in advance, so it is a very helpful teaching mode for graduates to take the post quickly. in terms of the cultivation of innovation and entrepreneurship ability, strengthening the connection between schools and enterprises is conducive to improving the school conditions, and students can also experience the actual scenes of innovation and entrepreneurship in advance, stimulate their potential for innovation and entrepreneurship, and provide good basic ability for entrepreneurship and employment after graduation. the characteristics of the combination of work and study should be reflected in the compilation and selection of teaching materials. school-enterprise collaboration to formulate curriculum standards and requirements for applicable teaching materials. the authors of the textbook are not only school teachers, but also enterprise personnel, and the content is not only theoretical and school practice content, but also the actual work content of enterprise guidance. 5. conclusion and discussion 5.1 conclusion in the practical teaching of cross-border e-commerce, the task-driven teaching mode of the integration of professional learning and innovation and entrepreneurship education is an innovative method to implement the practical teaching of school-enterprise cooperation, an innovative education approach to cultivate students who meet the needs of enterprises, a creative method to solve the problems of practical teaching, and a task-driven practical teaching mode of the integration of professional knowledge and innovation and entrepreneurship education. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 47 published by scholink inc. (1) first of all, in the innovation teaching, we should appropriately adjust the structure and system of teaching materials, so that the traditional classroom explanation and practice are combined, and the teaching method of professional knowledge and innovation and entrepreneurship is combined, and the training of innovative thinking methods and skills is strengthened. through enterprise docking, the demand status and job skill requirements of enterprises for professional talents are clarified, and the teaching reform is guided to make the curriculum setting and teaching content more targeted and applicable. in addition to mastering the traditional school practice teaching methods, teachers actively participate in the school-enterprise cooperation projects, so that students can truly profit from the joint training of school-enterprise cooperation. get rid of the teaching method of simply talking theory, giving examples and doing exercises, according to the professional reality, start from the experience, strengthen the practical operation, so as to improve the practical ability of students. (2) the practical link design of the integration of cross-border e-commerce expertise and innovation and entrepreneurship education should pay attention to the cultivation of ability and advocate the combination of industry and learning. in every basic step of classroom teaching, students should be trained to use their brains, hands and mouth, and let them practice. carefully design teaching practice content, cultivate students’ application ability. through the integration of professional knowledge and innovation and entrepreneurship education, the inherent teaching methods and teaching means can not only improve students’ interest in professional knowledge courses, but also comprehensively improve students’ innovative comprehensive quality ability and entrepreneurship and employment ability, providing a solid foundation for students in application-oriented undergraduate colleges to improve their employment rate. (3) specific implementation and evaluation of cross-border e-commerce practice teaching. first, the evaluation of professional courses is based on the principle of practicality and adequacy, followed by the training of innovative skills, and the cultivation of entrepreneurial awareness and ability. clear learning objectives have been set for skill training, which is divided into on-campus training stage and off-campus enterprise enhanced skill training stage, and the evaluation mechanism has been improved. teachers should be the leader of students’ innovative practice growth and the facilitator of students’ knowledge construction. only on the basis of the knowledge teaching tradition and the full summary of the successful experience of knowledge teaching, through the teaching evaluation, to obtain students’ professional ability, innovation ability to improve the degree or results of the test, to achieve the reform of teaching methods and the embodiment of teaching results. 5.2 issues to pay attention to in the practice teaching of cross-border e-commerce, several aspects should be paid attention to in the implementation of task-driven practice teaching integrating professional knowledge and innovation and entrepreneurship education: (1) key practical task design. the actual business tasks of enterprises have a great impact on students’ ideas, so the professional teachers on campus and the mentors of enterprises outside the campus should www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 48 published by scholink inc. be carefully designed to ensure the smooth completion of the tasks without being too loose, and the initial marketing ability of students should be considered. combined with the opinions of professional teachers and enterprise mentors, focusing on the operating conditions of off-campus training bases, practical tasks suitable for students to master cross-border e-commerce professional skills and improve their innovation and entrepreneurship ability are designed. (2) both inside and outside the school guide teachers. in the task-driven practice teaching, the instructor should guide the students with skills and methods. students have not been engaged in specific marketing work, when students encounter difficulties in study and work, they are more susceptible to emotional influence, and need professional teachers and enterprise mentors to give specific guidance and help in time. (3) course assessment combined with task-driven practice teaching method may affect the teaching effect. the main reason is that the task completion module in the assessment may cause some students to have a psychological resistance, thinking that practical work is not part of the study. it is also necessary to further strengthen the education of the integration of innovation and entrepreneurship with professional knowledge learning, and reflect the practical education function of applied education in application-oriented undergraduate colleges. fund item guangxi undergraduate college education reform project (no. 2022jga433; no. 2022jga437) guangxi education science “14th five-year plan” special project (no.2022zjy467; no.2022zjy1645; no.2022mbzx07; no.2021zjy1660) guangxi university young and middle-aged teachers basic ability improvement project (no.2023ky1795; no.2022ky1722; no.2021ky1737; no.2021ky1744) references cao hong-kui. 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(2022). the shortage of cross-border e-commerce talents exceeds 6 million. what kind of cross-border talents are the most popular? retrieved january 10, 2022, from https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1721538045484433891&wfr=spider&for=pc meltwater melts, global digital marketing insight reports in 2023. retrieved from https://www.sohu.com/a/652838175_121614580, the 2023-03-20 08:59 wang, t., & xiao, j. (2019). exploration on the training mode of applied undergraduate e-commerce talents. university education, 4, 142-145. wu ai-rong, & qu changrong. (2008). “2+1” engineering model and the cultivation of clothing professional talents. occupation, 2008(35), 18-19. wu xiao-hong. (2007). based on china optical valley, exploring the training mode of combining work and study in optoelectronics specialty. guangxi light industry, 2007(10), 134-135. zhou jun. (2021). research on influencing factors and model construction of cross-border e-commerce talent training mode in colleges and universities. science and education literature hui, 2021(26), 132-134. frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no.1, 2022 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 61 original paper the role of demographic factors in the process of language maintenance and shift in khartoum, sudan abdelrahim hamid mugaddam1 1 jouf university, sakaka, saudi arabia received: february 2, 2022 accepted: february 19, 2022 online published: march 10, 2022 doi:10.22158/fet.v5n1p61 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v5n1p61 abstract this paper intends to investigate the role of demographic factors such as sex, age, education, ethnicity, intermarriage, migration and job status in the process of language shift among ethnic migrant groups in khartoum, sudan. the paper depends on structured questionnaires to collect data on language presidency, language use and language attitudes among fourteen ethnic groups living in khartoum, the capital city of sudan. the main objective of the study is to investigate the role of these factors in accelerating or hindering the process of language shift among the groups under study. pss was used in the process of data analysis using qui square test to find correlation between demographic factors and language shift among the groups under investigation. results showed a significant correlation between language shift and factors such as age, sex, and education among the beja, the darfurians and the nuba mountains ethnic groups. a less degree of significance between demographic factors and language shift was registered by the groups descending from southern sudan who showed a strong tendency to preserve their linguistic and cultural heritage during their stay in khartoum. keywords language maintenance, language shift, khartoum, sudan 1. background from a distant time in history to the nineteenth century efforts to create an artificial language to play the role of a universal language have been attempted. the prime objective was to find a language that would bind the linguistically diverse people of the world into a cohesive whole. with english on its way to assume such a position in recent decades, many people have been deeply concerned at the prospect. for them, english is an imperial language that threatens the world’s rich linguistic and cultural heritage. linguistic human right activities have begun countering this universalizing trend with language repair and maintenance programs. they stress the importance of diversity comparing the loss of a language to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 62 published by scholink inc. the loss of species in the natural world. this trend contributed considerably to the growing concern for indigenous languages in a variety of multilingual countries around the world. the concern for local languages in sudan has come into being since 1972 when the institute of african and asian studies started the linguistic survey of sudanese languages. the main aim of the program was to find an effective solution for the language problem in the country. to achieve this, a considerable amount of financial and human resources was provided. unfortunately, despite the time and efforts spent, the program did not achieve the desired goals. since then a number of studies were conducted on the linguistic situation in sudan with special focus on language maintenance and shift among vernacular-speaking communities notably abu manga (1978), mahmoud (1983), zumrawi (1980), miller and abu manga (1992), jahalla (2001), mugaddam (2006 a & 2006 b). most of these studies proved that language shift towards arabic was progressing significantly among the language groups examined. this study tries to find a link between language shift and demographic factors such as age, sex, ethnic affiliation, and education among ethnic immigrants in greater khartoum. the reason behind choosing khartoum as a field for the present study was its cosmopolitan nature and strategic location as a center for immigration movements from all over the country. immigration movements to khartoum have particularly increased in recent decades due to economic and political instabilities in vast areas of sudan. as a result, people from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds came into a close contact in an arabic dominated environment. since arabic is the language of everyday communication, education, media, and official transaction in the new environment, immigrant ethnic groups will find themselves obliged to learn the language should they participate actively in khartoum life. however, this process of adaptation takes some time to complete. as a first generation, the new settlers tended to retain their ethnic languages, but they were faced by a new reality: their languages were no longer viable and lacking social recognition in the new setting. as a direct consequence, they used more arabic in speaking to their children even within the home domain. the next generation, being exposed to more arabic will show a lesser degree of ethnic mother tongue retention. thus, with each succeeding generation the proficiency in ethnic languages decreases with a simultaneous increase in the dominance of arabic. if things go on this way, vernacular-speaking communities in khartoum will experience an inevitable language loss or even language death in the long term. in the light of the above arguments, the researcher has randomly selected 14 language groups planned to offer some geographic representation for sudanese languages. they provide a very interesting case study as they are very traditional in the sense that each group is very loyal and committed to its own language and culture, yet directly confronted by arabic, a powerful language on its way to displace ethnic languages in all domains of communication. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 63 published by scholink inc. 2. methodology the subjects of this study were randomly selected according to age, children, youth, and old people. the original number of respondents was 900 drawn from 15 language groups: nobiin, kenzi-dongolese, beja, dinka, shilluk, viri, madi, gulfan, nyimang, miri, zaghawa, fur, massalit, daju, and ingassana (60 subjects from each group). these groups were selected purposely to form some sort of geographic representation for the sudanese languages. thus, the eastern part of sudan was represented by beja, the blue nile by ingassana, the south by dinka, shilluk, viri, and madi, the nuba hills by gulfan, nyimang, and miri, darfur by zaghawa, fur, massalit, and daju, and the north by nobiin and kenz-dongolese. after checking and coding the completed questionnaires, the data representing the ingassana were eliminated (the number of the target subjects was insufficient) and subsequently the number of subjects included in data analysis dropped to 840. subjects from the first age group (children) were selected randomly from the three towns constituting greater khartoum: khartoum, khartoum north, and orndurman. most of them were students of primary and secondary schools. their overall number was 280 (20 subjects from each language group) and their age ranged between 10 to l9 years old. the schools in which these subjects were enrolled usually follow the ministry of education syllabus where arabic is used as a medium of instruction as well as a subject. the second group of subjects, youth, consisted of university students, civil service employees, soldiers, workers, etc. they were 280 subjects representing the fourteen language groups examined (20 subjects from each language group). their age ranged between 20 to 39 years old. the third group of subjects (old people) was also selected randomly from a variety of areas in greater khartoum and occupational backgrounds (teachers, soldiers. physicians, merchants, farmers, housewives, etc.). they were 280 subjects and their age ranged between 4o years and above. what is important about this group is that it included subjects from different educational backgrounds ranging from illiteracy to university level. most of the educated ones had followed syllabuses in. which arabic was considerably represented as a medium of instruction and a subject. 2.1 instrument to achieve the objectives of this study, the researcher has found it very useful to adopt qualitative data collection methodology. a questionnaire was used to collect data on demographic information, language proficiency, multilingualism, language use, and language attitude. the questionnaire employed has been designed, developed and revised by miller and abu manga (1992). however, the researcher made some minor changes and modifications so that it can meet the objectives of the study. while subjects were asked to list the languages they could speak and order them according to the time of their acquisition, the remaining parts of the questionnaire required them to rate the languages specified as to the frequency and importance in space provided (always, often and sometimes). this rating is particularly significant for determining the level of language proficiency and the extent to which a language is used in a variety of domains. in other words, by means of this rating we were able to know www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 64 published by scholink inc. which language was spoken natively, as a second or third language and which ones were used predominantly in what societal domain. using spss package in the process of data analysis, we tried to find out whether a significant relationship exists between language shift or maintenance and demographic factors such as age, sex, occupation, level of education, intermarriage and place of birth. to this end, a chi-square test was conducted to determine whether there was an association between speaking a language natively and each of the demographic factors specified. the prime objective here is to present an empirically based evidence for the contribution of demographic factors to the process of language shift currently experienced by ethnic minority language communities in khartoum. 3. data analysis, discussion of results and interpretation the main question of this study is “is there a significant correlation between language shift and such demographic parameters like age, sex, occupation, level of education, intermarriage, and migration?” demographic factors are particularly relevant in accounting for the speed of language shift. resistance to language shift tends to last longer in rural than in urban areas. this is partly a reflection of the fact that rural groups tend to be isolated from the centers of political power, and they can meet almost all of their social and economic needs in the environment of the ethnic or minority language. for example, because of their relative isolation, ethnic minority immigrants who live in settlements outside khartoum, where their social and economic needs are not directly linked with urban life style are more likely to maintain their ethnic languages longer. when they come to khartoum and become deeply involved in its arabic dominated environment, their social and economic needs will cease being met in the ethnic or minority language. 3.1 age composition the fact that language shift tends to spread faster among younger generations makes it very important for the purpose of this study to investigate the relationship between language shift and age with special focus on younger generations. this is because if a language is no longer spoken by children in a given community it will most likely be lost in the future. table 1 below gives the relationship between age and ethnic mother tongue retention. table 1. the relationship between mother tongue shift and age children arabic beja northern southern nuba hills darfurians others row total children 188 128.8 11 13.1 2 15.4 53 61.7 13 25.8 8 32.2 6 4.0 281 33.5% youth 139 13 17 56 19 31 3 278 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 65 published by scholink inc. 127.4 12.9 15.3 61.0 25.5 31.8 4.0 33.5% old people 57 127.8 15 13.0 27 15.4 75 61.3 45 25.6 57 32.0 3 4.0 279 33.3% column total 384 45.8% 39 4.7% 46 5.5% 184 22% 77 9.2% 96 11.5% 12 1.4% 838 100% inspection of table 1 reveals that a significant relationship is present with chi-square 155.67935, df = 12, p < 00000, in that arabic is spoken as a mother tongue more by children and youth, while ethnic minority languages are spoken natively by old generation. this indicates the existence of a significant association between age and language shift among our selected sample. in other words, the process of mother tongue shift affects children and youth, in our sample more than the old people, who have shown a higher level of ethnic mother tongue retention. the table also shows that there is a degree of association between vernacular maintenance among the old generations differing from a group to another. the highest degree of this association was found among the southern and the darfurian language groups. this means that the northern language group and nuba hills language group are more endangered than the first three ones. 3.2 sex composition sex can be a determining factor in language shift and maintenance. in some immigrant societies male are inclined to mother tongue shift towards the dominant language in the new community as they are more actively involved in its socio-economic life. females, on the other hand, have a great tendency to ethnic language maintenance because their role in the community is more or less limited to their house and family business. table 2 gives the relationship between language shift and sex. table 2. the relationship between mother tongue shift and sex children arabic beja northern southern nuba hills darfurians others row total male 253 257.1 29 26.1 22 30.8 133 123.2 46 51.5 68 64.3 10 8.0 561 66.9% female 131 126 10 12.9 24 15.2 51 60.8 31 25.5 28 31.7 2 4.0 277 33.1% column total 384 45.8% 39 4.7% 5.5% 184 22.0% 77 9.2% 96 11.5% 12 1.4 838 100% inspection of table 2 shows that there is a significant association between gender and mother tongue shift among the five language groups addressed in this study. the relationship is present with chi-square www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 66 published by scholink inc. 15.04965, dfr6, p <. 01987. in that arabic was spoken as a native language more by female, while there was no significant bias in the use of the language among male. this means that language shift towards arabic is more evident among females. the result suggests that unlike what is conventional, females led language shift towards arabic in khartoum. in fact, the shift to another language may be led by men or women depending on the role played by each category in a given community. evidence for this claim is widely available in the literature. immigrant young woman in oberwart (a city in austria), for instance, were found to have taken the lead in language shift in the town because they were dominating most of the jobs created by the industrial changes (c1yne,1982). newly arrived immigrant women in new-zeland, on the other hand, displayed a significant proportions of maintaining their ethnic languages because they spent most of their time in the house. when they got job opportunities they were employed in underpaid jobs such as night cleaning or in bakeries, where they normally worked with people from the same ethnic group and used their ethnic languages to them. the situation in khartoum is very much in conformity with this claim. immigrant women are actively involved in the social, economic and cultural life of khartoum community. they are working in private and public institutions, enrolled in schools and universities and significantly participate in the different aspects of social life in the city. thus, their role in the new society is no doubt so serious, and far more influential than before, which caused an inevitable language shift towards arabic, a key factor of success in the new setting. the table also shows that the association between gender and vernacular maintenance differs widely from a group to another. significant association between vernacular maintenance and gender was found only among southern males and northern females. the results suggest that language shift towards arabic is in progress among a large sector of ethnic immigrant females in khartoum area. 3.3 ethnic composition as mentioned in section 4, the size of a minority language group in a given area plays a vital role in maintaining the language of that group. the bigger the number of speakers of an ethnic language, the more opportunities their language has to survive and flourish. this happened in new-zeland, where moan language survived longer in the areas almost completely populated with moan people, who used their ethnic mother tongue in all domains of communication (holmes, 1996). the demographic distribution of immigrant tribes in khartoum then must have influenced language shift or maintenance among these communities. while some ethnic group societies reside in big numbers in some areas, others are found scattered in relatively small numbers here and there. this feature is supposed to offer some kind of distinction as to language shift and maintenance among the language groups constituting our sample. table 3 gives the relationship between mother tongue and ethnicity. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 67 published by scholink inc. table 3. the relationship between ethnic background and mother tongue shift tribe arabic vernacular others total beja 20 27.5 39 2.8 1 0.9 60 7.2% mahass 34 27.5 20 3.3 5 0.9 60 7.2% k. dongolese 34 27.5 26 3.3 0 0.9 60 7.2% dinka 11 27.5 48 13.2 1 0.9 60 7.2% shilluk 15 27.5 44 13.2 1 0.9 60 7.2% madi 18 27.8 42 13.9 1 0.9 60 7.2% viri 10 27.5 50 13.2 0 0.9 60 7.2% gulfan 38 27.5 19 5.5 0 0.9 60 7.2% nymang 23 27.5 37 5.5 0 0.9 60 7.2% miri 38 27.0 21 4.5 0 0.9 59 7% zaghawa 41 27.0 17 6.8 0 8 59 7.0% fur 29 27.0 31 6.6 1 0.8 60 7.2% massalit 41 27.5 19 6.9 0 0.9 60 7.2% daju 32 27.5 28 6.9 0 0.9 60 7.2% colum total 384 45.8% 442 52.7% 12 1.4% 838 100% table 3 shows that there is a significant relationship between ethnicity and language maintenance with chi square = 1910.557 14, df = 78. p = .0000. the result suggests that while some ethnic groups www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 68 published by scholink inc. displayed a significant association with their ethnic mother tongues, others showed similar association with both arabic and vernaculars. this means that the degree of language maintenance among the first group is much higher than that among the second. the strongest association in this context was found among the southern group (dinka, shilluk, viri and madi). the prime reason for this association is the heavy existence of members of this group in khartoum. which enables them to use their ethnic languages in almost all domains of communication. the remaining groups, on the other hand, are distributed in small numbers in a variety of areas in khartoum and consequently they have to use arabic in all communicative settings including the home. what is more interesting is that zaghawa, gulfan and massalit groups have shown a significant association with maintaining their ethnic languages and shilling to arabic. this is a strong indication that language conflict is so intense among these groups. the conflict in this case is taking place between arabic and ethnic minority languages. if we put into consideration the fact that over 90% of children in these groups have already undergone mother tongue shift to arabic; it will be obvious that these languages are seriously threatened by an imminent death. moreover, the association found between the three groups and arabic is more significant than that with ethnic languages. in other words, members of the groups concerned tended to shift to arabic more than to maintain their own ethnic mother tongues. 3.4 interethnic marriage inter-marriage between ethnic groups can contribute significantly to language shift. german community in australia sets a good example in this regard. when a german-speaking man marries an english-speaking woman, the children usually pick up english as their mother tongue. the same thing is true for many multilingual communities worldwide. in the united states, for instance, it has been found that whenever a cherokee speaker has married outside the cherokee community the children spoke only english (flolmes, 1992). in this section we are going to test this hypothesis among our sample by correlating inter-ethnic marriage cases to the phenomenon of language shift and maintenance. table 4 gives the relationship between language shift and interethnic marriage. table 4. the relationship between mother tongue shift and interethnic marriage pattern arabic beja northern southern nuba hills darfurians others row total same tribe 248 363.4 37 36.9 43 43.5 182 174.1 77 72.9 95 90.8 11 11.4 793 94.7% different tribe 36 20.6 2 2.1 3 2.5 2 9.9 2 4.1 1 5.2 1 0.6 45 5.4% column total 384 458 39 4.7 46 55 184 22 77 9.2 96 11.5 12 1.4 838% www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 69 published by scholink inc. with 6 degrees of freedom, the observed chi-square values (27.00422) are significant at p < 00014 indicating a significant relationship between language shift and intermarriage. the result suggests that there is a strong association between mastery of arabic as a mother tongue and intermarriage. this means that whenever a vernacular speaking man marries a woman outside his ethnic group, arabic is usually the dominant language in the home and subsequently the children pick it up as a mother tongue. the table also shows that a significant relationship exists between marriage within the same ethnic group and mastery of vernaculars natively. this is a strong indication that interethnic marriage plays a substantial role in the process of language shift currently taking place among speakers of ethnic languages in khartoum. interethnic marriage then can be regarded as one of the essential factors accelerating the progress of language shift among the ethnic community addressed by the present study. it is important to note that some parents may make great efforts to pass the ethnic mother tongue to their children by using the language to, them or encouraging them to use such efforts may slow down the process of shift towards arabic a little bit, hut eventually language shift becomes a reality that has to be accepted and dealt with by parents. the shift towards arabic is accelerated once children start school. besides using arabic as a medium of instruction, children usually use the language to chat and socialize with their classmates inside and outside the school. when they come back home they continue using the language to one another as well as their parents. 3.5 immigration in this part of our analysis, the researcher intends to investigate the influence of migration on the process of language shift among the minority language communities employed for the purpose of this study. when members of a community migrate from one place to another, or from one country to another, where they are exposed to a new language with more speakers and social prestige, they usually undergo language shift towards that language (prabhakran, 1998, p. 299). the same thing seems to await ethnic minority language groups who migrate from their native lands to khartoum, where arabic is dominating all aspects of communication. this section is planned to test this hypothesis by investigating the relationship between language shift and immigration. table 5 gives the relationship between language shift and immigration. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 70 published by scholink inc. table 5. the relationship between mother tongue shift and place of birth place of birth arabic beja northern southern nuba hills darfurians others row total same 151 247.9 38 25.2 44 29.7 155 118.8 64 49.7 83 62.0 6 7.7 541 64.6% different 233 136.1 1 13.8 2 16.3 29 65.2 13 27.3 13 34.5 6 7.7 297 35.4% column total 384 45.8% 39 4.7% 46 5.5% 184 22.8% 77 9.2% 96 11.5% 12 1.4% 840 100% inspection of table 5 shows that a significant relationship is present with chi-square 208.71362, df 6 and p <. 00000. the chi-square values indicate that there is a significant relationship between language shift and place of birth in that arabic is spoken as a mother tongue by those who were born outside their native lands more than those born and grown up. conversely, a strong relationship was found between mastery of vernaculars natively and birth in the homeland. these findings suggest that migration from the country of origins to khartoum plays a vital role in language shift. when migrant families try to use their minority language in a predominately monolingual culture and society like that in khartoum, they will discover that their ethnic languages are no longer viable. as a consequence, they resort to arabic in order to meet their everyday socioeconomic needs. although the order of domains in which the shift takes place differs from a group to another, arabic will eventually displace the ethnic minority languages from all domains of communication. in khartoum as well as in many big cities in sudan. one of the most important domains in which children of migrant families are exposed to arabic is the school. they may have followed arabic t.v or radio programs and heard arabic in the streets before starting school, but at school the exposure to arabic increases significantly as it is the only medium of instruction and interaction with teachers and other children outside the ethnic group. thus, for many children of migrant families. arabic soon becomes the only language for talking with other children including their brothers and sisters. in many families, however, arabic gradually finds its way to the home through children, who tend to discuss their school life and everyday activities with each other in arabic in the home. and gradually their parents start using the language to them. 3.6 level of education the fact that education plays a substantial role in the process of language shift and maintenance inspired linguistic human rights activities to call for the adoption of endangered languages as media of instruction in the schools of the endangered language communities. the prime objective the activities had in mind was to help these communities reserve their ethnic languages and safeguard them against possible extinction in the future. this is absolutely true when ethnic minority children receive their education in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 71 published by scholink inc. the motherlands. but, in a city of such a cosmopolitan nature like khartoum, where only one language is used predominately; vernacular-speaking children will have no opportunity to receive instruction in their ethnic languages. instead, they will be forced to use arabic, as it is the only medium of instruction in the government schools and a large portion of private ones. in such an environment arabic will gradually displace vernaculars from all domains of communication. in this section the researcher is going to investigate the effects of education on the mother tongue shift experienced by our sample. table 6 gives the relationship between language shift and level of education. table 6. the relationship between mother tongue shift and level of education level of education arabic beja northern southern nuba hills darfurians others total illiterate 3 23.4 1 2.4 8 2.8 19 11.2 16 4.7 4 5.8 0 7.0 51 0.1% primary 131 146.6 15 14.9 11 17.6 68 70.3 34 29.4 57 36.7 4 4.6 320 38.2% intermediate 20 28.4 2 2.9 2 3.4 21 13.6 7 5.7 9 7.1 1 9.0 62 7.4% secondary 126 101.7 8 10.3 11 12.2 48 48.7 15 20.4 9 25.4 5 3.2 222 26.5% university 104 83.9 13 8.5 14 10.0 28 40.2 5 16.8 17 21.0 2 2.6 183 21.8% total 384 45.8% 39 4.7% 46 5.5% 184 22% 77 9.2% 96 11.5% 12 1.4% 838 100% table 6 shows that there is a significant relationship between language shift and level of education. 1he relationship found happened to be with chi-square value 127.89425, degree of freedom = 24, p <. 00000. the result indicates that there is a significant association between mastery of arabic as a mother tongue and the level of education. the table also shows that there is a degree of correlation, though not remarkable as it should be, between illiteracy and vernacular maintenance. this correlation was found among the northern, southern and the nuba i lills groups. moreover, there was a significant association between vernacular maintenance and education among the darfurian and the southern language groups. (the darfurian with primary schooling and the southern with intermediate schooling). apart from this, no significant relationship was found between vernacular maintenance and education. what is more interesting is that the strongest association between language shift to arabic and the level of education was found among subjects with high secondary and university education. this may be partially due to the fact that these subjects have been exposed to arabic as a medium of instruction more www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 72 published by scholink inc. than those with a lower level of education. if we take the subjects with high secondary and university schooling as a unit, we will discover that they represent more than 59% of those who have shifted to arabic. the figure suggests that the more educated a person is the more prone he/she is to lose his/her ethnic mother tongue. thus, we can claim that the use of arabic as the only medium of instruction in schools and universities has played a vital role in the process of’ language shift experienced by the groups in question. obviously, a group that manages to ensure the use of its language in educational settings will be in a better position to maintain its linguistic and cultural heritage. in wales, for instance, irish has been introduced widely in the education system, which leads to its revival after a long period of decline. the institutional support provided to irish then, has played a vital role in its revival and maintenance. this implies that a similar institutional support is urgently needed for minority language groups in sudan to help them maintain their ethnic languages or at least slow down the rate of shift the languages are currently facing. 3.7 job composition it is conventional that economic factors are among the most important reason causing a community to shift from using one language to another: obtaining work is then the most notable reason for learning another language. in the united states and britain where english is dominant, for instance, immigrant people have to learn english in order to get good job opportunities. the same thing is true for vernacular-speaking communities in khartoum, where arabic dominates all aspects of communication. this means that ethnic minority languages are used in rather limited domains especially in the workplace. the use of vernaculars in the workplace can be attributed mainly to the nature of the job in which a vernacular-speaking individual is involved. while some jobs require exclusive use of arabic by all those involved in the environment including vernacular-speaking individuals, others require lesser degrees of using this language, which gives ethnic languages more opportunities to be employed in some communicative situations depending on the number of their speakers. in this section the researcher is going to investigate the relationship between occupation and language shift among speakers of minority languages in khartoum. before doing this it is important to note that jobs like clerk, teacher, physician, engineer,…etc., were grouped into one category: bureaucrats. table 7 gives the relationship between language shift and occupation. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 73 published by scholink inc. table 7. the relationship between mother tongue shift and occupation level of education arabic beja northern southern nuba hills darfurians others total bureaucrats 85 71.5 3 7.3 11 8.6 39 34.3 6 14.3 10 17.9 2 2.2 156 18.6% peasants 42 62.3 5 6.3 19 7.5 31 29.9 10 12.5 26 15.6 3 1.9 136 16.2% merchants 40 35.3 12 3.6 4 4.2 3 16 0 7.1 14 8.8 4 1.1 77 9.2% laborers 71 87.1 8 8.8 2 10.4 44 41.7 39 17.5 25 21.8 1 2.7 190 22.7% soldiers 146 127.8 11 13.0 10 15.3 67 61.3 22 25.6 21 32.6 2 4.0 279 33.3% total 384 45.8% 39 4.7% 46 5.5% 181 22.8% 77 9.2% 96 11.5% 12 1.4% 838 100% inspection of table 7 shows that there is a significant relationship between language shift and job status. the relation is found to be with chi-square value 145.79442, degree of freedom 24 and p <. 00000, in that public service employees, merchants and soldiers speak arabic natively more than peasants and workers who showed a significant association with ethnic mother tongue maintenance. this is a strong indication that members of these jobs are more vulnerable to language shift because they use arabic predominantly in communicating with colleagues and the public in the work setting. when they go to their houses, they use the language to their family members, which leads children to learn arabic as a mother tongue. peasants and workers, on the other hand, tended to retain their linguistic and cultural heritage partly because of their conservatism and rather limited contact with the people outside. evidence for the significant relationship between minority language maintenance and job status in the cases of peasants and workers can be found widely in the literature. gal’s (1972) study of language shift in oberwart and shumman’s (1971) of alberto’s acquisition of english as a second language are among the best studies iii the held. gal hound that when oherwart village was granted to austria in 1921, 75% of its population spoke hungarian, whereas in 1971 only 25% did, and these were all peasants or children of peasants. gal’s investigation suggests that german was being introduced gradually into oherwart, encroaching progressively on linguistic territories previously occupied by hungarian. thus, though peasant in oberwart spoke little german before the 1920s or i 930s, all are now bilingual and use german to more interlocutors in each general on. hungarian language is now a mark of peasant identify, and is use predominately people of a high degree of peasantness. the reason behind this, as tar as day-to-day www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 74 published by scholink inc. contact is concerned, according to gal, is that peasants’ contact with people outside their group is more or less limited. this is because peasants as a group are very much conservative and loyal to their traditions and customs. their socio-economic interaction with the remaining oberwart population was thus relatively limited, which helped them maintain their ethnic mother tongue in the city. shumman’s study of alberto’s interlanguage development, on the other hand. provides a good explanation for the relationship between workplace and language shift alberto was a spanish-speaking immigrant working as labor in a bicycle factory in britain. his english was found to be much more pidginized compared to that of other speakers of minority languages in the same setting. the reason behind alberto’s poor english, according to shumman, is that alberto interacted mainly with spanish-speakingworkers in the work and home domains. the same linguistic behavior can be observed among vernacular-speaking labors in khartoum, where a considerable number of the same ethnic language group is normally found working in the same work place. the assumption is that whenever these people come together in the workplace. they use their ethnic mother tongues in communicating with each other, which helps the languages last long. the table also shows that there are some interesting contradictions in the relationship between language shift and job status across the groups studied summed up as follows: 1) among the southern group, a strong association was found between mastering ethnic language natively and all job statuses except merchant. 2) labors in all groups displayed a strong association with mastering ethnic languages natively except those belonging to the northern group. 3) merchants in all groups displayed a strong association with mastering arabic as a mother tongue except those belonging to the beja and the darfurian. 4. conclusion analysis of language proficiency and use among ethnic minority groups in khartoum revealed a significant relation between language shift/maintenance and demographic factors such as age, gender, ethnic affiliation, job and education among the population of the study. however, the groups descending from southern sudan showed a strong resistance to the process of language shift across the different age groups. socioeconomic and sociopolitical factors seem to have convinced vernacular-speaking communities in khartoum to learn arabic for its importance in a variety of domains including education, economic activity and religion. ethnic languages, on the other hand, were learnt only for symbolic reasons (representing group’s ethnic identity). lack of planning and devaluation of vernaculars might have contributed to the process of language shift to arabic in sudan in general and khartoum in particular. in other words, lack of institutional support for vernaculars, being viewed as just symbols for group identity and cultural heritage, and using them in intimate communication will pave the way for the demise of these languages in the near future. in addition, the position of arabic as a lingua franca for the linguistically diverse people of sudan and its function as the gateway for education and socioeconomic www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 75 published by scholink inc. interaction and the absence of an effective and purposeful language policy will further worsen the situation. references aipolo, a., & holmes, j. (1990). the use of tongan in new zealand: aspects of language maintenance. journal of multilingual and multicultural development, 6, 501-521. https://doi.org/10.1080/01434632.1990.9994435 akinaso, f. n. (1989). one nation, four hundred languages: unity and diversity in nigeria’s language policy. language problems and language planning, 13, 133-149. https://doi.org/10.1075/lplp.13.2.03aki akinaso, f. n. (1990). the place of arabic in language education and language planning in nigeria. language problems and language planning, 14, 1-19. https://doi.org/10.1075/lplp.14.1.01aki bell, h. (1976). language questionnaire survey. khartoum: khartoum university press. bisong, j. (1995). language choice and cultural imperialism: a nigerian perspective. elt journal, 91, 122-132. https://doi.org/10.1093/elt/49.2.122 clyne, m. (1982). multilingual australia. melbourne. clyne, m. et al. (1990). cross-cultural responses to cross-cultural communication. i.tl journal, 103, 1-13. https://doi.org/10.1075/itl.103-104.01cly gal, s. (1979). language shift: social determinants of linguistic change in bilingual austria. new york: academic press. holmes, janet, et al. (1993). language maintenance and shift in three new zealand communities. applied linguistics, 14, 1-24. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/14.1.1 holmes, j. (2013). an introduction to sociolinguistics. new york: routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315833057 jahalla, m. k. (2001). the linguistic situations in al-fashir city (ph.d. diss.). university of khartoum. mahmud, u. a. (1983). arabic in southern sudan: history and spread of a pidgin-creole. khartoum: fal adevertizing co.ltd. miller, c., & abu-manga, a. (1992). language c’hange and national integration: rural migrants in khartoum. khartoum: khartoum university press. https://doi.org/10.1080/01434632.1990.9994435 https://doi.org/10.1075/lplp.13.2.03aki https://doi.org/10.1075/lplp.14.1.01aki https://doi.org/10.1093/elt/49.2.122 https://doi.org/10.1075/itl.103-104.01cly https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/14.1.1 https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315833057 microsoft word fet-v1n2-p119 frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 119 original paper the effects of using living sea animals on the student’s emotional states claas wegner1* & nora tönnesmann1 1 biology didactics, faculty of biology, bielefeld university, bielefeld, germany * claas wegner, biology didactics, faculty of biology, bielefeld university, bielefeld, germany received: may 14, 2018 accepted: may 30, 2018 online published: june 6, 2018 doi:10.22158/fet.v1n2p119 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v1n2p119 abstract using living animals in school lessons makes it possible for students to have an emotionally charged learning experience. with the example of thornback rays (raja clavata), the emotional affects of sea animals on students are investigated. theoretical aspects can be found in the explanation of activity-oriented teaching, which is organised holistically and student-active. the preparation for and confrontation with the thornback ray was successfully adjusted to the individual needs of the students. the students collectively worked on research issues and the ray was presented as a research object. besides the emotional adventures of touching a living ray, the students took notes of the most important growth characteristics of the ray. hence the students encounter the ray as a living animal on different levels. to check the hypotheses of how a living animal influences the students’ emotional state, the panas questionnaire is applied. panas serves as a snap-shot of the students’ emotional state. whilst there are no differences found concerning the negative affects, the positive affects show a significant difference between a lesson with and a lesson without a real object. if the lesson comprises a real object, the item attentive is chosen significantly more often than in a lesson without real objects. additionally, the data was analysed with a t-test, whereat the students in the framework of an activity-oriented lesson show significantly more positive affects compared to a lesson without real objects. the study gives a comprehensive insight into the different emotions of students when confronting them with a real object. keywords activity-oriented teaching, student-centred lessons, student-active, emotional affects, panas www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 120 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction “it is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye” is a quote from antoine de saint-exupéry’s famous book the little prince (1946, p. 72). these simple words point to the importance of emotions. triggering emotions of students is part of the concept of activity-oriented teaching. learning and acting are very closely connected but combining them is not as easy as that. activity-oriented teaching implies that besides acting other components are incorporated in the lesson as well. activity-oriented lessons require an action situation, which hilbert meyer defines as limited in time, structured, and consciously organised interaction units by the teacher and the students that are meaningful and important (meyer, 2003, p. 116). the action and the situation itself are complementary. factors like time, room equipment as well as the relationship between teacher and student determine how an interaction is implemented. the concept of activity-oriented teaching underlies a conception of the world, society, and man. not only is a human being capable of being rational, but also of self-destruction. therefore, one can, in principle, decide on his/her personal development. learning is a holistic process during which the mind, heart, the hands, and all senses are involved. the curiosity of humans, which is expressed by asking questions and wondering, is a precondition for activity-oriented lessons. it is assumed that students have a general interest in the environment around them, which means they are not only self-focussed, but want to understand what surrounds them. the environment shall be experienced consciously and examined by experiments (meyer, 2003, p. 403). in most cases, an action which the students can identify with represents a challenge to work on a problem. regarding the gifted students of the “kolumbus-kids” project, these actions are not easy to choose because the students should be challenged both practically and cognitively. since knowledge can be acquired easier when one understands the origin or process with an object itself, a high level of individual activity of the students is crucial (berck, 2001, p. 131). not only the biological background, but also how the scientist acquires his/her knowledge is part of activity-oriented teaching. students learn with a real object and not only with the help of a model. the anatomy of a ray, for example, is easier to comprehend with a real object than with photos. activity-oriented teaching allows the students to learn holistically with the mind, heart, the hands, and all the senses (meyer, 2003, p. 409). when more senses are stimulated, the students remember what they have learned more easily because the brain is stimulated via several stimuli. the sensory perception helps the students to gather experiences and thereof create a conception of the world. when only single senses like the visual or auditory sense are stimulated, the students remember less. only if they work on the problem themselves, they can memorise better. apart from gaining knowledge, activity-oriented teaching is to strengthen the students’ social competencies as well as their interest in biology. emotions play an important role in activity-oriented lessons. however, it is very difficult to observe and define them thoroughly. still, there are aspects of emotions like experiencing or the conscious www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 121 published by scholink inc. perception of a feeling, the processes which take place in the brain or neurone system and the observable expression that can be observed especially in the face (izard, 1994, p. 20). apart from feelings, neurological processes like the facial expression are part of emotions. regarding activity-oriented lesson, there is no action without an affect that is an emotional feeling. when someone is interested in a topic, he/she will deal with it more intensely and feel positive emotions like joy or happiness. students who have their own pet, for example, will feel positively about real objects in a lesson. when a topic is connected with a negative emotion, the person avoids it and is anxious or aversive. emotions are an important part of the personality development of the students. on the one hand, the genetic disposition of a person is responsible for the development of the quality of emotions. on the other hand, learning experiences are also part of the development of emotions. depending on how the emotions affect the student and which emotion he/she unfolds is how he/she will develop (izard, 1994, p. 27). regarding the students of the “kolumbus-kids” project, the genetic disposition is determined, but the learning experiences can be made aware. the development of emotional intelligence begins during infancy and is indispensable for interpersonal skills. an adequate deployment of emotions makes it possible to take an individual path in life (golemann, 2001, p. 244). biology is the science of life or living matter in all its forms and phenomena and has as the only subject the privilege to deal with real objects from the fauna and flora. students get a morphological, physiological and behavioural insight into different species. the contact with living organisms is usually connected with emotional reactions: they directly appeal, demand attention or defence (killermann, 2005, p. 156). this research contributes to the activity-oriented teaching and investigates the emotional affects of students caused by real objects. the purpose of this study was to find out how using living animals in school lessons influence the emotional affects of students. 2. method 2.1 data collection the data collection for this study took place within the framework of the “kolumbus kids” project at bielefeld university, which is an enrichment programme for young, talented scientists that was initiated by project leader prof. dr. claas wegner. students of the project participated anonymously in the different types of tests (panas i, panas ii) to check the hypotheses. the students participated in an activity-oriented teaching unit consisting of seven lessons concerned with different sea animals, namely rays, starfish, and hermit crabs. the first panas test was completed by 11 students after a lesson without a real object. the second test (panas ii) was conducted after a lesson with a living ray. both tests are comparable because the only difference is that they were conducted at different times. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 122 published by scholink inc. 2.1.1 instruments instruments for the empirical studies are panas (positive and negative affect schedule). the t-test is conducted to check the significance of the results. panas is an instrument developed by watson and tellegen (1988), which makes it possible to describe the emotions of a single person at a specific point of time, and to sort these emotions into two categories (positive and negative affects). with respect to the students of the “kolumbus kids” project, panas can be applied to investigate the emotional impact of living animals in school lessons. a positive affect (pa) describes the extent to which a person is enthusiastic, active, and attentive (krohne, 1996, p. 140). features of a highly positive affect are concentration, commitment as well as energy. compared with this, a highly negative affect (na) is characterised by negative tension, irritability, nervousness and anxiety of the person. panas consists of twenty items; ten of them belong to the positive emotions, and the other ten to negative emotions (krohne, 1996, p. 141). the items are as follows. table 1. items of panas (tellegen, watson, & clark, 1999, pp. 297-303) items (pa) items (na) active alert distressed irritable interested determined upset ashamed excited attentive guilty nervous strong proud scared jittery inspired enthusiastic hostile afraid the positive and negative affects are independent from one another. both the positive and negative affects are reflected upon collectively and individually. with a five-step scale from (1) “very slightly to not at all”, (2) “a little”, (3) “moderately”, (4) “quite a bit”, to (5) “very much” (crawford & henry, 2004, p. 6), the intensity of the affects is rated. in the empirical study, the version of the panas referring to the current emotions at a concrete moment during the teaching unit is applied. a t-test is used to prove the significance of the results. it examines the difference between two mean values of two independent random samples. the following null hypotheses refer to hypothesis i that is: using a living animal (ray) in the framework of activity-oriented teaching has the effect that students at this point in time show more positive affects (pa) than in a lesson without a real object. null hypothesis io: using living animals (rays, starfish, and hermit crabs) in the framework of activity-oriented teaching has the same influence on the positive affects (pa) like a lesson without a real object. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 123 published by scholink inc. null hypothesis iio: using living animals (rays, starfish, and hermit crabs) in the framework of activity-oriented teaching has the same affect in the negative affects (na) like a lesson without a real object. 3. results panas i was conducted with 11 students, who participated in the test after a lesson with the topic “preparing a poster dealing with rays” without real objects. first, the items are listed according to their level of intensity (1-5, from “very slightly to not at all” to “very much”, see methods). table 2. tabular overview of the intensity of the items of panas i items points 1 2 3 4 5 sum mean value active 0 1 2 5 3 43 3.91 interested 0 0 3 5 3 44 4.00 excited 1 2 4 3 1 34 3.09 strong 2 2 2 1 4 36 3.27 inspired 1 7 0 1 2 29 2.64 proud 0 6 2 2 1 31 2.82 enthusiastic 2 2 3 2 2 33 3.00 alert 2 2 3 1 3 34 3.09 determined 0 2 3 2 4 41 3.73 attentive 1 3 1 3 3 37 3.36 distressed 8 1 1 0 1 18 1.64 upset 8 2 0 1 0 16 1.45 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 124 published by scholink inc. guilty 9 2 0 0 0 13 1.18 scared 10 0 1 0 0 13 1.18 hostile 7 2 2 0 0 17 1.55 irritable 6 3 1 1 0 19 1.73 ashamed 8 2 1 0 0 15 1.36 nervous 7 2 1 0 1 19 1.73 jittery 7 4 0 0 0 15 1.36 afraid 11 0 0 0 0 11 1.00 the intensity of every single item of all participating students is listed on a scale of 1 to 5. the sum derives from multiplying the single values with the corresponding points, which means that the points are reckoned up with the number of students, who filled in the test. as an example, the item “active” is demonstrated: 1*0 + 2*1 + 3*2 + 4*5 + 5*3 = 43. the mean value is calculated by the division of the sum by the number of students, which is for the item “active” = 3.91. to get a better overview, the total population is plotted against the mean values of the single items. this is done in two graphics: the positive affects (pa) and negative affects (na) are presented separately. in relation to the negative affects (na), it is important to note that a low value represents a positive meaning because a low intensity of a negative affect indicates less negative emotions. the comparability is guaranteed because the intensity of the items on the y-axis are always shown on a scale from 0 to 5. the items can assign a minimal value of 1 and a maximal value of 5. the following figure shows the positive affects of panas i. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 125 published by scholink inc. figure 1. mean values of the single items of panas i pa—the red line represents the mean value of all pa. the blue bars show the intensity of the items. the characteristic of 1 to 5 is plotted on the y-axis and the positive items on the x-axis the mean value of all positive affects is 3.29. the items “active”, “interested”, “determined” and “attentive” are above, the items “excited”, “strong”, “inspired”, “proud”, “enthusiastic”, and “alert” are below the mean value. the lowest intensity is shown by the item “inspired” (2.64). the highest intensity can be noted for the item “interested” (4.00). the following diagram shows the intensity of the negative affects of panas i. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 126 published by scholink inc. figure 2. mean value of the single items of panas i na—the red line represents the mean value of all na. the blue bars show the level of the intensity. the level of the intensity from 1 to 5 is plotted on the y-axis and the positive items on the x-axis the mean value of all negative affects is 1.41 and thereby significantly lower than the mean value of the positive affects. the items “distressed”, “upset”, “hostile”, “irritable”, and “nervous” are above, the items “guilty”, “scared”, “ashamed”, “jittery” and “afraid” are below the mean value. the highest level of intensity is shown by the item “irritable” (1.73). the lowest level of intensity is shown by the item “afraid” (1.00). the following diagram shows the differing perceptions of the students and allows to compare the students to one another. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 127 published by scholink inc. figure 3. mean values of the single students in panas i pa—this diagram demonstrates the differences between the students. for the sake of anonymity, a number is assigned to every participating student. this number is maintained throughout the sudy. the mean value of all positive affects of all students is 3.29 the standard deviation is relatively high with a value of 0.72, which means that there are students who in total demonstrate a relatively high positive affect, and students who show a relatively low positive affect. six students are below the mean value, though student number 5 has the lowest value of 2.2. five students are above the mean value. student number 9 shows the most positive affects with a value of 4.7. the following diagram is a comparable demonstration of the negative affects. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 128 published by scholink inc. figure 4. the intensity of all negative affects is plotted on the y-axis and the individual students on the x-axis—this diagram demonstrates the differences between the students. for the sake of anonymity, a number is assigned to every participating student. this number is maintained throughout the study. the mean value of all negative affects of all students is 1.42 the mean value of all negative affects of all students is 1.42 and is consequently lower as the mean value of the positive affects (3.29). the standard deviation of 0.37 is lower than the standard deviation of the positive affects. the variance is lower, which means that the students estimate their negative affects in a more similar manner than the positive affects. six students are above the mean value; student number 1, 5, and 8 achieve the minimal value of 1, which means they do not show any negative affects in the panas i in connection with the requested items. five students are above the mean value; student 6 shows the highest negative affect of 2.1. eleven students participated in panas ii, which was performed after a lesson with a living ray. the scale is the same as in panas i. the first step is a tabular overview of the items. table 3. tabular overview of the intensity of the items of panas ii items points 1 2 3 4 5 sum mean value interested 0 0 2 1 8 50 4.55 excited 1 1 0 2 7 46 4.18 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 129 published by scholink inc. strong 0 1 2 3 5 45 4.09 inspired 1 2 2 3 3 38 3.45 proud 0 3 1 6 1 38 3.45 enthusiastic 0 1 1 4 5 46 4.18 alert 1 1 2 1 6 43 3.91 determined 0 1 3 3 4 43 3.91 attentive 0 0 1 2 8 51 4.64 distressed 8 3 0 0 0 14 1.27 upset 8 3 0 0 0 14 1.27 guilty 11 0 0 0 0 11 1.00 scared 8 2 1 0 0 15 1.36 hostile 9 1 1 0 0 14 1.27 irritable 6 5 0 0 0 16 1.45 ashamed 8 3 0 0 0 14 1.27 nervous 7 2 2 0 0 17 1.55 jittery 8 2 1 0 0 15 1.36 afraid 9 2 0 0 0 13 1.18 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 130 published by scholink inc. for every item the level of intensity is demonstrated with points and the right column shows the mean values regarding every item. the following diagram shows the positive affects. figure 5. mean values of the single items of panas ii pa—the red line represents the mean value of all pa. the blue bars show the level of intensity. the level of intensity from 1 to 5 is plotted on the y-axis and the positive items on the x-axis the mean value of all positive affects of panas ii is 4.08 and thus 0.79 points above the pa of panas i (3.29). if there is a significant difference between the positive affect of panas i and ii is discussed in the t-test part. the items “inspired”, “proud”, “alert”, and “determined” are below, the items “active”, “interested”, “excited”, “strong”, and “enthusiastic” are above the mean value. the highest intensity is shown by item “interested” with a value of 4.55. the lowest intensity is shown by the the items “inspired” and “proud” with a value of 3.45. the standard deviation is 0.39 and consequently lower than the pa of panas i (0.44). the negative affects of panas ii are shown in the following diagram. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 131 published by scholink inc. figure 6. mean values of the single items of panas ii na—the red line represents the mean value of all na. the blue bars show the level of intensity. the level of intensity from 1 to 5 is plotted on the y-axis and the negative items on the x-axis the mean value is 1.30 and compared to panas i na lower (1.42). on average, less negative affects occur during the lesson with a real object (rays) than in a lesson without a real object. the items “distressed”, “upset”, “guilty”, “hostile”, “ashamed” and “afraid” are above the mean value. the minimum value of 1 is achieved by the item “guilty”, which means that no student felt guilty during the lesson with the living ray. the highest value of 1.55 is achieved by the item “nervous”. the standard deviation is 0.14 and is lower than the negative affects of panas i (0.23). the following graphic compares the intensity of all positive affects of every single student. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 132 published by scholink inc. figure 7. mean values of the individual students in panas ii pa—the level of intensity of all positive affects is plotted on the y-axis and the individual students on the x-axis. since several students participated in panas i, but not in panas ii, which is also the case vice versa, the students are assigned to a number going up to 14 student number 5, for example, attended only the lesson after which panas i was conducted, and student number 12, 13, and 14 only attended the lesson after which panas ii was conducted. the mean value (4.07) is 0.78 points above the mean value of panas i. students 1, 3, 7, 8, 12, 13, and 14 are above, students 2, 4, 6, and 11 are below the mean value. the standard deviation is 0.67. the following diagram shows the comparison of the students participating in panas ii in relation to the negative affects. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 133 published by scholink inc. figure 8. mean values of the single students in panas ii na—the level of intensity of all negative affects is plotted on the y-axis and the individual students on the x-axis the mean value of the students’ negative affects, who participated in panas ii, is 1.31. the mean value of panas i is 1.42. student number 1, 3, 6, 7, 8, 12, 13, and 14 are below, student number 2, 4, and 11 above the mean value. the standard deviation is 0.28. the following diagram allows a comparison between the level of intensity of the different items of panas i and ii. figure 9. comparison between pa of panas i and of panas ii—the blue or rather green bars demonstrate the level of intensity. the level of intensity from 1 to 5 is plotted on the y-axis and the positive items on the x-axis www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 134 published by scholink inc. a different level of intensity between panas i and ii is found in the items “excited”, “enthusiastic”, and “attentive” because there is a difference of more than one point. a t-test is conducted for these items to prove if there is a significant difference. only students who participated in both tests are included in the analysis. the following null hypothesis refers to hypothesis i (see methods). null hypothesis io: using living animals (rays, starfish, and hermit crabs) in the framework of activity-oriented teaching has the same influence on the positive affects (pa) like a lesson without a real object. in relation to the positive affects it results in a comparison of panas i and ii. the null hypothesis io can be rejected with a probability of 95%. the hypothesis i is therefore valid. moreover, the t-test is used for the null hypothesis iio: using living animals (rays, starfish, hermit crabs) in the framework of activity-oriented teaching has the same effect on the negative affects (na) than a lesson without a real object. the results of the item “excited” and “enthusiastic” are not significant, whereas the result for “attentive” is significant (see table 4). therefore, the null hypothesis iio cannot be rejected. table 4. tabular overview of t-values calculated for selected items item t-value significant difference significance level for n = 8 (98.5%) excited 1.40 no 2.31 enthusiastic 1.00 no 2.31 attentive 2.33 yes 2.31 the sample size for the t-test is n = 8. a probability of 98.5% for the t-value of 2.31 is achieved by the item “attentive”. 4. discussion do real objects influence the emotional state of students? this essential question can be affirmed, however, it is necessary to closely examine the connection between emotional affects and real objects in lessons. the positive affects show a significant difference between a lesson with a living animal (rays) and without a living animal. hypothesis i that is “using a living animal (ray) in the framework of activity-oriented teaching has the effect that students at this point in time show more positive affects (pa) than in a lesson without a real object” therefore remains unaffected. especially the item “attentive” shows a significant difference when comparing lessons with or without real objects. consequently, living animals like rays, starfish, hermit crabs can increase the students’ attention. using real objects makes it possible to engage multiple senses of the students because they can touch the rays and observe the swim movement in the water. the affective orientation along real www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 135 published by scholink inc. objects like touching the rays supports a persisting motivation. at the same time, the cognitive confrontation like for example the analysis of the ray’s swim movement increases the students’ interest in real objects. positive affects like interest and joy, which arise from the emotional engagement with the ray, support the students’ development of intrinsic motivation in connection with the real object, but also with marine biology in general. this connection can be found in the theory part. concerning the negative affects there are no significant differences between a lesson with or without real objects. therefore, hypothesis ii cannot be verified so that null hypothesis iio remains unaffected. the intensity of the negative affects are on average significantly lower than the intensity of positive affects, which means that the students’ emotional state on the whole is positive. during the teaching unit it was observed that the students enjoyed the project “kolumbus kids” and the lessons themselves, which is reflected in the results of the distribution of positive and negative affects. the results show that using real objects can increase the students’ interest. if the students can develop a long-lasting disposition for an object can only be shown with a long-term study. the lesson quality is increased by using the living rays and students can gain experience in dealing with animals. furthermore, it creates an emotional connection to biology by using real objects in the lesson (see introduction). this result demonstrates that it is possible to influence emotions by external circumstances and that using living animals is interesting for students. this teaching approach increases the students’ motivation towards biology, but also towards natural sciences in general. the results represented above show a correlation between the emotional state and chosen items. a positive emotional attitude should be a precondition and aim of learning. wherever possible, teachers should incorporate real objects into their lessons. for example, students could conduct experiments on the theme of luminescence or the chemical-ecological assessment of the sea by themselves. they are actively involved and therefore understand the theory more easily because it can be explained in an understandable way. meyer states that students learn more effectively und memorize what they have learned better if they experienced something themselves or were part of the learning content (2003, p. 410). the approach of activity-oriented teaching makes it possible for the students to learn with all their senses and turns learning in an active and effective experience. references berck, k.-h. (2001). biologiedidaktik. grundlagen und methoden (2nd ed.). wiebelsheim: quelle & meyer. crawford, j. r., & henry, j. d. (2004). the positive and negative affect schedule (panas): construct validity, measurement properties and normative data in a large non-clinical sample. british journal of clinical psychology, 43, 245-265. https://doi.org/10.1348/0144665031752934 goleman, d. (2001). emotionale intelligenz (14th ed.). münchen: deutscher taschenbuchverlag. izard, c. (1994). die emotionen des menschen (3rd ed.). weinheim: beltz, psychologie-verl.-union. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 136 published by scholink inc. killermann, w., hiering, p., & starosta, b. (2005). biologieunterricht heute—eine moderne fachdidaktik (11th ed.). donauwörth: auer verlag gmbh. kolumbus-kids. (2017). kolumbus-kids: entdecken—begeistern—fördern. retrieved april 18, 2017, from http://kolumbus-kids.de/ krohne, a. w., egloff, b., kohlmann, c.-w., & tausch, a. (1996). untersuchungen mit einer deutschen version der “positive and negative affect schedule” (panas). diagnostica, 42(2), 139-156. meyer, h. (2003). unterrichtsmethoden i: theorieband (10th ed.). berlin: cornelsen verlag. rubin, a. (2012). statistics for evidence-based practice and evaluation (3rd ed). boston: brooks cole. saint-exupéry, a. (1946). le petit prince. paris: éditions gallimard. sedlmeier, p., & renkewitz, f. (2008). forschungsmethoden und statistik in der psychologie. münchen: pearson studium. tellegen, a., watson, d., & clark, l. a. (1999). on the dimensional and hierarchical structure of affect. psychological science, 10, 297-303. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9280.00157 willimczik, k. (1999). statistik im sport. grundlagen—verfahren—anwendungen (4th ed.). hamburg: czwalina verlag. frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no.4, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 27 original paper gender differences in secondary school students’ achievement in chemistry in samburu county, kenya lomonyang ekwam1, fred n. keraro1 & joel k. ng’eno1 1 department of curriculum, instruction & educational management, egerton university, kenya received: july 25, 2023 accepted: august 20 online published: september 6, 2023 doi:10.22158/fet.v6n4p27 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v6n4p27 abstract the purpose of this study was to investigate the gender differences in secondary school students’ achievement in chemistry. in addition, the study sought to identify the factors that contribute to gender differences in chemistry achievement to in order to enhance the provision of equal opportunities for the learning of chemistry and all other sciences in general to both boys and girls. cross-sectional study design under the descriptive survey research was used. the target population of the study comprised of all the secondary school chemistry students in both public and private secondary schools in samburu county. the accessible population were all the form three chemistry students in the county. a sample of 286 students was selected from a population of 1,238 using stratified and simple random sampling techniques. students’ chemistry achievement test (scat) and students’ gender interview schedule (sgis) were used to collect data. the data collected was analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. the statistics derived included the analysis of percentages, mean, standard deviation, students’ t-test scores and chi-square test (x2 test) used to establish the relationship between culturally accepted gender roles and achievement in chemistry. the findings show that there was a statistically significant gender difference in chemistry achievement in favour of boys. as a result, boys’ schools performed better than both girls’ and co-educational schools. boys had a high affinity and interest towards chemistry than girls. also the culturally accepted gender roles had an effect on chemistry achievement. it is recommended that the ministry of education should initiate in-service programmes for teachers in science courses emphasizing on relevant scientific skills to empower teachers to provide learning opportunities that would reduce the gender differences and the effect of cultural factors known to enhance gender differences in the learning and achievement in chemistry. curriculum developers and policy makers need to develop curriculum materials that would help to reduce the gender gap in learning and achievement. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 28 published by scholink inc. keywords gender differencs, students’ achievement, chemistry 1. introduction in the economically competitive environment in the developing countries, education systems are expected to ‘produce’ an optimum number of technologically qualified personnel who are needed in the labour market. this has implications for the planning of the education system of each country. there is also a proportionately higher demand for both female and male students as societies become more responsive to gender balance. in most countries and more particularly the developing countries. many of the more prestigious and more highly paid jobs and careers are a preserve of men who have been trained in the science based programmes, such as medicine, engineering and technology (irungu, 2019). it is also acknowledged that girls shy away from science courses offered in schools leading to the gender imbalance in science -based careers in favour of men (nnamani, 2016). the impact of gender on secondary school students’ achievement in chemistry is not entirely clear. however, research suggests that chemistry might be less closely associated with masculinity than physics but more so than biology. girls tend to have more stronger attachment to biology hence selecting biology courses more frequently (thomas, 2017). boys have higher self-concepts in physics hence being more likely to choose a physics based career than girls (dudovitz, 2017). in contrast, girls and boys seem to be equally interested in chemistry (batyra, 2017a). is chemistry, therefore, gender-neutral? this aspect or perspective needs further investigation. the aspect of gender is well placed in the perspective that takes into account students’ cultural backgrounds (palt, 2018). this is necessary because students’ achievement in chemistry has been linked to their cultural backgrounds and also in the view that gender is a cultural construct (ruschenpohler, 2019). optimizing the learning and achievement in science (and by extension chemistry) and at the same time narrowing the gender differentials in performance may eventually lead to greater economic efficiency within a system. in this process, students’ achievement in science and career opportunities could be enhanced (eren-sisman, 2018). several scholars have identified attitude related factors such as low self-esteem, poor self-concept, fear of success, cultural influence and lack of confidence as having an influence on girls’ achievement in mathematics and the sciences (ongeri, 2012). therefore, the gender differences in students’ achievement in chemistry can be attributed to psychological and social factors. despite the spirited cultural knowledge awareness efforts, the influence of gender related factors in students’ achievement in chemistry persist. hence, there was a need to explore more on the gender differences in students’ achievement in chemistry with a view of suggesting possible intervention strategies, hence the need for this study. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 29 published by scholink inc. 1.1 the objectives of the study this study was guided by the following two objectives: i. to determine whether there are gender differences in secondary school students’ achievement in chemistry in samburu county. ii. to identify the cultural factors that may be contributing to gender differences in secondary school students’ achievement in chemistry in samburu county. 1.2 hypotheses tested in order to achieve the objectives of the study, the following null hypotheses were tested. ho1: there is no statistically significant gender differences in secondary school students’ achievement in chemistry in samburu county. ho2: there is no statistically significant relationship between cultural factors contributing to gender differences and secondary school students’ achievement in chemistry in samburu county. 1.3 conceptual framework the conceptual framework used in this study was based on the crosscultural theory presented by barry (1969). to successfully adapt barry’s cross-cultural theory, the conceptual model representation illustrated in figure 1, was used to guide the study. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 30 published by scholink inc. figure 1. conceptual framework for investigating the gender differences in students’ achievement in chemistry figure 1 illustrates the conceptual framework that was used to guide the study. it has three main interrelated variables namely; independent, dependent and extraneous variables. the independent variables are students’ gender and cultural factors while the dependent variable is the students’ achievement in chemistry. lastly the extraneous variables in this study are the type of school learning environment. type of school learning environment was controlled by studying the performance of students in both public and private single sex and co-educational secondary schools. 2. research methodology the study was a descriptive survey research, where cross-sectional study design was used. the design was relevant in this study for it would provide a way of obtaining facts and about opinions of individuals who would avail representative information about a larger population. in this way cross-sectional studies provide a ‘snapshot’ of the outcome and the characteristics associated with it at a specific point in time (kuhn, 2014; juma, 2014). the present study was aimed at determining whether there are gender differences in students’ achievement in chemistry. the study, therefore, aimed at www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 31 published by scholink inc. analyzing the existing state of events, hence a cross-sectional study design being chosen because of the nature of the subject of inquiry in this study. 3. sampling procedures and sample size the sampling units were the secondary schools. cluster sampling technique was used to select nine secondary schools with adequate teaching/learning resources. the schools were visited to ensure that they were suitable for the study. class lists were used as sampling frames and only students of the samburu ethnic community were selected for the study. stratified and simple random sampling was used in selecting boys and girls in single sex and mixed schools because it gave each unit in the population an equal opportunity to be involved in the sample (kathuri & pals, 1993). nkapa (1997) argues that, there is no first hand rule for determining a sample size. however, in this study the expression, n = z2 pqn (n-1)e2 + z2pq was used in determining a sample size (n) as with kothari (2004) method of sample size determination from a finite population as shown in appendix (v) where: n = required sample size, z = value of standard variate =1.96 @ 95% coefficient interval (cl), n = the given population size (n = 1,238), e = acceptable error and degree of accuracy (e = 0.05), p = proportionate target population with particular characteristics (p = 0.141), q = 1p = 0.859. using this formula, a sample size of 286 was proportionately selected which included 114 girls and 172 boys from nine secondary schools. therefore, the minimum number of girls that were selected per school was 19, while on the other hand the minimum number of boys was 29. the total sample size selected is shown in table 1. table 1. selection of the sample size per school type and gender school type total no. of schools total no. of girls total no. of boys total girls’ schools 3 84 84 boys’ schools 3 109 109 co-educational 3 30 63 93 total 9 114 172 286 source: field data, 2022 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 32 published by scholink inc. from the total sample of 286 in table 3, 114 were girls and 172 were boys. this translated to 40 % and 60 % respectively. cluster sampling was used to ensure that each category of schools was equitably selected for the study. using cluster sampling technique, schools in each of the sub-counties in samburu county were grouped into a cluster, such that schools in every sub-county formed a separate cluster for easy of studying. because of the homogeneity of the schools across the sub-counties in the county, small size sub-counties with one or two secondary schools were merged with large sub-counties with many schools falling on the same side of the county, hence having two major sub-counties which were samburu north and samburu central. for the purpose of sampling, distribution of schools in each of the two major sub-counties was based on the type of school category as shown in table 2. table 2. selection of school category for sample size school type samburu north samburu central total boys 1 2 3 girls 2 1 3 co-education 1 2 3 total 4 5 9 source: field data, 2022 the advantage of cluster sampling was that, it ensured the inclusion into the sample sub groups which otherwise would be omitted entirely by other sampling methods because of their low number in population (mugenda & mugenda, 1999). to ensure that all parts of the county would be represented, equal number of schools from each school type was selected randomly from each of the two major sub-counties since most of the schools in samburu county had one stream. 4. data collection and analysis to facilitate access into the school, a research permit was sought from the state agency that authorizes research in the country, the national commission for science, technology and innovation (nacosti). the research instruments, the scat and sgis were self-administered, where the respondents were asked to complete the scat by themselves and later subjected to interview guided by an interview schedule (sgis). for accuracy and consistence of information, the respondents were given enough time to respond to items in both instruments on two different visits in each school. the scat and sgis were scored so as to generate both the quantitative and qualitative data respectively. quantitative data generated by scat and the qualitative data generated by sgis were analyzed using the ttest, chi-square test (x2) test with the aid of statistical package for social sciences (spss) version 23.0 for windows (kothari, 2004). chi-square test (x2 test) was used to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 33 published by scholink inc. analyze the data collected using sgis so as to check whether the frequency distribution of the respondents’ responses fits into a specific pattern and also to establish the relationship between the variables. the chisquare test was useful in testing the homogeneity of proportions in a distribution. data analysis involved use of hypothesis as a guide for analyzing data. to make reliable inferences from the data, all tests of significance were performed at a significance of coefficient level of alpha (α) equal to 0.05. 5. results 5.1 results of students’ chemistry achievement test (scat) students’ chemistry achievement test (scat) was administered on the all 286 students sat for the test. data was collected, analyzed and presented in a tabular form using figures and the results are summarized in table 3. table 3. students’ chemistry achievement per subcounty (n= 286) sub-county no. of respondents mean (%) samburu north 115 28.90 samburu central 171 19.53 total 286 23.64 source: field data, 2022. results in table 3 show that samburu north subcounty was on the lead with a mean of 28.90% while samburu central was second with a mean of 19.53% and this could be attributed to having few and adequately equipped schools in samburu north subcounty compared to samburu central. in the sampled schools, both boys and girls were involved in the study. the results of the students’ chemistry achievement test (scat) scores per gender are presented in table 4. table 4. students’ chemistry achievement test (scat) scores per gender (n= 286) gender no. of respondents mean (%) female 114 17.12 male 172 26.80 total 286 23.64 source: field data, 2022 results in table 4 indicate that male students performed better than the female students as indicated by their respective means. this could be attributed to the general notion that sciences were for males and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 34 published by scholink inc. not for females. results of different school categories on students’ achievement in chemistry administered are presented in a piechart shown in figure 2. figure 2. pie-chart of the different school categories on students’ chemistry achievement test (scat) figure 2 shows the results of the different school categories on students’ chemistry achievement test (scat) scores. boys schools were leading with a mean of 44% followed by coeducational schools 32% and finally in the last position were the girls schools with a mean of 24%. results for students’ t– test value on scat scores are presented in table 5. table 5. students’ ttest value on students’ chemistry achievement test (scat ) scores (n= 286) gender n mean score sd se of mean mean difference tvalue df 2tailed sig. boys 172 28.20 14.554 1.110 11.43 7.278 284 0.000 girls 114 16.77 10.205 0.956 significant at α = 0.05 pvalue = 7.278, p > 0.05. source: field data, 2022. results in table 5 show that the absolute t-value for gender differences in students’ achievement in chemistry, 7.278 (p is less that 0.05 and thus is statistically significant. thus, there was a statistically significant gender difference in students’ performance in the chemistry achievement test. this could be attributed to the cultural expectations for boys and girls in the society. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 35 published by scholink inc. 5.2 gender differences in students’ achievement in chemistry there is statistically significant relationship between gender differences and students’ achievement in chemistry. students’ interview schedule was used to collect data on the gender differences in students’ achievement in chemistry. a total of 30 students were interviewed. data was collected, coded, analyzed descriptively and inferentially using the t-test and the chi-square (x2) test. data was presented in tabular form using figures. results for the interviewed students’ t– test value on scat scores are presented in table 6. table 6. students’ ttest value for gender differences in students’ achievement in chemistry (n= 30) gender n mean score sd se of mean mean difference tvalue df 2tailed sig. boys 18 26.1667 19.1749 4.5196 14.6111 2.754 28 0.009 girls 12 11.5556 11.7934 2.7797 significant at α = 0.05 p-value = 2.754, p > 0.05. source: field data, 2022. from table 6, it can be noted that , the absolute t-value for gender differences in students’ achievement in chemistry, 2.754 (p < 0.05) is statistically significant. thus, there was a statistically significant gender difference in students’ performance in the chemistry achievement test. this could be attributed to societal or cultural expectations for boys and girls. as a result, the high rate of socialization brings about superiority of girls in descriptive tasks and vice versa. results on how much some named gender factors related to students’ achievement in chemistry are summarized in tables 7. table 7. relationship between culturally accepted gender roles and students’ achievement in chemistry (n= 30) response no. of respondents (n) frequency (f) percentage (%) yes 06 06 20 no 24 24 80 total 30 30 100 source: field data, 2022. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 36 published by scholink inc. results in table 7 indicate that 80% of all the respondents interviewed cited that culturally accepted gender roles had no relationship to students’ achievement in chemistry while 20% agreed. chi-square (x2) test; x2 = 2 e where; o = observed frequency, e = expected frequency, α= level of significance set, df = degrees of freedom, p = critical/probability value, r = calculated value. = (615)2 + (24-15)2 = 10.8. α = 0.05, df = 1, p = 3.841, r = 10.8. 15 since the r-value of 10.8 is much greater than p-value of 3.841, (r > p), indicates that the variables were highly related to one another and there was adequate evidence on their relationship hence rejection of the null hypothesis. results on the relationship between gender differences and students’ achievement in chemistry are summarized in table 8. table 8. relationship between gender differences and students’ achievement in chemistry (n= 30) response no. of respondents (n) frequency (f) percentage (%) yes 23 23 77 no 07 07 23 total 30 30 100 source: field data, 2022. results in table 8 indicate that 77% of the respondents interviewed agreed that gender differences was related to students’ achievement in chemistry while 23% did not agreed. therefore, based on the results in table 8, the null hypothesis on the relationship between gender differences and students’ achievement in chemistry is rejected. chi-square (x2) test; x2 = 2 e where; o = observed frequency, e = expected frequency, α= level of significance set, df = degrees of freedom, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 37 published by scholink inc. p = critical/probability value, r = calculated value. = (23-15)2 + (7-15)2 = 8.533. α = 0.05, df = 1, p = 3.841, r = 8.533. 15 since the r-value of 8.533 is greater than p-value of 3.841, (r > p), indicated that the variables were related to one another and there was sufficient evidence on their relationship hence rejection of the null hypothesis. results for the main ways of managing gender differences in students’ achievement in chemistry are presented in table 9. table 9. main ways of managing gender differences in students’ achievement in chemistry (n= 30) main ways of managing gender differences in students’ achievement in chemistry. frequency (f) percentage (%) i. sensitization of students on the gender differncs in students’ achievement in chemistry. 10 33 ii. use of guidance and counseling in schools. 11 37 iii. use of peer counseling among students in secondary schools. 09 30 total 30 100 source: field data, 2022. results in table 9 show that 37% of the respondents agreed that guidance and counseling of students on gender differences in students’ achievement in chemistry, sensitization of students33% and lastly use of peer counseling among students30% in secondary schools are the main ways of managing gender differences in students’ achievement in chemistry in secondary schools. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 38 published by scholink inc. 6. discussion 6.1 results of students’ chemistry achievement test (scat) the results obtained reveal that, boy’s schools performed better than girls and co-educational schools. from the results, boy’s schools had a percentage of 44%, girl’s schools with 24% and co-educational schools with 32%. the mean percentage for all boys sampled was 26.80%, and that of girls was 17.12%. the overall mean percentage for the whole sample was 23.64%. the general performance was below average as shown in table 4. the findings of this study were consistent with those of kigotho (2015) which indicated that, many students in kenya choose to drop science subjects when given a choice and even for those who take them, the performance was below average. at this pont then, it was important to point out that students’ background was a broad concept which comprised of very many factors and varied from community to community. this was for example perception towards education varied depending on the community. poverty lowered the parent’s ability to pay fees and purchase learning materials for their children (ongeri, 2012). gender was also another community based factor which condemned women to be married off at an early age before completing their education. this factor contributed to poor achievement in academics and also led to school dropout particularly at secondary school level (irungu, 2019). 6.2 gender differences in students’ achievement in chemistry the results of gender differences in students’ achievement in chemistry as revealed in tables 5 and 6, indicated that, the absolute t-values for gender differences in students’ achievement in chemistry, 7.278 and 2.754 p < 0.05 respectively were significant. thus, there was a significant difference between the gender of students and performance in chemistry achievement test. also 20% of the respondents interviewed agreed that the culturally accepted gender roles were related to students’ achievement in chemistry. since the r-value of 8.533 was greater than p-value of 3.841, (r > p) as revealed in table 8, indicated that the variables were related to one another and there was sufficient evidence on the relationship between gender differences and achievement in chemistry hence rejection of the null hypothesis. the findings concurred with those of oluwatosin and ogbeba (2017), which indicated that, the promotion of cultural methods of education and the inclusion of traditional knowledge also enabled those in western post-colonial societies to re-evaluate the inherent hierarchy of knowledge systems. the findings of this study on the main ways of managing gender differences in students’ achievement in chemistry revealed that 37% of the respondents agreed that guidance and counseling, students’ sensitization33% and peer counseling30% among students were the main ways used in secondary schools. the findings were consistent with those of ruschenpohler (2019) and leedy (2010), which indicated that, the cultural function of school science had traditionally been to enculturate or assimilate students into the new subculture of creativity in learning of sciences done through active class participation. this would help students’ to understand clearly the relationship between gender and their achievement in chemistry. in the process, both students and teachers benefited from enhanced academic effectiveness, success and learning outcomes. students and teachers would often have greater www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 39 published by scholink inc. awareness, respect and appreciated for the gender aspects and community in consequence of the context that was shared during the course of their educational pursuits. 7. conclusion based on the findings of this study, the following conclusion was made: i. based on the aforementioned research findings, it can be concluded that, there is a positive correlation between students’ gender and achievement in chemistry. ii. culturally accepted gender roles had an effect on students’ achievement in chemistry. 8. recommendations on the basis of the results of this study, the following recommendations were made: (a). curriculum developers and policy makers need to develop curriculum materials that would help to reduce gender differences in students’ achievement in chemistry and facilitate meaningful learning of chemistry and also improve students’ achievement in chemistry and other sciences. 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(2017). gender differences in students’ physical science motivation: are teachers’ implicit cognitions another piece of the puzzle? am. educ. res. j., 54(1), 35-58. https://doi.org/10.3102/0002831216682223 https://doi.org/10.12691/education-5-8-1 https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci9030240 https://doi.org/10.3102/0002831216682223 frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no.4, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) original paper investigating the critical reading skills for saudi efl learners through graphic organizers instructional program majed barashid1 1 technical college of al-jouf, aljouf, saudi arabia received: september 25, 2020 accepted: october 9, 2020 online published: october 16, 2020 doi:10.22158/fet.v3n4p30 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v3n4p30 abstract this study investigated the potential effect of a graphic organizers-based instructional program on saudi efl students’ critical reading skills. to this end, the researcher followed a quasi-experimental design. the sample of the study included 43 freshmen saudi male students attending the technology college of al-jouf. to carry out this study, the sample was divided into two groups. the first group, which consisted of 21 students, were assigned as the experimental group, while the second group, which consisted of 22 students, were assigned as the control group. the experimental group received treatment through a graphic organizers-based instructional program (i.e., venn diagram, kwl chart, fishbone, concept mapping, and circle map) for eight weeks, whereas the control was taught using the more conventional method (i.e., using the teacher’s book). to collect the data, the researcher used a validated tool, viz. a preand post-tests which evaluate critical reading skills. the findings showed that the graphic organizers’ strategies contributed significantly towards the development of students’ critical reading skills. based on these findings, the researchers recommended that efl teachers should take graphic organizers into consideration when teaching reading skills. further empirical studies on the effects that graphic organizers have on the critical reading skills of other levels of student in other regions of the kingdom of saudi arabia are advised. keywords efl students, graphic organizers, critical reading skills 1. introduction reading has always been viewed as vital to academic success. thus, teachers need to attend more to it in the language classroom. if taught properly, readers will be able to figure out the nuances of a reading passage and construct its meanings based on existing resources, in addition to their background knowledge (hudson, 2007). during the reading process, readers constantly interact actively with 30 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 written passages, yet promoting the transfer of these written symbols into meaning(s) in the brain may be contingent upon effective instruction. an increase in knowledge, on the other hand, also necessitates a form of instruction which promotes students’ higher-order thinking skills in a professional manner (bernhardt, 1991; carrell, 1991; urquhart & weir, 1998; grabe & stoller, 2002). therefore, reading is more than mere decoding; it involves maximizing students’ cognitive potentials. these include the skills of differentiation, anticipation, word knowledge, fluency, literal comprehension, critical insights, and flexibility (e.g., baker, 1985; grabe, 1991; ross, 2003). this is why there is no one formal definition of reading since it depends on a variety of different meanings, as well as upon the context or setting in which it occurs (smith, 2004). additionally, sometimes reading skills are more of a puzzle due to their involving unfamiliar concepts from both the first and target languages (shohamy, 1984). researchers (e.g., smith, 1991; fairbairn & winch, 1996; hudson, 2007) have highlighted that critical reading is one of the most important elements of reading comprehension. through the critical reading process, readers do not only deal with the general ideas of the text but also go beyond it. at that level, the reader is capable of judging the author’s ideas, their writing ability and the quality of the language used based on both external and internal factors (garp & brewer, 1991). in this regard, abd kadir, subki, jamal, and ismail (2014) have affirmed that readers should fully understand texts in order to be able to analyze, synthesize, and evaluate what is read. graphic organizers (henceforth gos) are visual representations of knowledge that structure information by arranging important aspects of a topic into patterns using labels (bromley, devitis, & modlo, 1995). they are also known as “visual illustrations of verbal statements” (jones, pierce, & hunter, 1988, p. 20). hence, using gos as a tool for improving reading skills would help visual learners to enhance their learning process (sam & rajan, 2013). holden (2004) stated that efl learners will be more strategic readers by using gos during their learning process because it helps them to create more organized patterns of thought. in this way, gos allow readers to discover the world and equip them educationally, culturally, and emotionally. explicitly, gos have many functions which can help efl learners, despite their ages or levels of reading comprehension. they can be used to clarify and organize information into categories, such as main idea, supporting details, topic sentence, cause and effect, etc. moreover, they can assist learners to organize the required information in a paragraph for better comprehension. in addition, they can be used to construct the meaning of difficult words and sentences by dividing them into fragments. furthermore, they facilitate learners to activate their prior knowledge through reading the text. finally, they can aid learners to identify conceptual and perceptual errors that may occur in the reading passages (sam & rajan, 2013). efl teachers employ go strategies in the language classroom for a number of reasons. first, once efl learners find out what the most important thing is to know about in a text, they will be more likely to understand and remember the content. second, using gos helps students decrease the semantic process 31 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 through reading. as a result, teachers can present the information in more organized ways to maximize the students’ comprehension. finally, efl learners will be more strategic readers due to the pattern of thinking they develop whilst using gos throughout the reading process (ellis, 2004). consequently, gos in the language classroom can help learners to develop their achievement in reading comprehension skills, as well as to advance their critical and thinking skills so that they may understand and construct meaning from a passage by dividing it into smaller, more understandable sentences (sam & rajan, 2013). they can also serve as a visual representation of ideas and thoughts so as to better help learners to apply their thinking skills in an organized manner (miller, 2011). additionally, gos are classified according to their forms and representations, whether they be hierarchical or cyclical in structure); for example, semantic map, structure overview, web concept map, semantic organizer, story map, etc. gos are organized into eight types based on the purpose of learning; e.g., what i know, what i want to know, and what i learned chart (kwl chart), history frames, word map, zooming in and zooming out-concepts, zooming in and zooming out-people, inquiry, venn diagram and column notes (ciascai, 2009). gos have been commonly used in order to develop efl readers’ comprehension skills and attitudes towards implementing these strategies by means of teaching reading skills. efl teachers should follow systematic procedures to maximize the effectiveness of gos in the language classroom. to illustrate that, several systematic steps have been suggested by fly, jean, and hunter (1988). first, teachers should present a graphic outline. then, they should show students how to construct the same outline. afterwards, they should provide procedural knowledge. finally, teachers should train the learners and allow them to practice these gos independently by allowing them to create their own gos by providing feedback about the vital part of the procedure. as a result, it seems that it is the responsibility of efl teachers to train their students to develop their critical reading skills using new strategies. as a researcher, efl teachers focus on improving reading comprehension by paying just a little amount of attention to the significance of training their students how to read critically. based on literature (e.g., lott, 1983; robinson & kiewra, 1995; robinson, 1997; alagözlü, 2011), graphic organizers have gained researchers’ attentions as being one of the most effective teaching tools that teachers utilize to develop their students’ learning abilities, especially their efl/esl reading skill. recently, a number of researchers (e.g., alshumaimeri, 2011; nezami, 2012; al nooh & mcpherson, 2013; almaahi, 2015; al-qhtani, 2016) have noticed that most saudi efl teachers do not utilize appropriate strategies in teaching reading skills. in addition to that, it has been noticed that saudi efl learners are incompetent when it comes to asking or generating questions related to written texts. hopefully, using go strategies would significantly contribute to the enhancement of saudi efl learners’ critical reading skills given that it was applied appropriately in the students’ language classroom, i.e., by providing them with practical programs which encourages them to participate effectively in such activities. 32 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 1.1 statement of the problem throughout the researchers’ teaching experience in different saudi schools, it has been brought to his attention that saudi efl learners have a considerable difficulty understanding and critically analyzing written texts. such a nationwide problem has been caused by saudi teachers’ utilization of traditional methods in teaching english, such as using the audio lingual and grammar translation methods (alseghayer, 2011). by following the views of bromley, devitis, and modlo (1995), hall and strangman, (2002), and almaahi (2015), the researchers have discovered beyond a reasonable doubt that go strategies (i.e., kwl chart, concept mapping, venn diagram, fishbone strategy, and circle map) can yield positive results in regard to learners’ critical reading skills if properly applied across a range of curriculum subject areas. 1.2 the purpose of the study this study aimed at investigating the effect of gos based on an instructional program focused on the critical reading skills of male efl freshmen students at al-jouf college of technology. 1.3 question of the study this study aimed to answer the following question: are there any statistically significant differences (at = 0.05) on students’ critical reading skills which can be attributed to the teaching method (viz. graphic organizers vs. conventional) which is implemented in the classroom? 1.4 significance of the study this study tended to be significant seeing as it demonstrated the advantages of go strategies in advancing participant students’ critical reading skills. the researcher hopes that, if these strategies prove their usefulness, then they can consequently be adopted by teachers in teaching reading skills so that students can attain better performance with relation to their reading skills. furthermore, seeing as research i the saudi context seems lacking, this study is significant as it fills that gap. this study is significant as it introduces teachers and curriculum designers to a step-by-step instructional program which includes a variety of reading activities. of course, these activities are intended to be meaningful in that they should help students become inspired to read independently and critically at this stage. thereby, students will be encouraged to be more positive and active during the learning process. the findings obtained in this study will lead to some pedagogical implications which are beneficial for teachers and learners. different stakeholders in the field of efl, such as curriculum and material developers, course and syllabus designers, learners, teachers and teacher trainers can gain positive advantages from the attained outcomes. 1.5 definition of terms in the present study, the terms below have the following meanings: instructional program: contains several activities and techniques which are designed by the researcher with graphic organizer strategies in mind for the purpose of effectively improving students’ 33 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 critical reading skills. this program includes the venn diagram, circle map, kwl chart, concept mapping, and fishbone diagram strategies. this instruction program will target the groups to be treated. it will account for the main components of the training program (theoretical orientation, objectives, rationale, type, population, content of the program, and assessment). graphic organizers: are defined as “visual illustrations of verbal statements” (jones, pierce, & hunter, 1988, p. 20). in this study, gos are used as part of a teaching strategy which incorporates the venn diagram, multiple timeline, kwl chart, concept mapping, and fishbone diagram strategies in order to better develop students’ critical reading sub-skills. concept mapping: is defined as “a graphical tool for organizing and representing knowledge” (coutinho, 2014, p. 111). in this study, concept mapping is used as a teaching strategy which begins with a main idea and then expands outward to more in-depth sub-ideas. venn diagram: is defined as “a graphic organizer that provides a visual comparison of similarities and differences between subjects” (mcknight, 2010, p. 12). in this study, the venn diagram is used as a strategy to help students compare and contrast between the topics, information, or ideas of a reading passage. fishbone diagram: is defined as “a graphic organizer to analyze an event, object or issue by utilizing web diagram” (kruse, 2010, p. 40). in this study, the fishbone diagram is used as a web-diagram for the purpose of developing students’ skills of identifying the possible causes of an effect or a problem. kwl chart: is defined as “a graphic organizer [which] can be used to help students understand [the] questions of what they know (k), what they want to know (w), how they will learn (h), and what they have learned (l) in relation to a specific topic” (hong kung curriculum development institute, 2001, p. 55). in this study, the kwl chart is used as a reading strategy for activating students’ background knowledge and developing the students’ interaction with the reading passages in terms of three columns: what we know, what we want to know, and what we learned. overlapping circle map: is defined as “a graphic organizer which can be used to help students develop skill in comparing and contrasting similarities and differences and it may consist of two or more circles” (hong kung curriculum development institute, 2001, p. 74). in this study, the overlapping circle map is used as a reading strategy for the purpose of developing students’ skill of providing several synonyms and antonyms for the chosen words from the text and generating as many ideas as possible. critical reading: is “the ability to make judgments and inferences, distinguish between fact and opinion, and recognize the author’s purpose or point of view” (darch & kameenui, 1987, p. 82). in the present study, the skill of critical reading refers to its four sub-skills, i.e., the ability to differentiate between fact and opinion (e.g., the student is asked to differentiate sentences or phrases that show facts or opinions), to use references (e.g., the student is asked to choose the correct answer based on the type of sentence), to anticipate (e.g., the student is asked to read the topic of the text and decide what the topic will be about), and to show word knowledge (e.g., the student is asked to choose the correct 34 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 word based on the semantic level of the sentence). the students’ abilities with regards the skill of critical reading will be measured by means of a critical reading test which has been designed for that purpose. 1.6 limitations of the study 1) this study was carried out during one semester; a longer duration may have different results. 2) this study was limited to the freshmen students of the al-jouf college of technology in the al-jouf region of northern saudi arabia; thus, the results can be generalizable in similar educational settings. 3) the participants in this study included only male students. a study which targets both male and female students may present more readily generalizable results. 4) the experimental group was taught by the researcher himself, while the controlled group was taught by another efl teacher. 2. related literature 2.1 theoretical research 2.1.1 critical reading various definitions of critical reading have been given by many researchers. for example, darch and kameenui (1987, p. 82) defined the skill of critical reading as “the ability to make judgment and inferences, distinguish between facts and opinions, and recognize the author’s purpose or point of view.” carr (1988, p. 70), on the other hand, stated that critical reading is the skill of “learning to evaluate, draw inferences, and arrive at conclusions based on evidence.” moreover, freeley and steinberg (2000, p. 2) determined that the critical reading skill as “the ability to analyze, criticize, and advocate ideas.” critical reading is also an interactive process which allows the reader to use multiple levels of thinking simultaneously. through analysis, it is expected that the reader can explain the information by highlighting key components of the text. the reader can also combine relevant parts to produce a coherent picture. furthermore, it enables the reader to evaluate the written text by establishing standards and judging ideas to verify their rationality (flynn, 1989). abd kadir, subki, jamal, and ismail (2014) have also determined that the critical reading skill should be taught in order to better develop learners’ critical thinking skills. based on the critical reading skill process, various critical skills were classified by many researchers. the main critical reading skills were determined to be higher-order thinking skills, i.e., analyzing, synthesizing and evaluation (flynn, 1989). whereas, abdullah (1998) classified the critical reading sub-skills, from simplest to most difficult, as follows: identifying similarities and differences, evaluating inductive inferences, distinguishing between facts and opinions, evaluating generalization and strengths of arguments, identifying biased statements, author’s motive, and, finally, recognizing hidden assumptions. 35 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 there are many different types of text that critical reading skills can be applied to based on the type of the text, such as political essays, literature, advertisement brochures, or philosophical treatises. wardeberg (1967) identified two main elements of critical reading. the first one is the habits of judging, valuing, categorizing, discriminating, and the awareness of the uniqueness of communicating, not only through printed texts, but also by means of other forms of media; for instance, television, conversation, or observation. the other element refers to giving the reader more options, judgments, and decisions regarding the written text during the process of reading. there are a number of benefits to reading a text critically. these advantages enable the critical reader to distinguish between facts and opinions, to read between the lines or look for a deeper meaning, to evaluate a written text, to analyze a text, to criticize, to compare different sources, to reflect, to review, to be flexible, and to think critically and objectively (kottmeyer, 1944; schnell, 1978; taylor, 1983; hudson, 2007; abd kadir, subki, jamal, & ismail, 2014). 2.2 graphic organizers gos were originally known as advanced organizers and structured overviews in the past (ausubel, 1960). the roots of gos were based on ausubel’s cognitive theory of meaningful verbal learning. he claimed that students’ learning and retention of meaningful materials are enhanced with the help of advanced organizers. by means of advanced organizers, students would have the opportunity to activate their prior knowledge and to relate that knowledge to new knowledge in a more fashionable and meaningful way. since then, ausubel’s advanced organizers have gained the attention of researchers for the ultimate purpose of better developing students’ conceptual organization during the pre-reading process (barron, 1969; estes, mills, & barron, 1969). besides ausubel’s cognitive theory of meaningful learning, anderson and pearson (1984) claimed that the human mind consists of cognitive structures of knowledge. this knowledge is known as background knowledge (schemata). schemata theory entails that, when learners encounter a new piece of information, they try to accept and comprehend it in order to boost the learning process and the retention of that information. they also asserted that the learner must find a “mental home” for the new information given to them by a written text, seeing as learners can modify their existing knowledge to accommodate that new information. the benefits of utilizing go strategies are reflected in readers’ ability to answer the following reading questions: identifying the main ideas, finding supporting ideas, dealing with vocabulary, differentiating facts from opinions, and making inferences (sam & rajan, 2013). olszak (2014) also identified a number of advantages to applying go strategies inside the language classroom. through the reading process, gos enable readers to differentiate between texts of fiction and nonfiction. they likewise provide readers with tools with which to examine and demonstrate relationships in any given passage. finally, gos help readers produce a well-organized summary paragraph. go strategies can also enable students to comprehend different types of text, such as exposition. triwanada and appl (2016) identified the numerous advantages of utilizing go strategies for teaching 36 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 expository texts: viz. they can help readers fully understand the content of a text they also can remind the readers of what they already know, or need to know, about the topic, and they can motivate readers to read reports. hall and strangman (2002) differentiated between the various gos. each model is designed to suit a particular type of information throughout the reading process. they explained each type as follow: 1) a descriptive or thematic map: “it works well for mapping generic information” (p. 2). 2) a network tree: “it works for organizing a hierarchical set of information” (p. 2). 3) a spider map: “it works when the information relating to a main idea or theme does not fit into a hierarchy” (p. 2). figure 1. descriptive or thematic map figure 2. network tree figure 3. spider map 4) a problem and solution map: “it works when information contains cause and effect problems and solutions” (p. 3). 5) a problem-solution outline: “it helps students to compare different solutions to a problem” (p. 3). 6) a fishbone map: “it is useful when cause-effect relationships are complex and non-redundant” (p. 3). figure 4. problem and solution map figure 5. problem/solution outline figure 6. fishbone map 37 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 7) a comparative and contrastive map: “it can help students to compare and contrast two concepts according to their features” (p. 4). 8) a compare-contrast matrix: “is responsible for comparing concepts’ attributes” (p. 4). 9) a sequential episodic map: “is used for mapping cause and effect” (p. 4). figure 7. comparative and contrastive map figure 8. compare/contrast matrix figure 9. sequential episodic map 10) a continuum scale: “is effective for organizing information along a dimension such as less to more, low to high, and few to many” (p. 5). figure 10. continuum scale 11) a series of events chain: “it can help students organize information according to various steps or stages” (p. 5). 12) a cycle map: “it is useful for organizing information that is circular or cyclical, with no absolute beginning or ending” (p. 5). 13) a human interaction outline: “it is effective for organizing events in terms of a chain of action and reaction” (p. 5). 38 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 figure 11. series of events chain figure 12. cycle map figure 13. human interaction outline other types of go were introduced by other researchers. for example, gallavan and kottler (2007) established eight types of go according to their learning purposes; “assume and anticipate, position and pattern, group and organize, compare and contrast, relate and reason, identify and imagine, estimate and evaluate, and combine and create” (pp. 118-119). each one of these has its own strengths for fitting different types of text. it is then the teacher’s role to look for new vocabulary in the text or during discussion and to add new words to the selected organizer. it seems that gos are flexible strategies since teachers have the opportunity to utilize them in the language classroom in a way which maximizes their effectiveness. in order to accomplish that, the hong kong curriculum development institute (2001) recommended a number of systematic steps for the implementation of such strategies. first, teachers should familiarize themselves with different types of graphic organizers. second, teachers can describe to their students what the graphic organizer[s] are and their benefits in learning. third, teachers can present the selected graphic organizer for the topic, and point out the topic and the organizational framework. fourth, teachers should also use some examples to illustrate the use of some graphic organizers. fifth, teachers can assign the suitable one for the language classroom. finally, teachers then review students’ work and generate a discussion on the effective use of graphic organizers. (p. 9) kabilan (2000) stated that critical thinking skills could play a big role in helping students to become proficient in acquiring a foreign language. therefore, the researchers urge efl teachers to pay attention to critical reading activities in their classrooms. they should also design or adapt proper reading activities that enable the learners to use their higher thinking skills. moreover, it is necessary to thoroughly study the different ways of developing thinking skills so that english learners may better cope with the expansion of their knowledge so as to better develop their academic achievement. 39 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 2.3 empirical research this section reviews the empirical studies related to the current study. it thus includes studies on the effect of gos on students’ reading comprehension skills, as well as studies which focus on critical reading skills in particular. 2.4 graphic organizers and reading comprehension chiang (2005) examined the effect of using gos on the reading comprehension achievement of taiwanese efl college students and their attitudes towards reading in english. the sample consisted of 50 tertiary level freshmen from a medical college in south taiwan. to gather their data, the researcher used preand post-reading comprehension tests, two attitudes questionnaires, and group interviews. the findings indicated that the use of gos in teaching reading skills has a positive effect on both reading comprehension tests and attitudes towards efl reading texts. another study by miranda (2011) investigated the effect of using gos on the reading comprehension of english language learners with learning disabilities. the case study sample consisted of 3 students; one female efl middle school student with learning disabilities and two male efl public middle school students without learning disabilities. to collect the data, the researcher used preand post-reading comprehension achievement tests. the findings revealed that go strategies not only have positive effects on the reading comprehension skills of efl learners without learning disabilities but also on efl learners with learning disabilities. özturk (2012) investigated the effect of gos on the reading comprehension achievements of turkish efl university students. the sample of the study consisted of 50 students. it was divided into two equally numbered experimental and control groups. preand post-tests were used on both groups to collect the data. the results revealed that the introduction of go instruction contributed significantly to efl learners’ comprehension of reading materials in english. biria and sharifi (2013) examined the effectiveness of gos on iranian efl university students’ reading comprehension abilities as well. the sample of their study consisted of 60 students and was divided into equally numbered experimental and control groups. to collect their data, preand post-tests were utilized on both groups. the results revealed that the gos contributed significantly toward the development of their reading comprehension abilities. sam and rajan (2013) studied the effect of using gos on the reading comprehension skills of middle school esl students. the sample of their study consisted of 35 esl students. their sample was divided into two equally numbered groups (experimental, control). the researchers used preand post-tests to collect the data. their results showed that instruction with gos contributed significantly to the experimental group’s reading comprehension achievements in terms of their ability to identify main ideas, find supporting details, deal effectively with new vocabulary, differentiate between fact and opinion, and making inferences. likewise, mahmood, nikoo and bonyadi (2013) explored the role of gos and background activation on iranian efl learners’ reading comprehension achievement. the sample of the study consisted of 36 40 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 female efl learners at intermediate level and was divided into three groups; the first group was taught reading by using gos strategies; the second group was taught reading by activating background knowledge; and the third group was taught using the traditional method. to collect the data, the researchers conducted both preand post-tests. the results indicated that using go strategies and the activation of schemata played a significant role in developing efl learners’ reading comprehension abilities. in addition, purwaningsih (2013) investigated the effect of gos on students’ reading comprehension at state junior high school 15 yogyakarta. the sample of the study consisted of 80 students. in order to collect both quantitative and qualitative data, the researcher used observation guidelines, interviews, and preand post-reading comprehension tests. the results showed that gos could develop students’ reading comprehension abilities. toha (2013) examined the influence of using gos on esl students’ text comprehension. their sample consisted of 30 students selected from smk gudang rasau in kuantan pahang. these students were divided into two groups: an experimental and a controlled group. to collect the data, the researcher designed preand post-tests and an interview. the results showed that using gos with the help of reading texts has improved students’ skills slightly and has had a positive influence on their reading comprehension abilities. humbert (2014) investigated which type of gos (venn diagram vs concept map) was more effective for the purpose of enhancing the achievements made on reading comprehension tests. the sample included only two students. to collect the data, the researcher conducted a pre-test, as well as a post-test after four weeks of treatment. the results revealed that venn diagrams and concept maps contributed significantly to the enhancement of students’ reading comprehension achievement test scores. almaahi (2015) examined the effectiveness of using gos on efl students’ text structure awareness and reading comprehension. the sample of the study consisted of 235 english major students and were divided into experimental and controlled groups. to collect the data, the researcher used two tools: viz. a questionnaire to measure the experimental group members’ impression about go instruction, as well as preand post-tests. the findings demonstrated that the students had a positive attitude towards go instruction and contributed significantly to improving students’ reading abilities. putranti (2016) investigated the effect of using gos on the students’ reading comprehension at smp negeri 1 berbah (i.e., a middle school in indonesia). the study’s sample included all students of grade viiid. to collect the data, the researcher used the following tools: classroom observations, student interviews, teacher interviews, a questionnaire, and preand post-tests. the findings revealed that gos contributed dramatically to students’ reading comprehension abilities. yusuf and dzulkafly (2017) examined the effect that gos have on facilitating reading comprehension amongst esl students. the sample of the study consisted of 78 students from different academic backgrounds and proficiency levels. the same was divided into control and experimental groups. to 41 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 collect their data, both researchers used two research tools: viz. a preand post-teaching questionnaire, as well as preand post-reading comprehension tests. the results revealed that using gos played a significant role in the development of esl learners’ reading comprehension abilities. 2.5 studies on critical reading el-maleh (2006) examined the effectiveness of administering a proposed literature circles (lc) program on developing the needed critical reading skills regarding the english short stories component of first year, secondary stage students. it also aimed to identify lc students’ satisfaction/dissatisfaction towards utilizing the proposed lc program. for the purpose of collecting the data for the study, the researchers administered four main tools: a critical reading skills questionnaire, preand post-critical reading skills tests, an lc student’s satisfaction/dissatisfaction questionnaire, a teacher’s guide questionnaire, and the proposed lc teacher’s guide itself. the sample of the study included 99 female students of the first year, secondary stage at el-arish secondary school. the findings identified eight critical reading skills which were required for the first year, secondary stage. there were statistically significant effects in the post-administration of the critical reading skills test in general in favor of lc experimental group. both groups showed satisfaction towards being taught the proposed lc program. al-oqaili (2007) evaluated the level of critical reading skills among undergraduate efl jordanian students. that study also investigated the effects of gender and year of study on students’ critical reading abilities. the sample of the study included 196 efl undergraduate students at yarmouk university. in addition, critical reading test was used to measure students’ critical reading abilities of annotating, previewing, outlining, taking inventory, summarizing and analyzing. the results showed that students’ performance on critical reading skills was low, with female students being ahead of male students and senior students being ahead of freshmen students. belet and dal (2010) studied primary education pre-service teachers’ opinions about the use of storytelling to develop primary school students’ critical reading skills. the sample of the study consisted of 53 pre-service turkish teachers. the data was collected by means of an open-ended questionnaire. the findings showed that pre-service teachers had positive opinions towards the skills explained in the literature within the context of critical reading. another study by khodadady (2011) examined the effect of using concept mapping on efl students’ critical thinking skills. the study’s sample consisted of 36 upper intermediate and advanced efl learners, which were then divided into two groups: viz. experimental and controlled groups. to gather the data, the researcher designed a pre-/post-test which was then used on both groups. the findings indicated that using the concept mapping strategy contributed significantly towards the development efl learners’ critical thinking skills. fahim, barjesteh and vaseghi (2012) investigated the effect of critical thinking strategies training on the reading comprehension of iranian efl students. their sample included 240 male and female iranian efl students. reading comprehension and language proficiency tests were utilized. the 42 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 findings showed that critical thinking skills significantly affected efl learners’ reading comprehension performance. also, alslaiti and mgdadi (2012) investigated the effect of a functionally-based instructional program on improving tenth grade students’ critical reading skills. both researchers designed a functionally-based instructional program. a test consisting of 12 multiple choice items measured the students’ critical reading levels. the sample of the study consisted of 56 students from beit yafa secondary school. the findings showed that there were statistically significant differences in the critical reading tests due to the method of instruction. they finally concluded in favor of the experimental group. abdulrasoul (2014) examined the effect of using reading circles on developing preparatory students’ critical and social skills. the sample of the study was 44 students from a language school at preparatory level. to collect the data, the researcher utilized a critical reading test, a social skills questionnaire, and a student’s reflection log. the results revealed that the reading circles strategy improved students’ performance in critical reading skills. alyaseen (2016) investigated the effect of the k.w.l strategy on improving critical reading and creative writing skills among eighth grade female students in jordan. the sample consisted of 53 female students from two classes at kiitm secondary school. to collect the data, the researcher designed a pre-/post-critical reading test. the results showed that there are statistical differences between the means scores of the two groups in all critical reading skills. the post-test confirmed that teaching strategies have an effect on experimental groups. furthermore, al-shabatat (2017) examined the effect of questioning strategies on jordanian female ninth grade students’ critical reading skills. the sample was 85 female ninth-grade students at al-qaser directorate schools. to collect their data, the researcher designed two tools: a critical reading test and a semi-structured interview. the results showed that there were statistically significant differences between the control and experimental groups in favor of the experimental group. 2.6 summary previous research examined a variety of issues with regard to go strategies’ effect on critical reading skills. all of the surveyed empirical research concluded gos effectively contributed to the improvement of students’ reading skills (e.g., chiang, 2005; miranda, 2011; ozturk, 2012; biria & sharifi, 2013; sam & rajan, 2013; purwaningsih, 2013; mahmood, niko, & bonyadi, 2013; toha, 2013; humbert, 2014; almaahi, 2015; putrani, 2016; yusuf & dzulkafy, 2017). furthermore, the studies which were conducted specifically on critical reading skills showed that instructional programs had a positive effect on students’ overall critical reading skills (e.g., amro, 2004; el-maleh, 2006, al-oqaili, 2007; belet & dal, 2010; khodaday, 2011; fahim, barjesteh, & vaseghi, 2012; abdulrasoul, 2014; al-husband, 2017; al-shabatat, 2017; alqatanani, 2017). the current study, on the other hand, investigated to what extent an instructional program centered around gos affected the critical reading skills of male efl students attending the al-jouf college of 43 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 technology in saudi arabia. this study is different from previous studies in the sense that it focuses on the critical reading skills of efl learners and localizes it in the saudi context. moreover, as according to the researcher’s best knowledge, no research like the present research has been carried out in the past for the purpose of examining how effective an instructional program based upon go strategies is on critical reading skills in the context of efl. consequently, the researcher hopes that the current study will be significant in the tefl field and will be the first of its kind, both locally and globally. 3. method and procedures 3.1 design the current study followed a quasi-experimental design in terms of its using one experimental and one control group. in addition, the study has one independent variable (go strategies) and one dependent variable (students’ performance in critical reading tests). 3.2 participants of the study the participants of the study were chosen conveniently as feasible to the researcher. the participants consisted of 43 efl freshmen students attending al-jouf technology college. they were assigned into two groups, with twenty-two students comprising the experimental group and twenty-one students comprising the control group (see table 1). both groups were subjected to preand post-test for the purpose of assessing their critical reading skills. the experimental group was taught by the researcher himself by means of go strategies. the controlled group, on the other hand, was taught by another efl teacher based on the guidelines of the teacher’s book. table 1. the total number of participants in the study participants of the study n experimental group 22 control group 21 total 43 3.3 equivalence of the groups of the study to ensure the equivalence of both the control and experimental groups, the means and standard deviations of the critical reading skills pre-test were calculated as shown in table 2. 44 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 table 2. means and standard deviations of the critical reading pre-test for both the control and experimental groups group n mean std. deviation t sig analysis pre experimental group 22 3.73 .550 3.721 0.001 control group 21 2.71 1.146 problem-solving pre experimental group 22 4.73 .985 3.948 0.000 control group 21 3.14 1.590 evaluation pre experimental group 22 4.55 1.405 2.790 0.008 control group 21 3.43 1.207 summarizing pre experimental group 22 3.45 .596 2.064 0.045 control group 21 2.90 1.091 total of critical reading pre-test experimental group 22 16.45 1.969 5.144 0.000 control group 21 12.19 3.326 table 2 shows observed differences between the mean scores of the control and the experimental groups on the four components of the critical reading skills pre-test. the total mean score of the pre-test for the experimental group was 16.45; while the total mean score of the pre-test for the control group was 12.19. thus, the researcher used the ancova and mancova tests to ensure the equivalence of the two groups. 3.4 the instructional material the instructional material used in this study was based on the reading texts from the student’s book and workbook of flying high for saudi arabia 4, which were redesigned by the researcher. the texts were written by using different go strategies (namely, venn diagram, kwl chart, concept mapping, fishbone diagram, and circle map) for the purpose of better enabling students to read critically. 3.5 the instructional program in order to achieve the purpose of the study, the researcher adapted the instructional program developed by alqatanani (2017). the researcher also redesigned reading texts in a way to accommodate go strategies. the program aimed at offering students a practical opportunity for utilizing go strategies during reading lessons. 45 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 the program includes five go diagrams: venn diagram, kwl chart, concept mapping, fishbone diagram, and circle map. these gos were distributed throughout an eight-week period to two classes per week. each go was designed for specific critical reading sub-skills. for example, concept mapping was used to differentiate between facts and opinions, while the circle map was used to write synonyms and antonyms for chosen words. 3.6 content validity of the instructional program for the purpose of validating the instructional program, a jury of ten efl university professors, english supervisors, and english language teachers from saudi arabia were kindly requested to judge and determine whether the reading texts were suitable for the target students’ level and whether the critical reading skills to be tested were appropriate. they suggested that the program should be implemented in eight weeks instead of six. all of their comments and recommendations for the program were taken into account and were reflected in the final version. 3.7 objectives of the program by the end of the program, the student will be able to: 1). utilize different types of go, such as venn diagram, circle map, kwl chart, concept mapping, and fishbone diagram, with different types of reading text; 2). develop their own go to better understand the reading text in question; 3). read english passages critically, such as analyzing abstract concepts, differentiate between facts and opinions, skim for main ideas, distinguish main ideas from specific details, etc. 3.8 duration of the program the training program lasted for 8 weeks and was given in 45-minute lesson frames for each group. 3.9 implementation of the instructional program before implementing the program, the researcher explained the nature of the program and its outcomes to the students in arabic. he then emphasized the significance of learning go strategies since they may develop their critical reading skills and help them to obtain better achievement of the english language. the researcher asked some students about their past experiences in reading english and whether they used any go strategies before. they explained that they used to have many problems which prevented them from answering and comprehending the reading text. to teach them go strategies, the researcher followed these procedures: 1) introducing the strategy: the researcher defined it, mentioned its aims and uses. 2) modeling its use: the researcher modeled the strategies and explained to the students how to use them and draws the maps for them to imitate or by explaining graphic organizers strategies to show the students how to use them during the reading lesson. 3) practicing: the researcher requested from the students to use the graphic organizers strategy based on the assigned critical or creative reading skills to read and answer the given questions. 46 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 4) providing feedback: the researcher helped students to find out the difficulties they face and provided them with the appropriate feedback. 3.10 tool of the study to successfully achieve the aim of this study, the following tool was developed and employed: 3.11 critical reading test the researcher designed a pre-/post-critical reading test. the test measured the following critical reading sub-skills: namely, that of differentiating between fact and opinion; that of differentiating between main and supporting ideas; that of anticipating what will be read; and that of demonstrating knowledge of vocabulary. the test was constructed based on reviewing previous studies concerning critical reading tests (e.g., abdulrasoul, 2104; alqantanani, 2017; al-shabatat, 2017). the test included a passage which was adopted from the student’s book, flying high for saudi arabia 4, followed by a number of multiple choice questions which tested the aforementioned critical reading sub-skills. 3.12 content validity of the preand post-critical reading skills test to ensure the content validity of the critical reading test, it was given to a jury of ten efl university professors, english supervisors, and english language teachers from both saudi arabia and jordan. the jury’s comments and feedback in terms of the number of questions given and the type of questions asked were all taken into consideration. for example, they suggested to rewrite the first behavioral indicators of the analysis skill (i.e., analyze the sentence that shows either facts or opinions from the reading text). they also recommended replacing behavioral indicators, such as analyzing the character’s traits of the passage, with extracting motives of characters in a text. 3.13 construct validity of the critical reading skills test to ensure the construct validity of the critical reading skills test, the test was piloted randomly on a sample of 20 students who did not belong to the participants of the study. the difficulty and discrimination factors were calculated for the critical reading skills test so as to discover the items which were either too difficult or too easy for the students, along with items that students were not able to discriminate, as presented in table 3: table 3. difficulty and discrimination factors for the critical reading skills test item number difficulty factor discrimination factor item number difficulty factor discrimination factor 1 0.57 0.75 10 0.43 0.47 2 0.63 0.38 11 0.33 0.50 3 0.60 0.75 12 0.57 0.47 47 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 4 0.43 0.47 13 0.57 0.68 5 0.47 0.53 14 0.57 0.75 6 0.50 0.33 15 0.63 0.38 7 0.47 0.40 16 0.60 0.75 8 0.37 0.33 17 0.33 0.50 9 0.40 0.40 18 0.57 0.47 table 3 shows that the item difficulty scores factor of the critical reading skills test ranges between 0.33 and 0.60. no item score is higher than 0.85 or lower than 0.2, which reflects the students’ ability to answer all of the test items. in addition, the discrimination factor ranges between 0.33 and 0.75, which is higher than 0.2. this indicates that the critical reading skills test is neither easy nor difficult and that the students were able to discriminate the test items. 3.14 reliability of the preand post-critical reading skills test in order to ensure the reliability of the critical reading test, it was given to a pilot sample which included twenty students who had been excluded from the main study’s sample. to make sure of the reliability of the test, it was given to the same pilot study of twenty students two weeks after the pre-test was conducted according to its test and re-test procedures. the researcher used cronbach’s alpha and person’s correlation to obtain the reliability coefficient of the test. its results are presented in table 4. table 4. coefficients of internal consistency of the critical reading skills dependent variable cronbach’s alpha pearson’s correlation analysis 0.78 0.77 problem-solving 0.82 0.80 evaluation 0.81 0.75 summarizing 0.86 0.79 total of critical reading skill 0.88 0.86 48 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 table 4 shows the total internal-consistency of the critical reading test for both the cronbach’s alpha and pearson’s correlation, with 0.88 and 0.86 respectively. it also shows the internal consistency of each component of the test using the same scales, ranging between 0.78-0.86 and 0.77-0.79, respectively. therefore, the cronbach’s alpha and pearson’s correlation reliability coefficients for the critical reading skills test results were reasonable and reliable for the purpose of this study. 3.15 teaching the experimental group the teacher taught the treated participants the reading passages by using different go strategies. for example, the teacher adopted five strategies: namely, venn diagram, kwl chart, concept mapping, fishbone, and circle map. the circle map utilized is based on the hong kong curriculum development institute’s textbook (2001), the kwl chart used was based on ogle (1986), the concept mapping strategy was based on harris and graham (1996), and the fishbone diagram was adopted from dhandapani (2004). 3.16 teaching the control group in order to teach the controlled group, another teacher followed the procedures as described in the teacher’s guide for flying high for saudi arabia 4 ( brewster, daveis, & rogers, 2016). the steps of teaching reading skills are as follows: 1) the teacher will start with a discussion related to the reading text’s topic to promote the students’ interests and to activate their background knowledge; 2) the teacher will have the students read the passage; 3) the teacher will direct the students’ attention to the questions and have them answer them based on their having read the text briefly; 4) the teacher will have the students read the passage again for details in order to check their answers; 5) the teacher will finally check the answers with the class. 3.17 data analysis the data was analyzed quantitatively using the statistical package for the social sciences (spss) to determine the potential effect of go strategies on critical reading skills. the researcher used the following analysis procedures to answer the first question of the study: 1) the cronbach alpha and pearson correlation formulas for the purpose of obtaining an internal-consistency in the critical reading skills test. 2) descriptive statistics to compare the means and standard deviations of the experimental and control groups. 3) ancova and mancova to calculate the students’ performance by measuring the post-test after excluding the students’ scores on the pre-test; then, the adjusted means of the students’ performance will be used to measure the post-test, as well as the standard errors of the critical reading skills based on the instructional program. 49 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 4. results 4.1 results related to the first question the first question of the study was “are there any statistically significant differences (at = 0.05) on students’ critical reading skills which can be attributed to the teaching method (viz. graphic organizers vs. conventional) which is implemented in the classroom?” to answer this question, the researcher calculated the mean scores (m) and standard deviations (sd) of the preand post-critical reading skills tests for both the experimental and control groups. table 5 presents those results. table 5. means and standard deviations of students’ critical reading skills performance in the preand post-tests group n pre-test post-test mean std. deviation mean std. deviation experimental group 22 16.45 1.969 31.59 3.26 control group 21 12.19 3.326 22.00 4.24 table 5 shows the mean scores, standard deviations, and the estimate means of the experimental and control groups’ performance on the preand post-critical reading skills tests. moreover, table 5 reveals that the mean score of the post-test scores for the experimental group (m = 31.59) is higher than that of the control group (m = 22.00), with standard deviations of 3.26 and 4.24, respectively. thus, there is a noticeable difference between the scores of the experimental group and the control group in favor of the experimental group. in order to determine whether this difference of means is significant, the researcher utilized a one-way ancova. table 6 presents the results of that test. table 6. results of one-way ancova for students’ performance on the critical reading skills post-test source sum of squares df mean square f sig. partial eta squared pre-test 1.444 1 1.444 0.099 0.754 0.002 group 638.115 1 638.115 43.866 0.000 0.523 error 581.874 40 14.547 corrected total 1571.628 42 50 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 table 6 shows a statistically significant difference in students’ performance on the critical reading skills post-test (f = 43.866, df = 42, p = 0.000). in light of these scores, this study reports that go strategies have had a significant difference on the performance of saudi freshmen students with relation to their critical reading skills (at α ≤ 0.05). accordingly, to determine in favor of which group that difference was to be found in, the researcher calculated the adjusted means scores and standard errors. table 7 displays those results. table 7. results of the adjusted means and standard errors in the post-test for both groups group mean std. error experimental group 31.73 0.93 control group 21.85 0.96 table 7 reveals that the adjusted mean of the experimental group is 31.73, which is higher than the adjusted mean of the control group (21.85). thus, this result provides confirmatory evidence for there being a noticeable increase in the post-test means scores for the experimental group with relation to their attainment of critical reading skills. to examine the differences between the means of both groups in terms of the four critical reading sub-skills for the post-test (analysis, problem solving, evaluation, and summarizing), the researcher calculated the means and standard deviations of these sub-skills. these are presented in table 8. table 8. means and standard deviations of the critical reading skills preand post-tests with relation to the four components of the critical reading skills test subskills groups n pre-test post-test mean std. deviation mean std. deviation analysis experimental group 22 3.73 0.550 8.73 1.202 control group 21 2.71 1.146 6.00 1.871 problem-solving experimental group 22 4.73 0.985 7.91 1.065 control group 21 3.14 1.590 5.10 1.758 evaluation experimental group 22 4.55 1.405 7.50 1.535 51 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 control group 21 3.43 1.207 5.48 1.834 summarizing experimental group 22 3.45 0.596 7.45 1.765 control group 21 2.90 1.091 5.43 1.326 table 8 shows that the mean scores of the post-test for the experimental group with relation to the four components are higher than those obtained by the control group. thus, in order to find out whether these differences are statistically significant, a mancova test was used on the critical reading skills scores of the post-test. those results are illustrated in table 9. table 9. results of mancova test on the post-test scores with relation to the four critical reading sub-skills source dependent variable sum of squares df mean square f sig. partial eta squared wilks’ lambda analysis pre analysis post 0.301 1 0.301 0.123 0.728 0.003 1.180 problem-solving post 0.194 1 0.194 0.094 0.760 0.003 evaluation post 0.421 1 0.421 0.144 0.707 0.004 summarizing post 8.318 1 8.318 3.398 0.073 0.084 problem – solving pre analysis post 0.556 1 0.556 0.228 0.636 0.006 0.822 problem-solving post 0.042 1 0.042 0.020 0.887 0.001 evaluation post 6.956 1 6.956 2.375 0.132 0.060 summarizing post 3.952 1 3.952 1.614 0.212 0.042 evaluation pre analysis post 7.723 1 7.723 3.166 0.083 0.079 1.501 problem-solving post 5.063 1 5.063 2.462 0.125 0.062 evaluation post 0.293 1 0.293 0.100 0.753 0.003 summarizing post 0.015 1 0.015 0.006 0.939 0.000 summarizing pre analysis post 0.008 1 0.008 0.003 0.955 0.000 1.239 problem-solving post 5.657 1 5.657 2.750 0.106 0.069 evaluation post 2.073 1 2.073 0.708 0.406 0.019 summarizing post 2.472 1 2.472 1.010 0.322 0.027 group analysis post 63.623 1 63.623 26.083 0.000 0.413 12.542 problem-solving post 50.646 1 50.646 24.622 0.000 0.400 evaluation post 17.313 1 17.313 5.911 0.020 0.138 summarizing post 33.647 1 33.647 13.742 0.001 0.271 error analysis post 90.251 37 2.439 52 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 problem-solving post 76.107 37 2.057 evaluation post 108.374 37 2.929 summarizing post 90.590 37 2.448 corrected total analysis post 180.279 42 problem-solving post 170.698 42 evaluation post 160.744 42 summarizing post 144.698 42 it is clear that the calculated value of f (at = 0.05) for the teaching strategy (i.e., gos) with relation to the four critical reading sub-skills shows that there are statistically significant differences between the two mean scores of the two groups with relation to the four critical reading sub-skills that can be attributed to the teaching strategy. consequently, to determine in favor of which group had the most significant difference between their means scores, the researcher calculated the adjusted means scores and the standard errors. table 10 illustrates these results. table 10. results of the adjusted means and standards errors in the post-test with relation to the four critical reading sub-skills critical reading sub-skills group mean std. error analysis post experimental group 8.94 0.39 control group 5.77 0.40 problem-solving post experimental group 7.92 0.35 control group 5.09 0.36 evaluation post experimental group 7.32 0.42 control group 5.66 0.44 summarizing post experimental group 7.59 0.39 control group 5.28 0.40 table 10 shows that the adjusted means of the four critical reading sub-skills of the experimental group are higher than those of the control group. these results provide confirmatory evidence that a 53 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 noticeable increase occurred in the post-test’s means scores in favor of the experimental group with relation to their four critical reading sub-skills. 5. discussion this study asked to what extent a go-based instructional program would have on the critical reading skills of male efl freshmen students at al-jouf college of technology. the scope of the discussion covered students’ achievements in the four critical reading sub-skills (i.e., analysis, problem-solving, evaluation, and summarization). the findings demonstrated that statistically significant differences (at = 0.05) can be attributed to what teaching method is implemented in the classroom, with the results favoring the experimental group as opposed to the control group. this is in line with the conclusions made by the vast majority of the literature. the use of gos as a means of instruction increases reading comprehension scores in general, let alone critical reading scores in particular. for instance, khodadady (2011) and alyaseen (2016) examined whether specific gos, such as concept mapping and kwl charts, could positively affect critical reading scores specifically, finding that they did. with the present study, on the other hand, one can conclude, based on the evidence, that gos in general increase critical reading skills and not only the gos evaluated specifically by khodadady and alyaseen. based on the statistical results of the questions of this study, it seems that the effect that the instructional program had on go strategies on saudi efl students’ critical reading skills successfully increased the students’ achievement on their critical reading skills post-test. one possible contributor to the superiority of the go group was that the instructional program of the current study was purposefully designed and cautiously applied in a classroom setting for the purpose of further developing one of the four main skills in the field of efl: i.e., the reading skill. the instructional program also includes a variety of gos (e.g., concept mapping, venn diagram, fishbone diagram, kwl chart, and circle mapping)—all of which were carefully applied during reading lessons in order to motivate and encourage students to think critically. these gos were presented in an easy and organized way, thereby making their applications meaningful and systematic inside the classroom setting. it was in this regard that fly, jean, and hunter (1988) stated that gos can be effective and maximize students’ reading comprehension as long as they are applied properly and systematically inside the classroom setting by efl teachers. the researcher also took the individual differences of the students into consideration when applying this instructional program. individual, pair, and group work were all implemented for the purpose of meeting students’ interests and needs. for example, in the first lesson (i.e., concept mapping organizer), the students were first asked to read the passage individually and highlight the factual and opinion sentences. then, they were asked to work in pairs to check and discuss their answers. after that, they extended their discussions and answers in groups. finally, they were asked to compare their answers with other groups in the classroom. such procedures motivated the students to read and think both effectively and critically during the process of reading. 54 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 in the beginning, it seemed that the students were not familiar with gos and that they did not know how to use them whilst reading. once they listened to the instructions given to them as to how they were to best utilize the gos, they were able to comprehend their implementation inside the classroom. eventually, the students realized the importance and significance of using gos in teaching reading skills, thereby enabling them to organize their thoughts and think critically. this claim mirrors what sam and rajan (2013) mentioned in their study about how gos in the language classroom can help learners develop their reading comprehension skills, as well as developing their critical thinking skills so that they may better understand and construct meaning from the passages given them by dividing them into smaller, more understandable sentences. they can also serve as visual representations of ideas and thoughts by helping learners apply their thinking skills in an organized manner (miller, 2011). it can also be seen that the gos created more relaxing learning environment. this means that the instructional program also increased the interaction between the teacher and his students. it motivates the students to participate as much as they can without worrying of committing mistakes which made them to work collaboratively on each reading task. hence, this could be another positive factor which made the experimental group outperformed the control group. another possible explanation for the outperformance of the gos group relates to the implementation of the instructional program in facilitating the learning process of the students’ reading skills and interacting meaningfully with the context. this explanation is in line with the previous studies such as, jiang and grabe (2007), hall and strangman (2002), and miller (2011) have employed gos to facilitate reading comprehension and make the students to interact meaningfully and active with the text during the esl reading process. another privilege for the students in the experimental group may be the characteristic features of some gos such as, concept mapping, venn diagram, and circle map. one of these features enables the readers to visualize the reading text explicitly (toha, 2013). thus, these gos might help the readers to comprehend and understand the components of the text more deeply. moreover, cleveland (2014) stated that gos could have a significant effect on enhancing the students’ critical thinking skills (e.g., evaluating, analyzing, synthesizing … etc.). to illustrate, as found in the present study, the students started to show a significant improvement in their critical thinking skills during the training program. the participants of the study were able to differentiate between the facts and opinions, identify the main and the supporting ideas from the reading texts. they also were able to state their opinions and view openly by making judgment on what they read. thus, this revealed that gos not only improved the learners’ higher critical thinking skills, but also their confidence when expressing their opinions and what they think about they read. although the experimental group was not given any kind of questionnaire asking their attitudes towards the instructional program, the researcher who was the instructor observed that the students had positive attitude towards efl reading skill. they started to gain more confidence while reading and get more 55 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 motivated to participate. they also know to identify the main and the supporting ideas of the reading text, and summarize the important ideas and put them in an organized manner. such observations are in line with the results of previous studies such as (chiang, 2005; mede, 2010; ozturk, 2012). it is worth mentioning that implementing gos inside the classroom was not the only thing which created a positive learning environment, but also the fact that the researcher incorporated the use of collaborative work, authentic learning materials, data shows, visualizers and smart boards. the researcher also tried to reduce his teacher talk time during his reading lessons, focusing instead on increasing student talk time in order to give students more opportunities to critically discuss the passages together. these could be other possible factors which made the experimental group outperform the control group. consequently, the results of this study are in line with some views of related lieterature and researcher findings concerning the effect of gos on efl reading comprehension skills. for example, chiang (2005), miranda (2011), ozturk (2012), biria and sharifi (2013), and sam and rajan (2013) concluded that the use of gos in teaching reading comprehension had a positive effect on their experimental group, thereby enabling them to differentiate between facts and opinions, as well as to identify the main and supporting ideas from the reading passage given them. mahmood, nikoo and bonyadi (2013) also proved that the role of gos played a significant role in developing iranian efl learners’ reading comprehension abilities. indeed, purwaningsih (2013), toha (2013), humber (201), almaahi (2015), putrani (2016), yusuf and dzulkafly (2017), and fraihat (2018) also recently reported that gos had significantly contributed to the improvement of efl students’ reading comprehension skills. moreover, the findings of the following studies (i.e., mro, 2004; el-maleh, 2006; aloqaili, 2007; belet & dal, 2010; khodaday, 2011; fahim, barjesteh, & vaseghi, 2012; abdulrasoul, 2014; al-husband, 2017; al-shabatat, 2017; alqatanani, 2017) showed a positive effect on the critical reading skills by utilizing different reading strategies. therefore, based on these findings, critical reading skills could be positively affected by using proper gos. 6. conclusion in the past, several studies were conducted with regards to how the use of gos in the elt classroom contributes to the performance of students on tests which assess their reading comprehension skills. in general, they find that gos improve reading comprehension skills and they strongly encourage their use. there have also been a number of studies which examine how different teaching methodologies may enhance critical reading skills in particular. at least three of those studies evaluated how particular gos affect the critical reading skills of students. recognizing these trends in the literature, the researcher wished to test whether these conclusions could be generalizable to a number of different gos vis-à-vis the examination of just one go in particular. thus, the researcher tested that hypothesis by developing a study which would evaluate to what extent gos in general affected saudi students’ performance on a critical reading skills test. in order to accomplish that goal, the researcher developed 56 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 the present study. this study’s sample consisted of 43 freshmen male saudi students, all of whom attended the college of technology of al-jouf. the sample was divided into a control and an experimental group, with 22 being assigned to the former and 21 being assigned to the latter. whereas the control group was taught in the more traditional manner (i.e., based on the teacher’s book of the assigned textbook), the experimental group was treated with an instructional program which centered around graphic organizers (specifically, circle map, concept mapping, fishbone diagram, kwl chart, and venn diagram). the study lasted for eight weeks and was evaluated using a pre-validated tool (i.e., preand post-tests developed for the purpose of evaluating critical reading skills). the discussed results of the current study showed that using gos contributed significantly to the development of the critical reading skills of efl saudi students as compared to the more conventional methodologies as prescribed in teacher’s books. thus, the researcher believes that applying gos properly while inside the classroom had a positive effect on improving efl students’ performance on the critical reading skills post-test. 7. recommendations of the study based on the findings of the study, the researcher presented a number of recommendations that should be taken into consideration: 1) researchers are recommended to conduct other studies to investigate the effect of go strategies on developing other language skills over a longer period of time across a wider population of efl students in saudi arabia and to compare their findings with the findings of the current study. 2) a similar study should be conducted to investigate the effect of go strategies on the critical reading skills demonstrated by others with different levels of english attainment in other parts of the kingdom of saudi arabia. 3) the current study has dealt with a sample of saudi male students and proved that gos developed students’ levels of critical reading skills. future research, however, needs to investigate the effect of such strategies on the teaching of female students in saudi arabia. 4) efl teachers should not adhere 100% to their english textbooks whilst teaching their reading lessons. they should instead make use of other learning resources, such as gos, so as to develop efl students’ reading skills. 57 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 references abd kadir, n., subki, r. n., jamal, f., & ismail, j. 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(2017). facilitating reading comprehension among esl learners using graphic organizers. malaysian journal of elt research, 13(1), 30-42. السلیتي،المراجع العربیة ). أثر2012فؤاد. ( مقدادي، ; فراس مستوى نتحس في الوظیفي المدخل على قائم تعلیمي برنامج مھارات جامعة مجلة .االردن في االساسي التاسع الصف طالب لدى الناقدة القراءة . 2006 -1979)، 9(26, لالبحاث النجاح ). أثر استراتیجیة الجدول الذاتي (2016الیاسین، أمین. ( k.w.l في تدریس نصوص القراءة على تحسین مھارات ا لقراءت ( لدى طالبات الصف الثامن األساسي في األردن. رسالة ماجستیر غیر منشورة. جامعة الیرموك، اربد، الناقدة والكتابة اإلبداعیة االردن. 63 published by scholink inc. original paper investigating the critical reading skills for saudi efl learners through graphic organizers instructional program microsoft word fet-v2n1-p17 frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 17 original paper a comparative analysis of 21st century schools in the united states of america and the people’s republic of china cheryl james-ward1*, lawrence xu ke2, olympia kyriakidis3, james marshall1 & michelle harkrider2 1 department of educational leadership, san diego state university, san diego, usa 2 e3 civic high school, san diego, usa 3 san diego county office of education, san diego, usa * cheryl james-ward, department of educational leadership, san diego state university, san diego, usa received: december 12, 2018 accepted: january 4, 2019 online published: january 8, 2019 doi:10.22158/fet.v2n1p17 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v2n1p17 abstract this study investigated schools in the two largest global economies, the united states and the people’s republic of china, in order to understand how both educational systems are preparing students to thrive in the global workplace. the study 1) delineates skill sets needed for success in the new economy, 2) identifies and reports on the instructional findings within seven schools in china and seven schools in the united states that describe themselves as preparing students for the 21st century workplace, 3) compares findings between schools studied in both countries, and 4) ends with suggestions for policymakers and school systems wishing to improve student preparedness for the global workplace. keywords four cs, 21st century schools, china, united states 1. introduction in the 21st century, students must be prepared for a constantly changing world and trained to work in environments different from those of past decades. jobs that can be outsourced to cheaper labor markets and those that can be automated inevitably are. with the exception of engineers and similarly specialized technical workers, college graduates often find themselves in low wage jobs for which they are overqualified because their training does not align to today’s job needs. our schools have not made the leap from a model of factory assembly lines with days divided up into strictly scheduled periods and conceptualizing knowledge as content that simply needs to be slotted in by teachers to one designed for the 21st century global work force. on the other hand, the message from leaders of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 18 published by scholink inc. multi-conglomerate corporations is clear: we need students who are creative, who can address complex problems, who are able and willing to collaborate in transparent and supportive environments, and who can communicate effectively and efficiently with audiences near and far. tony wagner (2008) reports that business leaders rate critical thinking and problem solving number one and two as the necessary skills for the 21st century. yet, u.s. students are significantly lacking in these areas, so much so that the united states issued up to 180,000 h-1b visas in 2014 for foreign workers, compared to 85,000 in 2013. the h-1b program allows employers to temporarily hire workers for up to six years in specialty occupations such as science, math, medicine, engineering, and technology (national science foundation, 2014; wides-munoz & wiseman, 2014). to address this educational crisis in the united states, the partnership for 21st century skills (partnership for 21st century learning, 2015), was developed by a consortium of international conglomerates such as apple, microsoft corporation, intel corporation, the walt disney company and various educational foundations. a primary focus of the partnership is to spotlight the core skill sets for the new economy, commonly referred to as the 4cs: critical thinking, creativity, collaboration and communication skills, and to provide educational systems with a structure designed to develop these skills in students across all grade levels. the purpose of this study was to investigate schools in the two largest global economies—the united states and the people’s republic of china—to understand how both educational systems are preparing students to thrive in the global workplace, using the lens of the 4cs. the study focused on fourteen schools; seven in the western region of the united states and seven scattered across china. the study 1) delineates skill sets needed for success in the new economy, 2) identifies and reports on instructional findings from schools in both china and the united states that describe themselves as preparing students for the 21st century workplace, and 3) compares findings between the schools studied in both countries. the paper begins with a review of the 4cs, followed by a discussion of the methodology. next the findings and schools in both countries are described. a comparison between the findings for both countries is provided, and finally recommendations for both systems are given. 1.1 the 4cs: critical thinking, creativity, collaboration and communication according to the national survey of business and nonprofit leaders (hart research associates, 2013), more than seventy-five percent of employers say they want colleges to place more emphasis on helping students develop five key learning outcomes. specifically: critical thinking, complex problem solving, written communication, oral communication, and applied knowledge in real-world settings. in another study conducted by the american management association (2010), the 2010 critical skills survey was administered to 2,115 company executives across the united states. the executives overwhelmingly note that the 4cs will become even more important to their organizations in the future and as businesses grow globally. eighty percent of the executives surveyed believe that combining a strong core curriculum with the 21st century skills of communication, collaboration, creativity, and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 19 published by scholink inc. critical thinking would better prepare students to enter the workforce. hence, in the 21st century, the “three rs” simply aren’t enough; though they may be necessary, they are not sufficient. if students want to compete in the global society, they must also be proficient critical thinkers, communicators, creators, and collaborators. 1.1.1 critical thinking in creating innovators: the making of young people who will change the world, wagner (2014) refers to critical thinking as the first survival skill in a global economy. critical thinking includes several component skills: knowing the difference between facts, opinions, and assertions, making and analyzing arguments based on sound evidence, making inferences using inductive or deductive reasoning, judging or evaluating, and making decisions or solving problems (aasl, 2007; jerald, 2009; partnership for 21st century learning, 2015). it involves both cognitive skills and dispositions. these dispositions, which can be seen as attitudes or habits of mind, include openand fair-mindedness, inquisitiveness, flexibility, questioning, humility, a desire to be well-informed, and finally a respect for and willingness to entertain diverse viewpoints (jerald, 2009; lai, 2011). critical thinking requires the discipline of mind needed to constantly think about one’s thinking in a context that reserves judgment and is open to the evolution of one’s beliefs. 1.1.2 creativity creative thinking involves creating something new or original, morphing or modifying something old, or presenting a fresh new spin on existing ideas. it involves many skills, such as flexibility, originality, fluency, elaboration, brainstorming, visual and associative thinking, attribute listing, and metaphorical thinking. creative thinking involves combining things in new ways, observing what others might miss, using unusual or unconventional imagery and ideas that work to make an interesting and engaging point or product (brookhart, 2010). people often think of creativity as a talent possessed by only a handful of artistic geniuses (robinson, 2011). however, drapeau (2014) asserts that creativity can be taught with purpose, just as we teach students how to create metaphors or how to write. moreover, jerald (2009), in referring to a study from the university of california involving a large sample of creative innovators, states that innovators become more successful in creating products by sheer number of outputs. that is, the more times they produce something creative, the more creative they become. thus, creativity is a skill-set that can be developed through practice and experience. the new skills commission (2006) considered the topic of creativity so important that it conducted an analysis of the topic. the review states that “creativity requires both deep knowledge and technical expertise within one area and very broad knowledge of many, apparently unrelated, areas. it [creativity] deepens the ability to combine disparate elements in new ways that are appropriate for the task or challenge at hand” (p. 30). these skills can be taught through explicit instruction, teaching creative strategies, and providing opportunities to produce creative products (drapeau, 2014). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 20 published by scholink inc. creativity and innovation tend to be fostered in learning environments that value curiosity, brainstorming, patience, trust, and risk-taking (trilling & fadel, 2009; dustin, bharat, & jitendra, 2014). creativity is influenced by uncertainty, surprise, challenge, and disequilibrium. all factors that are prevalent in today’s world. 1.1.3 communication the partnership for 21st century learning (p21) framework (2015) defines communication as a skill requiring the ability to articulate thoughts and ideas effectively using oral, written, and nonverbal communication skills in a variety of forms and contexts. this is in addition to the ability to listen effectively in order to decipher meaning, which includes knowledge, values, attitudes, and intentions. oral and written communication is one of the key survival skills identified by wagner (2008). a study by casner-lotto and barrington (2006) confirms wagner’s beliefs. in this study jointly commissioned by p21, the conference board, corporate voices for working people, and the society for human resources management, employers were queried about the skills high school graduates need to succeed in their organizations. more than half said that written communication was very important for high school graduates’ successful job performance, but eighty-one percent identified us high school students as deficient in written communication. for success in the 21st century, students must be able to communicate effectively, a skill-set that also includes speaking and writing in world languages other than english (darling-hammond, 2010). global teams, now common in business, make linguistic and cultural communication an essential skill (national education association, 2010). communication, whether oral or written, requires focus, passion, and energy. economists levy and murnane (2004) suggest that effective and empathetic communication is an essential skill for the future workplace because it cannot effectively be automated. for communication to be effective, it must be clear, concise, concrete, correct, coherent, complete, courteous, and respectful (mind tools, 2015). 1.1.4 collaboration collaboration is defined as the ability to use knowledge and information skills to engage in public conversations and debate around issues of common concern (fisher & frey, 2010). it is the ability to collaborate with others in order to broaden and deepen individual and collective understanding, exchange ideas, develop new ideas and understandings, make decisions, and solve problems. marzano and heflebower (2012) believe that understanding and interacting with others are essential for 21st century learning. they describe three essential skills for effective collaboration: perspective taking, or the ability to view things from a lens other than one’s own, responsible communication, and thoughtful conflict and controversy. the research and perspectives presented here summarize the skills outlined above, emphasize their benefits to learning, and consider their relevance to workplace performance. yet the integration of these skills into curricula in substantial and meaningful ways has not been fully realized or implemented in schools around the world. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 21 published by scholink inc. 2. method this two-year multiple-site descriptive case study investigated fourteen schools in the largest global economies, the united states and the people’s republic of china, in order to understand how both educational systems are preparing students to thrive in the global workplace, particularly pertaining to the engagement of students in critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, and communication. classroom observations were conducted at fourteen school sites; seven in the united states and seven in china. semi-structured interviews were conducted with the leadership teams on all fourteen campuses. informal interviews were conducted with teachers both individually and in small groups. additionally, the researchers collected artifacts from each school describing the school’s mission, intended outcomes, demographics, and student achievement. yin (2003) asserts that “case studies are the preferred strategy when ‘how’ or ‘why’ questions are being posed, when the investigator has little control over events, and when the focus is on a contemporary phenomenon within some real-life context” (p. 1). the researchers wanted to know how teachers taught, what type of instructional strategies they used and how teachers engaged students around the 4cs. in order to find answers to these questions, the researchers had to spend time in live classrooms and schools observing teachers and their instruction, walking the campus, gathering artifacts, and observing the day-to-day lives of staff and students. two american researchers, one a native mandarin speaker, visited 16 chinese schools over the course of two years. the observations from all 16 chinese schools were beneficial in understanding the depth of collaboration amongst educators in these chinese schools, which are referenced in the conclusion. however, the study focused more specifically on seven schools in three chinese provinces. researchers observed classroom instruction in these seven schools over the span of nine consecutive days. it was the intent of the researchers to observe grades one through twelve in both government run and private schools that self-reported as 21st century learning environments, or as actively working to become so; it was on this basis that these seven schools were chosen for in-depth observation. seven schools were also observed in the united states. the observation of these schools was conducted over a period of one year and in many schools over two days of visits; one for interviews (both formal and informal) and another for classroom observations. the same protocol tool (see table 1 for condensed observation protocol) was used for observations and interviews conducted in both countries. at all sites, principals were interviewed, in some cases alongside their leadership teams. classroom teachers were interviewed informally as researchers encountered collaborative teams engaged in planning, reviewing data, and/or sharing ideas. selection of schools was facilitated either through personal relationships with administrators at the individual schools or connections with school district personnel. schools in both countries were selected based on the ability of the researcher to observe and conduct research, in addition to the self-reporting by principals and provincial leaders affirming that these schools were progressive, with a stated focus on 21st century skills. schools observed in the people’s republic of china are described in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 22 published by scholink inc. table 3: description of chinese schools. schools observed in the united states are described in table 4: description of united states schools. for the purposes of this study, the researchers intentionally identified and included elementary, middle, and high schools, as well as public, private and experimental/charter schools. at each site, a subset of the classrooms was observed within a single school day. the researchers spent an average of seven hours on each campus observing instruction and documenting observations using a protocol tool developed in order to identify and rate the implementation of 21st century skills, specifically: (1) critical thinking and problem solving, (2) creativity and innovation, (3) communication, and (4) collaboration. observations were made in 38 classrooms across 55 categories of student practices/skills, each of which represented an aspect of one of the 4cs (see table 1). each category was assessed using a five-point continuum that ranged from a low point of not observed, to a high point of advanced/innovative. as categories of the 4cs were observed, they were documented on the appropriate level of the protocol. the protocol also included 11 principal/leadership team interview questions. the protocol for this research was developed with reference to the partnership for 21st century learning framework (2009) and the american association of school librarians (2007). each visit included an interview with the principal and/or the members of his/her leadership team, and (in one case) all members of the leadership team minus the principal. interviews lasted from forty-five minutes to two hours. the researchers also visited and observed teachers in the teacher workrooms (since teachers in china do not have classrooms, but share a common workspace instead), and collected school brochures, mission statements, and master schedules. data from the observation protocols, interviews, workroom observations, and archival documents from each site were compiled using excel tables, and then analyzed to determine the level of 4cs implementation. data were then compared by school level and by country. 3. results in this section, we present and discuss findings from the data analysis. the presentation is organized into the following three sections: (1) an analysis of 21st century educational practices and environments at seven chinese schools, (2) an analysis of 21st century educational practices and environments at seven united states schools, and (3) a comparison of schools in the people’s republic of china and schools in the united states. table 2 presents definitions of key terms used in the analysis and discussion that follows. 3.1 an analysis of 21st century educational practices and environments at seven chinese schools in china, the researchers visited the following types of schools, including:  three international high schools (all of which were part of first through twelfth-grade shared campuses). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 23 published by scholink inc.  one government run category 1, seventh through twelfth-grade language academy with residential students (high schools in china are given a ranking 1-4, with 1 being the highest rating, based upon student performance on the college entrance exam, the gaokao).  one government run, category 1 comprehensive high school with residential students.  one experimental middle school (run by the local municipal government).  one primary school. 3.1.1 synthesis of findings for the chinese schools the researchers visited three independent schools in china. one was connected to a prominent chinese university, one was an international independent school created for expatriates holding foreign passports, and a third for chinese nationals from rural communities seeking a better education. each was unique, however the observations at these sites mostly focused on the high schools. the study also included one government-run high school. this school was traditional in all aspects, being located in a populated area, occupying less than 10 acres of premium land, with 5-story buildings and one multi-use field. the single grade 7-12 school examined was specialized in language. here, students were given two periods of foreign language instruction daily, encouraged to participate in language contests, and taught by both chinese and western language teachers. the single middle school visited was traditional in all aspects, in a densely populated area occupying about seven acres of premium space and surrounded by multi-story apartment buildings. test scores here had gone from some of the lowest in the province to the highest of all middle schools in just three years. teachers at this school embraced the notion of shared professional learning communities (plcs) and a collaborative spirit. the researchers observed that there were many teachers who were themselves observing one another’s classrooms. additionally, a system had been established for feedback to be shared with colleagues as well as with the lead instructional specialist who supported all teachers and led the professional development efforts at the school. it was at this site that the researchers observed the greatest use of the 4cs. finally, the single elementary school visited bustled with life and was again located in a densely populated area. this school occupied about five acres of land, and was open to teachers twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. this school’s focus or branding (as it is referred to in china) was on calligraphy. to this end, teachers were encouraged to use the school’s calligraphy room and practice their calligraphy skills whenever possible. this elementary school was unique in that it had a preschool program on the campus and focused on calligraphy in addition to the mandated national curriculum. 3.1.2 physical learning environment there were several commonalities across five of the seven chinese schools. the physical structure of the classrooms in these five schools was very similar: four to five story buildings, with windows down the length of the rooms, and a raised platform in the front of the space, generally equipped with wiring for electronics, a projector, and a whiteboard, chalkboard, or smart board on the front wall. there was www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 24 published by scholink inc. little room for display of student work or instructional support materials. student desks were piled high with textbooks and workbooks, and students sat in straight rows facing the front platform. the two international schools had room arrangements that were quite different. here the environments were much more relaxed. student desk formation took on a number of different arrangements, the campuses were much larger, and there was more interaction between teachers and students as well as among students. the international independent school offered the greatest flexibility with regards to structure, as well as the most aesthetically pleasing campus, which included manmade ponds, a general gathering area that resembled an upscale hotel lobby, cafes, an atrium style main building with books lining the walls on the second floor, and a school library on display where students borrowed and returned books at will. there were no desks in classrooms; instead, we observed tables that students sat around on ergonomically structured chairs, as opposed to the hard wooden seats found in the other chinese schools. this was also the largest campus, sitting on 23 acres shared with the middle and elementary campuses, and housing an olympic size swimming pool, a track and field, a state of the art culinary kitchen designed for teaching purposes, and three music production studios. 3.1.3 the 4cs during the interviews, principals from all schools expressed a focus on student needs for the 21st century, specifically in the areas of character development, critical thinking, and global contribution. the principal at the independent international school located in beijing, in particular, expounded her beliefs about 21st century skills and her descriptions were closely aligned with the implemented instruction and instructional strategies employed by the school’s faculty. her articulated vision for students included creating critical thinkers who viewed themselves as part of the global society, their participation as global citizens being just as important as their individual accomplishments. her vision included citizens who worked toward making the world a better place by being conscious contributors to the wellness of their global neighbors. she believed that technology should be used as a tool to advance and enhance one’s learning. according to the principal, students no longer needed to spend enormous amounts of time memorizing information, because it lies at their fingertips. rather, they should use their time to learn how to be critical thinkers and employ information media to assist in this endeavor. at this independent international school, the researchers found that the 4cs—critical thinking and problem solving, creativity and innovation, collaboration, and communication—were seamlessly infused at high levels across the grades within a curriculum steeped in global foci. integration of the 4cs into instruction appeared to simply be a “way of being” in this school as was noted by the principal. teachers engaged students through in-depth learner-directed research, presentations and dialog about findings, inquiry-based teaching, and an academic theme around the global landscape. in an economics class observed by researchers, the topics were global in scale; the economic structures and philosophies of different countries and references to multiple countries were continuous throughout the instruction and discussion. students in an observed english class were presenting on the effects of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 25 published by scholink inc. fast food in both china and other parts of the world. similarly, an observed discussion in a science class was centered on the impact of bacteria in water sources around the world. it should also be noted that this was the only school in which the researchers were free to wander around and select classes to enter without escorts or advanced notice. the other international school in beijing shared a global focus. students in the elementary grades explored global perspectives in particular parts of the world as indicated by an enormous global map in the main hall with pushpins on different parts of the world. furthermore, this theme was present in all classrooms as evidenced by posted student reports, charts, and other work focused on a variety of countries and cultures. in grades 9-12, we found more traditional instruction that substantiated the leadership’s stated challenge of providing students with more opportunities to engage in rigorous discourse through the 4cs. teachers felt the need to also focus on the gaokao and the rote memorization needed to pass this highly regarded national exam. nevertheless, there were some creative courses, such as a math class focused on poker and other card games in which students were creating mathematical models. in this class, we found high use of all 4cs, yet only eight students were enrolled in this course. in another class, the discussion addressed how specific meals were created in different parts of the world using indigenous ingredients. this classroom setting was conference-style, with students sitting around a large table and engaging in open dialogue with peers and student presenters. although the instruction in the other schools included some evidence of use of the 4cs, sometimes in very creative ways (for example in the making of a chinese character by dancing and mimicking physical body movement), the evidence was minimal and their implementation seemed to be constrained, boxed in by traditional instructional methods and classroom environments. the engagement of students in classroom discussions and collaboration appeared to be a focus in the elementary and middle grades, but was almost entirely absent from high schools observed outside of beijing. 3.2 an analysis of 21st century educational practices and environments at seven united states schools in the united states, the researchers observed the following seven schools:  two public charter high schools, run by separate organizations and school boards.  two middle schools, one charter and one indep endent.  a public kindergarten through fifth grade elementary school, which was part of a very large urban district.  a public language immersion kindergarten through fifth grade elementary school which was opened to and attracted families from across a county-wide area.  a private independent kindergarten through eighth grade school for the gifted. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 26 published by scholink inc. 3.2.1 synthesis of findings for the united states schools each of the seven observed united states schools had eschewed more traditional curricula and pedagogical practices. at the two public high schools, advanced placement courses were eliminated to provide (as one director stated) “opportunities for project-based learning, presentations, and feedback believed to be more relevant to nurturing and growing creativity and critical thinking.” all three of the elementary schools created their own curricula and trained teachers in nontraditional instructional strategies. two used design thinking and the other inquiry-based instruction. the two middle schools also did not subscribe to the traditional curricula or instructional approaches. the charter school was project-driven, and the independent school was inquiry-based. teachers in all of these schools received ongoing formal training. both public charter high schools evidenced use of the 4cs across the curriculum and the grade spans. they each embraced project-based learning and nontraditional use of space both inside and outside of the classroom walls. both also provided extended time each day (up to 80 minutes, as opposed to the traditional 45-60 minutes) for planning and collaboration. both schools had a structure that called for teacher collaboration during the school day and—in more formal settings—on minimum days after student dismissal. the philosophies and expectations at the two middle schools were very different. at the chartered middle school, teachers were expected to collaborate to design lessons and project-based learning activities. moreover, there was time designated twice each week for such collaboration. at the private middle school, teachers worked more independently, but held more advanced degrees, were sent to conferences and trainings around the world, and were expected to use knowledge gleaned from these trainings to continuously improve classroom instruction. both schools evidenced very high use of the 4cs (see figures 1-4). of the three elementary schools observed, one was a public k-5 grade school that was part of a very large urban district, and another was a public language immersion k-5 grade elementary school that was opened to, and attracted, families from across the county within which it was situated. at the language immersion school, children could choose either the spanish track with mandarin enrichment or the mandarin track with spanish enrichment. the third elementary school was a private independent k-8 grade school for the gifted that sat on seven acres of land. all three of these schools evidenced high use of the 4cs by students through both instruction and student activities. the two public elementary school principals had created a professional learning community (plc) structure and time for teachers to formally collaborate in addition to that offered by their districts. at the language immersion school, this was two hours weekly and funded through one time, three-year federal grants. at the other public elementary school, teachers were released for a full day of collaboration and planning every four to six weeks, and funded through federal program dollars that were determined by the number of students on free and reduced lunch. the independent private school provided one full month of training for every teacher new to the school within his or her first three www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 27 published by scholink inc. years. no other additional mandated formal planning time was provided, but teachers were encouraged and expected to collaborate as needed. grade level teams had common release time and were observed by the researchers collaborating in the library and other non-pupil workspaces around the campus. according to the school director, this was the norm. 3.2.1.1 physical learning environments both high schools occupied premium land, one with no outdoor space to call its own, but fully making use of all public outdoor spaces in the downtown community in which it sat; and the other with minimal space. the indoor spaces in both schools included common areas with sofas and chairs for students to meet in relaxed environments. one of the schools had an area called “the park” that occupied about 3000 square feet of space. this common indoor area was used for large gatherings, presentations, assemblies, and parent meetings. there were also two areas designated as “think tanks” for groups of students to use for planning or project preparation. classrooms in this school were built in quads with shared common areas in the center of the spaces. each of these common areas was equipped with armchairs, side tables, and comfortable benches to encourage creative discussion. of the middle schools, one was a private independent middle school sitting on 11 acres of land shared with its independent high school. the other was a public chartered middle school that also shared land with a partnering high school. all sites shared a similar philosophy regarding flexible and dynamic classroom space. in all schools, we observed that the traditional individual student desks were absent. instead, every classroom had tables, usually accommodating groups of four with chairs on rollers or casters for ease of classroom reorganization. two schools had moveable classroom walls used to increase or decrease the classroom space. one had a 3,000 square foot dedicated “design thinking lab” and another included an engineering room. both were key places where students created and redesigned numerous prototypes, in addition to evolving their projects as needed. one high school had a dedicated audiovisual studio, a high-end professional kitchen for student use, and apple® tv workstations in common quad spaces in addition to “think labs” in order to, as the director described, “encourage innovation”. an elementary school principal shared her plan for creating a design-thinking lab with a large video conferencing television so that students could collaborate with sister schools in china. classrooms in two of the three elementary schools were equipped with smartboards used as much by students as their teachers. 3.2.1.2 use of technology common themes across all united states schools included a purposeful break from longstanding educational paradigms and the building of new ones, choosing not to implement state and local district curricula, employing nontraditional instructional strategies, and integration of technology into daily teaching and learning. in five of the seven schools, there was a one-to-one laptop policy. in these schools, every child had their own laptop, in most instances provided by the school, and this was considered the norm. laptops were seen as standard learning tools, and described by one school director as being “used to access real-time information accurately, analytically, and to quickly do www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 28 published by scholink inc. something else with.” every u.s. principal noted the importance of technology as a tool that students needed to ensure access to, and readiness for, the global world. the director of the independent elementary school shared her concern for schools and students that do not readily have access to technology noting that the technology divide would only exacerbate the achievement and socioeconomic gaps. all seven schools incorporated a variety of technology tools for students to use to further their independent academic progress, as well as for research and presentation. students at every site were explicitly taught how to use various software programs. all seven schools shared the philosophy that technology was an important tool, which helped students develop deeper understandings, effectively facilitated individualized student instruction through differentiated levels and programs, and provided students the means to research, design, create, and share their learning. one principal stated that technology was not the focus of their activities but a means to research and present. this reflects fisher and frey’s (2010) observation regarding the importance of students understanding the collaborative, cooperative, and communicative purposes that underlie the use of technology and its importance in preparing them to be 21st century learners who can adapt to new technologies. all of the united states schools broke away from conventional teaching and instructional approaches, instead utilizing design thinking project-based learning, and/or inquiry-based instruction. in all cases, the 21st century learning environment was about preparing students to solve problems, ask “so what” questions, and collaborate with peers and people from all walks of life. at the secondary level, empathy and working with others from around the world was also a central theme. financial capital and time in the schedule for professional learning communities were significant issues for the two public elementary schools. yet, they found creative ways to make it happen. both complained about the difficulty of fighting their districts for needed resources. they also discussed the issue of creating their own curricula, which they believed was necessary. these issues led to friction with both districts, which were looking for more uniformity. 3.3 comparison of schools in the people’s republic of china and schools in the united states with the exception of the two independent schools in beijing, the observed chinese schools generally taught using direct instruction and a focus on core content. the united states schools also used direct instruction, but overlaid this with other approaches to learning and teaching. this included design thinking, project-based learning, and inquiry. here, students were required to be more engaged by the nature of the instructional strategies and to rely more upon the 4cs—critical thinking and problem solving, creativity and innovation, collaboration and communication—as a result of these pedagogical approaches. 3.3.1 use of the 4cs trilling and fadel (2009) view 21st century learning as a continuum with core content and some traditional practices such as memorizing mathematical facts and principles on one end, with essential 21st century skills and tools on the other. striking a balance between the two ends of the continuum is www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 29 published by scholink inc. important for a complete education. all schools in the united states discussed the importance of balancing varying degrees of direct, explicit, and targeted instruction with inquiry-centered, design thinking and/or project-based approaches to ensure there were no gaps in what they wanted students to know and be able to do. the leadership team at the independent elementary school stated that the content and skills embedded in projects needed to fit naturally, and not be forced. her team noted the skills and content needed to emerge authentically, and some skills were so foundational, especially in the primary grades, that they required explicit instruction and practice. according to this leadership team, “there is less of this more traditional instruction as the students matriculate up the grades, however, math in particular is difficult to sometimes fit authentically into the projects.” this was found to be the opposite in the chinese schools where the opportunities for students to collaborate were most prevalent at the lower grades, and the more traditional approach to teaching became the standard as students matriculated up the grades. figures 1-4 delineate the observational findings of the 4cs in all 14 schools. although there were 55 possible categories of student practices/skills that could have been observed, the findings in figures 14 have been condensed to the four major (4cs) categories with the total percentage of observations in each implementation category indicated. although the data from the chinese schools reflected minimal use of the 4cs by students, the researchers did observe the use of the 4cs by the teaching staff, both in the study schools and others observed throughout the country. teachers worked together and collaborated on a regular basis in their workrooms. moreover, teachers had no classrooms to call their own, so planning had to be done in the workroom. sharing ideas and collaboratively creating and analyzing lessons was the norm. observing each other and providing critical yet friendly feedback was expected. collaboratively creating lessons in new formats was also the norm, with teachers volunteering to teach lessons in new ways while being observed by peers, then reconvening for feedback and possibly re-teaching until lessons were “perfected”. the camaraderie, trust, and ability to create as a team were evident. along with workrooms, some chinese schools had teacher cafes with sitting areas and beverages available for staff, providing yet another venue to encourage discussion and the sharing of ideas. the researchers observed that although the chinese lessons did not incorporate the 4cs nearly to the level of their u.s. counterparts, the lessons were well thought through and polished. 3.3.2 impact on academic performance in many cases, chinese students outperform u.s. students on international assessments such as the timss (national center for education statistics, 2013); hence, the question that remains in the researchers’ minds is exactly how is that accomplished, given the low level of 4cs employed by chinese students. the answer to this question is complex ranging from the alignment of international assessments themselves to 21st century skill sets to a number of other factors and nuances; physical classroom environment and instructional strategies may merely scratch the surface of the contributing influences. teacher collaboration, communication, collective problem solving, and use of creativity in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 30 published by scholink inc. lesson planning may also be factors. additionally, the structure of a chinese teacher’s work-day is notably different to those in the us. in china, teachers may teach up to 3.5 hours a day, but no more. hence they have more time in the workday for planning, practicing lessons, observing colleagues, giving and receiving feedback on lessons and student outcomes. from grades two through eleven, the number of lessons teachers need to prepare each day, albeit repeated with different students, is one to two. hence, the researchers noted that although chinese lessons may not be rich with the 4cs, they are generally well planned and delivered in an open classroom model (that is, one in which colleagues are free to observe at any time without notice). the other phenomenon observed was the widespread and consistent belief by the chinese populace that the 21st century belongs to the people’s republic of china. for example, during one morning assembly, the researchers observed the school’s administrator reminding the children that, “the 19th century belonged to the united kingdom, the 20th century to the united states, and the 21st century to the people’s republic of china.” this expectation in and of itself may also provide incentive for students to perform well. 3.3.3 surprises the findings from this study challenged the researchers’ initial assumptions. it was hypothesized that to prepare students for the 21st century, instruction must include avenues for students to learn in authentic ways and engage in activities that promote the 4cs. although the researchers still support this claim, the study’s findings further support other significant factors such as how teachers plan for student lessons and the amount of time teachers have to prepare and practice (thoms, 2014). the observed chinese teachers spent many hours planning for lessons and using the 4cs in the planning process. in general, teachers in the united states engaged in some collaborative planning and use of the 4cs in this process, but not nearly to the same degree. thus, the researchers believe that bringing the practices observed in each country together may lead to the most optimal outcomes. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 31 published by scholink inc. table 1. condensed observation protocol rate each skill using the following categories: **an innovative or advanced implementation, f-full implementation, i-intermediate implementation, e–early or beginning implementation, no-not observed **a—起草阶段, f—申请阶段, i—发展阶段, e—刚刚开始, no—不使用 creativity and innovation 创意及启发 skills 技能 use the writing process, media and visual literacy, and technological skills to create products that express new understanding 运用写作、媒体和视觉文化，以及高科 技来创作表现新认知的作品 demonstrate creativity by using multiple resources and formats 运用多样化的资源和形式来表现创造 性 use both divergent and convergent thinking to formulate alternative conclusions and test them against the evidence 同时使用发散思维和综合思维来思考 多项答案，并且进行验证 consider diverse and global perspectives in drawing conclusions 在总结结论时从全球化多元化的角度 出发 create products that apply to authentic, real-world contexts 创作作品反应现实社会，符合真实情况 respond to literature by using creative expressions of ideas in various formats and genres 对于已阅读的文献，通过各种新颖的形 式来表达感想 use creative and artistic formats to express personal learning 运用创造性和艺术性的形式来陈述个 人学习的过程 maintain openness to new ideas by considering divergent opinions, changing opinions or conclusions when evidence supports the change 保持发散思维，积极接纳新思路，与时 俱进 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 32 published by scholink inc. think creatively: use a wide range of idea creation techniques (such as brainstorming); create new and worthwhile ideas (both incremental and radical concepts); elaborate, refine, analyze and evaluate ideas in order to improve and maximize creative efforts 创造性的思考: . 带着疑问去学习课内知识 用各种创 意技巧（如大脑风暴）；提出新鲜有价 值的想法（既丰富又根本的理念）；阐 述、提炼、分析及评估他们的思路，使 他们的创意更加扩展和提高 work creatively with others: develop, implement and communicate new ideas to others effectively; be open and responsive to new and diverse perspectives; demonstrate originality and inventiveness in work; view failure as an opportunity to learn 创意性的合作: 提出创意性思路并有效的和别人交流； 积极接纳并回应不同的观点；在工作中 发扬独创力和创造力；理解失败是成功 之母的道理 critical thinking skill 技能 follow an inquiry-based process in seeking knowledge in curricular subjects 带着疑问去学习课内知识 find, evaluate, and select appropriate sources to answer questions 查找，评估并有选择的运用资源回答问 题 evaluate information found in selected sources on the basis of accuracy, validity, appropriateness for needs, importance, and social and cultural context 评估所找到信息的准确性、有效性、重 要性，以及是否适用于社会及文化背景 需求 read, view, and listen for information presented in any format (e.g., textual, visual, media, digital) in order to make inferences and gather meaning 阅读、观看并听取在任何形式下的信息 （如文字、视觉、媒体、数字），并由 此进行推理和取义 make sense of information gathered from diverse sources by identifying misconceptions, main and supporting ideas, conflicting information, and point of view or bias 通过找出误解、主题思想、对立信息以 及个人偏见来解读所收集的信息 maintain a critical stance by questioning the validity and accuracy of all information 保持批判的立场，质疑所有信息的准确 性和有效性 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 33 published by scholink inc. skill 技能 see divergent perspectives during information gathering and assessment. 从发散思维的角度来收集和评估信息 use strategies to draw knowledge from information and apply knowledge to curricular areas, real world situations, and further investigation. . 设法从信息中获取知识，并将其应用 于课程学习、实际生活以及进一步研究 中 reason effectively: use various types of reasoning (inductive, deductive) as appropriate to the situation. 有效推理:运用各种适当的推理技能（归 纳、演绎） analysis: break down information into parts for examination. analyze how parts of a whole interact with each other to produce overall outcomes in complex systems. 分析: 将信息分解并进行检验。分析一个整体 的各个部分如何互相作用来形成一个复 杂的系统 synthesize: apply prior knowledge and skills to combine elements into a pattern not clearly there before. 综合: 将先前的知识和技能综合归纳， 使其更加清晰明确 evaluate: judge or decide according to some set of criteria, without real right or wrong answers. 评估: 通过一些标准作出评价或决定， 但并不判定错与对 judgement: effectively analyze and evaluate evidence, arguments, claims, and beliefs; analyze and evaluate major alternatives points of view; synthesize and make connections between information and arguments; interpret information and draw conclusions based on the best analysis. 判决: 从而拓宽拓展认知，交换意见， 提高新的认识，并做出决定，解决问题 有效的分析和评估论据、论点、言论和 信条；分析和评论主要的几方意见，综 合并联系信息和论点；解读信息并从最 佳分析中得出结论。 problem solving skill 技能 solve different kinds of non-familiar problems in both conventional and innovative ways. 在解决各种不熟悉问题时，既应用传统 方法又应用创新方法 identify and ask significant questions that clarify various points of view and lead to better solutions. 识别并提出重点问题，从而弄清各个观 点，并引导出更好的解决法案 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 34 published by scholink inc. communication and collaboration 交流与合作 skill 技能 collaborate with others to broaden and deepen understanding, exchange ideas, develop new understandings, make decisions and solve problems. 与他人合作 contribute to the exchange of ideas within the learning community. . 在了解交流环境的基础上交流意 见。 use interaction with and feedback from teachers and peers to guide own inquiry process; be open and responsive to new and diverse perspectives; incorporate group feedback into own work. 与老师及同学进行互动和反馈，从而 导出自己的疑问；始终保持接纳和回 馈新的多样的观点；将组员的回馈应 用到自己的学习中 participate and collaborate as members of social and intellectual network of learners. 作为社会及学术界的一员进行参与及 合作 use knowledge and information skills and dispositions to engage in public conversation and debate around issues of common concern. 运用所学的知识和信息处理技术，参 与讨论公众关心的话题 articulate thoughts and ideas effectively, using oral, written and nonverbal communication skills in a variety of forms and contexts. 在各种情况下，运用多种形式，通过 口语、写作以及非语言沟通技巧来阐 明观点和意见 listen effectively to decipher meaning, including knowledge, values, attitudes and intentions. 通过有效的听力来解读深层含义，包 括知识、价值、态度和意图 use communication for a range of purposes (e.g. to inform, instruct, motivate and persuade). 用交流传播来达到各种意图（如：通 知、指导、鼓励和说服） utilize multiple media and technologies, and know how to judge their effectiveness as well as assess their impact. 学会应用多元化媒体和技术，并且学 会判断和评估他们的效率和影响 communicate effectively in diverse environments (including multi-lingual). 在多元化的环境中进行有效交流（包 括多语言环境） demonstrate ability to work effectively and respectfully with diverse teams. 在与多元化环境工作时，保持工作效 率和尊重他人的态度 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 35 published by scholink inc. exercise flexibility and willingness to be helpful in making necessary compromises to accomplish a common goal. 为了达到共同目标，能够灵活并主动 的经行适当的有必要的妥协 assume shared responsibility for collaborative work. 在合作中保持责任心，有共同承担责 任的意识 table 2. key terms term definition design thinking an approach to learning that focuses on developing students’ creative confidence. it is a five-phase process (discovery, interpretation, ideation, experimentation, and evolution) for practical and creative resolution of problems or issues that looks for improved results. teachers and students engage in hands-on design challenges that focus on developing empathy, promoting a bias toward action, encouraging ideation, developing metacognitive awareness and fostering active problem solving (plattner, 2015). flipped learning a pedagogical approach that flips what traditionally has occurred in the group learning space and the individual learning space. with flipped learning, in the individual space, students watch and listen to teacher lectures, presentations, and recommended videos. the learning in the individual space prepares students for the facilitated exercises to ensue in the group space. the resulting group space is transformed into a dynamic, interactive learning environment where the educator guides the student as they apply concepts and engage creatively in the subject matter (flipped learning network, 2015). inquiry-based learning a complex process where students formulate questions, investigate to find answers, build new understandings, meanings and knowledge, and then communicate their learning to others (alberta education, 2015). professional learning community (plc) a learning community in which groups of educators work collaboratively on a regular basis in an official and structured manner to improve their practice and capacity to effect positive change on behalf of those they serve. plc members work together to seek out best practices, test them in the classroom, continuously improve processes, and focus on results. in high functioning plcs, members transparently review their performance by regularly analyzing formative data or openly discussing specific experiences and practices of individual group members for the purpose of improving the practice of all (schmoker, 2006; stoll & louis, 2007). project-based a teaching method in which students gain knowledge and skills by working for www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 36 published by scholink inc. learning an extended period of time to investigate and respond to a complex question, problem, or challenge (buck institute for education, 2015). table 3. chinese schools description category school 1 school 2 school 3 school 4 school 5 school 6 school 7 location beijing beijing guangzhou guangzhou guangzhou chongqing chongqing school level high school high school high school secondary school grades 7-12 high school grades 7-9 elementary school (model is a 1st-6th grade school) school type independent not for profit, ib (for expatriates) independent international chinese government run school connected to a prestigious chinese university traditional government run high school public school with focus on language private international school public school the school’s overarching area of focus is calligraphy number of students 520 200 4,300 3,000 roughly 30 students in each class 1,400 over 1,400 use of classroom space tables arranged in various configurations with ergonomic chairs primarily wooden desks in rows primarily wooden desks in rows primarily wooden desks in rows primarily wooden desks in rows wooden desks in rows and other configurations wooden desks in rows and other configurations average number of students per class 15 43 50 50 30 40 40 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 37 published by scholink inc. table 4. united states schools description category school 1 school 2 school 3 school 4 school 5 school 6 school 7 location southern california southern california suburban area in southern california affluent suburban area of northern california suburban setting on a large main street in southern california southern california located an urban core of downtown southern california area school level grades 6–12 high school grades 9–12 middle school grades 6–8 pre-k-grade 8 k–5 school k–5 school grades 9–12 school type founded in 1909 as a boarding school for girls, the school is now a co-educational college preparatory independent day school part of an 11-school public charter organization within the san diego county public charter private independent, school for the gifted public language immersion school public school public charter high school number of students the current middle school enrollment is 780 400 624 400 gate students 850 391 250 use of classroom space tables in various configurations tables in various configurations tables in various configurations tables in various configurations tables in various configurations tables in various configurations tables in various configurations average number of students per class 15 25 25 20 25 25 20 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 38 published by scholink inc. 87% 40% 40% 67% 27% 53% 73% 73% 100% 67% 73% 100% 73% 13% 60% 13% 27% 27% 7% 7% 13% 47% 33% 73% 73% 47% 20% 27% 13% 27% 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% united states—school 7 united states—school 6 united states—school 5 united states—school 4 united states—school 3 united states—school 2 united states—school 1 china—school 7 china—school 6 china—school 5 china—school 4 china—school 3 china—school 2 china—school 1 percentage of critical thinking skills observed in school, by level of implementation not observed early/intermediate implementation full/advanced implementation figure 1. observed critical thinking skills comparison between chinese and united stated schools 10% 50% 10% 90% 20% 40% 80% 90% 80% 80% 100% 100% 30% 70% 50% 30% 20% 20% 20% 60% 10% 80% 80% 60% 20% 10% 20% 70% 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% united states—school 7 united states—school 6 united states—school 5 united states—school 4 united states—school 3 united states—school 2 united states—school 1 china—school 7 china—school 6 china—school 5 china—school 4 china—school 3 china—school 2 china—school 1 percentage of creativity and innovation skills observed in school, by level of implementation not observed early/intermediate implementation full/advanced implementation figure 2. observed creativity and innovation skills comparison between chinese and united stated school www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 39 published by scholink inc. 78% 56% 89% 44% 67% 89% 67% 100% 67% 100% 100% 89% 11% 44% 22% 33% 11% 22% 22% 11% 11% 78% 11% 67% 56% 33% 11% 11% 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% united states—school 7 united states—school 6 united states—school 5 united states—school 4 united states—school 3 united states—school 2 united states—school 1 china—school 7 china—school 6 china—school 5 china—school 4 china—school 3 china—school 2 china—school 1 percentage of communication skills observed in school, by level of implementation not observed early/intermediate implementation full/advanced implementation figure 3. observed communication skills comparison between chinese and united stated schools 4. discussion in the united states, dedicated funding should be provided to support teacher collaboration during work hours. if schools and districts want to implement instructional strategies that provide students with opportunities to grow in the 4cs, then the use of instructional approaches such as design thinking, problem-based learning, and discussion via inquiry should become established adult collaborative practices as well. moreover, it is necessary for teachers to have time to collaboratively create, plan, and critique effective lessons. in china, teachers have larger class sizes but teach for fewer hours each day, which affords them more planning and collaboration time. in the wake of online instruction and flipped learning (see definition of terms), educators in the united states could increase class sizes, while relying more heavily on alternative instructional approaches such as design thinking, project-based learning, and inquiry-based instruction, in addition to the use of technology for instruction and student projects. flipped lessons optimize instructional time, and dedicate face-to-face learning time for collaborative learning (flipped learning network, 2015). two ways to fund the needed changes are larger class sizes and the elimination of funding for most content area textbooks, due to the digital availability of such information. increasing class sizes in innovative ways that utilize technology and flipped lessons would allow more opportunities for www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 40 published by scholink inc. teachers to collaborate, co-teach, co-plan, co-develop nontraditional approaches, and more deeply analyze student work to develop instructional plans that are targeted and individualized. in the wake of united states common core standards, the use of textbooks for most subjects is unnecessary since teachers and students can rely on the internet for real time information from multiple perspectives. this model would allow united states schools and districts to reallocate those dollars, but with a completely different structure and with a continued focus on the skills sets and instructional strategies necessary to prepare students to be productive citizens of a global, pluralistic world. the chinese ministry of education has begun to reform curriculum by focusing more on instruction known to promote creativity and critical thinking. this marks a change from a passive-learning and rote-learning style to active and problem-solving learning styles intended to improve students’ overall ability to process information, acquire knowledge, solve problems, and learning cooperatively (cui, 2001; feng, 2006; guo, 2012). to move the initiative into practice, the government has funded education researchers or instructional specialists at school sites. their job is to identify best practices and work with classroom teachers in implementing them (ding, g. ed., 2010). nonetheless, chinese teachers and school leaders, particularly at the secondary level, are finding it difficult to change practices due to the emphasis placed on the college entrance exam, the gaokao (yu & suen, 2005). the chinese ministry of education has begun to identify ways to broaden the college entrance requirements. while maintaining the gaokao, it is adding other requirements (i.e., high school grades). another possibility that the government may add is a final authentic project that is electronically scored so as to alleviate the possibility of human bias, which is an ongoing concern of many chinese parents. 4.1 study limitations the study was conducted in seven schools within one region of the united states and in seven 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(2009). 21st century skills: learning for life in our times. san francisco: jossey-bass. van roekel, d. (2010, march 9). the importance of a world-class k-12 education for america’s economic success. washington, dc: national education association. retrieved january 20, 2015, from https://www.nea.org/assets/.../testimonydennisvanroekel310.doc wagner, t. (2008). the global achievement gap: why even our best schools don’t teach the new survival skills our children need—and what we can do about it. new york: basic books. wagner, t. (2014). creating innovators: the making of young people who will change the world. new york: scribner. wides-munoz, l., & wiseman, p. (2014, july 6). backlash stirs in u.s. against foreign worker visas. retrieved from http://m.savannahnow.com/news/2014-07-06/backlash-stirs-us-against-foreign-worker-visas-gsc.t ab=0 yin, r. (2003). case study research: design and methods (3rd ed.). thousand oaks, ca: sage publications. yu, l., & suen, h. k. (2005). historical and contemporary exam-driven education fever in china. kedi journal of educational policy, 2(1), 13-17. frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no.4, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) original paper analysis of professional and educational profile of nurses of a general hospital, to create professional competence matrix giselly de oliveira zahn erthal1* & renato da costa teixeira2 1 postgraduation program in health education in the amazon, state university of pará, belém, brazil 2 dean of research and graduate studies at the pará state university, belém, brazil. * giselly de oliveira zahn erthal, postgraduation program in health education in the amazon, state university of pará, belém, brazil received: october 8, 2020 accepted: october 27, 2020 online published: november 13, 2020 doi:10.22158/fet.v3n4p114 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v3n4p114 abstract this study tries to identify the perceptions of hospital nurses about the gaps and skills found during their training process that can help in the construction of a matrix of competence for working in a general hospital. this study is descriptive and exploratory, with a quantitative-qualitative approach, in which 30 hospital nurses participated. the data was collected through the application of a semi-structured interview and were analyzed using the bardin technique. the participation of nurses brought answers so that gaps observed in their graduation, are reduced through future planning of teaching learning of a nursing undergraduate course, which will be addressed and developed in hospital practice. it is determined for the need to build a matrix of professional competence for nurses to work in a general hospital, strengthening the training of these future professionals. keywords nurse, hospitals, professional competence, universities 1. introduction nowadays, constant transformations are demanded for an effective performance of nurses working in care. when caring for people, in different contexts, it is necessary to develop general and specific skills. given these needs, the concept of competence has been debated and questioned in academic spaces and professional sectors, both in brazil and abroad, in order to stimulate development in people to achieve professional excellence (mota, silva, & souza, 2016). since the implementation of the national curriculum guidelines for the undergraduate nursing course, in 2001 (dcn, 2001) in brazil, educational institutions have been encouraged to restructure their 114 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 pedagogical projects, investing in the training of future nurses in an ostentatious way, analyzing their teaching practices, so that nurses can face the labor market in hospital organizations and other areas of activity (ministry of education, 2001). in view of this, competences such as human capabilities can be related as an ability to accomplish a specific task. these have become a basic element that allows companies to focus on the essential aspects of their business and have human capital that has the knowledge, skills and attitudes to meet the challenges of the globalized world (correa, 2015). a competence is defined by the ability to act effectively, based on knowledge, but without limiting itself to it. it is to have the critical knowledge to act in the most diverse situations. the result will be an effective action, starting from a scheme of mobilization of knowledge linked to discernment (perrenoud, 2000). professional competence is a theme that has been studied in recent years, being essential to graduated nurses or even to the most experienced, so that they can face the difficulties encountered in the labor market. it is common to find stressful situations because what was learned in college does not always find convergence with practice in health institutions. thus, the nursing students in the health service experience a strong feeling of insecurity and fear in the middle of difficulties, something continuous since the entry and the adaptive process, as professionals and as individuals. in the development of work, nurses exercise responsibilities when accompanying patients, within care, who require specific competencies in order to certify excellence when assisting, while performing management and caring activities (nilsson, johansson, egmar, florin, lekssel, lepp, & gardulf, 2014). the relationships, interactions and associations between individuals, as complex beings, permeate the performance in the field of nursing and the entire health area, through competencies/skills/potentialities specific to or inherent to the professional activities of the nurser. in the face of these complexities and the numerous activities that nurses must perform, it is important to ask with new knowledge, in order to strengthen the network of connections and interconnections necessary for human care, which is broad, dynamic, multifaceted and complex (vergara, 2009). therefore, it is perceived the relevance of proposing discussions on pedagogical proposals and curricular vicissitudes, so that graduates can ponder about the various knowledge of the profession, with reflection on the action at work. the role of the university is to teach professionals so that there is an understanding of theoretical and practical knowledge, in such a way that it subsidizes the human aspects in the quality of the professional’s attention provided to the patient (eiró & catani, 2011). in this primordial role, there is an extraordinarily strong bias towards the professional structuring of these students. within this sphere, teachers are professionals who can instigate new perspectives, our conceptions about the knowledge to be worked throughout the training process and, later, provide reflections based on practical problems. being the competence’s concept comprehensive and polysemic, perrenoud (2000), states that the notion of competence should not only be understood by an optical caricature in which only the knowledge of 115 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 common sense or experience is mobilized. for this author, competence is the ability to mobilize a set of cognitive resources (knowledge, abilities, information, and others) in order to solve with relevance and effectiveness a series of situations. within this professional sphere, the hospital is a complex space, involving various functions within the nursing work, covering the educational, investigative, administrative-managerial area and the assistance area itself, which directly reflects on the excellence of the execution of care and articulation of these functions. it is necessary to constantly adapt, since, while the patient is the central axis of their actions, it is necessary to make the use of instruments that help nurses in the administration of their work, aiming at improvements in taking care (camillo, 2016). in this sense, the study presents the following question: what are the perceptions regarding the facilities and difficulties encountered by nurses working at the adventist hospital of belém (hab) when observing their undergraduate training process, which can help in the construction of the matrix of professional competence for nurses to work in a general hospital? developing competences helps the process of planning, making decisions, interacting, and managing people. therefore, the definition of the competencies that will be worked when training nurses is still a challenge (peres, 2017). in view of the above, propositions related to the development of competences need to be challenged by educational institutions, with the purpose of bulking up what is fundamental for the training of nurses for the labor market. 1.1 objective to identify the perceptions regarding the facilities and difficulties encountered by nurses working in the hab, when observing their graduation process, which can help in the construction of the matrix of professional competence for nurses to work in a general hospital. 2. method the study was developed in accordance with cns resolution 466/2012 and was approved by the research ethics committee (cep) of the state university of pará (uepa),) located in belém-pará, brazil, under judgement number 3,978,994, certificate of presentation for ethical appreciation, caae: 29821420.5.0000.5194. it was an exploratory, descriptive study, with a quantitative qualitative approach, being used for this article, the first part of the research, the qualitative section. the study scenario was constituted at the adventist hospital of belém (hab), located in the city of belém, pará, brazil, which has a partnership with the adventist college of the amazon (faama). the faama will open the nursing course at the beginning of 2021. the hospital will serve as the basis for future internships for the students of this ies. 116 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 we included 30 nurses who work at the hospital and who had already gone through the period of experience, with more than two years of effective work and who agreed to sign the free and informed consent form, after written authorization from the hospital. data collection was performed in august 2020, through an interview with a semi-structured script and, after data collection, the content analysis was performed, according the orientation of bardin (2016). the interview script was composed of identification data with personal and socio-professional characterization of nurses: age, gender, working time, year in which he completed the undergraduate course, graduate studies, courses held in the last two years, participation in scientific events, study groups that participate, scientific activities performed and what facilities and difficulties perceived in the daily work attributed to his formative process. after observing the results, it was done interferences and interpretations correlated to the expected objectives. 3. result of the 30 interviews conducted, 19 (63.3%) professionals were female, demonstrating a relevant proportion compared to 11 (36.3%) males. there is a variation in age among participants that was observed as follows: 11 (36.33%) respondents are 26 to 30 years old, 9 (30%) from 31 to 35 years, 3 (10%) from 36 to 40 years and 6 (20%) from 41 years onwards. regarding the time of performance in the function in the hab, 14 (46.6%) nurses are in the role of 2 to 5 years, 10 (33%) from 6 to 10 years, 3 (10%) from 11 to 15 years and 3 (10%) for more than 15 years, as shown in table 1. table 1. characterization of participants social-demographic data frequency n=30 sex female 19 63.3 % male 11 36.3 % age 26 to 30 11 36.3 % 31 to 35 09 30 % 36 to 40 03 10 % >41 06 21 % time working in nursing 2 to 5 years 14 46.6 % 6 to 10 years 10 33 % 11 to 15 years 03 10 % >15 years 03 10 % 117 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 regarding education, the data from the interviews show that 24 (80%) of the professionals reported having a post-graduation. of these, 22 (73.3%) reported having post-graduation at the level of lato sensu, 2 (6.6%) have it in stricto sensu (master’s degree) and 6 (30%) professionals have not yet attended graduate school. regarding participation in scientific events, 19 (63.3%) respondents reported that they participated in events in the last two years and 11 (36.6%) did not participate. of the scientific study groups, 8 have participated, totaling 26.6% of the participants. regarding the year of graduation, too, a variety was observed, with 1 (3.3%) completed his graduation between 1981 and 1990, 2 (6.66%) between 1991 and 1999, 7 (23.3%) between 2000 and 2009 and 20 (66.6%) between 2010 and 2017, according to table 2, below: table 2. professional data social-professional data frequency n=30 graduate lato sensu 22 73.3 % stricto sensu 02 6.6 % has no graduate school 06 30 % participation in scientific events yes 19 63.3 % no 11 36.7 % scientific study group yes 08 26.6 % no 22 73.4 % year of graduation termination 1981 to 1990 01 3.33 % 1991 to 1999 02 6.66 % 2000 to 2009 07 23.3 % 2010 to 2017 20 66.6 % the courses conducted by nurses in the last two years was also an item addressed in the interview. there was a predominance for the manchester protocol with 8 (32%) of the nurses performing it, followed by wounds and dressings with 5 (20%), first aid and covid-19 with 3 (12%). the course of nursing management and the postgraduation in public audit was done by 2 (8%), followed by 1 (4%) in the following courses: intensive therapy in nursing, palliative care, systematization of the nursing assistance, air rescue in an area of difficult access, primary health care and the role of the nurse, intraosseous pulsion, the integrated care to the prevalent diseases in childhood (imci), testing and 118 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 counseling of hiv and tsts, advanced life support in cardiology (acls), capacitation in central venous catheter of long-stay peripheral insertion (picc), nursing in the urgence assistance, electrocardiogram, nursing in computing, nursing in oncology, nursing in nephrology, postgraduation in uti pediatric and neonatal, postgraduation in urgency and emergency, vaccination and hand washing, as described in table 3, below: table 3. courses held in the last two years courses realized frequency n=25 intensive nursing care 1 4 % palliative care 1 4 % manchester protocol 8 32 % systematization of nursing care 1 4 % wounds and dressings 5 20 % air rescue in hard-to-reach area 1 4 % primary health care and the role of nurses 1 4 % nursing management 2 8 % intraosseous drive 1 4 % aidip 1 4 % hiv and tst testing and counseling 1 4 % acls 1 4 % picc training 1 4 % nursing in emergency care 1 4 % covid-19 3 12 % electrocardiogram 1 4 % first aid 3 12 % computer nursing 1 4 % oncology nursing 1 4 % nephrology nursing 1 4 % postgraduate in health audit 2 8 % postgraduate in pediatric and neonatal icu 1 4 % postgraduate in urgency and emergency 1 4 % vaccination 1 4 % hand washing 1 4 % 119 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 3.1 content analysis of the speeches in view of the analysis of the statements of the interviewed nurses, there were some considerations about their understandings of the speeches about their performance in the hospital context, identifying the facilities and difficulties perceived in the daily work, which were attributed to their formative process. 3.1.1 category 1: perceived facilities in daily work that were attributed to your formative process the nurses, in their manifestations during the interviews, demonstrated that in the academic context they found some facilities that are important for their performance in the hospital context, which stimulated them and made them reflect on the importance of a sensitive look in relation to the patient with whom it comes into contact, along with the need to be in direct contact with work team: 3.1.1.1 humanization (...) during my course, the humanization by the teachers helped me a lot in my walk as an academic. today i observe how important is a sensitive look to take care for the patients i have contact with. (nurse-19) caring in a humanized way is a current need, considering that care often ends up becoming the application of a nursing technique (selli, 1998). (...) the relationships with the professional team make me feel belonging to that work and it helps me in the difficulties of the day-to-day. (nurse-01) being the routine complex and demanding within the hospital context, understanding the importance of humanized contacts will help in performing a tuned work, with a good flexibility in the difficulties of daily life. the health work process requires, in addition to an articulation of knowledge, due to its multi professional character, greater technical, ethical-political, and interpersonal relationship qualification (dias, stutz, resende, batista, & sene, 2014). 3.1.1.2 theory and practice in order to achieve action in the face of the various hospital contexts, nurses consider the importance of making a link between theory and practice, which can benefit the action, often so unexpected, and that requires a decision-making for an efficient action: (...) the faculty gave me a theoretical basis to perform physical examinations, perform procedures of competence of the nurse, as well as identify signs of clinical deterioration in patients. (nurse-08) 3.1.1.3 decision making (...) decision-making [was] stimulated by well-monitored nursing practices still in college. (nurse-12) the reality in the professional practice of nurses reflects that the execution of their work process goes beyond the dimensions of assistance, because it is linked to health work processes in an expanded way, being requested daily, skills and competences related to decision making. decision-making can be defined as a choice between two or more alternatives that make it possible to achieve an expected goal, or closer to it (marquis, 2005). 120 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 3.1.1.4 teaching (...) the didactics of the course assisted me in my work. (nurse-17) learning can be understood as a way to transform the person and reality; the student and the teacher become subjects in the teaching and learning processes, transforming their pedagogical and professional practices, building freedom responsibly. thus, it is possible the critical reflection on their practice and learning (souza, iglesias, & pazin-filho, 2014). 3.1.1.5 supervised internships considering the participants, it is observed that several nurses affirm that the practice within internships greatly helped them to be able to act early in their careers, given the difficulties faced in the labor market, as reported below: (...) i really liked the way my internship was conducted-practices. (nurse-20) (...) i felt very easily in my professional performance today because i have always done many internships since the beginning of college. (nurse-23) (...) the amount of internships i did helped me a lot at the beginning of my career as a nurse. (nurse-22) (...) same care routine seen in the internship is developed in everyday life. (nurse-26) (...) helped me understand nursing as scientific. (nurse-24) with the establishment of the national curriculum guidelines (dcns), in 2001, many restructurings were necessary for the improvement and incorporation of active learning methodologies, promotion of a professional with principles of integrality in care, considering the unified health system as the structuring axis of the training process, in addition to the incorporation of the supervised curricular internship. all the restructurings proposed since 1996, the year of the enactment of the law of guidelines and bases for national education, have contributed to the advance of nursing education towards the development of complex thinking, aiming to train more critical and reflective professionals, capable of acting in the most diverse situations, proposing solutions to the problems encountered (marran, gomes, & bagnato, 2015). 3.1.2 category 2-perceived difficulties in daily work that were attributed to their formative process in relation to the difficulties perceived in the formative process, the nurses wrote how difficult it was to face various professional actions, given the psychological pressures that the hospital context presents, both with the patient and with dealing with their families. among these difficulties are dealing with the preparation for imaging exams, reading comprehension and adequate use of the pharmacological area in assistance. 3.1.2.1 preparation for imaging exams (...) the college does not prepare the professional to deal with the conflicts faced on a day-to-day, either with the work team or with the patient/family member. i was not prepared to prepare patients for imaging tests that require fasting or other preparation. today, with numerous changes in relation to protocols, it is important that colleges teach future nurses how to apply them. (nurse-8) 121 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 3.1.2.2 psychological pressures (...) i believe that it is also important that colleges train students to deal with psychological pressure situations that can be experienced in care. (nurse-8) taking care of all human complexity is a challenge for nurses because their demands never cease and can never be fully met. during the illness process, when frailties, fears, anxieties, and discomforts arise, attention to the emotional dimension of the human being is even more necessary (pinto, garanhami, frança, & pierotti, 2017). 3.1.2.3 pharmacology (...) difficulty in team management and specific procedures that only daily practice [prepares] to have better execution competence. difficulty in the name and correct doses of medications, which is not taught in pharmacology. (nurse-28) as a stimulus to a safe practice, the world health organization (who) has established a set of basic protocols, including the one related to the safe use and administration of medicines. the preparation and administration procedure, as it is an essential care for health reintegration is considered a challenge when it comes to the construction of a safe practice. errors can occur at any stage of drug therapy, which can cause harm to the patient. in view of the exposed reality, it should be elucidated that nurses mention that many difficulties in the work of care are related to the lack of well-directed internships and with a timely manner for the development of such skills and competencies. as a result, they face today a feeling of disability and personal/professional devaluation. given the demands required, it is considered that there are few investments in the various specificities that nursing requires: 3.1.2.4 supervised internships (...) difficulties associated with little contact in the internships in the hospital area. (nurse-25) (...) lack of opportunity in extracurricular internships, difficulties in practical experiences and combining theoretical knowledge with the reality experienced in everyday life. (nurse-02) (...) lack of experiencing the practice together with the theory, as well as applying it within the hospital. (nurse-03-04) (...) practical classes in a lower than expected amount. (nurse-29) (...) the difficulties in everyday life my view is the professional valuation, in all financial aspects, work scales, etc. (nurse-07) (...) my difficulty was regarding my practice in internships and today i observe professional devaluation. (nurse-19) (...) lack of offers in the internships on in other specificities. (nurse-26) sometimes the curricular internship is an opportunity for the academic to answer their doubts, improve themselves and put into practice everything that has been learned during the course. supervised internship is understood as an important instrument for the training of nursing professionals, in which professional skills are developed and techniques and procedures performed daily in the 122 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 practice of the profession are improved. this period of field learning has the function of consolidating theoretical learning to train more qualified professionals and prepare them to face the labor market, which is increasingly competitive (dias, stutz, resende, batista, & sene, 2014). 3.1.2.5 standardization and systematization of professional activities some of the interviewees stressed the importance of having the domain over reconciling care and bureaucratic issues within the hospital. they report on the difficulties in this conciliation and regarding the question of standardization and systematization of the various hospital activities of nurses: (...) standardization and systematization of each institution. (nurse-17) (...) i had many difficulties in reconciling the practice of assistance and the bureaucratic part. (nurse-18) (...) did not prepare for the reality of care. he did not bother to train judiciously [with a view] to the technical part. (nurse-24) (...) work routine. (nurse-01) according to the dcns, the nursing professional must ensure that his/her practice is carried out in an integrated and continuous way with the other instances of the health system, being able to think critically, analyze the problems of society and seek the respective solutions. professionals should perform their services within the quality standards and principles of ethics/bioethics, taking into account that the responsibility of health care is not closed with the technical act, but rather with the resolution of health problems, both at the individual and collective level. nurses must have the skills and abilities to evaluate, systematize and decide the most appropriate conducts for patients and family members (ministry of education, 2001). 3.1.2.6 leadership and management regarding leadership and team management, two nurses mentioned the importance of having more disciplines on these questions. here are the reports: (...) should have more subjects focused on leadership and team management. (nurse-15) (...) management/leadership. (nurse-11) leadership emerges as the main instrument of the nursing process also understood as care management. it is present in all the activities of the nurse, during the organization of the service, in the relationship with the team and the institution, as well as in decision-making, which even inherently occupies a place of extreme importance in the profile of the professional (treviso, peres, silva, & santos, 2017). as for the encouragement of research as a driving force for the search for new knowledge and for the development of skills and skills necessary in the performance of nurses, this speech is seen: 3.1.2.7 incentive to research (...) i really wish my university had invested in encouraging research. i almost didn’t. (nurse-02) regarding the analysis of the results presented, it is confirmed the importance of the role that the faculty can play a decisive role for the development, improvement and how much nurses need to be stimulated and trained to improve a clinical practice, knowing how to differentiate and identify 123 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 capacities and difficulties, strengthening their professional competencies that are under their responsibility. the nurses evaluated, through their reports, the nursing courses they took in their respective faculties. through their opinions, they can help through important information to build a competency matrix and what changes are necessary, in order to improve learning (vieira, ohara, & domenic, 2016). in the current brazilian scenario, there is a need to consider the relationships between colleges and organizations that employ graduates. the demands of work need to be met in the most diverse spheres, being essential to have a balance in these relationships, so that qualitative changes are made. it is substantial to consider the teaching and learning process to re-examine the preparation for the professional future appropriate to the social reality and health of the moment (witt & gebbie, 2016). by analyzing the difficulties and potentialities that were perceived in nurses throughout their training process, we can build a paradigm that contains improvements in educational development in a critical way, creating an environment favorable to the transformations of reality (westin, sundler, & berglund, 2015). 3.2 search/article limitations a limitation refers to the professional category and the research scenario because it addresses only 30 nurses from a single hospital institution. 4. conclusion this study, that demonstrated the perceptions of nurses, in order to enrich this first phase of the research, which was conducted through semi-structured interviews, helped to understand the relevance and necessity of the balance between the practice of care and the theory offered during the years of graduation in the nursing course. this mapping allows a diagnosis on relevant topics that need to be made up of the matrix of professional competence, for the performance of future graduates, in a critical-reflexive way. studies on professional training show that the construction of competencies implies articulating different knowledge for the development of a professional practice based not only on the incorporation of knowledge and skills, but also on personal and relational attitudes aimed at the construction of a common project for the transformation of the health reality (blazun h, kokol p, & vosner, 2015). in this sense, it is proposed to continue the study that can observe which competencies are essential for the construction of a matrix of professional competence for nurses to work in a general hospital, since the constructions and analyses of competency matrices are often not made from the eyes of the nurse who is in service. thus, the value of the research is in reducing the gaps presented between the future planning of teaching and learning for the competencies that will be addressed and developed during the trajectory of graduation and the performance of nurses in a general hospital, uniting teaching and health, mapping the area of nursing education. 124 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 in this scenario, there are failures and challenges inherent to the training of professionals. it becomes evident the need for managers and professionals who reflect on the qualification of nurses for these future graduates. it is known that there are still several issues to be faced in the educational field, but it is up to the training centers to face the challenges that arise, implementing differentiated teaching strategies (leal, soares, silva, chaves, & camelo, 2018). among other things, this investigation opens the opportunity to open new paradigms, in the search for understanding the importance of building a matrix of competence that can help the entire pedagogical team in the search for better content and forms of work, so that the preparation of new professionals is salutary. the dcns present a text with the pretensions of forming a critical-reflective professional, active in the face of the demands of the labor market (ministry of education, 2001) therefore, it is crucial that the university space may be constantly growing and enabling continuous interaction, meeting the needs of the labor market. and making an space for dialogue between the university and the labor market. references bardin, l. 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(2014). desenvolvimento e validação de uma nova ferramenta para medir a competência profissional autorrelatada por enfermeiros-a escala de competência profissional de enfermagem (npc). nurse education today, 34(4), 574-580. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2013.07.016 peres, a. m. et al. (2017). mapeamento de competências: gaps identificados na formação gerencial do enfermeiro. texto contexto—enferm., florianópolis, 26(2), e06250015. https://doi.org/10.1590/0104-07072017006250015 perrenoud, p. (2000). dez novas competências para ensinar. porto alegre: artes médicas. pinto, a. c., garanhami, m. l., frança, t. e. de., & pierotti, i. (2017). conceito de ser humano nas teorias de enfermagem: aproximação com o ensino da condição humana. pro-posições, 28(supl. 1), 88-110. https://doi.org/10.1590/1980-6248-2015-0164 selli, l. (1998). bioética na enfermagem—interpretação à luz dos princípios bioéticos. são leopoldo (rs): unisinos. souza, c. s., iglesias, a. g., & pazin-filho, a. (2014). estratégias inovadoras para métodos de ensino tradicionais: aspectos gerais. medicina (ribeirão preto), 47(3), 284-292. https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.2176-7262.v47i3p284-292 treviso, p., peres, s. c., silva, a. d., & santos, a. a. do. (2017). competências do enfermeiro na gestão do cuidado. revista administração em saúde, 17(69), out-dez. https://doi.org/10.23973/ras.69.59 vergara, s. c. (2009). projetos e relatórios de pesquisa em administração (10th ed.). são paulo: atlas. 126 published by scholink inc. https://doi.org/10.5935/1415-2762.20180042 https://doi.org/10.1590/1981-7746-sip00025 https://doi.org/10.19131/rpesm.0135 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2013.07.016 https://doi.org/10.1590/0104-07072017006250015 https://doi.org/10.1590/1980-6248-2015-0164 https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.2176-7262.v47i3p284-292 https://doi.org/10.23973/ras.69.59 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 vieira, m. a., ohara, c. s., & domenico, e. l. (2016). a construção e validação de um instrumento para avaliação de egressos de cursos de graduação em enfermagem. revista latino-americana de enfermagem, 24, e2710. https://doi.org/10.1590/1518-8345.0834.2710 westin, l., sundler, a. j., & berglund, m. (2015). experiências de aprendizagem dos alunos em relação às estratégias didáticas durante o primeiro ano de um curso de enfermagem: um estudo qualitativo. bmc med educ, 15, 49. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-015-0338-x witt, r. r., & gebbie, k. m. (2016). adaptando currículos para atender às necessidades de profissionais de saúde em um desastre: uma proposta para enfermeiras brasileiras. revista gaúcha de enfermagem. março, 37(1), e56229. https://doi.org/10.1590/1983-1447.2016.01.56229 127 published by scholink inc. https://doi.org/10.1590/1983-1447.2016.01.56229 original paper analysis of professional and educational profile of nurses of a general hospital, to create professional competence matrix giselly de oliveira zahn erthal1* & renato da costa teixeira2 1 postgraduation program in health education in the amazon, state university of pará, belém, brazil abstract this study tries to identify the perceptions of hospital nurses about the gaps and skills found during their training process that can help in the construction of a matrix of competence for working in a general hospital. this study is descriptive and ... keywords table 1. characterization of participants table 2. professional data table 3. courses held in the last two years references frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no.3, 2022 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 43 original paper pre-recorded lectures—is anyone watching? stephen j. brown1 1 department of interdisciplinary studies, faculty of health and environment, auckland university of technology, auckland, new zealand received: july 21, 2022 accepted: august 16, 2022 online published: august 29, 2022 doi:10.22158/fet.v5n3p43 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v5n3p43 abstract pre-recorded lectures for students to watch at their own convenience appears attractive, but little evidence supports the notion that if recordings are available, they will be watched. a lack of engagement with pre-recordings may be exacerbated by the remote learning environments in response to population lockdowns and social isolation requirements. in this study, downloading of pre-recordings of lectures was examined in a large cohort introductory physiology course at a publicly funded university in new zealand. data from four semesters impacted by the covid-19 pandemic were examined. a trend of decreasing engagement with recordings was evident in all semesters from week 5 onwards, less than three-quarters of recorded material was downloaded, and from week 8 onwards, less than 60% of pre-recorded material was downloaded. this lack of engagement appeared to have little impact on course pass-rates, as these were consistently above 85% throughout the semesters in question. data presented show that even when there was only the option for viewing a pre-recorded lecture, many students chose not to. pre-recordings of lectures may seem to have value for some students, but they may be a poor substitute for attendance and physical engagement with the on-campus lecture experience. keywords lecture pre-recording, student engagement, remote learning, physiology education 1. introduction before the introduction of lecture recordings in university teaching, it was assumed by most academics that student performance was closely related to class attendance. generally, students who attended lectures more frequently obtained better grades (mckenzie & schweitzer, 2001; mthimunye & daniels, 2019). however, the recording of a lecture is likely to impact on class attendance such that attendance will decrease if the option to watch a recording is made available. the advent of a global pandemic in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 44 published by scholink inc. late 2019 and a rapid shift to online delivery of higher education in the following years, necessitated that more lecture material was delivered as recordings to be watched remotely by students. the use of lecture recordings for university teaching is motivated by potential benefits in several areas (morris, swinnerton, & coop, 2019) such as an increased flexibility of learning for students, improved access to learning resources for students studying remotely, and to cater for a growing number of students in the face of reductions in government funding (cilesiz, 2015; o’callaghan, neumann, jones, & creed, 2017). there is also growing external pressure on universities to engage with the use of digital technologies to support student education, from both stakeholders and students (gorissen, van bruggen, & jochems, 2012). financial investment by universities in this area have included the widespread introduction of the now ubiquitous learning management system (for example, canvas, moodle, blackboard), and the introduction of some form of lecture capture system, for example, panopto (danielson, preast, bender, & hassall, 2014). a familiarity with these tools enabled university staff to rapidly create digital learning resources for students outside of the classroom (eringfeld, 2021) which facilitated a much smoother transition to remote learning during the population lockdowns in response to the global pandemic (quezada, talbot, & quezadaparker, 2020). although a strong relationship between lecture attendance and grades has been reported in the us (crede, roch, & kieszczynka, 2010) and for students studying human biosciences (doggrell, 2020), there remains a paucity of data on the watching of lecture recordings by students when studying remotely during a population lockdown and forced social isolation. therefore, the aim of this study was to examine data on the access to pre-recorded lectures by students during four university semesters affected by the restrictions imposed during the global pandemic. 2. method all data were obtained from the university’s learning management system (blackboard®) following the end of each semester. the course was a large cohort introductory anatomy and physiology course taken by students who wanted to pursue a degree program in a health-related area, for example, nursing. the institution was a large publicly funded university in auckland, new zealand. the institution delivered the same course twice per year in two 12-week teaching semesters, with semester one beginning in march, and semester two beginning in july. the numbers of students enrolled in the semester 1 iteration were approximately 1500, whereas the numbers in semester two were approximately 500. for each week of each semester, the length of the available recording (minutes) multiplied by the number of students enrolled on the course, was calculated—this was described as the total number of minutes available to download. the actual number of minutes downloaded by students was then calculated as a percentage of the total number of minutes available to download. this metric could accommodate a different length of recording available each week, and a changing number of student enrolments during the semester. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 45 published by scholink inc. 3. results the weekly downloaded minutes, as a percentage of the total available minutes, are shown in figure 1. the first four weeks of semester 1 2020 were before the new zealand government implemented a nationwide population lockdown, and during these four weeks, lectures on the course were delivered as live performances on three separate days on three different campuses. during this time, students were strongly encouraged to attend lectures in-person, and thus more likely to watch a live performance than watch a recording. recordings of these live performances were made available 24hrs after the live delivery. in figure 1, values more than 100% indicate that some students accessed the recorded material numerous times, potentially re-visiting lecture recordings later in the course for revision purposes. a trend of decreasing engagement with recordings is evident in all semesters, such that from week 5 onwards, less than three-quarters of recorded material was downloaded by students. this trend persisted such that from week 8 onwards, less than 60% of recorded material was being downloaded by students enrolled on the course. figure 1. total available minutes downloaded (%) each week during four semesters affected by the covid-19 global pandemic. * indicates the first 4 weeks of semester 1 2020—this was delivered as on-campus live lectures with a simultaneous live stream available online, and a recording of the lecture made available 24hrs following the live performance. all other weeks were only available as recordings with no on-campus live performances. 4. discussion data presented in this study show that when there was only the option for viewing a recording of a lecture, many students chose not to. this was disappointing given the effort required to produce pre-recorded material for the course. in previous years unaffected by covid-19, recordings of lectures www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 46 published by scholink inc. were released following live performances, however, during these semesters, attendance diminished considerably—it was assumed that students were watching these recordings. in other physiology courses, the weekly average student attendance at the live performance was only 29% (doggrell, 2021), which was lower than previous studies where lecture recordings were also available. in physiology courses where students had access to lecture recordings, higher attendances at the live performances have been reported: 73% (horton, wiederman, & saint, 2011) and 87% of students attended 75% of live lectures (popovic et al., 2017). higher attendance rates have been reported in other biological sciences courses where 79% of students attended all live lectures (fernandes, maley, & cruickshank, 2008), 90% of students attended more than 70% of live lectures (davis, hodgson, & macaulay, 2012), and 88% of students attended more than 56% of live lectures (hidayat et al., 2012). it remains unclear as to why lecture attendance was poor at the current institution, but providing pre-recorded lectures was not a satisfactory solution given the lack of engagement with pre-recorded material. the lack of engagement with the recorded lectures appeared to have little impact on course pass-rates, as these were consistently above 85% throughout the semesters in question. feedback from some students at the end of each semester indicated that lecture recordings were considered a valued resource, and the flexibility of watching them when convenient suited many students. it could be speculated that the option to watch pre-recorded material offered some students an essential tool enabling them to pass, whereas for many students, the availability of pre-recordings was not necessary to pass the course. 5. conclusion pre-recorded lectures are probably here to stay, but the viewing statistics of these recordings should be scrutinised to understand who is watching them, for how long, and for what educational effect. the advantage of providing convenient, accessible course content is laudable but it should support rather than replace the on-campus live lecture experience. a complete shift to online learning raises concerns around the commodification of education, emphasizing education as a consumer good rather than a humanizing undertaking (eringfeld, 2021)—when students no longer leave their home environment to access higher education, processes of socialization and identity formation may be compromised, while societal norms may get reinforced instead of challenged through exposure to difference. acknowledgement the author (sjb) received financial assistance from sphis, auckland university of technology. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 47 published by scholink inc. references cilesiz, s. (2015). undergraduate students’ experiences with recorded lectures towards a theory of acculturation. higher education, 69(3), 471-493. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-014-9786-1 crede, m., rochy, s. g., & kieszczynka, u. m. (2010). class attendance in college: a meta-analytic review of the association of class attendance with grades and student characteristics. reviews in education research, 80, 272-295. https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654310362998 danielson, j., preast, v., bender, h., & hassall, l. (2014). is the effectiveness of lecture capture related to teaching approach or content type? computers & education, 72, 121-131. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2013.10.016 davis, e. a., hodgson, y., & macaulay, j. o. (2012). engagement of students with lectures in biochemistry and pharmacology. biochemistry and molecular biology education, 40, 300-309. https://doi.org/10.1002/bmb.20627 doggrell, s. a. (2020). a systematic review of the relationship between lecture attendance and academic outcomes of students studying the human biosciences. international journal of innovation in science and mathematics education, 28(1), 60-76. https://doi.org/10.30722/ijisme.28.01.005 doggrell, s. a. (2021). quantitative study of lecture attendance and the association between this attendance and academic outcomes for nursing and non-nursing students in an introductory pathophysiology course. advances in physiology education, 45, 651-660. https://doi.org/10.1152/advan.00037.2021 eringfeld, s. (2021). higher education and its post-coronial future: utopian hopes and dystopian fears at cambridge university during covid-19. studies in higher education, 46(1), 146-157. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2020.1859681 fernandes, l., maley, m., & cruickshank, c. (2008). the impact of online lecture recordings on learning outcomes in pharmacology. journal of the international association of medical science educators, 18, 2. retrieved from https://www.iamse.org/mse-article/the-impact-of-online-lecture-recordings-on-learning-outcomesin-pharmacology/ gorissen, p., van bruggen, j., & jochems, w. (2012). students and recorded lectures: survey on current use and demands for higher education. research in learning technology, 20(3), 297-311. http://doi.org/10.3402/rlt.v20i0.17299 horton, d. m., wiederman, s. d., & saint, d. a. (2012). assessment outcome is weakly correlated with lecture attendance: influence of learning style and use of alternative materials. advances in physiology education, 36, 108-115. https://doi.org/10.1152/advan.00111.2011 hidayat, l., vansal, s., kim, e., sullivan, m., & dalb, r. (2012). pharmacy student absenteeism and academic performance. american journal of pharmacy education, 76, 1-6. https://doi.org/10.5688/ajpe7618 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-014-9786-1 https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654310362998 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2013.10.016 https://doi.org/10.1002/bmb.20627 https://doi.org/10.30722/ijisme.28.01.005 https://doi.org/10.1152/advan.00037.2021 https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2020.1859681 https://doi.org/10.1152/advan.00111.2011 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 48 published by scholink inc. mckenzie, k., & schweitzer, d. (2001). who succeeds at university? factors predicting academic performance in first year australian university students. higher education research and development, 20, 21-33. https://doi.org/10.1080/07924360120043621 morris, n. p., swinnerton, b., & coop, t. (2019). lecture recordings to support learning: a contested space between students and teachers. computers & education, 140, 103604 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2019.103604 mthimunye, k., & daniels, f. m. (2019). predictors of academic performance, success, and retention amongst undergraduate nursing students: a systematic review. south african journal of education, 33, 200-220. https://doi.org/10.20853/33-1-2631 o'callaghan, f. v., neumann, d. l., jones, l., & creed, p. a. (2017). the use of lecture recordings in higher education: a review of institutional, student, and lecturer issues. educational informational technology, 22, 399-415. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-015-9451-z popovic, n., popovic, t., dragovic, i. r., & cmiljani, o. (2018). a moodle-based blended learning solution for physiology education in montenegro: a case study. advances in physiology education, 42, 111-117. https://doi.org/10.1152/advan.00155.2017 quezada, r. l., talbot, c., & quezada-parker, k. b. (2020). from bricks and mortar to remote teaching: a teacher education program’s response to covid-19, journal of education for teaching, 46(4), 472-483. https://doi.org/10.1080/02607476.2020.1801330 https://doi.org/10.1080/07924360120043621 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2019.103604 https://doi.org/10.20853/33-1-2631 https://doi.org/10.1152/advan.00155.2017 https://doi.org/10.1080/02607476.2020.1801330 frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no.3, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 71 original paper research on the construction of college counselor team from the perspective of competency—based on the improvement of learning resilience yun zhu1 1 jiangsu university, affiliated hospital (first clinical medical college), zhenjiang, jiangsu, china received: july 20, 2023 accepted: august 18, 2023 online published: september 6, 2023 doi:10.22158/fet.v6n3p71 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v6n3p71 abstract based on the construction status of the college counselor team, this article analyzes the problems that exist in the team construction. based on the basic characteristics of the competency perspective and with the aim of improving the learning resilience of medical students, this study aims to conduct research on the construction of the team of college student counselors. the aim is to demonstrate the mission and responsibility of counselors in college student management through the improvement of the team construction plan and the improvement of counselors’ comprehensive literacy, and to promote the steady development of college teaching management work. in the context of the reform of the education system in universities, college counselors, as grassroots forces in university management, can construct ideological and political education management work tailored to the characteristics of students, laying the foundation for the growth of college students. however, due to the heavy learning curriculum and high employment pressure of medical students, they prioritize postgraduate entrance exams over employment. faced with conflicts between postgraduate entrance exams and clinical internships, there are psychological conflicts among students. the lack of autonomy and poor learning resilience in learning and daily life have an impact on the healthy growth of medical students. by continuously improving the team of college counselors, the characteristics, functions, influencing factors, methods, and carriers of enhancing the academic resilience of medical students and the construction of the counselor team have been clarified. the counselor’s service and education function has been fully utilized, combining practical problem-solving with ideological problem-solving. focusing on the impact of academic resilience on students’ mental health, teachers and parents are encouraged to form a good learning psychology for students, ensuring the healthy growth of college students plays a crucial role. therefore, college student counselors should recognize www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 72 published by scholink inc. the development status of the times, adhere to innovative ideas, build a counselor team training model based on the improvement of college students’ learning resilience, combine the characteristics of the competency model, and ensure the efficiency of various work execution through the cultivation of their own comprehensive abilities and the strengthening of work competence, to improve the overall level of counselor team construction, in order to meet the high level, distinctive, and the talent needs of international research universities. keywords competency perspective, counselor team, learning resilience 1. research on the relationship between learning resilience and the team of counselors learning resilience refers to a relatively stable psychological trait that individuals maintain after dealing with stress. it is a psychological mechanism that can actively self repair and adjust under pressure. the learning resilience of college students is influenced by various factors such as their own cognition, emotions, values, and family, school, etc. college students are in a period of immaturity in their physical and mental development, and are prone to setbacks and various psychological problems in life planning, career choices, and making friends. fan fangshi et al. (fan, wen, & liu, 2014) conducted a survey on medical students using the psychological resilience scale, social support scale, and employment stress questionnaire. they found that the overall level of psychological resilience among medical students was relatively high, and employment pressure and social support were important factors affecting their psychological resilience. peng li et al. (li, song, liu, yu, bian, & li, 2015) explored the psychological resilience of medical students and the role of positive emotions in psychological resilience, and concluded that positive emotion training can enhance the level of positive emotions, promote the psychological resilience of medical students, and thus enhance their stress response ability. competence mainly distinguishes outstanding achievers from ordinary individuals in the workplace, and is formed through the display of deep personal characteristics, possessing the knowledge, skills, and personal characteristics to be competent for the job position. through research on competency, it can be found that its specific characteristics are reflected in the following aspects: firstly, there is a correlation between competency and job positions, and competency is influenced by various factors such as work environment, working conditions, and job positions. secondly, for the personal evaluation criteria of competence, it will demonstrate comprehensive qualities such as knowledge, skills, and abilities in a certain environment. thirdly, competence, as a standard for evaluating employees’ work abilities, can truly reflect their performance abilities in their positions. the combination of counselor competence and teacher competence mainly involves analyzing comprehensive factors such as personal traits, professional skills, and political literacy to demonstrate work effectiveness related to students. by analyzing the ability of college counselors to engage in ideological and political education and psychological counseling, this study investigates the level of learning resilience, emotional www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 73 published by scholink inc. management ability, and subjective well-being of medical students, analyzes the mechanism of the impact of learning resilience on the construction of counselor teams, and guides medical students to actively adjust themselves, seek help, improve their quality of life, and better serve society when facing difficulties. from the perspective of competence, this article takes “enhancing the learning resilience of medical students” as the starting point. through in-depth analysis and research, combined with the requirements and characteristics of counselor work, corresponding countermeasures are proposed, which is conducive to cultivating medical and health talents with excellent professional skills, comprehensive qualities, and high professional skills. it is more conducive to improving the effectiveness of counselor ideological and political education, promoting the professionalization of the counselor team professional development. 2. the work characteristics of college student counselors and the necessity of team construction 2.1 work characteristics of college student counselors 2.1.1 uncertainty in working hours based on the characteristics of the work of college student counselors, it is found that there is a phenomenon of irregular working hours for counselors. for example, when an emergency occurs among students, counselors not only need to rush to the scene of the accident as soon as possible, but also need to provide long-term psychological counseling and ideological education to students in the later stage. in addition, counselors need to actively communicate with students in their spare time, timely grasp their ideological dynamics, and construct effective guidance plans. 2.1.2 the work object has initiative in the work of college student counselors, the main target audience is students on campus. due to the active thinking and energetic nature of college students, they are influenced by different life experiences and personalities, resulting in a diversity of learning and life thinking. in specific work, student counselors should construct individualized guidance plans based on the characteristics of different students to improve their work efficiency. for example, when students face learning and psychological pressure, counselors should change the traditional single preaching mode and analyze the mechanism of psychological resilience’s impact on subjective well-being based on students’ characteristics, in order to guide medical students to actively adjust themselves, seek help, improve their quality of life, and better serve society when facing difficulties. 2.1.3 the sublimity of counselor work by analyzing the characteristics of the work of college counselors, their guidance can create a good learning and living environment for students, and establish a communication platform with students’ families based on the characteristics and basic needs of the school and students, so that students have a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 74 published by scholink inc. correct understanding of their own development and guide them to establish a correct outlook on life and values (li, 2012). that is to say, the work of college student counselors has lofty value. 2.1.4 service oriented work college counselors usually have strong service characteristics in their work. they summarize the traditional teacher-student relationship maintenance, school student work system, and other content to construct specific work methods. the content and methods of ideological and political education services will change with the development of society, and different times and societies have different requirements for medical talents. medical students, as a relatively special group among college students, have a longer academic system, higher self requirements, and face greater academic pressure. counselors should also constantly expand their work channels in response to the changes of the times and the needs of medical students, and improve the pertinence and effectiveness of ideological and political work services based on the characteristics of the times. 2.2 the necessity of building a team of college counselors in the current reform of the education system, the education management system is influenced by multiculturalism. for college students, some groups are influenced by hedonism and materialism, reducing their understanding of the correct cultural content and affecting their healthy growth. in addition, in the work of counselors, due to various factors, the work mode of counselors has undergone a certain transformation. for example, the expansion of school enrollment has led to a relatively complex student structure, which has increased the difficulty of counselors in managing students; due to the complexity and diversity of teaching objects, counselors need to provide effective guidance services and improve their ideological and political level in order to establish targeted educational guidance plans to meet the needs of counselors’ educational guidance (pang & zhu, 2019). therefore, in the current teaching management of universities, the construction of the team of college student counselors should be taken as the core, and its necessity is reflected in the following aspects: firstly, through the construction of the team of college counselors, students’ cognition can be changed, and correct values, outlook on life, and career can be established, laying the foundation for future professional development. secondly, as college students are in an important stage of forming the “three views” during their college years, professional guidance from counselors can enhance their professionalism in various aspects such as ideological and political concepts and psychological qualities, meeting the core needs of talent cultivation in universities. thirdly, medical students have poor psychological adaptability, and the psychological problems of the group are more prominent. by strengthening their own quality construction and specialized vocational skills training, we continuously improve the learning resilience of medical students, reduce the probability of students suffering from psychological problems such as anxiety, depression, and interpersonal communication barriers, and comprehensively improve the overall quality and ability level of the counselor team. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 75 published by scholink inc. 3. factors influencing the construction of college student counselor team 3.1 the career development environment of counselors is unstable firstly, in the recruitment of counselors in universities, there are no restrictions on the subjects and majors of the applicants, resulting in a low entry threshold for the counselor team, which affects the full play of the counselor’s functions in future work. secondly, when selecting and hiring excellent counselors for other positions, universities only consider the needs of the position and temporarily meet the career development requirements of counselors. however, the selection method lacks clear competency standards, leading to a disorderly phenomenon in counselor job mobility and promotion. this phenomenon can lead to other counselors’ cognitive and emotional impact on the profession. this reduces the satisfaction of counselors with their work and affects the stability of their career development. 3.2 the counselor team lacks professional discipline support with the development of higher education institutions, many universities have changed their previous student work models and provided support for improving students’ comprehensive abilities through projects such as ideological and political education, student daily life, psychological counseling, and employment guidance (zhang & zhao, 2019). due to the lack of division of specific functions in higher education institutions, counselors need to be familiar with and master various contents in their work, which increases the difficulty of practical work and also brings difficulties to the improvement of counselors’ professional skills and work enthusiasm. for college counselors, there are no professional restrictions upon entry, resulting in a relatively dispersed team structure. the majority of counselors’ coaching work differs from basic theories, reducing the quality of their work. moreover, in the construction of counselor teams in some universities, there is a lack of systematic onboarding training. many counselors only rely on their own experience for service work after work, and cannot better handle student issues. 3.3 the counselor team lacks autonomous organizations based on the characteristics of the construction of university student counselor teams, the construction of specialized teams usually includes research institutions, industry websites, and industry associations. however, in the construction of university counselor teams in china, there are often problems such as a small number of organizational structures and insufficient types, which cannot fully utilize the guiding value of relevant organizations (zhao & gao, 2019). moreover, in the context of weak autonomous organizations of college student counselors, many organizations face problems such as insufficient funding and a lack of rules and regulations. the work functions of counselors cannot be fully realized, which reduces the authority of college student counselor work and limits the construction of the college counselor team. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 76 published by scholink inc. 4. the construction of college student counselor team from the perspective of competence 4.1 improve the recruitment methods for college student counselors based on the work characteristics of college student counselors, in the past, the recruitment of counselors focused on the educational background, political outlook, and physical fitness of the recruiters. to some extent, there was a lack of assessment of the candidate’s personality, abilities, and job expectations, resulting in the selected talents being unable to adapt to the relevant work of college student counselors and affecting their competence. therefore, in the construction of the counselor team in universities, it is necessary to combine the characteristics of the competency model and innovate the recruitment methods for college student counselors. firstly, from the perspective of competence, talent selection can be carried out based on the excellent performance of applicants, with a focus on considering their hidden qualities. through the assessment of various competency factors, the recruitment methods of counselors can be improved to better enhance the overall quality of the construction of the college student counselor team. secondly, in the recruitment of college counselors, a structured and differentiated interview question bank can be designed through the construction of a competency model. relevant personnel will focus on assessing the job competence of candidates in counselor recruitment through the use of effective question bank resources, effectively improving the success rate of college student counselor recruitment and achieving the goal of job matching better. thirdly, in the recruitment of college student counselors, it is necessary to use competency models as the foundation, and enhance the effectiveness of recruitment work through interview evaluation and questionnaire expression of interview results. interviewers should adopt an open-ended questioning method in counselor recruitment to better test candidates’ thinking and problem-solving abilities. through the innovation of these recruitment methods, the core competitiveness of the college student counselor team can be enhanced, providing reference for the design of various counseling work (guo, 2018). 4.2 integrate training methods for college counselors through the analysis of the training plan for college student counselors, innovation in various counselor training and development work should be carried out from the perspective of competence, in order to achieve the professional development of college student counselors. based on the current competence level of college counselors, there are differences between the actual competence of many personnel and the prescribed standards, which affects the improvement of counselors’ comprehensive literacy. therefore, in the current development of universities, relevant managers should integrate counselor training methods based on the work characteristics of college counselors. firstly, from the perspective of competence, the improvement of counselor work skills should be a key focus in counselor training, guiding counselors to grasp the changes in the new situation in practical problems, enhancing their own ideological and political literacy, and fully demonstrating the pertinence of counselor training work effectiveness value. secondly, in the innovation of training forms, pre job training, daily training, and vocational training should be prioritized. through multi-level and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 77 published by scholink inc. multi-stage training, the professional literacy of counselors should be enhanced, so that counselors can better understand their own work characteristics and improve their professional literacy. thirdly, from the perspective of competence, innovation in student counselor training can focus on enhancing the learning resilience of medical students, specialized guidance and training, and current affairs hotspots. it can strengthen counselors’ understanding of relevant psychology and law, and ensure the steady progress of various counseling work through comprehensive analysis of psychology, management studies, and humanities literacy. fourthly, in the training of counselors, the assessment plan should be optimized, and the effectiveness of training work should be maximized through the combination of training records and summary projects for trainees (wang, lin, & ma, 2019). 4.3 innovate the performance evaluation methods for college counselors in the construction of the team of college counselors, performance evaluation methods can be implemented based on the functions of counselors, effectively improving their competitiveness and enhancing their professional literacy. in the current work of college student supervisors, competency content should be taken as the core, innovation in assessment methods should be achieved, counselors should be guided to gradually adapt to their own work, and the professional literacy of counselors should be comprehensively improved. under normal circumstances, in the improvement of counselor assessment methods, the following should be achieved: firstly, based on the improvement of academic resilience of medical students, in the assessment of college counselors, on the one hand, it should actively develop the learning resilience of medical students and enhance their learning ability; on the other hand, to enhance the emotional management ability of medical students, cultivate positive emotional regulation strategies, enhance their subjective well-being, strive to become their life mentors and close friends as the core, and quantify indicators such as happiness assessment. secondly, in the assessment of college student counselors, the goal should be to enhance the learning resilience of medical students, guide counselors to learn problem-solving oriented thinking and response methods, innovate work methods, enhance their professional literacy, continuously improve students’ learning resilience level, not lose learning confidence due to setbacks, be brave in trying and challenging, and actively analyze and solve problems. we can establish a two-level assessment team for counselors at both school and department levels to ensure the steady progress of various tutoring work and demonstrate the service function literacy of counselors through the organization and improvement of various learning resilience assessments. thirdly, combining different competency assessment indicators, in the reform of performance assessment methods for college counselors, the evaluation indicators for counselors should be quantified to effectively enhance their competency. fourthly, in the assessment of counselors, excellent, qualified, and unqualified assessment standards should be set, and differentiated grade evaluation plans should be set based on the work characteristics of different counselors to enhance the overall value of counselor assessment. fifthly, considering the characteristics of the competency model, universities need to establish a specific performance evaluation system in the assessment of counselors, and the specific evaluation results are shown in figure 1. sixth, in the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 78 published by scholink inc. comprehensive ability assessment of counselors, a questionnaire survey activity should also be constructed based on their professional attitude, personal knowledge and skills, and personal charm, in order to objectively evaluate their work and better stimulate the enthusiasm of counselors’ work (liu & guo, 2019). 4.4 measures for coordinating the salary management of college counselors in the improvement of professional literacy of college counselors, innovation in performance evaluation methods can be targeted at the work characteristics of counselors, stimulate their initiative and enthusiasm, and fully meet the core needs of college counselors in talent cultivation. under normal circumstances, in the improvement of salary management methods for college counselors, the following should be achieved: firstly, combined with the competency salary management system, through the cultivation of high-quality and high potential talents, to create personalized development space for counselors, in order to better enhance their competitive awareness and gradually enhance their own value in their work. secondly, in the salary management of counselors, based on the improvement of learning resilience, universities can regularly hire psychological counseling and employment guidance personnel for psychological training, attach importance to the development of medical students’ psychological resilience level, and shape their good psychological qualities. by offering courses on mental health education for college students, medical career planning guidance, and mentality shaping, counselors can enhance their understanding of psychological knowledge and stress resistance knowledge, providing reference for the improvement of the counseling team. thirdly, in the salary management of counselors, guide students to "clarify what they want, what their interests are, and where their goals are", combine career promotion and other incentive measures, choose a career growth path that suits them, and lay the foundation for the professional development of college student counselors. 5. conclusion in the current construction of the college counselor team, building a competency model is the support, and improving the learning resilience of medical students is the focus. through various methods of motivational learning, experience sharing, and group counseling, the direction for cultivating a positive and upward learning mindset of medical students is pointed out. the school provides various training platforms for counselors, conducts practical activities, and creates a good working environment to ensure their professional development. for college administrators, they should recognize the problems that affect the work of counselors, analyze the comprehensive factors such as unstable career development environment, lack of professional discipline support, and lack of autonomous teams, and combine the characteristics of competency models to integrate and innovate their work. and through a comprehensive analysis of counselor recruitment methods, counselor training methods, counselor performance evaluation methods, and counselor performance management methods, provide experience and guidance for medical students to enhance their learning resilience, improve their www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 79 published by scholink inc. learning ability, cultivate noble qualities, master positive emotion regulation strategies, and establish good interpersonal relationships. at the same time, it also creates a good learning environment for college counselors, improves their core competencies, and better plans their career development direction, fully meeting the needs of college counselor team construction. acknowledgements 1. this paper is a research project of philosophy and social sciences in jiangsu province, “exploration and practice research of ideological and political teaching reform from the perspective of ‘three whole education’—based on the perspective of academic resilience” (ideological and political project: 2020sjb1063); 2. 2021 jiangsu higher education association counselor work research committee special project “research on the orientation and realization path of college counselors’ education under the background of ‘three full education’” (project no.: 21fyhyb021); 3. zhenjiang applied social science research youth development project “research on the path of collaborative education of ideological and political education for teenagers based on the fundamental task of cultivating people” (project no.: 2023qn48); 4. jiangsu university 2021 clinical medical science and technology development fund project (teaching and education reform) “exploration and practice of collaborative education model based on ‘curriculum ideology and politics’—taking medical professional courses in colleges and universities as an example” (project no.: jly2021203); 5. the key project of ideological and political education for college students in jiangsu university, “research on the joint mechanism of ideological and political education in colleges and universities from the perspective of ‘three-whole education’” (project no.: jdxgzd202107). project general project of research on the spirit of the 20th national congress of the communist party of china and ideological and political work at jiangsu university (project no.: 2023jdszyb011) reference fan, f. s., wen, l. l., & liu, z. j. (2014). a study on the relationship between psychological resilience, employment pressure, and social support among medical students. china health management, 31(9), 699-705. guo, d. (2018). exploring the management and construction of college counselors from the perspective of human resources. school party building and ideological education, 2018(1), 76-78. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 80 published by scholink inc. li, p., song, q. l., liu, b. t., yu, y. j., bian, c., & li, m. (2015). reflection on the role and significance of positive emotions in the psychological resilience of medical students. china higher medical education, 2015(10), 46-47. li, y. (2012). a study on the current situation of professional ability of college counselors from a student perspective. college counselors, 2012(1), 63-67. liu, z. q., & guo, m. (2019). application of the quality model of college counselors in performance evaluation. journal of college counselors, 11(3), 14-27. pang, d. y., & zhu, x. f. (2019). three dimensions of the transformation of the work concept of college counselors in the new era. journal of college counselors, 11(2), 14-18. wang, y., lin, q. q., & ma, l. h. (2019). concept of developing curriculum standards for college counselor training based on professional ability standards. ideological and theoretical education, 2019(9), 94-97. zhang, m. z., & zhao, x. j. (2019). exploring the professional development of college counselors. school party building and ideological education, 2019(16), 92-93. zhao, c., & gao, w. (2019). structural dimension analysis of the role of college counselor managers. jiangsu higher education, 2019(7), 115-119. frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no.1, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 61 original paper analysis on the construction path of “golden course” of international commercial law in international trade major from the new liberal arts perspective zhong ming-rong1, tang jiao-mei2 & zhou jun1* 1 shiyuan college, nanning normal university, nanning, china 2 jiaying university, meizhou, china * corresponding author, zhou jun, shiyuan college, nanning normal university, nanning, china received: march 12, 2023 accepted: march 30, 2023 online published: april 1, 2023 doi:10.22158/fet.v6n1p61 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v6n1p61 abstract under the background of “new liberal arts”, curriculum innovation and development become an important way to improve the quality of talent training. therefore, the construction of “golden course” as a breakthrough is the focus of talent training and professional development in undergraduate colleges. based on the analysis of the necessity of constructing the “golden course” of international commercial law in international trade major from the perspective of new liberal arts and the existing problems in course construction, this paper constructs the “five-in-one” teaching mode of “golden course” of international commercial law in international trade major by combining the teaching idea of “pre-class + after-class + in-class”, and explores the cultivation path of foreign trade law compound talents. to cultivate high-quality practical foreign trade talents who meet the needs of the construction of a trade power and the development of the country and society. keywords new liberal arts, international commercial law, “five-in-one”, construction of “golden lessons” 1. introduction on march 2, 2021, the ministry of education issued the notice of the general office of the ministry of education on recommending new liberal arts research and reform practice projects. in the new liberal arts research and reform practice project guide, the requirements for the construction practice of new liberal arts in the field of economic and management law are as follows: to meet the needs of new economic forms, new lifestyles and new operation modes brought by the new scientific and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 62 published by scholink inc. technological revolution, and to comprehensively use big data, artificial intelligence and other information technologies to upgrade and transform the concept, mode, content and means of talent training of economic and management law major. we should tap the great practice of china’s reform, opening up and modernization, build a social science theory system with chinese characteristics, build high-quality teaching resources and content, adhere to the guidance of improving students’ ability to solve practical problems, strengthen the practicality and application of the curriculum system, and accelerate the training of economic management law talents with strong localization awareness and international vision. we should strengthen interdisciplinary integration and cross-border integration, and cultivate new growth points of disciplines. the core of the construction of new liberal arts in the field of economic management law is to base on the new era and meet the new needs of the development of the times, promote the integration, modernization, sinicization and internationalization of education in the field of economic management law, and lead the new development of humanities and social sciences in the field of economic management law. in this context, it is an important research topic that needs to be explored to further promote the construction of the gold course of international commercial law in international trade major, effectively improve the teaching level and quality of international trade major, and cultivate foreign trade talents with innovative consciousness, compound professional knowledge background, and consistent with the development needs of new modes and formats of foreign trade. 2. the necessity of constructing “golden course” of international commercial law in international trade major under the new liberal arts perspective the construction of new liberal arts has become an urgent need for the cultivation of national talents and the connotative development of disciplines, as well as the high-quality development of economy and society and the establishment of high-level universities. this paper combines the characteristics of international trade major with the needs of the development of the new pattern and business form of our country’s foreign trade, and analyzes the necessity of the construction of “golden course” of international commercial law for international trade major from the perspective of new liberal arts. 2.1 the need to deepen the development and opening up to the outside world and accelerate the construction of a trade power foreign trade is a booster for china to optimize the allocation of resources in the face of the world, build a new development pattern of domestic and international double circulation, and promote the growth and development of national economy. the report to the 20th cpc national congress pointed out that we should “promote a high level of opening-up”, “promote the optimization and upgrading of goods trade, innovate the development mechanism of service trade, develop digital trade, and accelerate the building of a trading power”. it is an inevitable choice to strengthen our country’s international competitiveness and promote our country’s international economic status to build a trade power. the construction of trade power needs high quality foreign trade talents as support. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 63 published by scholink inc. 2.2 the internal needs of the development of new liberal arts the characteristic of the construction of “new liberal arts” is to eliminate the “water course” and create “golden course”, so as to promote the comprehensive innovation and development of teaching content, curriculum system, teaching methods, teaching means and practical teaching. “international commercial law” is the core course of international trade major, its teaching objectives, teaching content and so on directly affect the quality of international trade personnel training. the construction of the “golden course” of international commercial law in international trade major, the innovative development of the teaching concept and teaching method of the course, and the improvement of the quality of talent training in international trade major are highly consistent with the internal requirements of the development of new liberal arts. 2.3 the need for the development of new modes and forms of foreign trade in august 2021, the general office of the state council issued the opinions on accelerating the development of new forms and models of foreign trade. six new models and forms of foreign trade development are highlighted, including cross-border e-commerce, market procurement, comprehensive foreign trade service enterprises, bonded maintenance, offshore trade and overseas warehouse. therefore, the training of international trade talents needs to be guided by the demand of foreign trade talents, and cultivate high-quality compound and practical foreign trade talents in line with the development of new modes and forms of foreign trade. 2.4 “international commercial law” course construction needs international commercial law is the core course of international trade major, including commercial organization law, international commercial contract law, international goods sale law, international goods transport law, international goods transport insurance law, negotiable instruments law, international commercial arbitration law and other contents, the development of new modes and forms of foreign trade. the foreign trade talents in the field of e-commerce law, tax law and other compound knowledge requirements to further enhance. under the background of the development of new modes and forms of foreign trade and the construction of a trade power, the “golden course” of international commercial law for international trade major is created. it can improve the difficulty and quality of classroom teaching, and help enhance students’ ability to analyze and solve legal problems in foreign trade practice with the theoretical knowledge they have learned. it can improve the comprehensive quality of foreign trade personnel training, and cultivate the applied and skilled foreign trade talents in line with the development of the new pattern and new business form of our country’s foreign trade. 3. the problems existing in the course construction of international commercial law in international trade specialty under the new liberal arts perspective the author of this article has been teaching the course of international commercial law for international trade major for a long time, incorporating practical teaching methods such as simulated arbitration, case discussion and group study into teaching activities. in order to meet the market www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 64 published by scholink inc. demand for foreign trade talents, the teaching content and teaching methods are constantly reformed and innovated. the main problems existing in the course construction of international commercial law for international trade major are summarized as follows: 3.1 difficulties in transforming theoretical knowledge into practical application in the talent training program of international trade major, the main courses are the theoretical knowledge and practical skills related to foreign trade. the main legal courses are international commercial law, and other legal courses are basically absent. in addition, the classroom teaching of international commercial law in international trade specialty is mainly teacher-led theoretical teaching. however, in the practice of foreign trade, students need to use the theoretical knowledge they have learned to analyze and solve problems. this makes the existing foreign trade personnel training, students use theoretical knowledge to deal with foreign trade risk prevention and control, solve foreign trade disputes and other practical problems are lack of ability. 3.2 the single problem of practical teaching mode in terms of the cultivation of practical skills, international trade students mainly focus on the improvement of skills in international trade practice. in the teaching process of international commercial law, the teaching method is mainly to explain the theory by teachers combined with cases. as a result, students have less contact with the settlement of international trade disputes, and the practical teaching mode in teaching is relatively single. with the promotion of china’s “belt and road” initiative, china’s status in international economic activities is becoming more and more important, and the demand for foreign legal talents will also increase greatly. the training of foreign trade talents should not only have rich theoretical knowledge of international trade, but also be able to skillfully use the theoretical knowledge learned, and solve various disputes in foreign economic activities through reconciliation, mediation, litigation, arbitration and other ways. 3.3 the problem that textbooks do not update laws and regulations and international practices in time the economic and social environment at home and abroad is constantly developing and changing, and the laws and international business practices as the code of conduct of international economic activities are also in a state of constant change and revision. the timeliness of international economic activities is very strong, and it is necessary to use the latest domestic and foreign laws and regulations, international practices and so on to solve the relevant problems. however, there is a lag in updating the content of international commercial law textbooks. for the cutting-edge contents such as laws and regulations related to international trade and newly revised international practices, the textbooks are not updated in time, and are disconnected from the updated laws, regulations and business practices. therefore, in the course of international commercial law of international trade major, special lectures and other forms are adopted to supplement the explanation of the latest laws and regulations and international commercial practices in the field of international business. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 65 published by scholink inc. 3.4 weak awareness of safeguarding rights in international economic activities during the study period, students majoring in international trade have little understanding of cases in actual international economic activities, domestic and foreign legal and regulatory systems, and international trade practices. this is an important reason why students have weak awareness of rights protection after engaging in foreign trade in the future, and also has a certain negative impact on the internationalization development of chinese enterprises. for example, in the field of intellectual property law, trademarks are important intellectual property rights of enterprises and also the “passport” for enterprises to enter the international market. however, many domestic enterprises neglect trademark registration in domestic and foreign markets due to weak trademark awareness in the initial stage of moving towards the international market. as a result, the trademarks of many well-known enterprises have been registered abroad by others, which has caused huge losses for chinese enterprises to explore overseas markets. 4. analysis on the construction of “golden course” of international commercial law in international trade major from the new liberal arts perspective 4.1 the combination of “before class + after class + in class” can enhance students’ autonomous learning ability the teaching ideas of “golden course” construction of “international commercial law” in international trade major from the perspective of new liberal arts are as follows: before class, case materials, legal documents, laws and regulations, international conventions and other materials should be sent to students in advance for study; in the class, the practical teaching mode of “simulated arbitration + online court + special lecture + enterprise practice + case discussion” is used for classroom teaching; after class, students will strengthen and consolidate their learning through exercises and case materials, and take students to practice in law firms or enterprises. through the combination of “before class + during class + after class”, the “student-centered” learning mode of “international commercial law” is constructed to fully mobilize the enthusiasm and initiative of students to participate in learning, appropriately increase the burden of students, enhance the ability of students to solve problems, find and solve problems, and comprehensively improve the comprehensive quality of foreign trade talents. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 66 published by scholink inc. figure 1. teaching idea design of “golden course” of international commercial law in international trade major 4.2 the practical “golden course” teaching mode of “five-in-one” cultivates innovative practical skills talents this paper constructs the design of practical teaching mode of “five-in-one” (including: simulated arbitration + online court + special lecture + enterprise practice + case discussion) of “international commercial law” course for international trade major. through law firms and enterprises, more practical cases are introduced into classroom teaching activities. guide students to learn independently, stimulate students’ interest in learning, and improve students’ ability to solve problems. the “five-in-one” course of international commercial law for international trade major is as follows: one is to simulate the arbitration model. in international economic activities, dispute resolution methods mainly include mediation, reconciliation, arbitration and litigation, among which arbitration is the most important way to resolve international commercial disputes. through the simulation of arbitration, under the guidance of teachers, students play different roles such as arbitrator, complainant, complainant and their agent in specific case situations, so that students can fully understand the stages, steps and links of international commercial arbitration, and gradually develop the ability to analyze and solve international commercial disputes. the second is the online court model. in the era of “internet plus”, part of court trial activities are conducted through online live trial, which makes the teaching method of international commercial law can also be turned to “online court”. by connecting pragmatic information resources such as court trial into the classroom through live trial, students can understand all aspects of court trial activities to the maximum extent. in the teaching activities of “online court”, we can fully refer to the court activities related to international commercial disputes published on the internet in china and introduce them into the classroom teaching. design of teaching ideas before class in class after class mock arbitration case study discussion design of teaching ideas the online court case study materials legal instruments laws and regulations, international practices, etc. problem set case study materials practice of business www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 67 published by scholink inc. third, special lecture mode. in the special lecture, it is mainly used to solve the new problem after the teaching material is available. therefore, special lectures should be fully combined with domestic and foreign commercial laws and regulations, the latest trends of international practices, new models and forms of foreign trade and changes in domestic and foreign economic development, etc., to carry out lectures related to foreign investment law, rcep, pilot free trade zone, e-commerce law and other frontier issues. the curriculum construction is closely linked with the national strategy, the new requirements of regional economic development, and the new changes in the international economic situation, so that students can understand and master the latest trends of international economic activities during school, in order to adapt to the development and changes of domestic and foreign markets faster after graduation. fourth, the enterprise practice mode. deepen the cooperation between the university and enterprises, law firms, arbitration institutions, etc. by taking students to visit and study in practical departments, more legal personnel with practical work experience will share and explain to students how to strengthen risk prevention and control in foreign economic activities and solve foreign disputes, so as to provide more space for students majoring in international trade to improve their foreign legal practice skills. fifth, case discussion mode. case discussion is an important mode of classroom practical teaching of “international commercial law”. by introducing various cases in international economic activities into classroom teaching, students are guided to independently explore and solve problems, combine theory with practice, and conduct legal logic demonstration on cases, so as to improve the legal thinking mode and practical skills of students majoring in international trade in international economic activities. 4.3 emphasis should be placed on the construction of cross-curriculum of science courses in international trade major under the background of building a trade power, the development of new modes and forms of foreign trade, and the new liberal arts, it is one of the goals of foreign trade talent training to cultivate high-quality foreign trade talents, and to improve the training quality of outsiders’ talents through the cross-integration and innovation of international trade and other disciplines. in terms of professional knowledge background, courses closely related to the development of foreign trade include foreign language, law and other professional knowledge. the trans-professional implementation background and compound thinking mode of interdisciplinary foreign trade talents are highly in line with the market demand for foreign trade talents. therefore, in the talent training of international trade major, we can provide a new perspective for the training of international trade talents through the cross-integration and optimization of knowledge systems of different disciplines. breaking through the limitations of the existing curriculum system and curriculum content of international trade major, different professional directions can be started in international trade major, and innovative development of cross-professional and cross-curriculum system can be realized. in the interdisciplinary integration of international trade and law, "international trade law" and other directions can be set up. based on www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 68 published by scholink inc. the basic theoretical knowledge of international trade, we set up courses related to international trade law to cultivate a group of compound and applied foreign trade legal talents. 4.4 to laws and regulations and professional ethics as the guidance, in-depth construction of moral education practice courses in the construction of the “golden course” of international commercial law for international trade major, laws and regulations, international practices, etc., are integrated with industrial norms and professional ethics. improve students’ legal literacy and awareness of safeguarding rights, enhance the ideological and moral level of foreign trade talents, and help foreign trade talents form a correct world outlook, outlook on life and values. the socialist core values should be integrated into the whole process of training international trade professionals, and the patriotic feelings and international vision of foreign trade talents should be enhanced, so as to better safeguard the economic interests of enterprises and the country in the process of global economic integration. to cultivate high quality foreign trade personnel with both political integrity and ability for the construction of socialist market economy. 4.5 law firms and enterprises jointly build practical talent training bases the practical department is an important place for the training of foreign legal talents. in the training of international trade talents under the background of the construction of new liberal arts, we should make full use of the resources of law firms, enterprises, arbitration institutions and other legal practical departments, and establish teaching practice bases with more practical departments related to foreign economic activities. deepen teaching cooperation, and realize zero distance contact between students and law firms, enterprises, arbitration institutions and other pragmatic departments involved in foreign economic activities. the practical teaching of “international commercial law” is moved to the classroom, so that students can participate in foreign economic activities. this will help students to have more contact with the actual cases of foreign economic activities, so as to improve the ability of international trade talents to analyze foreign economic activities with legal thinking. 4.6 cultivate high quality foreign trade talents in line with the construction of trade power the latest international commercial laws and regulations and international commercial practices at home and abroad are introduced into the classroom teaching through special lectures. let students understand the latest trends of laws and regulations in the field of international economy during school, so that the training of international trade professionals is consistent with the trend of domestic and foreign economic development, and improve the training quality of foreign trade talents. graduates will be able to better serve the construction of trade power after entering the job, and contribute to the regional economic development of guangxi, such as building an opening and cooperation highland facing the “belt and road” of asean, building an important node hub of domestic and international double circulation, docking rcep rules and deepening the construction of guangxi pilot free trade zone. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 1, 2023 69 published by scholink inc. 5. conclusion based on the new liberal arts concept and standard, this paper constructs the “golden course” of international commercial law for international trade major. reform and innovation of teaching methods and teaching contents should be carried out to make the training of international trade professionals consistent with the construction of trade power, the development of new modes and forms of foreign trade and the construction of new liberal arts. based on the teaching design idea of “before class + after class + in class”, this paper constructs a practical teaching mode of “five-in-one” (including: simulated arbitration + online court + special lecture + enterprise practice + case discussion). taking students as the center, we should strengthen the close combination of classroom and practice, theory and practice, and help students master the skills of risk prevention and control and dispute resolution in foreign trade while learning theoretical knowledge well. through the construction of “golden course” of “international commercial law” in international trade major under the new liberal arts perspective, the teaching quality of “international commercial law” can be effectively improved. it provides a reference for further improving the training program of compound applied foreign trade talents, deepening the reform of the curriculum system of international trade major, improving the correlation between the major of international trade undergraduate graduates and employment, and cultivating high-quality compound practical foreign trade talents. fund item guangxi undergraduate college education reform project (no. 2022jga437; no. 2022jga433) guangxi education science “14th five-year plan” special project (no.2022zjy467; no. 2022zjy1645; no. 2022mbzx07; no. 2021zjy1660) guangxi university young and middle-aged teachers basic ability improvement project (no. 2023ky1795; no. 2022ky1722; no. 2021ky1737; no. 2021ky1744) ideological and political project of international commercial law course (no. kcsz202206) references chinese government network. opinions of the general office of the state council on accelerating the development of new forms and models of foreign trade. 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(2021). reform of legal education under the background of new liberal arts construction. new liberal arts education research, 2021(2). microsoft word fet-v2n4-p185 frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 185 original paper the impact of racial identity and social spaces on the academic experiences of biracial students: a phenomenographic study for school administrative intervention maria judith r. raagas1* 1 school of education, university of san carlos, cebu city, philippines * maria judith r. raagas, school of education, university of san carlos, cebu city, philippines received: august 27, 2019 accepted: september 9, 2019 online published: september 11, 2019 doi:10.22158/fet.v2n4p185 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v2n4p185 abstract this study explored the identity and social spaces that affects academic performances, and behavioral difficulties of biracial students. as teachers have direct experiences with biracial students in every working days in school, these serve as an opportunity for the researcher to study the academic experiences of biracial learners. this research paper is qualitative research that used the phenomenographic approach. phenomenography is investigative, and, explanatory as, it charts the different ways on how the participants understand, conceptualize, perceive and observe the different aspects of a phenomenon in the environment around them. the participants were grade school teachers wherein their experiences with the biracial students were explored. the researcher interviewed the participants, and the interviews were transcribed verbatim. as findings, five themes were drawn by the researcher from the interview. these are: classroom profile of biracial students, academic performances, behavioral difficulties, racial identity shaped by the parents and environment, and the intervention. keywords biracial, social spaces, academic performance, behavioral difficulties, intervention www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 186 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction the rise of biracial filipinos raised and brought up in the philippines are very evident in the last decade. the filipinos were proud when a biracial filipina, ms. pia wurtzbach won the miss universe 2015 pageant, a german-filipino descent. within two years, another biracial filipina bagged the miss universe crown in 2018, ms. catriona gray, an australian-filipino descent. winning the miss universe and other international beauty pageants is an honor that comes with the privilege, not only to smartly answer questions in front of millions of viewers, showcasing that the filipino contenders have brains inside those beautiful faces. it is not surprising that filipinos love the biracial beauties, which we locally called mestizas or mestizos, coupled with the desire to be one of them that boosts the skin whitening industry. the philippine national football team, the philippine azkals, made name in the international football competition in the recent years, putting the philippines in the world map of football or soccer. it can be observed that the philippine azkals team members are predominantly biracial, headed by a british-filipino descent, phil younghusband (abs-cbn news, 2018). the existence of biracial or mestizos, dated back in the middle ages, when europeans discovered the new world. anzaldua (1987) described the spanish conquest of mexico headed by hernan cortes. at that time, before the spaniards conquered and subjugated mexico, there were twenty five million indian population and in 1650 there were only one and a half million pure blooded indians remained. the mestizos founded the new hybrid breed race and inherited central and south america (anzaldua, 1987). the concept of mestiza is clearly explained in the book, borderlands la frontera by anzaldua (1987). other than being a mixed breed, the mestizas cope by developing a tolerance for contradictions, a tolerance by ambiguity. she learns to be an indian in mexican culture, to be mexican from an anglo point of view. she learns to juggle cultures. she has a plural personality, she operates in a pluralistic mode—nothing is thrust out, the good, the bad, and the ugly, nothing rejected, nothing abandoned. a mestiza is cradled in one culture, sandwiched between cultures, straddling all three cultures, and their value systems. la mestiza undergoes a struggle of flesh, a struggle of borders and inner wars (anzaldua, 1987). the mestiza concept explained by anzaldua (1987) led herself to being a feminist, and an advocate of multicultural feminism theory. the multicultural feminism theory contends, that women of color play a significant role in society. this is due to the fact that these women underwent numerous prejudices, and, was able to alter their personality, to adapt on the environment which they live. the philippines also experienced the fate of mexico when the country was conquered by spain in 1521. however, before the spaniards conquered the philippine islands, there were already mestizas that existed. this mixed breed was the result of the filipino-chinese trading activities in the pre-spanish era. with the arrival of the spaniards, who also married the natives of the island, the increase of mestizos became noticeable. however, these mestizos were considered as second class citizens during the spanish period. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 187 published by scholink inc. the biracial baby boomers are now coming to age as an increasing segment of society (suzuki-crumly & hyers, 2004). like our misses universe, ms. wurtzbach and ms. gray, biracial individuals are becoming more prominent in many areas of our society. the location of this research is cie british school, an international school located in cebu city, philippines. cie british school became a choice of school in the community, for basic education, not only for international or foreign students, but also to biracial students. there is a notable increase in the enrollment of biracial students in the last decade by 10% every year (cie british school, 2018). this type of students are becoming prevalent in the three cie campuses: cebu, makati, and tacloban, philippines. cie british school is accredited with the university of cambridge and the council of british international schools, united kingdom. the founder is prof. nelia cruz sarcol, a bachelor of elementary education graduate, magna cum laude, from the university of the philippines—dilliman, quezon city, philippines. cie was first established in 1988 as child development foundation, inc., a non-profit, non-stock corporation and a foundation duly registered under the philippine law, offering preschool and primary school. in school year 1998-1999, cie british school expanded its operations by offering secondary education and higher education and changed its corporate name to centre for international education global colleges, inc. (cie). the founder, inspired by her researches here and abroad, aimed to offer an education in cie which is at par with international standard. when cie established its international accreditation and linkages with schools in singapore, united states, and, united kingdom, it then carries the official name as cie british school. as an international school located in cebu city, philippines, students from various nationalities and biracial enroll in cie. an increase in these types of students are noted in the last decade of cie’s operations. this research paper focused on the racial identity and social spaces of biracial students, and, its impact on their academic performances and behavioral difficulties, as experience by the grade school teachers in cie british school. 1.1 problem identification this researcher received feedbacks from teachers and colleagues about the phenomenon that happened in cie. during the last decade, it was observed and noted that during the quarterly conduct deliberations and deliberations of academic honors, the biracial students topnotch the list of poor academic performance and behavioral difficulties. in the previous years, the biracial students are known to have good looks that, most of them can be candidates to national, and, international beauty contests readied with smart answers to any questions that win the crowns. however, in the recent years, biracial students showed poor academic performances, and, behavioral concerns as reported by the teachers, and, cie student welfare office. this becomes a phenomenon that must be addressed by the school administrators. the student welfare office is flooded with referral cases, and, complaints involving the biracial student, and, parents were www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 188 published by scholink inc. called every now and then by the guidance counselor, class advisers, headmistress or at times to the office of the academic and discipline board, to settle the cases of their children. it is not that there are no interventions provided by the student welfare office, but these interventions seem to be inappropriate, as these provide no positive results on the emerging phenomenon. this study looked into the experiences of grade school teachers with biracial students. these experiences have impact on the students during the early years of experiences in schools. elementary aged students are often ill prepared to proficiently negotiate the diverse cultures of home, and, school. constructive student-teacher relationships are fundamental to the positive development of students’ school identities which may conflict with how they identify at home (ann & laszloffy, 2005). it is a concern, that the lack of skills of teachers to connect with biracial students is critical to racial identity development. it is true, that there is very few literature on the study of biracial students in grade school, but there are reports that teachers are incompetent in their understanding, and, management of issues concerning biracial students. 1.2 review of related studies there are very few studies about biracial students especially in the philippines. most of the studies pertains to what is it to be a biracial or multiracial, the constructions of their identity, and, most researches tackled only the issues of black and white races. to provide the understanding of the biracialism concept, the following sections provides the related studies of biracial and the social spaces. 1.2.1 the rise of the biracial children educators understood that the basic education years are essential, and critical in the development of the students as individual. it is during these foundation years that the student’s individuality is defined, and formed, specifically between ages 5 and 15. the school setting is a fertile ground for personal exploration and growth. growth, is determined by the students’ ability to navigate the “crisis” or challenge (chickering & reisser, 1993). in this study, the researcher limits the definition of biracial as those children who are offspring of a filipina or filipino and a foreigner. the influx of foreigners to the philippines started with establishment of american naval and air bases in subic and clark, pampanga, right after the second world war. during this time, angeles city, pampanga became the center of prostitution as several filipinas engaged in sex-trade. as a result biracial children became a phenomenon in the area. today, angeles city, has populace which is unique as the influx of foreigners has led to the city’s demographic diversity, as well as to the birth of biracial children. since world war ii, this area has been a birthplace for amerasians, or children who were fathered by american servicemen and whose mothers were asians. amerasian is a term that was coined by the american writer and human rights activist pearl s. buck (lavides & waring, 2018). today, the american dream still exists among filipinos, that is, to go abroad or marry a foreigner and live happily ever after in the land of green and honey. however, prostitution is not the only way, the trend, from being pen pals or mail-to-order bride to the current internet chat room, supported by the advancement of technology, filipinas and these foreigners can easily communicate, and, agree about www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 189 published by scholink inc. their future to unite. this situation is very evident in many social spaces these days. the result is the rise of biracial children. considering the 2015 census, of the total number of marriages which occurred in the philippines in 2015 about 3.6 percent involved foreign nationals. american nationals were preferred by filipino brides (0.75%) and australians (0.07%) by filipino grooms. other common nationalities of the groom are japanese (0.39%), australian (0.23%), and, korean (0.22%). on the other hand, filipino grooms also preferred to marry american (0.06%), and, canadian (0.04%) (philippine statistics authority, 2017). the census records though, did not consider those marriages of filipinos to foreigners occurred abroad. it is interesting to note that, these interracial marriages produced biracial children who are born and brought up in the philippines. 1.2.2 understanding social spaces space, may either be geographic and virtual, is a basis for identity. a social space is physical or virtual space such as a social center, online social media, or other gathering place where people gather and interact. some social spaces such as town squares or parks are public places; others such as pubs, websites, or shopping malls are privately owned and regulated (dyer & ngui, 2010). home are also considered social place, a place of identity. in this paper, the researcher considered school as a social space, as this is a place where everyone interacts, moves, affiliates, and relates. one’s school is an indicator of values, and a sign of socioeconomic position. a person can be identified what school he or she is educated, how expensive the school is, and the quality of education it provides. a social space is not simply a docile area for predestined behaviors, but, an active means for the construction of identities, subjective or objective. it is said that, socialization constantly occurs in educational institutions, as early as foundation or grade school level. a lot of teachers have this concept that, grade school students are incapable of operating at advanced stages. how these teachers response to children regarding races are still to be explored, and, studied. 1.3 rationale of the study the study analyzed and examined the identity, and, social spaces that affects academic performances, and, behavioral difficulties of biracial students. as the teachers experience the school lives of the biracial students in her every working day in school, the phenomenon serves as an opportunity for the researcher to address this concern. this study also explored the experiences of the participants with the biracial and appropriate interventions are clearly identified that help biracial students increase their performances in school. the study also be of aid to other schools in the community that have similar concern. 1.4 the research questions with the identification of the problem, this study anchors on the following research questions: (1) what are the classroom experiences of teachers with biracial students? (2) what are the conceptions of the teachers on the racial identity of the biracial students? www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 190 published by scholink inc. (3) how are the biracial students currently being engaged and encouraged by teachers in developing their social spaces in school? as a student in a doctorate programme in education, the researcher hopes that the result of this study will aid the teachers who are involved in the lives of biracial students and who are endeavoring to develop healthy and well-adjusted individuals with a healthy resolution of mixed-race identity (root, 1996). 1.5 significance of the study biracial students may have different struggles as the non-biracial students in the classroom. however, with the development of new classroom approaches, such as, culturally relevant pedagogy, the academes are working on creating an effective learning strategies for all students, regardless of race, gender and creed. will these learning strategies that are created be effective to all students? the racial demographic in schools today are changing and educators must do some paradigm shifting in their thinking to include biracial students into the argument. to effectively serve the increasing biracial student population we have to pay attention to the academic performances, the educational experiences and social spaces of these students. teachers and school administrators will have better understanding on how to provide support to these students for them to attain success in their studies. for the parents, so they will also understand the uniqueness of children of interracial marriages and the need to address issues relating to biracial children. and for the future researchers who will venture into similar studies, this paper will serve as one of the related studies. 2. method this research paper is a qualitative research that used the phenomenographic approach. phenomenography is exploratory, and, descriptive as it maps the qualitatively different ways the participants experience, conceptualize, perceive, and, understand various aspects of a phenomenon in the world around them (bowden, 1996). phenomenography is a research approach aimed at the study of human experiences of phenomenon in the world. it is about description of things as they appear to us. the object of phenomenography is the variation of human experience of the world. phenomenography implies a study of variations in capturing various dimensions, or facets of a phenomenon as it appears to a number of people. a way of experiencing something constitutes the research unit in phenomenographic, which means, that, the research takes its points of departure in human individuals (sage publication, 2008). as pointed out, the focus of the research is human experiences of a phenomenon, the researcher looked into the second-order perspectives or perspectives of the participants, who have experienced with biracial students. the phenomenological approach was utilized to identify the “essence” of human experience described by the participants in the study (creswell, 2013). in collecting data, the methods used by the researcher were interactive, and, intrusive in which the researcher must be considerate to the role of the participants. this research is evolving, that, as data are www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 191 published by scholink inc. collected and analyzed the problem are altered or revised, and, the research questions are also revised and improved. the researcher becomes an interpreter, and, must withhold her concepts about the phenomenon under study, and, to draw conclusions about the meaning of the categories of themes identified. 2.1 interview interview was used by the researcher in gathering data. the interview questions are guided by the research questions as its framework, and, are semi-structured, meaning, the questions are open, allowing new ideas to be conveyed and generated during the interview. based on the three research questions and as the interview progress sub-questions were developed as the result of the researcher’s in-depth questions that facilitates the development of rich data or materials. the purpose of phenomenographic interview is for the participants to think about, reflect on, and, articulate ways of experiencing a particular phenomenon. in this study, the researcher recorded the interview, and, transcribed it word for word. the names of the biracial students mentioned by the participants in the interview are altered to hide their identity. 2.2 the participants the participants of the study are the selected grade school teachers with direct experiences with biracial students. purposive sampling was used to select the teacher participants. ten teachers participated in this study. the qualification of the participants is, that, all have direct experiences with biracial students as class advisers, or subject teachers in grade school. however, in the course of the gathering data, one participant was added by the researcher, the guidance counselor for basic education. the purpose of adding the guidance counselor, aside from having a direct experience with the biracial students, she was always mentioned by the teachers during the interview. the researcher conducted the interview two participants at a time or when they are available. the guidance counselor was the last one to be interviewed. other than the participants’ data shown in table 1, the researcher also provided brief narrative description of each participant. to maintain confidentiality, all participants are identified with their aliases. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 192 published by scholink inc. table 1. data of participants name role education year experience myle class adviser, english teacher bachelors and licensed professional teacher 3 chris class adviser, computing teacher bachelors and licensed professional teacher 3 mar class adviser, english teacher bachelors and licensed professional teacher 3 mel class adviser, science teacher masters and licensed professional teacher 13 cess class adviser, math teacher bachelors and licensed professional teacher 2 jess class adviser, science teacher bachelors and licensed professional teacher 2 grace class adviser, computing teacher masters and licensed professional teacher 6 jill class adviser, english teacher bachelors and licensed professional teacher 4 lorie class adviser, math teacher bachelors and licensed professional teacher 5 kim class adviser, math teacher bachelors and licensed professional teacher 2 carol guidance counselor for basic education bachelors licensed guidance counselor 12 myle is a teacher with 3 years of teaching experience. she is a class adviser and teaches english in all year 4 and 5 students. she has a bachelor’s degree in elementary education. she is one of those teachers which is always the subject of complaints by parents. chris joined cie as a teacher in computing three years ago. she is a self-contained year 2 teacher with a bachelor’s degree in elementary education. this school year, she is co-teaching with the teachers in graded-track program, a program in basic education that provides foreign students with english classes, and, differentiated instructions before they are move on to the mainstream or regular classes. mar is a class adviser in year 3. he has a 3-year experience in teaching reading to all year 3 students. among all the participants he is the most patient in handling difficult students with no complaints or negative feedbacks from parents. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 193 published by scholink inc. mel is the most senior among all the participants. she joined cie 13 years ago. she is a holder of master’s degree in general science and responsible of teaching science to year 6 to year 8. she is also co-teaching with the teachers in the graded-track program for foreign students. cess was hired by cie only 2 years ago. a holder of bachelor’s degree in elementary education and teaches history in year 6. at the time of this study, she is pursuing her master’s degree in special education. jess, also joined cie about 2 years ago. she is a year 6 general science teacher and a class adviser. she had an experience in teaching children with special education needs during her practice teaching days. grace is a full of life and energy teacher of year 7 with 6 years teaching experience. she holds a bachelor’s degree in secondary education and currently in a master program. she is responsible for teaching mathematics to all year 7 students. jill joined the cie teaching force 4 years ago. she is teaching science to year 8 students. she is one of those few teachers that received positive feedbacks from parents since the start of her teaching career. lorie has been with cie for 5 years. she is teaching mathematics to year 6 and 7 students. she is a very good mathematics teacher as she was able to bring the students to achieve high marks in the international examinations in mathematics. she has a very good classroom management. kim, an art teacher who joined cie 2 years ago. at first, she was only a substitute teacher in art subject, but, a year later she was absorbed as full time art teacher. she gives art classes in lieu of physical education class to students who cannot execute strenuous physical activities for health reasons. and, carol, the guidance counselor, has been with cie for 12 years. a licensed guidance counselor, she graduated with the degree of bachelor of science in psychology. she is currently pursuing her master’s degree in psychology. carol’s direct experience not only with biracial students but also with other students, lead her to become the most knowledgeable about the personal profile of the students, their academic performances and behavioral issues. 3. results there were five main themes that were drawn by the researcher from the interview. these are: (1) the classroom profile of biracial students; (2) academic performance; (3) behavioral difficulties; (4) racial identity shaped by the parents and environment; and, (5) the intervention. these findings are discussed in the following sections: 3.1 classroom profile of biracial students the first research question, “what are the classroom experiences of teachers with biracial students?” identified the classroom profile in terms of nationalities of the students. it also identifies how many biracial students are there in the class. when asked this question, all teachers did not answer the question immediately, hence, i made a priming questions: how many students do you have and what www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 194 published by scholink inc. are their nationalities or races? table 2 showed the summary of the students and their nationalities based on the interview with the teachers: table 2. student nationalities from year 1 to year 6 teacher total number of students biracial (mestizos) koreans indians filipinos others myle 14 5 2 6 1-american chris 24 6 4 15 mar 15 3 3 1 8 mel 12 1 1 3 7 cess 14 3 2 2 7 jess 14 6 2 5 1-south african grace 15 3 3 3 5 1 russian jill 14 2 1 1 10 lorie 14 1 1 1 11 kim 15 1 6 3 16 total 151 31 20 12 85 3 of the total 151 students in cie grade school, 57% are filipinos, 20% are biracial students, 13% koreans, 8% indians and other nationalities, 2%. 3.2 academic performance the findings in the interview conducted is that, all participants identified that 52% of the biracial students in their class are academically-at-risk, and, 31% are both at-risk, and with behavioral problems. 3.3 behavioral difficulties this paper explored the behavioral assessments of biracial students as reflected by teachers’ experiences instead of actual improvements in behavior. the participants also identified the behavioral problems that the biracial students manifested in their respective classrooms. the teachers have varied experiences on this particular issue. it was found out that: (1) those students who are academically-at-risk do not manifest bad behavior; and, (2) those who are surviving in academics have behavioral problems. however, there are five biracial students manifested both poor academic performances and behavioral problems. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 195 published by scholink inc. 3.4 racial identity shaped by the parents and environment this fourth theme was the result from the research question on the conceptions of the teachers on the racial identity of the students. the interview conducted generated the following: (1) profile of the parents in terms of race; (2) the profile of the biracial children in terms of physical features; and, (3) the parents’ involvement of these students in school. the researcher concentrated her findings on the sixteen biracial students or 52% of the total biracial students in cie grade school, who are academically-at-risk and with behavioral problems. the dominant physical features of the biracial as experienced by the teachers are, that, of mestizos or mixed-features. however, five biracial students reflect the physical features of their foreign parents, in which, it is difficult to identify whether they are, biracial or mono-racial. except for two students, majority are born and brought up in cebu city. table 3 showed the summary of the data generated from the interviews of the participants about the racial identity of the biracial students. the table also showed the involvement of parents in school. table 3. summary of profile & involvement of parents in school biracial student concerns biracial nationality parents active in school? birthplace physical features mother father zach academically-atrisk cebu city mestizo filipino american only the mother. the father is working abroad shaun behavioral problem cebu city mestizo filipino british only the mother. though the father is retired and resident of cebu, the father is seldom seen in school. georgina academically-atrisk behavioral problem cebu city indian filipino indian only the mother. the parents are separated and the father is in india. manuel below average california, usa black american filipino american both parents are not active. only the grandfather is involved in school. jannah academically-atrisk behavioral problem cebu city filipino filipino american only the mother. the father is working abroad. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 196 published by scholink inc. matt academically-atrisk cebu city mestizo filipino british only the mother. the father is seldom seen. take academically-atrisk behavioral problem cebu city japanese filipino japanese only the mother. the father is working at mepz-mactan, but he is not seen in school. bray academically-atrisk cebu city mestizo filipino australian only the father. the mother is running the business. shan academically-atrisk cebu city filipino filipino british only the mother. the father is working abroad. kent behavioral problem cebu city mestizo filipino british only the mother and the father is working abroad. vicky hygiene problem below average hong kong mestizo filipino british only the father. the mother is the one busy with the family business. dylan academically-atrisk cebu city mestizo filipino australian only the father. the mother is running the business. mikey academically-atrisk with autism cebu city australian australian filipino only the nanny. the mother is seen only during enrollment. the father is not seen in school. hannah academically-atrisk behavioral problem cebu city filipino filipino japanese only the mother. the father is in japan working. angel academically-atrisk behavioral problem cebu city mestizo filipino japanese only the mother. the father is working in japan. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 197 published by scholink inc. 3.5 the social spaces of biracial students in cie on the research question how are the biracial students currently being engaged and encouraged by teachers in developing their social spaces in school? the participants did not dwell much on how the social spaces of biracial students was engaged, and, encouraged by them, during the interview. there are no incidents on bullying against the biracial, they were not excluded in any school activities, nor do they feel that they are being discriminated by the teachers, and students. the third research question was clearly explained by the guidance counselor, one of the participants in this study, and supported teachers’ responses on the interview. 3.6 the intervention based on the interview of the teacher and guidance counselor, the researcher was able to identify the interventions that the teachers do, and, what they recommend to the parents. all of the participants recommended tutorials, or provision of tutors to supplement the learning of biracial students. most parents responded to the recommendations of the teachers, some do not. 3.6.1 the importance of parental involvement in cie british school students come from a higher-income level family, however, it can be noted in table 3, that, majority of the biracial students have only one parent who is involved in school activities, and, makes follow-up with their children. some of these students, based on the interview from the participants, have parents with high level of marital discord. most of these academically-at-risk students have difficulties in reading which caused delay in cognitive language. 3.6.2 differentiated instruction this researcher found out that some biracial students are not successful in school through classroom instruction alone. most of the biracial students identified are struggling learners in the classroom, and, need remediation or reinforcement, and, an intervention to succeed in their academics. one of the teachers identified a differentiated learning as one of the interventions. 4. discussion the few researches that had been conducted on the achievement outcomes of multiracial students, focused on testing an 80-year old theory, the “marginal man”, developed by sociologists (park, 1928) and (stonequist, 1935). this “marginal man” theory suggests that mixed-race people are more prone to low self-esteem, and, its attendant problems because they are marginalized, and isolated from mono-racial groups (herman, 2019). based on the interview, the teachers met with parents every grading period, and, they have common experiences about the parents of these biracial students, as: (1) the parents do not care about the academic performance of their children; and, (2) they did not provide full support to their children with regards to the academics or studies. when behavioral problems occur in the classroom, the biracial student is referred to the guidance counselor by the teacher. during the quarterly conduct deliberation, the teachers meet, and, discuss their classroom experience with the students with the other teachers. the researcher was permitted to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 198 published by scholink inc. observe in one of the deliberations made in cie, and, it was noted that the teachers have similar experiences with biracial students in terms of academic performance and behavior. it is further noted in this study that, majority of these biracials speak the native tongue, cebuano. the significance of this is that, they have no difficulty in communicating with the members of the households, classmates, and those whom they encounter within their social spaces. four students cannot speak cebuano because of the presence of their foreign parents who are residing and living with the family in cebu. the language used in their household influences the language usage of these students. all students are treated alike in the cie community. most of them are born in cebu, thus, can speak cebuano well and communication is not a problem. majority of these biracials started in cie at an early age of three, as toddler. hence, majority of these biracial learners have no problem in adjusting to their social spaces in school. the researcher noted in the interview that some of these biracial students are outcast because of their undesirable attitudes towards their classmates. it is also noted in the interview with the guidance counselor that, the teachers in grade school provides assistance and reinforcement to biracial students who are academically-at-risk. in terms of behavioral problems, these students are being referred to and monitored by the guidance counselor. however, teachers also refer the students who are academically-at-risk to the counselor, especially if, they need to talk to the parent so they will be aware of the performance of their children. as part of the cie academic program, remediation or extended classes are provided to all academically-at-risk students, and, included in the schedule of classes. because the remediation and extended classes are part of teachers’ duties and functions, the teachers did not consider this as an intervention during the interview. but the guidance counselor was very specific that, because of remediation and reinforcement done by the teachers, the academically-at-risk biracial students, are able to achieve promotion to the next year level. the recommendation of the teachers for tutorials is another intervention supported by the guidance counselor. however, with regards to behavioral problems, the involvement of parents is the critical issue that may provide solutions. another intervention identified in the course of the interview is the differentiated instructions. it is noted in the case of georgina, according to teacher mar, he gave georgina different tasks so she will not disturb other students, and, prevent her from going in and out of the classroom, and loiters in the hallways. the tasks are totally different from the classmates, hence, the teacher provided a differentiated instruction to georgina. however, the task is still within the same lesson, or unit of study as with the other students. the result is that, the behavioral problems of the georgina lessen. even other learners can benefit from the differentiated instructions. differentiated instructions may be more complex, but, it provides learning opportunities for students who are struggling in the regular classroom setting. most teachers believe on differentiated instructions to assure improvement on academically-at-risk students, but, for them differentiating instructions may be difficult to do, because they have to split instruction time between the academically-at-risk, and the good students, much more www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 199 published by scholink inc. for one-on-one instruction, or individualized instruction. there is a need to have a small group of learners for academically-at-risk students to succeed in their academics. the involvement of parents may be one area that deserves further research and on how they will be actively involved with the schools in the development of their children. this is an intervention which is significant to all learners. further, this intervention could be implemented throughout the grade school, so that there will be an evaluation for its longer-term effects. the researcher also noted the resource room mentioned by the guidance counselor in dealing with students having reading difficulties, can be of help. this can be set-up, and, implemented in schools, and may form part of the intervention for slow readers, or even slow learners. based on the results and discussions, there are several interventions that can be done, to help the academically-at-risk students to successfully attain academic achievements. these interventions may not be 100% successful for these biracial students, but there are features in these interventions that, can help them in catching up with their classmates, and, attain good academic performance, and provides solutions to some behavioral problems. there are several researches that helped academically-at-risk students to succeed, but, there is a need for further research that needs to be done to find ways to help these students, to continue to be successful as they go to higher level, especially, the biracial students. future researches may include other schools in cebu city that have biracial students and explore the similarities, and, differences on the teachers’ experiences. it is not a problem that can easily be solved, while we have a lot of answers to the problems on how to help them, it is a topic that needs continuous research and study. as a conclusion, though there are several interventions that can help the biracial academically-at-risk students with behavioral difficulties to succeed, one important thing here is the parental support and involvement. this research paper showed the effects of parental involvement that are consistent, and, showed good relationship between parents’ engagement, and, encouragement in their children’s education, and outcomes. the outcomes may not be on grades alone, but also applies to the behavioral, and social success of the students. if parents are deeply involved in the education of their children, they can provide aid to the teachers on how they can be of help, and they will understand what they will do to challenge, and, encourage their children of interracial marriages. there is a need to detect the students who are struggling academically, so that intervention can immediately applied. they can even be applied as early as pre-school, so that they can have smooth transitions to higher level. interventions are only successfully when they are designed and implemented well. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 4, 2019 200 published by scholink inc. references abs-cbn news. (2018, october 1). azkals build-up for suzuki cup continues in bangladesh. manila. ann, r. k., & laszloffy, t. (2005). raining biracial children. lanham, md: altamira press. anzaldua, g. (1987). borderlands la frontera—the new mestiza. san francisco: aunt lute books. bowden. (1996). phenomenographic research: some methodological issues. studies in educational scheme, 109. chickering, a. w., & reisser, l. (1993). education and identity. san francisco, ca: jossey-bass, inc. cie british school. (2018). accomoplishment reports sy 2017-2018. cebu: cie british school. creswell, j. w. (2013). qualitative inquiry & research design, choosing among five approaches. thousand oaks, california: sage publications, inc. dyer, h., & ngui, m. (2010). watch this space: designing, defending, and sharing public space. toronto, canada: kids can press. herman, m. (2019, may 19). researchgate. retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/249802741 lavides, m. m. et al. (2018). haphap: a filipina perspective on the biracial child’s dangal. journal of southeast asian studies, 23(1), 192. https://doi.org/10.22452/jati.vol23no1.9 park, r. e. (1928, may). human migration and the marginal man. the american journal of sociology, 33(6), 881-890. philippine statistics authority. (2017, january 24). vital statistics—philippines marriages 2015. retrieved from http://www.psa.gov.ph: https://psa.gov.ph root, m. (1996). multiracial experience—racial borders as a new frontier. thousand oaks, london: sage publications. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781483327433 sage publication. (2008). the sage encyclopedia of qualitative research (vol. 1 and 2). thousand oaks, california: sage publication. stonequist, e. (1935). the problem with marginal man. the american journal of sociology, 41(1), 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1086/217001 suzuki-crumly, j., & hyers, l. (2004). the relationship among ethnic identity, psychological well-being, and intergroup comopetence: an investigation of two biracial groups. cultural diversity and ethnic minority psychology, 10(2), 137. https://doi.org/10.1037/1099-9809.10.2.137 yin, r. k. (2008). case study: design and methods. thousand oaks, california: sage publication. frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no.3, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 99 original paper qualitative evaluation insights obtained from the development of the students’ english speaking skills acquired at university of bengkulu yun lin1 1 faculty of educational studies, universiti putra malaysia, kuala lumpur, malaysia received: august 10, 2023 accepted: august 28, 2023 online published: september 14, 2023 doi:10.22158/fet.v6n3p99 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v6n3p99 abstract demonstrated in construction, deconstruction and reconstruction of the evaluation model in educational curriculum pertaining to students’ studies, it can be seen clearly in the evaluation experiences implemented at university of bengkulu that students’ speaking skills have captured the critical attentions of a good many educational researchers. the concern shown for those students acquired at university of bengkulu has reminded this researcher of the great necessity for her to take a good look at the static and dynamic status of the unsatisfactory performance of those students based on the analytical findings of this research article improving english students’ speaking skills through an action learning strategy. to get close to the validity and reliability of the data collected from the participants analyzed in this article, this essay will make an objective and authentic comment on the entire analytical practices and processes of the researchers who have adopted the action learning strategy to make a qualitative analysis of those students’ speaking skills to absorb and to accumulate rich conducive qualitative evaluation experience from the qualitative evaluation virtues dwelled upon in the research background of this article, the true qualitative evaluation values in its problem statement, the qualitative evaluation implications in its evaluation model and the qualitative evaluation insights in its analytical practices respectively. indebted to the critical insights carried in the action research evaluation model to be applied in this essay, it can be summarized that what has been obtained from this research article has turned out to be valid and reliable for the specific situations of those indonesian students and the concretization of the action learning strategies to be applied into the learning practices and learning experiences of distinctive and diverse students to help them to improve their learning ability in combination with the particular educational context in which they have been particularized. keywords qualitative evaluation, english speaking skills, university of gengkulu www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 100 published by scholink inc. 1. the qualitative evaluation virtues acquired from the teaching experience in reflecting the research background elaborated in this research article from the point of view of the research background elaborated in the introductory part of this article with regard to an overview of the developmental inclination of the active learning strategies students have taken at university of gengkulu to improve their english speaking skills and the actions taken to evaluate their learning outcomes over there, it can be seen in an evident fashion that this study has been characterized with a wide variety of qualitative evaluation virtues because it has been situated in the profound concern that has been shown for the development and improvement of the practical and professional competence of those students studying at this university where their english speaking skills are supposed to be highlighted according to the specific required proficiencies they have to achieve in their studies in following four major speaking skills ranging from their speaking, their reading, their listening to their writing as it has been found quite clearly that many students are too anxious and do not enjoy learning speaking (januariza, 2016). as what has been indicated in the stratification of the difficulty those students have in their speaking practice and the consideration of it as a good preparation to be made for the qualitative evaluation of their learning outcomes after their completion their english speaking courses, so can this stratification be regarded as one of the crucial virtues prepared for the eventual achievement of the success in evaluating their speaking competence in a qualitative way, for it has come to their minds clearly that speaking has become the most difficult skill among those four major speaking skills for them to achieve in their learning process. of course, this has too much to do with the simultaneous development and improvement of the rest of their own speaking skills in relation to the successive and sustainable accumulation of their english vocabulary, the further consolidation of their solid grammatical foundation, the cautious promotion of their pronunciation, and the improvement of their speaking fluency. for the part of the intrinsic connectedness between the development and improvement of their speaking skills and the objective and authentic evaluation of their strong speaking competence, it can be seen from the introductory elaboration in this article that this ingenuous and insightful stratification is characterized with the qualitative virtues grounded on the qualitative balance that have been struck between either two of those four speaking skills owing to the logical transition from the very extensive concern that have been shown for the equalized development of their four major skills to the focalized development of their speaking in an intensive fashion. to this extent, it is in the process of this upgrading transition that the researcher of this essay has accessed the logical thinking of those researchers who have caught an eye on the qualitative comments to be made on the practical learning effects and learning outcomes of those students according to the greatest difficulty they have had in improving their english speaking competence. therefore, it has to be admitted in an authentic way and in an objective way that the qualitative evaluation virtues dealt with in this study has turned out to begin with the qualitative stratification that tends to make a rather good preparation for the profound perception and cognition of the insightful qualitative evaluation experiences existing in the continuous protection and promotion of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 101 published by scholink inc. the students’ distinctive and diverse speaking competence at this university in accordance with what they are not good at in a direct way rather than make blind efforts to improve and evaluate it in a repetitive fashion. from the point of view of the evaluation insight carried in this stratification, this essay turns out to be quite conducive and crucial for a good many educators as it will remind them of the very great importance for them to categorize the complicated difficulties and the difficult complexities of the learning tasks their students have to be faced with and finish in an independent fashion before they are preparing to make and implement their educational plans and evaluation plans to save their students’ time and energy timely in connection with the educational needs that are to be met to promote the educational development of a given society in a successive fashion, in a sufficient fashion, and, in a sustainable fashion, and, the actual embarrassment of the educational context in which they are unable to get free from at a given historical moment of a given country. to be brief, the brief summarization of the qualitative evaluation experience dug out from what can be reflected and ruminated from the true evaluation experiences available in the overall analyses made in this article is inclined to provide more educators with the great importance to be attached to the field trips designed to have a profound understanding of their students’ intrinsic shortcomings ranging from their listening anxiety, speaking anxiety, reading anxiety and writing anxiety (labicane, 2021) and the correlative effective actions to be taken to address their increasing mental problems caused by their growing anxiety caused by their curriculum evaluation in which they have to be involved, and, at the same time, to help those students understand assessment anxiety and provides strategies and tips (sotardi & brogt, 2018), and to provide them with the strong awareness for them to have a good knowledge of their specific situations rather than follow suits in a blind fashion in their learning experiences. 2. the qualitative evaluation values particularized in the problem statement of this research article with the standpoint of the logical, scientific and systematic justification of the true theoretical and practical originality and novelty of this research topic regarding the intrinsic, essential and inevitable connectedness between the overall development and improvement of students’ speaking skills and the practical evaluation and examination of their speaking competence at this university, it has to be known in an honest way that the researchers have taken a rather valuable look at the qualitative evaluation and examination upheld over there to have a true understanding of the learning outcomes of those students in accordance with what has been referred to in this article on the basis of the meaningful and profound analyses made of the major findings of a wide variety of previous and present literatures that have been applied into this research article to show the reflective and ruminative traces of a good many scholars who have based their educational explorations on what has been perceived in the articles, theses, dissertations and monographs published in the past five years as to be reviewed below one after another after a rather good comparison made between the research overlaps between either of them and the research gap left in the unvisited areas of previous and present studies. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 102 published by scholink inc. in the more essential clarification of this tremendous difficulty, it has been found in the researchers’ observation involved in the research article to be reviewed in this essay that they have developed a strong problematic sensitivity that they have hit in the head while making an analysis of the intrinsic status of those students studying at this university when they try their best to have a good access to the genuine anxiety about those students in enabling them to perform their own thoughts in the speaking section of their english conversation courses indebted to the overall development and improvement of the appropriate and adequate problematic awareness that is needed to support the major findings discovered at the end of the analytical processes related to the successful and eventual completion of their researches in reference to what might be exemplified in the rather great challenges those students have to take in their own learning processes to make a distinction between the verbal and non-verbal forms of thought (riswanto et al., 2022). in an objective sense, the great concern that has been shown for the internal anxiety of those students have marked a remarkable shift of their researches from the intensive attentions paid to the external learning outcome of those students to that paid to their mental health because it has occurred to them in a very clear way that the improvement of students’ mental health is extremely crucial for them to help those students to achieve their excellent grades in the qualitative and insightful evaluation of their speaking competence step by step. to be true, what those researchers have been preoccupied with in their researches is to fulfill the strong psychological values of educational observation on their way to the stable promotion of the evaluation of students’ learning outcome at this university. in much closer and more objective observation of those researchers, what has come to their minds time and time again is that that a lot ought to be done in their increasing researching practices to inspire those students to get into a good habit of stopping using incorrect english grammar and mixing english language with indonesian language in a polite fashion and in a persuasive fashion, and, to voice their genuine views according to what is required in english speaking areas in spite of the quantitative limitation of their vocabulary and qualitative use they are able to make use of the effective words conducive for the completion of their conversation when they are not completely used to their daily conversation with their classmates and schoolmates. in a traditional sense, there is great absurdity or abnormality in showing great concern for the actual avoidance of their intrinsic anxiety rather than that shown for their insatiable ability to practice and perform their english language competence as they are in a position to articulate their views and thoughts or to make their own explanations in a natural way that most english speaking students ought to follow in their respective lives and studies. however, what matters most or what ought to be valued most in this article is that it is this absurdity or abnormality that has fueled the researching curiosity of those researchers by taking into account carefully the great impact complicated words and phrases are inclined to have on the minds of those students and its relevance to the improvement of the fluency of their speeches in a conscientious fashion apart from the inadequate and inappropriate attention they ought to pay to the genuine and effective improvement of their grammar and pronunciation that tend to make it quite possible for their listeners to avoid their misunderstanding or to reduce to the least the practical www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 103 published by scholink inc. difficulties they may have in having a good understanding of what they want to express originally in a local way. in this case, the appropriate stimulation of this actual researching curiosity has turned out to be giving rise to their discoveries of the students’ intrinsic problems to be addressed in their studies to equip them with the learning curiosity used to empower them to be faced with their learning anxieties in a brave way and in a brilliant way and the unknown questions they are greatly expected to answer cautiously and sufficiently on account of their strong awareness of the great importance to be placed on the insightful achievement of the students’ true academic progress, excellence, or even transcendence through the ingenuous transformation of the qualitative evaluation of students’ speaking competence from the examination of their learning outcomes to the scientific assessment of their minds. to meet the practical analytical needs in helping more educators to have a good understanding of the great importance to be attached to students’ minds and moods as analyzed above, the researchers referred to in the signature of this article have tried to dig out the psychological growth process of those students in accordance with what has been observed and analyzed from their practical learning process and learning performances at this university and to situate their exploration on the deliberation of the harm those intrinsic problems like anxieties or depressions have been doing to the true development and improvement of their speaking competence when they make communication with one another in their english speaking areas. according to what has been elaborated clearly in this research article, their intentional minimization of the learning pressures of those students turns out to begin with the three confusing learning situations to be mentioned below one by one and to be connected with their everyday interactions, discussions and examinations over their undergraduate studies when their students need to make conversation with one another in accordance with their sensitive and sufficient awareness of the inappropriate learning actions those students are inclined to take in their preferable adoption of inappropriate grammars and their instinctive combination of indonesian language with english language to express and communicate their original views in an awkward fashion owing to their strong dependence on their mother language and unfamiliarity with english language. this psychological inclination has turned out to be epitomized quite apparently in the sensitive perception and cognition of kasmaini et al. (2023) that the accumulative inadequateness in those students’ vocabulary and their habitual unpreparedness tend to give rise to their intrinsic confidence when they are unable to get free from either the failed improvements or improved failures they are quite likely to encounter in the development and betterment of their respective expressive, argumentative as well as polemical competence indispensable in various conversational and communicative situations when they do need to explain or argue in english what they want to voice. owing to their failure to be aware of the important interactive connection between the professional english used in theoretical english literatures and the practical english acquirable from living experiences, they are bound to suffer from the psychological pressures engendered from the inadequate minimization of their learning pressures. in line with what has been concretized in this research article, this connection has been felt in the three courses like conversation, speaking for discussion and speaking for presentations designed and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 104 published by scholink inc. developed to maximize students’ communication skills and to minimize their intrinsic anxieties caused by those increasingly strong psychological pressures and learning pressures notwithstanding ineffective implementation of the specific teaching practices for the maximization of their communicative potentiality and the minimization of their communicative anxiety after making an unaffected assessment on the psychological reality of those students. on the basis of the profound rumination of this connection elaborated in relation to the appropriate and acceptable perceptive and cognitive balance to be stuck between the overall development of students’ speaking skills at university of bengkulu and the qualitative evaluation of their speaking competence indebted to the practical progress they have made in setting themselves free from the traditional examination that is based on the excessive concern shown for their learning outcome when their learning ability has failed to be aware of apart from the learning pressures with which they have to be faced in an inevitable fashion and in an indispensable fashion, it has to be known clearly in the alleviation of the students’ learning stress and intrinsic stress that kasmaini et al. (2023) has discovered that the theoretical and practical significance of this research can be found in making the most use of conversation classes and the theoretical and practical insights absorbable from the essential and evident perception and cognition of action learning strategy (als) implemented in the stimulation of their learning interest in english speaking in the process of immersing themselves into a great many interesting and relaxing activities they are encouraged to join pleasantly rather than painfully. by and large, what has been carried in the previous elaboration of the present perceptive and cognitive concern shown for students’ intrinsic anxieties as summarized in this research article in the discussions made about the development of their practical and professional speaking competence has carried those researchers’ consideration about the logical progression of what has to be included in the eventual completion of the research topic they have formulated in their researching practices to achieve the qualitative reliability and validity of their analytical and synthetic actions in a reasonable way despite their perceptive and cognitive inadequateness in linking this development of this competence with the maintenance of their internal quietness in an intentional fashion. in comparison with the efforts made in this respect, it has been figured clearly in this article that great perceptive and cognitive emphasis has been placed on the actual summarization and serialization of all that has been covered in the discussions made about those students’ action learning strategy (als) as to be reviewed in details in their reflection and rumination of the substantial existence of this strategy in those students’ everyday learning experiences and practices ranging from the explication of its definitions to more complicated issues in this regard. for the sake of the definition of action learning strategy, it can be perceived and cognized in the studies of revans (1982) that it was he who first defined and introduced this strategy as means for the promotion of the participants’ intellectual, emotional or physical development despite his failure to applied this action learning strategy into the continuous and cautious development and improvement of the students’ speaking skills in details. however, his study has indicated in an indirect way that he has already been aware of the truth that the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 105 published by scholink inc. development of students’ speaking skills has something to do with the overall development of students’ comprehensive competence including their strong ability to deal with the confused moods and even complicated emotions to help them to make their way to the achievement and maintenance of their mental health, or, in other words, to provide them with the emotional values they rest on a lot in their learning practices where the traditional evaluation of their learning behaviors through their outcomes is inclined to engender their growing unavoidable anxieties. in terms of the practical feasibility for educators to put into their educational practices action learning strategy effectively and essentially in reference to the qualitative development and improvement of students’ strong speaking competence in an intensive fashion and in an insightful fashion, it has occurred to kasmaini et al. (2023) that this strategy has never been implemented by lecturers particularly in their teaching experiences in line with what has been practiced in the english education study program, fkip unib. as a matter of fact, those lecturers have turned out to be unaware of the qualitative actions to be taken to work for the practical evaluation of the speaking competence of those students on account of their inadequate awareness of the great importance to be placed on the appropriateness and adequateness of the educational evaluation to be done to have a good access to students’ speaking skills and their intrinsic truth and essence. to this extent, this educational researcher’s authentic and objective revelation of this inadequate thoroughness exemplified in the application of als into teaching practices has made it quite clear that although the analytical result of this study has provided this research article with the logical starting point critical for the experiential and experimental foundation to be laid for their studies, there is a long way to go to make their evaluation qualitative to protect and promote their students’ mental health. on the ground of this experiential and experimental insufficiency in this respect, the theoretical and practical novelty in the application of this action learning strategy has failed to be identified with the simultaneous development and improvement of the psychological qualities of those students in a qualitative way due to the carelessness epitomized in the revelation or representation of the students’ psychological reality existing in their learning process and the rare combination of this action learning strategy with the solutions to the solvable or unsolvable problems those students have come across in their learning process when they are at a loss or in a poor mood in the midst of improving their speaking skills. in fact, the qualitative inadequateness of this application has much to do with the increasing inclination of lecturers’ moving toward the excessive instrumentation of this action learning strategy in their teaching experiences in a blind way, for it can be seen in the discoverable diagnosis of kasmaini et al. (2023) that als is considered as an excellent tool quite useable for the improvement of the speaking skills of english education fkip unib students. what is worse, it has been indicated in the major findings of this rather worrisome study that als has been equipped with a strong experiential and experimental feasibility for the overall enrichment and improvement of students’ diagnostic insights in their acquisition of those english speaking skills regardless of the practical anxieties with which they have to be faced in their learning process due to its carelessness about the simultaneous growth of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 106 published by scholink inc. students’ minds in the process of acquiring their speaking competence. what has impressed the readers of this research much more, is, that either the intrinsic inferiority or sterility of the undergraduate students who have received the average english education skills at fkip have been asked to practice and popularize als to improve their speaking competence time and time again just as what has been exemplified in the correlative findings of the researcher’s diagnosis. in a sense, those lecturers’ conversation courses have turned out to be designed to show the great necessity for him to implement als into the improvement of those students’ english speaking skills in an instrumental sense regardless of the mechanical infeasibility for them to do so to make them apt to turn a deaf ear to the emotional flows of their students as a result of the unawareness of the possibility that mechanical education is bound to make teachers unsympathetic and indifferent teaching machines and their students unthinkable and unimaginable unaffected learning machines. to be objective, what is hidden behind the exaggeration of this action learning strategy is supposed to be considered as an instrumentation of teachers and students or even a pitiful failure in the practical development of higher education. this has much to do with the great necessity for them to rethink about the appropriateness of this implementation of action learning strategy and the absurdity and abnormality existing in this teaching and learning process in a responsible fashion. in the case of the practical and professional reflection of the reasonableness of the application of als in this respect, analytical evidences can be found in the two research questions posed by kasmaini et al. (2023) to seek for the appropriate way to improve students’ speaking skills in conversation courses while using als in their learning practices. the elaboration of students’ perceptions of the als has been aware of in some cases, for an in-depth explanation has been provided for the understandable explication of those rather crucial issues in the light of their vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, and fluency although the crucial emotional values of this instrumented action learning strategy has failed to be fulfilled in a satiable sense. although it has turned out to be a pitiful failure to address the emotional issues of those students in the instrumentation of the action learning strategy applied into their learning practices where their final learning outcomes have been valued a lot in the practical evaluation of their speaking competence in a qualitative sense in connection with the great impact traditional education evaluation models have had on students’ intellectual growth or academic growth in lieu of their mental growth that has turned out to be overlooked in precious educational experiences when the entire educational context has failed to zoom in on the mental health of most students whom might be victimized in the intellectual education they have received in previous years, the true perceptive and cognitive responses have been given to the crucial intellectual or at least academic problems those students have come across in their studies in view of what has been exemplified in the way they have taken the major research questions that have to be answered in similar fashion in the overall evaluation of the educational qualities demonstrated in the learning processes of those students because the four major speaking skills including reading, listening, reading and speaking have been illustrated clearly in the practical observation of kasmaini et al (2023) who aims to expound the great theoretical and practical significance to develop those four crucial www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 107 published by scholink inc. speaking skills to improve their speaking competence in the effective and essential professionalization of the english speaking skills that are required to enable them to deal with a variety of problems they are quite likely to run across in their intellectual and academic communication. what has to be noticed in an intentional way is that those responses given to those students turn out to be concerned with their intellectual or academic problems that are required to be addressed rather than the emotional ones like their anxieties that need to be highlighted to make sure that their mental health will not be engendered in their unsolvable emotional problems. in other words, this has failed to be concerned greatly in previous educational evaluation. even in the latest studies, great concern has also been shown for the traceable stratification of the effective steps to be taken in the practical implementation of als into those students’ learning performance rather than their respective psychological feedbacks, for it has been revealed quite apparently in the outlines of kasmaini et al. (2023) that a 5-step to als approach has been taken to find their intellectual problems by establishing a team/small group, formulating questions, examining question process, and, reviewing the actions taken to seek for the guidance of students’ thinking practice and learning process rather than the appropriate and efficient management of their poor emotions engendered in their learning pressures. in short, it can be seen from this review that the researchers with signatures in this research articles have found definitely that a good many researchers have concerned the application of als into the overall intellectual and academic development and improvement of the students’ irreplaceable and indispensable speaking skills that are required to be acquired at university of bengkulu but few of them focused on the genuine acquisition of the correlative precious experiences to be absorbed from the qualitative educational evaluation of the students’ speaking competence over there. based on what can be summarized from this review in reference to the practical educational concern that has been shown for the appropriate evaluation of the actual psychological perception and cognition of previous educational researchers, what can be perceived and cognized from this evaluation will turn out to be the analytical and synthetic novelty and originality of this essay on account of the strong analytical and synthetic curiosity that will help the researcher of this essay to make her way to the eventual discovery of the genuine perceptive and cognitive inferiorities carried in the present educational evaluation implemented at this university in connection to the emotional values that this educational evaluation is lack of due to its excessive focus on the qualitative examination of students’ speaking competence in improving their speaking skills. 3. the qualitative evaluation implications abstracted in evaluation model used in this research article grounded on the qualitative absence of the emotional values seen in the educational evaluation carried out at university of bengkulu owing to the great impact traditional evolution model has had on the assessment of the educational quality over there, it tends to be of great practical significance for the research of this essay to seek for the qualitative examination of the evaluation approach used to make a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 108 published by scholink inc. close observation of the learning effects and learning outcomes of those university students who have been serving as the crucial participants of the research article to be reviewed in this essay in connection with the exploration made in the observation of the researchers who have taken this evaluation model proposed by kemmis and mctaggart (1990) who is inclined to hold that this evolution model has been used to give a vivid account of the vast majority of the experiential and experimental actions happening in the classroom. according to this researcher, this research model is called action research and it has been applied into their examination of the students’ speaking competence at this university. in combination with the essential sense that has been made in the adoption of this research model, it has to be noticed that there is an important reason for the determination to be made for the adoption of this research model that it has occurred to kemmis and mctaggart (1998) that this action research is essentially composed of a series of cycles from reflection, planning to action, and, a spiral model comprising four steps like planning, acting, observing and reflecting. according to the practical feedbacks given to the analytical results of this article from cycle one to cycle two and the specific data collected from the six meetings held to enrich the data storage quite valuable for the practical improvement of the authentic and essential perception and cognition of the obvious learning effects and learning outcomes of those students studying at university of bangkulu, it has given the researcher of this essay a profound impression that the introduction of this research model fits in with the sufficient exploration and elaboration of the qualitative implications potentiated in the educational evaluation implemented in this research article with regard to the true articulation of the emotional values that are supposed to be highlighted in the entire process of this qualitative evaluation that is related to the insightful and ingenuous examination of the speaking competence of those students. 4. the qualitative evaluation insights perceived from the analytical process of the curriculum evaluation elaborated in this research article 4.1 the qualitative problems found in analyzing the essential data collected in the curriculum evaluation implemented to test students’ speaking skills judging from the entire layout mapped out for and implemented in the educational evaluation of the speaking competence of the participants picked out for the data that has been collected for the eventual completion of this research article, it can be seen clearly that the students’ application of als into their learning practices and learning processes at university of bengkulu as elaborated in the appropriate introduction of this research article bears too much great perceptive and cognitive similarity to what has been done in the practical and professional implementation of the curriculum evaluation of the teaching effects and teaching outcomes of the students who have been invited to take the three crucial conversational courses provided at this university. in the case of what has been discovered substantially in this research article, this true educational evaluation of those students’ practical speaking competence personified in their experiential and experimental participation in a wide variety of intellectual and academic communication begins with the essential and evident identification with the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 109 published by scholink inc. intrinsic problems those students have encountered in the traditional development and improvement of their speaking skills in taking those conversation courses right after their adoption of als in qualitative enrichment of their respective learning practices and learning processes, and, the in-depth investigation of either their anxious or even depressive perception of the psychological essence and truth carried in the rather cruel psychological reality with which they have to be faced in having a profound access to the qualitative essence and truth of learning process and the quantitative inclination connected with the educational evaluation of their learning outcome when they have to deal with the learning pressures they have been suffering from their daily learning experiences just as what has been revealed in this educational study that a great many participants like those anxious students have been experiencing the highest level with speaking (labicane, 2021). in this case, what can be seen apparently in this perceptive and cognitive inferiority exemplified in the strong focal distinctions made between the qualitative pursuit and quantitative judgment is that although als has been adopted in the stimulation and promotion of those students’ learning outcome or their speaking efficiencies in most cases, it has turned out to be pitiful that the introduction of this strategy has failed to address the psychological problems of those students according to the great impact their learning pressures from peers, family, or even from oneself (labicane, 2021) have had on the practical perceptive and cognitive progress they have been expected to make qualitatively they are taking those three conversation courses provided at this university in accordance with the emotional status and mental status of them in which they are inclined to be caught in the rather excessive emphasis placed on the practical and professional evaluation of their learning outcomes and the effectiveness of the learning strategies they have taken in their learning experiences in the overall and objective implementation of the crucial educational policies related to the quantitative curriculum evaluation at that historical moment. in an objective sense, what has to be noted in this educational evaluation is that although the research objectives to be reached in this research article have been kept in their minds and fulfilled in their researching practices, it is of great perceptive and cognitive value for its researchers have a good knowledge of what has been left in the process of this quantitative examination of students’ speaking competence as long as they are willing to reflect and ruminate their researching plans made for the effective implementations of als in their entire research processes to improve their students’ true speaking skills from four major dimensions from the third week of june 2022 to the end of november 2022 in accordance with the specific responses given by 35 participants who were in their third semester to complete their english conversation courses. as a matter of fact, this educational evaluation has been carried out in the examination of the two cycled-observations and six meetings at this university and designed to investigate those students’ learning performance in reference to the four primary sessions of the specific action research of those students in terms of its planning, implementation, observation, and reflection used in this study just as what has been demonstrated in the two evaluation criteria set in this research article to tell either the success or failure of the als in this teaching context based on the practical adoption of the measuring instruments like scale at least 75% www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 110 published by scholink inc. (27 students) of the active participants in discussions at the end of the first cycle, and, the qualitative standard at least 60% of them received an 80 (a-) on the speaking test results at the end of the second cycle. then, they start to evaluate the implementation in their own studies by analyzing the specific learning activities related to the scenario changes of those participants right after their using the slp as a teaching guide rather than at the strategic emphasis of their studies. in the last session, they have done a lot to follow the quality control after the implementation of als into the three conversational courses provided at this university in view of the field notes, observations, interviews and evaluations designed and used to collect the qualitative data from the objective observations and interviews of those participants and the quantitative data from the statistical analyses of the results of the speaking tests designed for the final exams of those three courses. based on what has been perceived from this practical evaluation, it can be seen evidently and essentially that the educational evaluation implemented in this educational context has emphasized much more on the students’ quantitative performance rather than their qualitative performance in reference to the very strong impetus the acquisition of adequate courage and confidence has given them due to their failure to free themselves from the mental tortures of strong anxieties caused by the increasing learning pressures with which they have to be faced in an unavoidable fashion in the entire process of making great quantitative progress in improving their own speaking competence to cater to the analytical needs to be met in the midst of this curriculum evaluation because it has been realized quite clearly in the indonesian educational studies that anxiety towards learning english is very common among indonesian students (ramadhani, 2019). 4.2 the qualitative importance to be attached to the sufficient realization of the crucial impact of students’ psychological pressures on the evaluation of their learning outcomes in contrast with the rather great quantitative importance that has been placed on the educational evaluation of the students’ learning outcome at university of bengkulu in the practical judgment that has to be made of the great professional progress they have made in the overall development and improvement of the speaking competence with the help of the experiential and experimental implementation of the action learning strategy (als) in the continuous development and improvement of their true learning ability when they are invited to take the conversational courses right at this university in a compulsory fashion, much greater qualitative importance of the researchers with signature in the research articles reviewed in this easy is inclined to be placed on the great changes of the minds and moods of those students in a qualitative fashion to enable them to have a profound perceptive and cognitive access to their psychological truth and essence when they are forced to address the crucial or critical problems they have come across in either their learning practices or learning processes in relation with what has been epitomized obviously in the practical and empirical accumulation of the learning pressures they have to be faced with in an inevitable fashion, for it has been popularly held in the essential, practical and authentic observation, investigation and examination of students’ true learning performance that students also feel anxious when their performance in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 111 published by scholink inc. speaking skill evaluated by others (ramadhani, 2019). to be honest, it is indispensable for them to take decisive and effective actions to have a much better understanding of the objective psychological reality in which most of those students have been caught on the way to their acquisition of the perceptive and cognitive growth when it is pitiful that their mental health has failed to be valued or to be viewed as the great perceptive and cognitive factor that has had a very tremendous perceptive and cognitive impact on the successive and sustainable achievement of their mental health and mental happiness in an essential fashion. that is primarily because the exact scrutinization, stratification, serialization and substantiation of those perceptive and cognitive factors in a scientific way and in a logical way are inclined to minimize or at least to reduce to the least the psychological barriers that are likely to give rise to the psychological traumas and pathos of those students, for it has to be known in a rational fashion that the substantial elimination of those psychological barriers is bound to give them a strong perceptive and cognitive impetus to empower them to have a practical and professional access to their genuine relaxation that can be considered as the essential psychological foundation to be laid for them to make their way to the obtainment of the genuine perceptive and cognitive delight on which they have to count a lot to improve their speaking competence in a qualitative fashion in the entire process of their successful and sufficient achievement of the perceptive and cognitive transcendence. to a great extent, the genuine obtainment of this valuable and veritable intrinsic transcendence has turned out to be indispensable and inevitable for them to quicken the development and betterment of their healthy moods and stable minds and to lay a sound perceptive and cognitive ground for the improvement of the strong psychological personality they need most to maximize the qualitative education with which they have been provided. nevertheless, it has turned out to be a practical failure that the implementation of als at this university in the case of the evaluation of the speaking competence of those students has little to do with the maintenance of the psychological stability and security of them by means of reducing or minimizing their learning pressures or psychological pressures as a consequence of their being afraid of presenting before the class, making mistakes, losing face, inability to express oneself, fear of failure, teachers, and fear of living up to the standards (feryal, 2007), for this minimization is of high pragmatic relevance to the stimulation and promotion of the steady development and improvement of the educational evaluation that has to be implemented in a good many educational practices to make sure of the intellectual growth and mental health of those students who ought to be freed fully from either the avoidable perceptive and cognitive disturbance or interference engendered in the practical failure to get rid of the rather harmful perceptive and cognitive obstacles potentiated in the continuous deterioration of those very strong learning pressures or psychological pressures. based on what has been lack of in the educational evaluation of the speaking competence of those students indebted to the adoption of a qualitative evaluation approach to be used as a systematic subjective approach used to describe life experiences and situations of those students (burns & grove, 2008), what has to be truly aware of for the researcher of this essay is that it is of great practical importance for her to bear in her mind in a profound fashion and in a perspicacious www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 112 published by scholink inc. fashion that the great concern is in a position to be shown for the overall examination or evaluation of the true perceptive and cognitive status of students in a psychological way in addition to the comprehensive evaluation of the intellectual and academic progress they have made in their learning practices in accordance with what has been potentiated in the authentic and objective exemplification of the qualitative sense that is supposed to be made the quantitative educational evaluation emphasized on the learning outcome of those students taking conversational courses at this university. therefore, what needs to be known in a sensible way with regard to the educational evaluation directed at the overall judgment that has to be made of the students’ authentic speaking competence improved at this university that the symmetrical perceptive and cognitive importance is in a position to be placed on the quantitative improvement of their academic grades and the qualitative development of the mental happiness and mental health in an insightful fashion despite the practical impossibility to make sure of their absolute mental health as a result of their sufficient awareness of the great harm their learning pressure might do them when they cannot meet the requirements for active learning (alqahtani & alajmi, 2013), for suppose there exists not the continuous maintenance of their indispensable mental happiness that is required to be improved appropriately in their learning practices and learning processes, it will be truly futile for them to achieve either the so-called intellectual or academic progress at cost of their mental devaluation or even mental distortion in that it has failed to be known in an extensive fashion that most anxious learners like those rather miserable students who have been mentioned in this research article often underestimate their real language proficiency (macintyre & gardner, 1993) just as what has been demonstrated evidently in the examination of their speaking competence in the curriculum evaluation implemented at this university. as a matter of fact, the symmetrical perceptive and cognitive concern to be struck for the stimulation and promotion of the great qualitative concern to be shown for the governance and maintenance of the mental happiness and mental health also has much to do with the successful and sustainable reinforcement of the quantitative control this university has had over the learning effects and learning efficiencies of those students when they are asked to take those conversational courses in a decisive fashion to improve their speaking competence. for the sake of the tight qualitative control this university is supposed to have in the educational evaluation of the students’ speaking competence as shown in the qualitative reflection and rumination based on what has been designed for the systematic and scientific examination of the learning outcomes of those students, it has to be realized in a sensitive fashion that little perceptive and cognitive importance has been placed on the examination of qualitative analysis to be made of the learning pressures of them in relation to what has happened to them in a psychological sense than that on the quantitative outcome of those students’ speaking competence. in this case, the perceptive and cognitive importance to be attached to the curriculum evaluation of all the conversational courses to be provided for those students studying at this university when the lecturers or researchers are seeking for the successful completion of the indispensable and inevitable procedures required to be demonstrated evidently and objectively in the machined or www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 113 published by scholink inc. scheduled continuation of their researches that have been considered as the reluctant completion of their boring working targets in view of what has been reviewed in this essay, is, not in a position to be confined to the quantitative examination of the speaking competence of those students. it is supposed to be extended to be composed of the perceptive and cognitive importance to be placed on the qualitative examination of the psychological truth and essence in accordance with the psychological pressures on which they have been imposed either in an intentional fashion or in an unintentional fashion. to this extent, what has turned out to be apparent in the objective comments to be made on great analytical emphasis placed on the curriculum evaluation contextualized in the continuous and overall development of the students’ speaking ability professionalized and particularized in the intellectual and academic communication they are expected to participate in their own learning experiences, is, that an appropriate and adequate perceptive and cognitive balance ought to be struck between the achievement of the quantitative judgment to be made of students’ learning outcome and the fulfillment of the qualitative exploration and elaboration of the confused and complicated minds and moods of them in a cautious fashion, for it has been shown in this research article that the researchers of this research article have failed to have a good qualitative control over the whole thinking process of those students to have a good look at their genuine anxieties or even depressions engendered in the vicious continuation of the curricular evaluation affected in the deterioration of current educational context existing in a great many places save that they have focused a lot on the perceptive and cognitive importance placed on the analyses and syntheses of the grades they have achieved in learning those courses. in compatible with the curriculum evaluation related what has been indicated in the quantitative assessment of students’ learning outcomes right at this university in current educational contexts indebted to their passive introduction of als in their learning experiences, it turns out to be crucial and conducive for most researchers to be fully and deeply aware of the rather great perceptive and cognitive importance for them to make a profound and perspicacious analysis of students’ learning actions and learning performances to make a good preparation for the exact revelation and rumination of the psychological truth and essence of those students while they are acquiring perceptive and cognitive transcendence or breakthrough from the popular stimulation and promotion of the overall implementation of als into their learning practices to highlight the crucial role the organic combination of qualitative with quantitative methods in the curriculum evaluation as what has been exemplified in the three conversational courses they have to take at this university is inclined to play in the minimization of the mental risks those students are likely to take in the quantitative evaluation to which they have to be used and the liberation of their minds and moods from the mental danger into which they tend to be thrown in an intentional fashion or in an unintentional fashion. 4.3 the qualitative countermeasures to address students’ mental problems in the curriculum evaluation regarding their learning outcomes grounded on the profound educational and situational awareness of the practical and professional failure to strike an appropriate and acceptable balance between the stimulation and promotion of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 114 published by scholink inc. students’ intellectual or academic progress through the quantitative evaluation of their learning outcomes at university of bengkulu and the cautious governance and maintenance of their mental happiness or mental health in the process of encouraging them to pick up the courage and confidence on which they have to rest a lot to enable them to deal with a variety of predictable or unpredictable problems they are likely to come across on the way to the successful achievement of their perceptive and cognitive growth owing to the inadequate awareness of the truth hidden in the possibility that the continuous popularization of the learning pressures in the minds of those students is bound to lead to the deterioration of their minds and moods and the final formation of either the physical or psychological disorder of them (mehrban & pourghasemian, 2006), it will be crucial for the research of this essay to reflect and ruminate in a rational way what has failed to be done in this educational evaluation and the correlative measures to be taken to address their mental problems in line with what has been confusing or tormenting an increasing number of students like those who have been studying at this university due to their educators’ failure to be sensitively aware of the harm that this perceptive and cognitive failure is inclined to do their mental health as exemplified in the intellectual and academic failures and the physical or psychological disorders as engendered in the repetitive emergence of this perceptive and cognitive stupidity (abazari faroq et al., 2002). in correspondence with what has been epitomized clearly in the experiential and experimental fulfillment of the two major research objectives that have been reached in the actual analytical practices and analytical processes that are indispensable for the logical and objective justification of major academic proposition of this research article according to what has been shown clearly in the analytical results and analytical discoveries dug out from the veritable and valid data collected for the essential and eventual achievement of the major researching objectives set for this research article reviewed in this essay, what can be seen apparently in the whole analytical process related to the valuable data analyses made over there is that in an objective sense, the authentic and effective observation and investigation of the crucial and conducive actions the participants of this research article have taken in their rich learning experiences to improve their classroom performance and their speaking proficiency in the everyday intellectual and academic communication they are required to participate on a regular basis, have marked a remarkable quantitative increase with respect to the educational evaluation of students’ speaking competence in relation to the overall and essential development and improvement of their crucial speaking skills achieved at fkip unib after the implementation of als in their learning practices. however, what has to be kept in the minds of researchers and readers of this article is that although the increases have been achieved admirably in the objective attitude to be held toward this educational evaluation, this does not mean there is no appropriate room to be made for the successful achievement of the greater progress to be made in the future nor that most of the students’ problems have been addressed successfully, suitably and sufficiently. on the contrary, the overall and profound analyses of the analytical gaps in this research article have made it evident that the correlative countermeasures have to be taken to address the intrinsic problems of those students in a psychological www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 115 published by scholink inc. sense to the effect that some has to be done to enable and empower researchers to make way for the stratification and serialization of those students’ objective needs to be met in improving their speaking skills in a qualitative way for the simultaneous fulfillment of the learning objectives to be reached in a quantitative way in relevance to the true achievement of their mental happiness and mental health in addition to the relevant steps to be taken in the application of als into their learning activities and learning schedules for the quantitative completion of their learning objectives exemplified in the educational evaluation designed for the collection and analysis of the correlative data related to their learning outcomes just as what to be dealt below. for the part of the quantitative concretization of the researching plan made for the completion of what has been proposed in this research article in connection with what has to be constructed for the regular stimulation and promotion of the educational evaluation designed for the comprehensive examination of the learning performance, learning proficiency and learning outcome of the students at university of bengkulu when they are required to take their conversational courses to improve their speaking competence with the help of the increasing perceptive and cognitive enlightenment and encouragement that can be acquired from their rational and reasonable reflection and rumination of the superiorities and inferiorities of action learning strategy they have adopted and applied into their learning process based on the profound awareness of the crucial role this encouragement and improvement are likely to play in showing a great concern for the successful and sustainable construction and consolidation of their intellectual and academic courage and confidence indebted to the illumination that their unwillingness to take part in speaking activities has much to do with the shortage of the confidence on which the growth of their minds and the reduction of their learning pressures rest a lot (sorenson, 2007), what has to be noted sufficiently is the shortage of the qualitative thoroughness that has to fit in with the pace kept in with the practical development and improvement of the quantitative thoroughness to be kept in the minds of most lecturers at this university in line with the intrinsic and intuitive anxiety of their students who have to be faced with an increasing number of learning pressures caused by the overemphasis placed on the final learning outcome of their courses, is that it has to be kept in the minds of those lecturers in a rather clear fashion that even though the greater development and improvement of the learning outcomes of those participants have been achieved in the popular implementation of educational evaluation, the educational plan makers and policy makers have failed to take into account much more crucial intrinsic details related to the application of als into the learning practices of those participants and the flexibility of the criteria used in this educational evaluation on account of their failure to have a good knowledge of the possibility whether the implementation of this educational evaluation is likely to meet the diverse intrinsic needs of their students in a psychological sense. therefore, in line with the appropriate countermeasures to be taken to address their problems in an effective fashion and in an essential fashion, researchers are supposed to have an exact understanding of the genuine intrinsic needs of those students and to make acceptable adjustments in implementing als and in designing the criteria to highlight the practical effectiveness of als to avoid the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 116 published by scholink inc. ambiguous statement in this article like what has been elaborated clearly in this research article that …almost all students perceived that they got help from the implementation of this als which consisted of six steps (kasmaini et al., 2023). with respect to the implementation of als in this research article to give those students a strong perceptive and cognitive impetus to practice and improve their own speaking competence for the aim of enabling or empowering them to have a good access to their diverse intrinsic needs rather on their own than make them waiting for their lecturers to make an analysis of their genuine intrinsic needs based on their clear awareness of the great danger they are likely to be thrown into when they are waiting for their analyses at the risk of making them dependent much more on the suggestions of their lectures rather than independent from their interference or disturbance in an active fashion, what needs to be made clear in the creative exploration to be made of the conducive educational evaluation to be propounded in this essay to help more and more educational researchers to have a good knowledge of the emotional problems of their students in combination with what has been exemplified in learning pressures that have given rise to the increases of the intrinsic anxieties of the students who have to take their conversational courses to improve their speaking competence, is, that although the implementation of als has taken its course in the learning practices of those students as demonstrated in the stimulation and promotion of the educational evaluation in this research article to make a quantitative judgment of the students’ learning outcomes, the perception and cognition of the specific steps to be taken to deal with the mental problems of those students who have been caught in the strong psychological pressures upon which they have been imposed in an evident fashion in the process of applying als into their learning practice and learning process as what has been manifested in this research article has turned out to be not profound enough in a qualitative sense due to its failure to enable most lecturers and researchers to have a good access to the mental truth and mental essence of their students to help those students to get free from the mental illness that is inclined to imprison or torture them time and time again. thus, the countermeasure to address the problem epitomized in the quantitative examination of the students’ speaking competence in the construction and consolidation of the solid perceptive and cognitive foundation to be laid for the educational evaluation implemented at this university in an overall fashion, is, to have a much better understanding of the students’ psychological needs when those four major steps including planning, action, observation and reflection are prepared to be taken to connect the quantitative evaluation of their speaking competence with the stratification of their objective and authentic learning needs that might be developed into their strong learning interests crucial for the refinement and reinforcement of their strong learning motivation and learning intention. in consistent with what has been aware of from the major perceptive and cognitive inferiorities of this quantitative curriculum evaluation implanted into the essential examination of students’ speaking competence at this university, the pragmatic or practical countermeasure to address students’ problem is to collect adequate measureable data, and, to make a qualitative analyses of the anxieties or even depressions hidden behind the quantitative progress made in their grades rather than www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 117 published by scholink inc. in either their minds or moods to enrich the genuine denotations and connotations of qualitative curriculum evaluation rather than to be lost in the superficial progress made through the excessive emphasis placed on the quantitative performance of those students whose progress ought to be made not just the quantitative progress of their learning outcomes but also the qualitative progress potentiated in the perceptive and cognitive transcendence or breakthrough that can be seen in the qualitative improvement of their speaking skills indebted to the insightful and ingenuous absorption and application of the genuine theoretical and practical insights carried out in the flexible implementation of als into their learning practice and learning process in terms of the comprehensive examination of their speaking competence and the close attention paid to help them to make their way to the true intrinsic relaxation their everyday learning experiences are supposed to be directed at on account of the intentional alleviation of the learning pressures with which their minds have been suffocated and through which their moods have been spoiled in a known way or in an unknown way. to be brief, the effective countermeasures to be taken in this respect have to be likely to address students’ intellectual and academic problems and their confused and complicated mental problems in a simultaneous sense when their learning progress and learning performance have to be evaluated in an essential way. 5. conclusion seen from the perceptive and cognitive enlightenment and encouragement that have been obtained from the essential and overall reflection and rumination of the valuable insights carried in the theoretical elaboration of action research applied in curriculum model with regard to the qualitative evaluation of the practical learning outcomes of the learners like the participants whose speaking competence has been evaluated in the development and betterment of their speaking skills at university of bengkulu in relation to what has been epitomized in the experiential and experimental failure to strike an appropriate and acceptable perceptive and cognitive balance between the quantitative evaluation of students’ learning outcome and the qualitative evaluation of their learning performance in combination with the rational reflection and rumination of the students’ authentic and objective psychological needs to be met in dealing with the learning pressures and psychological needs to be met in their learning practices and learning processes when they have to be faced with the possible anxieties and even depressions engendered in either their positive or passive participation in the conversational courses provided at this university to improve their speaking skills, it can be seen in a conclusive sense from the results of the data analyzed in this research article that although a lot has been done to apply als into students’ learning practices and learning processes to lay a rather sound foundation for the authentic and essential evaluation of their learning effects and efficiencies in a quantitative fashion in line with the essential requirements of this curriculum and its evaluation, it has turned out to be a perceptive and cognitive failure for those researchers to take into account the students’ true psychological needs to be met in the entire process of this quantitative curriculum evaluation in accordance with what has been printed on their minds and moods due to the failure to meet their www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 118 published by scholink inc. emotional needs and to address their emotional problems in a qualitative way, for it has to be admitted in an honest fashion that even if the analytical and synthetic process shown in this research article has turned out to be reliable and workable due to the organic and effective combination between the satiation with the participants’ primary learning needs in improving their speaking skills and the implementation of the effective steps to be taken according to what has been shown in the theoretical elaboration and practical experimentation of als, it is of great experiential importance for them to rationalize and concretize their evaluation qualities by showing an appropriate and adequate perceptive and cognitive concern for the exploration to be made of the feasible solutions to the mental problems of those students for the qualitative maintenance of their mental happiness and mental health, and the qualitative governance of the controllable or uncontrollable emotions of them to keep in pace with the harmonious and health promotion of the curriculum evaluation to be highlighted in new educational context in which the mental crises or mental tragedies of those anxious or depressive students have to be avoided whether they take either those conversational courses or the rest of courses available at this university or the rest of universities around the world on account of the adequate awareness of the practical dialectical correlation and the mutual interaction between the quantitative improvement of the students’ superficial learning outcomes and the qualitative treatment of their mental illness and the betterment of their mental health in the stimulation and promotion of the perceptive and cognitive transformation or even reformation of the curriculum evaluation in a new historical period when it takes courage to reveal the authenticity and objectivity of the psychological reality of most university students like those who have been studying at university of bengkulu. moreover, as one of the countermeasures to be taken to address their mental problems, appropriate and adequate analytical and synthetic attention ought to be paid to the true absence of the effective combination between the quantitative evaluation of students’ learning outcomes and the qualitative examination of their learning performance and learning progress in connection with the correlative data collected and analyzed in this research article regarding the clear articulation of not only the practical progress made in the participants’ grammar in improving their speaking skills but also the perceptive and cognitive performance they have achieved in their learning process. finally, great patience and tolerance will be expected of most educational scholars and educational researchers suppose there is any unintentional disrespect or offence shown for their studies due to the limited perception and cognition of the author of this essay and her perceptive and cognitive inferiority in having an overall or a profound understanding of the theoretical evolution of curriculum evaluation. references abazari et al. 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(2023). improving english students’ speaking skills through an action learning strategy. english review: journal of english education, 10(4), 143-152. https://doi.org/10.25134/erjee.v11i1.7232 labicane gianinna elaine malapote. (2021). foreign language anxiety of filipino students across the four macro skills. language literacy: journal of linguistics, literature and language teaching, 5(1), 254-257. https://doi.org/10.30743/ll.v5i1.3761 macintyre, p., & gardner, r. (1993). a student’s contributions to second language learning (part ii: affective variables). language teaching, 26(1), 1-11. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0261444800000045 mehrban, m., & pourghasemian, h. (2016). stress: an impediment to learning english. international journal of english linguistics, 6(7), 152. https://doi.org/10.5539/ijel.v6n7p152 nur, s., hardini, t. i., & patak, a. a. 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(eds.), companion proceedings of the seadric 2019 (2020) (p. 145). yogyakarta: sanata dharma university. https://doi.org/10.24071/seadr.2019.20 riswanto, a., kasmaini., & imelda, a. (2022). the effect of the shaw online channel of students’ speaking ability. journal of applied linguistics and literature, 7(1), 202-214. https://doi.org/10.33369/joall.v7i1.20042 sorenson richard, d. (2007). stress management in education: warning signs and coping mechanisms. management in education, 21(3), 10-13. https://doi.org/10.1177/0892020607079985 sotardi valerie, b. e. (2018). under pressure: understanding assessment anxiety (p. 1). wellington: ako aotearoa. https://doi.org/10.25134/erjee.v11i1.7232 https://doi.org/10.30743/ll.v5i1.3761 https://doi.org/10.1017/s0261444800000045 https://doi.org/10.5539/ijel.v6n7p152 https://doi.org/10.17509/ijal.v11i2.32852 https://doi.org/10.51278/anglophile.v2i1.269 https://doi.org/10.51278/anglophile.v2i1.269 https://doi.org/10.24071/seadr.2019.20 https://doi.org/10.33369/joall.v7i1.20042 https://doi.org/10.1177/0892020607079985 frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no.3, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 81 original paper the most essential skills for newly qualified teachers xueqing zhao1 1 malvern college, chengdu, china received: july 30, 2023 accepted: august 26, 2023 online published: september 11, 2023 doi:10.22158/fet.v6n3p81 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v6n3p81 abstract the primary purpose of this essay is to propose the most essential skills for being a new teacher. hence, three main sections are included in this essay. the first skill this essay would like to discuss is management skill. this section will argue two primary skills: personal and classroom management. firstly, practical individual management skills could reduce the anxiety of entrants. newly qualified teachers should design a work plan to prevent overpressure. reasonable use of time is likely to enhance the satisfaction of their work. therefore, that might reduce the school’s resignation rate, and the other management skills will emphasise students’ behaviours. several students would like to know the last defensive line of their new teachers. consequently, they might keep challenging the tolerance of their teachers. this is the reason why classroom management skills should be paid attention. teachers should maintain each student’s rights so that they can have a harmonious climate in the classroom. hence, beginning teachers should lead class management—the second section associates with the relationship between teachers and other people, including students, staff and parents. when communicating with students, teachers could apply particular methods to shorten the distance between pupils, such as appropriate humour. furthermore, the other skilful colleagues might be regarded as beginning teachers’ teachers because of their extensive experiences. on the other hand, a harmonious relationship with parents is likely to promote children’s progress. apart from these two skills, the third one that will be argued is the teacher’s individual teaching and development skills. accordingly, the effective delivery of knowledge skills might decide whether or not the class is booming. positive teaching skills should stimulate students’ critical thinking to achieve academic achievements. moreover, beginning teachers should keep the belief that they are required to continue with professional development. keywords new teachers, secondary school, teaching, pedagogy, professional development www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 82 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction a student who accomplishes the professional teaching course might face the opportunity of being a teacher. these students who carry valid qualifications should be called newly qualified teachers. the primary purpose of teaching is to encourage students to exploit the abilities of emotion and intelligence through the theories they have learned (dunne & wragg, 1994). therefore, beginning teachers may do their best to achieve this goal. moreover, these people might be full of enthusiasm and vision of being teachers. however, the weakness of newly qualified teachers is experience. smethem demonstrated that if the entrants could have extensive experiences, they might feel no fear of potential difficulties (as cited in ulvik & langørgen, 2012, p. 44). therefore, these teachers should have practical skills to devote themselves to their careers. this essay focuses on every beginning teacher in the whole world. although a variety of cultural backgrounds might produce system diversity, the primary purpose of education should be the same: concentrating on students’ development. hence, the skills discussed should be regarded as the necessary condition of being a teacher. however, several teachers must have administrative skills to assist their mentors in accomplishing a mass of extra tasks, resulting in a heavy workload and dissatisfaction with their jobs. indeed, the appropriate administrative tasks might be part of the beginning teachers’ jobs. nevertheless, their primary responsibility is teaching students. if these teachers are occupied with coping with administration, they might have trouble managing their own time. the research was conducted in quebec, revealing teachers’ heavy workload. the findings demonstrated that eight per cent of the workload is associated with administration. moreover, female teachers were likely to suffer from mental stress (riel & messing, 2010). consequently, teachers have already been occupied with the responsibilities relating to teaching students. the ability to deal with administrative issues could be developed during their careers. however, it should be considered that it is optional when they are the school entrants. therefore, administrative skills are not as crucial as the following skills this essay will discuss for newly qualified teachers. 2. practical management skills could reduce beginning teachers’ pressure from school to explore the expectations of beginning teachers, kyriacou and kunc conducted research among pgce students in england. over 300 people participated in the study, completing sixteen questions at the year’s beginning and end. moreover, twenty-eight people continued to be connected to observe their mentality changes. the research revealed that the participants usually had a rollercoaster psychological state. that implied they might work with a high expectative value when they were the entrants in school. however, the aspiration declined because of the increasing workload. in addition, it takes work for inexperienced teachers to deal with emergencies. fortunately, several new teachers could adjust themselves to continue working with pupils (kyriacou & kunc, 2006). therefore, practical self-management and classroom management skills will likely reduce the stress newly qualified www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 83 published by scholink inc. teachers suffer in their careers. undoubtedly, the stress that teachers suffer is from various aspects impacting their daily lives. in addition, people are likely to feel nervous about the new situation. hence, beginning teachers encounter more challenges when occupied with school issues, such as time management. woods revealed four kinds of teachers who might be easily corroded by pressure which are the entrants who might not be equipped with sufficient experience in dealing with the predicaments, the leaders who might not have an appropriate relationship with the staff, the teachers who do not have professional knowledge and the teachers who could not deliver information effectively (as cited in capel & al-mohannadi, 2004, p. 17). furthermore, the newly qualified teachers might undertake a heavy workload to integrate into the entire school, which should be someone other than their responsibility. consequently, they could not complete their work on time because it was beyond their abilities. if the teachers are in this situation, that might influence their emotions. moreover, they might doubt their career decisions because they are unsatisfied with their performance. this is the reason why new teachers should acquire time management skills. as kyriacou (2014) states, teachers who are full of anxiety should recognise the reasons why their emotions change. accordingly, the particular approaches of management should be applied in these situations. for instance, beginning teachers should be required to design an appropriate plan suitable for each task they are likely to complete before their deadlines. that could stimulate the entrants to deal with the tasks more effectively. in addition, the extra missions that may not require the new teachers to complete will likely be dispatched to the other staff or students, such as administration tasks, which could enhance the quality of teachers’ priori missions (kyriacou, 2014). this kind of management skill could reduce the resignation rate because one of the newly qualified teachers’ main worries might be that they cannot balance work and life. moreover, excessive stress might hurt students, which might result in the students’ stress because of the interrelation between these two groups (capel & al-mohannadi, 2004). that is why newly qualified teachers should be responsible for managing themselves effectively. therefore, teachers must acquire self-management skills to establish self-confidence in their career stages. the other management skill this essay would like to argue is classroom management, including preparing lessons and student management. as wood (2013) points out, if the teacher wants a successful lesson, elaborate preparation might be essential in the entire process. the potential issues should be considered when beginning teachers design an appropriate lesson plan. for instance, language teachers might be questioned about the characteristics of a particular character in fiction. to deliver the information effectively, the teacher should be required to preconceive the potential questions. however, indoctrination may be one of many elements of successful lessons. the management of students’ behaviours must be addressed. misbehaviour students might be challenging to avoid in each classroom, as those students may need to listen more carefully and disturb others. that is one of the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 84 published by scholink inc. biggest challenges for beginning teachers. therefore, teachers should identify the boundary between misbehaviour and behaviour. in addition, various inappropriate actions should be rectified through diverse management skills. for instance, establishing the authority could eliminate the threats because several students will likely challenge the new teachers. however, if their actions go far beyond the teacher’s endurance, they might be managed with particular methods, including pre-empting, counselling, reprimand and punishment (kyriacou, 1997). it seems that classroom management skills should be paid more attention to because it might affect students’ learning efficiency. however, several beginning teachers might need clarification about the boundary because they lack experience. therefore, management training should be compulsory in teacher training courses as an independent project so that teachers can be more confident in resolving the problems they might be required to suffer (jackson et al., 2013). practical management skills might make a positive contribution to teachers and students. firstly, self-management is beneficial not only to the mental relaxation of teachers but also to physical treatment. moreover, the systematical routine promotes satisfaction with their career, one element of positive teaching. secondly, there might be no doubt that classroom management could establish an equal learning atmosphere, which implies that teachers should control the whole lesson without extra disturbances. that is likely to guarantee the student-oriented theory. they could, therefore, enjoy their right to be educated with professional knowledge and develop their skills to participate in contemporary society. 3. establishing a positive relationship between beginning teachers and the other people who relate to the schools could enhance the work quality if the students completed the teacher training courses with the qualification, the teacher might be one of their career choices. when the newly qualified teacher decides to be successful, the essential issue should be considered: the relationship with others, including students, student’s parents and other staff. in addition, teachers could not be distinguished from the other groups associated with the schools. consequently, a positive working climate will likely be regarded as a collaboration between teachers and several groups. the first group this essay would like to discuss is students. teachers may spend much more time working with their pupils. furthermore, several teachers are not only their learning teachers but also their living teachers. hence, they should have an appropriate relationship with respecting each other. according to kyriacou’s (2014) perspectives, respecting each other and a harmonious relationship might build up a friendly atmosphere for pupils’ learning. therefore, a humorous talking style could positively contribute to the relationship between beginning teachers and pupils. for instance, if the teacher could employ humour advisably, that would shorten the distance between the teacher and the children. pupils might be more comfortable with this kind of teacher. thus, they can share their perspectives and opinions about study and daily life. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 85 published by scholink inc. moreover, it might be proper that teachers could quell the uncertainty with humour when several pupils misbehave (kyriacou, 2014). that humour might not only be the reprimand to the students but also the mitigation method of embarrassment. capern and hammond conducted the research among ninety-eight students, including misbehaved and capable children from australia, investigating the approaches to building positive relationships. the findings revealed two different expectations of teachers’ treatments. the requirement of the capable pupils was the academic success, which teachers could assist them in academic achieving. nevertheless, the students who might misbehave themselves focused on the individual care from teachers (capern & hammond, 2014). accordingly, a positive relationship with students should be built up, which is based on the students’ anticipation of diversity. on the other hand, newly qualified teachers are likely to work with others as members of teacher teams, because the collaboration relationship might provide support for beginning teachers. as ashford and capel (2004) state, it seems that working as a team member could benefit newly qualified teachers, which should be an opportunity for the entrants to discuss with the teachers from the same department to obtain the progress of their careers. furthermore, attending departmental meetings could also provide a stage for new teachers to contribute to the development of their individuals and the entire school (ashford & capel, 2004). therefore, beginning teachers should build a harmonious relationship with their colleagues because they could acquire experiences from skilful teachers who have already undergone similar issues. that might protect the new teachers from suffering the same problems. for instance, the new teachers may be required to be responsible for administration, which they might need help understanding how to do. hence, experienced teachers could teach them how to deal with these issues, such as organising office records. the cooperation among teachers is likely to encourage those from various departments to learn from each other through discussing issues or exchanging teaching methodologies. accordingly, obtaining the same results takes new teachers less time (brownell et al., 2005). the skills of establishing a positive relationship between newly qualified teachers and other colleagues could also be regarded as the direct method of promoting individual development. citizenship education might not be delivered without relating to the other fields because it is a social science subject. when the teacher delivers information about policy literature, it is possible to associate it with history to deepen students’ understanding. the third relationship beginning teachers should be concerned about is communication with parents. teachers must communicate with pupils’ parents to discuss their children’s behaviours and academic achievements in school. meanwhile, if a particular event could influence their children’s physical or mental changes, it might be the parent’s responsibility to feed the information back to the teachers. the harmonious relationship between teachers and parents will likely reduce the frequency of children making behaviour mistakes (kim et al., 2012). for instance, if the student cannot pay sufficient attention to the english class, the teacher who communicates with parents regularly should write it in the student’s report to inform the parents. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 86 published by scholink inc. consequently, this student might reduce misbehaved problems. as bills (2007) states, communicating with parents could benefit student’s progress and the school’s development. moreover, that approach might benefit newly qualified teachers more because several students are likely to challenge the beginning teachers. it may be an effective method to establish their authority by building up a positive relationship with parents. 4. newly qualified teachers should keep developing the skills of teaching and further learning apart from these two kinds of skills, teaching and learning should also be emphasised. these might be the most essential skills teachers should be equipped with. the primary purpose of this occupation is to educate people. therefore, beginning teachers are required to master a practical approach to delivering knowledge. furthermore, they should keep developing to increase their value through further learning because of their particular identification. for instance, several teachers might participate in the extra training or the part-time academic courses rather than stand in the same place without progress. however, the endeavour that teachers are required to do should be based on the requirements of the students. kolb revealed that the learning process should be regarded as a cyclic system. firstly, people should be acquainted with the issues they did not undergo before. accordingly, they could think about the particular situation they faced. moreover, the experiences might be defined with professional theory. arranging their prospective phase should be the last step of the process (as cited in dymoke, 2013, p. 55). therefore, practical knowledge delivery might be one of the crucial elements of successful learning. as kyriacou (2014) demonstrates, professional cognition, decision ability and indoctrination methods might constitute teaching skills. specialised knowledge is a crucial component of being a teacher. if they are not equipped with sufficient expertise, they cannot have the qualifications to teach in school. however, they may need to be a successful teacher. what could positively influence pupils and how to teach them should also be realised as the indispensability of being a teacher. for instance, not only do the particular subjects require indoctrination in class, but they might also encourage students to practice. as beginning teachers of citizenship education, they should understand the primary purposes of citizenship education, which focus on knowledge delivery and skills development to encourage young people to participate in contemporary society. therefore, when newly qualified teachers prepare the lesson, they should consider the content and the appropriate activities, which could closely relate to the primary information. suppose the main content is associated with the rights and obligations of citizens. in that case, teachers are likely to operate a mock election to allow pupils to experience the others’ positions. teaching skills might be the complete element which teachers should keep learning throughout their careers. teaching skills include the entire teaching process. for instance, each teacher should have adequate preparation before they start to teach, especially for newly qualified teachers. however, if the teachers cannot deliver the knowledge effectively, the preparation might not assist them in teaching www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 87 published by scholink inc. successful lessons. that demonstrates that the teacher should attract students’ attention at the beginning of the lesson with particular methods, such as questioning. in addition, students should be informed about what they will learn in this lesson and the relationship between the current knowledge and the previous information (kyriacou, 2014). this starting approach will likely motivate pupils to retain the knowledge in their memories. for example, students should memorise ancient poetry when they have chinese lessons in china. however, the memory is limited. that is why they should recap the poetry they learned before in each new chinese lesson. on the other hand, kyriacou (2014) also reveals that teachers’ expressions could play an essential role in the process. the comfortable voice and facial expression will likely construct a relaxed atmosphere where children can concentrate on academic learning. although beginning teachers might work under pressure, they should not negatively influence their students. hence, one of the teachers’ obligations is to be confident in their classrooms. several teachers might write a script beforehand, which includes the speaking content, the questions that students might ask and the potential emergency (burgess, 2004). consequently, the beginning teachers may be relaxed about the forthcoming lessons even though the genuine classes will likely differ from the plan. as elliott (2007) points out, if the teachers have yet to teach the students, they should apply the approaches to be familiar with the knowledge level of the students to eliminate the information overlap and gap. furthermore, the classroom language should not be neglected as an element of teaching skills, which enhances the frequency of the interaction between teachers and pupils. kyriacou (2014) demonstrates that the classroom language should suit students’ abilities. in addition, pupils ought to play the leading role. that implies that the communication between teachers and students should be constructed, likely based on the student’s opinions. for example, the teacher might ask the first question. however, the following questions could be created through the students’ answers to the first one, stimulating the development of divergent thinking ability. on the other hand, teachers could also have opportunities to attend professional courses during their careers. individual professional development is not only beneficial to teachers’ integrated development but also to the achievements of students. if teachers attend training regularly, they may acquire the recent strategies or techniques of teaching to cater to the requirements of the contemporary age (pachler & field, 2004). several high-technical productions are applied in school, such as ipads. that might result in the tendency for teachers to be required to utilise it as an assistant teaching instrument rather than for entertainment. to avoid technical issues, several teachers, including newly qualified teachers, should attend it training. teachers should be aware of continuing professional development when they are newly qualified because it could motivate them to devote themselves to their careers. stefani reports that this kind of training could fulfil the obligations of teachers through developing academic learning and establishing a positive awareness (as cited in doherty, 2011, p. 703). further learning patterns may vary, including full-time courses or temporary training. the teachers who are the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 88 published by scholink inc. school’s entrants might not participate in the full-time course because their main tasks are still teaching students. therefore, training that takes little time should be suitable for them. taking the confucius institute as an example, it is a collaborative organisation between chinese higher education institutions and other countries’ universities, which could spread chinese traditional culture. several british universities are likely to recruit chinese teachers and volunteers. however, the education systems might be pretty different from each other. for the first time, teachers who work in britain must attend the training about british examinations and cultural background. for instance, they should be familiar with the intention of those exams, such as gcse and a-level. in addition, how to choose teaching materials should also be informed when they are attending the training. consequently, beginning teachers should seize the opportunities for further learning to enhance their teaching qualities and the students’ achievements. 5. conclusion this essay describes the most essential skills of beginning teachers. firstly, newly qualified teachers should be able to self-regulate, which could play a crucial role in balancing life and work. furthermore, practical skills in classroom management are likely to maintain favourable surroundings for learning. secondly, new teachers must master the communication skills to establish an appropriate relationship with students, colleagues and parents. communication with them could make a positive contribution to student learning. the third skill this essay proposes is teaching and learning skills. this section emphasises professional skills, such as the preparation process and the information delivery methods. furthermore, personal development is also considered in the third segment. although newly qualified teachers should be equipped with these skills, the government and schools must also provide support. initially, the government could operate the projects to foster the requisite skills for beginning teachers. for instance, the particular skills could be introduced more specialised when they attend the teaching training courses. secondly, the head teachers of schools could provide a comfortable working climate. for example, they should reduce the overabundance of administrative tasks, which newly qualified teachers could save much more time in teaching students. moreover, schools should also offer opportunities for beginning teachers to attend teaching training regularly to acquire advanced education strategies. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology 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(2011). evaluating the impact of professional development on teaching practice: research findings and future research directions. dymoke, s. (2013). an overview of learning. in s. dymoke (ed.), reflective teaching and learning in the secondary school (pp. 47-72). london: sage. elliott, p. (2007). planning for learning. in v. brooks, i. abbott, & l. bills (eds.), preparing to teach in secondary schools: a student teacher’s guide to professional issues in secondary education (pp. 60-73). england: open university press. jackson, c., simoncini, k., & davidson, m. (2013). classroom profiling training: increasing preservice teachers’ confidence and knowledge of classroom management skills. australian journal of teacher education, 38(8), 30-46. https://doi.org/10.14221/ajte.2013v38n8.2 kim, e. m., minke, k. m., sheridan, s. m., koziol, n., ryoo, j. h., & rispoli, k. m. (2012). congruence within the parent-teacher relationship: associations with children’s functioning. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203338940_chapter_3 https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203338940_chapter_3 https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203338940_chapter_2 https://doi.org/10.14221/ajte.2013v38n8.2 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 90 published by scholink inc. cyfs working paper no. 2012-2. nebraska center for research on children, youth, families and schools. kyriacou, c. (1997). effective teaching in schools: theory and practice. united kingdom: nelson thornes. kyriacou, c., & kunc, r. (2007). beginning teachers’ expectations of teaching. teaching and teacher education, 23(8), 1246-1257. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2006.06.002 kyriacou, c. (2014). essential teaching skills. oxford: oxford university press. pachler, n., & field, k. (2004). continuing professional development. in s. capel, r. heilbronn, m. leask, & t. turner (eds.), starting to teach in the secondary school: a companion for the newly qualified teacher (pp. 233-246). london: routledge falmer. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203338940_chapter_17 riel, j., & messing, k. (2011). counting the minutes: administrative control of work schedules and time management of secondary school teachers in québec. work: a journal of prevention, assessment and rehabilitation, 40, 59-70. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203338940_chapter_17 ulvik, m., & langørgen, k. (2012). what can experienced teachers learn from newcomers? newly qualified teachers as a resource in schools. teachers and teaching, 18(1), 43-57. https://doi.org/10.1080/13540602.2011.622553 wood, p. (2013). classroom management. in s. dymoke (ed.), reflective teaching and learning in the secondary school (pp. 117-162). london: sage. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2006.06.002 https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203338940_chapter_17 https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203338940_chapter_17 https://doi.org/10.1080/13540602.2011.622553 frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no.2, 2021 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) original paper disruptive changing higher education ecosystems: have university academics been gazumped? dr warrick long1, associate professor lisa barnes1, professor maria northcote1 & professor anthony williams2 1 avondale university college, springfield, australia 2 university of wollongong, wollongong, australia received: march 12, 2021 accepted: march 30, 2021 online published: april 11, 2021 doi:10.22158/fet.v4n2p12 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v4n2p12 abstract continual reforms in the australian higher education sector result in ongoing significant changes to the experiences of the australian academic. as a result, massification, internationalisation and corporatization form the landscape of academia in australia. the australian university accounting academic (auaa) faces ongoing challenges and opportunities within this dynamic academic environment, and this study explores these challenges in relation to teaching themed issues that confront the auaa. by using a questionnaire and interviews with auaas, three themes emerged, being curriculum, teaching workload, and the impact of online teaching. the “asset” support framework is developed from these conversations with the auaa’s to help them become an “asset” to the university during these times of disruptive change instead of allowing the system to “gazump” them. keywords accounting online teaching, disruptive change, curriculum and workload 1. introduction disruptions to the australian higher education sector (ahes) have been frequent and dramatic over the last few decades (marginson & considine, 2000; rainnie, goods, bahn, & burgess, 2013; ryan, guthrie, & neumann, 2008), described by rainnie et al. as an “often painful processes of change” , which is “unlikely to slow down to any degree in the near future” (2013, p. 193). parker (2012a) notes the activity of university reform and disruption is a global phenomenon, and not limited to the australian context. since the early 1980s there have been major waves of australian disruptive changes (ryan, 2012; ryan & guthrie, 2009), with a more recent wave whose effects are still yet to be fully comprehended 12 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 (freeman & hancock, 2011), with even further reform being proposed by the federal government (department of education, 2014; gallagher, 2014). these reforms can be very broadly grouped in table 1, which also notes the broad outcome of them. table 1. disruptive changes to australian higher education 1980s to present beginning major reform/ disruption outcome early 1980s abolition of student fees (whitlam reforms) massification late 1980s partial fee reintroduction and amalgamation of universities and cae’s (dawkins reforms) marketisation and internationalisation 1990s competition and accountability (baldwin, crean and vanstone reforms) corporatisation 2003 efficiency, compliance and further deregulation measures (nelson reforms) managerialism 2012 uncapped federal government funded undergraduate places, stricter compliance and increased measurement (rudd-gillard reforms) to be determined proposed 2016 micro-economic reforms including deregulating student fees (pyne reforms) to be determined while government considers these changes a success in policy terms (seeing it as both quick and effective) (ryan & guthrie, 2009; ryan et al., 2008), in social terms the results are not viewed as positively. ryan and guthrie provide a comprehensive list of negative consequences as an outcome or response to disruption (ryan & guthrie, 2009, p. 322) which includes increased academic workloads and stress, less affordable university education, excessive casualisation of the academic workforce and declining academic salaries. coates et al. also contribute similar criticisms derived from surveying academic staff (coates, dobson, goedegebuure, & meek, 2011, p. 143). parker (2012a), states universities need to respond to these changes, identifying three main factors (as shown in table 1) contributing to these reforms being 1/massification, 2/internationalisation and 3/corporatisation. as a consequence of the whitlam and dawkins reforms, access to higher education in australia became more readily and easily available to the masses, resulting in the massification of higher education (ryan, 2010); massification being “the practice of making luxury products available to the mass market” (collins, 2009). massification was the first of the major “evolutions” academia underwent beginning in the early 1980s, which challenged the academic’s traditional position. higher education was previously considered an elite system (bradley, noonan, nugent, & scales, 2008), and massification opened up higher education to a new group of students from diverse 13 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 backgrounds comprising a mix from a broad spectrum of social and economic circumstances (scown, 2003). the literature shows that massification then is a disruptive change. internationalisation was the second of the major “evolutions” impacting on academia, and began in the late 1970s, but burgeoned following the dawkins reforms, when australian universities entered the highly competitive international education market, proactively recruiting overseas students (sawir, 2013). while internationalisation has also impacted on curriculum (bell, 2004; rizvi & walsh, 1998; sawir, 2013) and seen an increasing number of academics from overseas (altbach & knight, 2007; hugo, 2008; welch, 1997). corporatisation also grew out of the dawkins reforms which emphasised greater financial accountability and efficiencies (christopher, 2012), and in its simplest form is a “focus on financial management and returns [which] prompts a continual search for revenue growth and profits” (parker, 2012b, p. 259). while there is a “systemic corporatisation of universities” (freudenberg & samarkovski, 2014, p. 30), and “higher education researchers and commentators generally agree that universities have corporatized and commercialised” (parker, 2011, p. 440), this is not a uniquely australian occurrence. corporatisation then is the third disruptive change in the university accounting teaching sector. from the literature we see the three main factors for disruptive change within the accounting university sector as massification, internationalisation and corporatisation. these disruptive changes have created confusion and tensions for academics, who are left wondering if their roles are now “teaching, research, to generate revenue or something else?” (bridgman, 2005, p. 8). it is within this landscape that the australian university accounting academic (auaa) has their lived experience. this gap in knowledge of the lived experience leads to the following research question: rq1: what are the challenges and opportunities facing the australian university accounting academic (auaa) for teaching in times of disruptive change? 2. method to ensure the auaa’s voice was clear the methodology implemented was a multifaceted approach, using both quantitative (dainty, 2008) and qualitative methods (creswell, 2013), also known as mixed methods research (mmr) (johnson, onwuegbuzie, & turner, 2007). mmr has developed into a recognised research design (creswell & plano clark, 2011) and has been used in a number of significant research projects including sher (2012); (tashakkori & teddlie, 2010, p. 2). a total of 162 useable responses were received, a response rate of 20% of the potential 808 auaa invited, the purpose of the questionnaire was for descriptive and indicative purposes rather than drawing statistical generalizations, is an acceptable level (jupp, 2013). the second component of the research involved the identification of a group of 42 potential participants across a range of universities and academic positions. an initial invitation to participate was sent out via individual emails to eight candidates, with new invitations being sent to alternative candidates as invitations were refused or lapsed after two weeks. ultimately eight participants accepted 14 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 the invitation to participate in the interviews representing five different australian universities. the profile of the participants and the universities are shown in table 2: participant characteristics and table 3, noting that the size of the university in table 3 is based on arbitrary criteria determined by the researcher for convenience for defining a university as small, medium or large. table 2. participant characteristics characteristic number of participants gender female 4 male 4 academic position lecturer 3 senior lecturer 3 associate professor 2 table 3. participant universities characteristic number of universities number of participants size (no. students) large (>40000) 2 2 medium (20001 – 40000) 2 5 small (< 20000) 1 1 location cbd 2 2 regional 3 6 based on the backdrop of the disruptive changes of massification, internationalisation and corporatisation, participants in the study revealed three teaching related themes; the accounting curriculum (theme 1), workload (theme 2), and online teaching (theme 3). each of these themes are now explored using both the survey data and the interview results, as shown in the conceptual framework at figure 1. 15 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 figure 1. conceptual framework 3. results and discussion the auaas in the study identified a changing world of accounting will potentially impact the university accounting curriculum. the changes in response to the situation include: • the changing role of accountants and the accounting workforce; • the nature of the accounting profession and the nature of accounting; • the changing preferences of students; • changing graduate attributes. this study identified that more emphasis was needed on development and use of it, soft skills and graduates readiness for work as shown in figure 2. figure 2. theme 1—curriculum 16 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 the study noted that the auaas themselves indicated a need for the accounting curriculum to include more information technology. from one perspective, the auaas indicated that technology needs to be integrated into the curriculum, as follows: increasing integration of technology in the curriculum integration of it and computer skills and so on within the subjects... in fact, cpa and caanz have recognized that now so it’s not a separate area for being integrated. (an example auaa response) examples of how the auaas see this integration occurring in the accounting curriculum includes: …how technology is used in accounting student’s excel skills bringing in learning on accounting related software (e.g. sap) auaas perceive technology as being an integral element across the various components of the accounting curriculum, for example “incorporating technology into both management and financial accounting” which provides the accounting student with a degree of familiarity with how technology is used in the accounting workplace. another perspective from the auaas in the study is that the accounting curriculum needs actual training and development with computers and accounting systems, typically evidenced as follows: more it and accounting systems courses more focus on technology training more computer-based skills development rather than having technology embedded within units of study in the accounting curriculum, this perspective has discrete units of study and skill development goals that are technology/computer specific. recognising that accounting graduates will be encountering workplaces that are increasingly using technology in their work processes the auaas in the study have indicated in the preceding the need for the accounting curriculum to place more of an emphasis on information technology. for the purposes of this study, soft skills are defined as “…intraand inter-personal work skills that facilitate the application of technical skills and knowledge, such as interpersonal skills (e.g., developing rapport) and communication skills” (kantrowitz, 2005, p. x), including in this working definition critical thinking skills. a number of interested parties see themselves as stakeholders in the design of university accounting curriculum, including auaas, students, employers, universities and the accounting professional bodies. the auaas, when asked to rate a number of different student skills in the questionnaire, primarily voted the following as their top three, indicating a need for “soft skills” to be included in the curricula: problem solving (98.5%) written communication (96.2%) critical thinking (94.7%) 17 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 this was supported by responses in the questionnaire when it asked what changes the auaas would like to see in the accounting discipline, with indicative responses including: • broader range of non-accounting based subjects • less emphasis on vocational skills in the study the auaas reported the perception of a need to decrease the emphasis in the accounting curriculum on technical skills, and to balance these with a “broader range of non-accounting subjects”. other indicative comments included: introduce more critical thinking and less focus on technical knowledge broaden teaching expectations so students can develop soft skills and compete in the marketplace and ae not pigeonholed as book-keepers more soft skills required than technical even without the idea of balancing soft skills with technical skills, the auaas reported a perception that the accounting curriculum generally lacks sufficient development of soft skills, typical responses are: lack of communication skills not enough time spend developing soft skills lack of communication skills of students building on this observation, the auaas in the study were keen to see more emphasis in the accounting curriculum on these soft skills, with comments including: the need for students to be able to produce quality, appropriate written communication more focus on improving communication skills improved critical thinking skill development greater emphasis on sift skills in assessment in recognising this deficit of and need for more soft skill development, the auaas suggested one approach was to ensure accounting students have opportunities to have personal interactions with other students (including working in groups) which sees them having to utilise soft skills. in their comments, some of the auaas in the study were critical of the overuse of technology in course delivery, which limits the frequency and opportunity for students to interact. examples of typical comments included: … opportunities to work with small groups to enhance communication skills (presenting, writing and interpersonal) universities seem determined to destroy students’ chances to develop cross-cultural skills and communication skills, through over-reliance on ‘flexible’ delivery, which reduces the need for students to meet each other and develop their generic skills educators are fixated on technology to deliver technical content, less concerned with impact on students’ generic (face-to-face) skills. the other approach to enhance soft skills development in the accounting curriculum is to incorporate specific units of study that address soft skills, as noted in the following indicative responses: 18 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 include a communication course into the degree communication skills taught as a unit, in first year provision of a simple course in logic and ethics noting just how prominent this is, as reported previously, around 95% or more of the auaas responding to the questionnaire considered very or extremely important the three skills of problem solving, written communication, and critical thinking. the auaas in the study reported their perception of the influence of industry/employers on the accounting curricula as being: demands for work-ready graduates industry demands for work-ready graduates there were a small number of auaas who indicated a criticism of this: curricula too influenced by industry organisations industry focusses on applied ability, even if they talk about soft skills however, the primary response suggested more auaas support the idea the curricula should better reflect what prospective employers want in potential graduates, and invite their involvement, as evidenced in typical responses to being asked in the questionnaire what changes they would like to see in the accounting discipline: more industry engagement in determining course structure and subject content more input from industry in curriculum design review curriculum to match industry expectations incorporate more industry involvement the auaa perceives that employers are seeking graduates who are “work-ready”, a term not defined by the auaas yet considered critical in the design of accounting curriculum. accounting courses are regularly accredited as part of the university quality assurance process, to meet the university’s overall accreditation requirements as an approved higher education provider. in addition the accounting professional bodies (cpa/caanz) offer accreditation of accounting courses which gives advanced standing into the respective professional body membership and graduate programs to accounting graduates from degrees accredited by cpa/caanz. there may be other accreditation processes that accounting courses and/or faculties at particular universities are subject to, including more recently the move towards accreditation with the association to advance collegiate schools of business (aacsb). gaining accreditation requires the satisfaction of criteria, some of which impact the design of the accounting curriculum. the auaas in the study noted the influence of accreditation as a driver of change in the accounting curriculum. they were particularly critical of the accounting professional bodies, as evidenced by: content of syllabus too much driven by the accounting profession [would like to see] less involvement of professional organisations/accreditation, more academic freedom in the design of the curricula 19 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 [would like to see the] removal of accreditation of degree programs by the accounting profession professional body accreditation is mandatory, but is often self-serving however, a small number of other auaas pointed out that the professional bodies have relaxed their requirements and “…haven’t been overly prescriptive as far as what they actually want” (a example auaa response). changes auaas supported: ability to get students more work ready (q24) make accounting programs more industry relevant (q24) more industry based education (q24) challenges confronting the discipline: industry demands from work ready graduates (q25) teaching has to be more work/industry relevant (q30) demands for work ready graduates (q23) irrespective of the level of support from the auaas for changing curriculum to ensure accounting graduates are more work ready, over 90% of questionnaire respondents indicated (q22) it is important to encourage industry involvement, and over 72% that relevant industry experience is essential for graduates. the study reported two principal approaches suggested by the auaas that the accounting curriculum could assist graduating accounting students to become work ready. the first identified was greater engagement with industry, which included industry direct participation in the education process through visits to/from industry including the provision of opportunities for students to gain experience in the workplace. in particular, the auaas identified internships and industry placements as a significant change which they would like implemented. examples of their comments include: employers to provide work-integrated learning for students (q25) more internships and employment assistance (q25) more student placement in the profession (q25) work experience is a good thing (auaa4) however, the auaas noted that there are challenges with providing such opportunities, which include: a lack of willingness by industry to participate in such programs (q25) difficulty to find enough placements for students (q25) firms and companies not being prepared to offer professional placements/internships (q25) some students don’t have adequate communication skills for work integrated learning (q25) work-life balance was reported as a primary issue facing the discipline (“work life balance issues”—q23), an example of increased student expectations on the auaa (“expect staff to be 20 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 available 24/7”—q30), a challenge ahead for teaching (“lack of time”—q48) and an obstacle to implementing positive changes (“time constraint”—q25). the second of the workload pressures reported by the auaas in the study is the competing demands for time within allocated work time. that is, the balance between the traditional academic roles for lecturers and senior lecturers of teaching (40%), research (40%) and administration (20%) (which includes administration, service, community and industry engagement) is perceived as being very difficult to maintain, as noted by auaa2 that “… probably like everywhere else, there’s an ongoing debate and concerns about increasing workloads, just in terms of say class contact time and things like that”. figure 3 summarises the issues related to the theme of workload. figure 3. theme 2—teaching workload other responses to the questionnaire in relation to this included: competing demands (q47) balancing research, admin., and teaching (q48) balancing time—teaching/admin., and research overlap and can implode one another (q49) within the study’s questionnaire, q45 asked participants to indicate how their academic workload is broken down across a year, noting that the total should equal 100%. the results for the average of each component for each academic role is shown in figure 4, compared to the traditional weighting and notes that teaching is the dominant component, with research being less than the traditional model and admin/other more: 21 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 figure 4. auaa reported academic work components within this current theme of teaching issues, only the second workload pressure, being the pressure between the various workload components will be reported as it impacts directly on the teaching component of the auaa. administration refers to the “paperwork” and compliance requirements of the auaa associated with their role. it does not refer to the administration of their teaching (for example marking, preparing classes, etc.). the auaas repeatedly noted in the study that administration has increased, and intrudes into time for teaching, as indicated by the following typical comments: heavy admin load for coordinators who are trying to maintain a balance between research and teaching but mostly spent in managing and coordinating (q23) intrusion of administration into time (q48) increased time spent on admin. (q50) an example of the type of administrative functions that are imposing on their time for teaching related activities is provided by auaa8, oh, the admin is, the admin, there are a lot of things that we do from an administrative point of view that, waste our time, that take us away from improving materials for students and, i was asked recently to put my cv into a template for teqsa for one of the places i work at, their, reaccreditation process. and i looked at it and thought, you’ve got my cv and you’ve got the template, and someone in admin could’ve put my cv into the template but now i’m doing it, which takes me away from, doing things that i could be doing for my students or, improving my blackboard being required to engage in administrative tasks that could be undertaken by non-academic staff is an area the auaas keenly felt as a pressure point on their teaching component within their workload. auaa1 further noted below that even though their role requires them to fulfil administrative duties, there is insufficient recognition in the workload model for such: 22 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 …i find administration duties take a lot away from me as well. so, i’m constantly looking after staff, staffing issues, arranging staff events and those sorts of things. even though it gets recognized in my role, it doesn’t really get recognized in terms of this workload model. the increased role of administrative work required of the auaa is perceived by the auaas in the study to be impacting their teaching, to the point in some cases where their identity as educators is threatened, and evidenced by the following comment from auaa4, a senior lecturer: so, another challenge, another challenge that i notice is that i’m no longer, i try hard to hang onto this, but i feel i’m no longer an educator, i’m an administrator within the traditional workload model for academics, administration may be the smallest component, but in the study reported here and noted above, the auaas see it as growing and putting pressure on the time available for teaching. the second identified workload factor external to teaching that impacts on the auaas teaching is the requirement for research. the auaas in the study noted the tension between research and teaching, with indicative comments including: balancing time between research and teaching (q47) research teaching trade off (q23) teaching research tension (q23) an important number of auaas in the study noted they felt increasing pressure to research and publish, which is detrimental to the time available for teaching, see for example the following responses to q48 when asked about the challenges ahead to teaching, meeting research expectation (takes time away) increased pressure to publish (less time for teaching) less time for teaching-related activities due to more time required for research these sentiments were echoed in other responses throughout the questionnaire, as illustrated by the following, increased demands for research—less time for teaching (q47) workload expectations for research output allowing minimum time to dedicate to teaching (q50) pressure to focus on research rather than on teaching (q23) the pressure felt by auaas in the study within the research component of their workload at the expense of teaching is perceived to be a “lack of recognition of teaching” (q25) and impacts on not just the time available for teaching, but also the quality of teaching (q23). the study identified five factors related to the teaching component of the workload model that the auaas in the study reported to be pressure points in their teaching workload. the first of the teaching related factors are those activities that involve the administration of teaching, and include activities such as compliance, class preparation, and developing new materials. the auaas described this as 23 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 being “overburdened with administration” (q47), and “…we’ve got too many other demands on our time around teaching-related sort of activities” (auaa2). included in these demands is “…an overabundance of compliance required by the university related to teaching tasks” (q47) and “bureaucracy regarding teaching” (q24). however, these compliance related tasks were only part of issue for the auaas in the study. the preparation of teaching material was reported as a secondary issue affecting teaching (q47), with comments such as the following, time to develop material the time it takes to prepare for a lecture/tutorial/seminar, even in the case of a subsequent year ‘repeat performance’ lack of preparation time auaa1 noted that “…teaching is very intensive in terms of getting the material organised”, highlighting that the act of teaching encompasses more than just the face-to-face function of content delivery. while preparing for teaching a class is identified by the auaas in the study as an issue in their teaching workload, a greater number of auaas noted developing new material and methods of teaching as a crucial issue. typical of their responses were, lack of time for improving teaching (q23) lack of time to develop new methods of presenting the lectures and notes (q47) too busy with teaching and admin., so limited time available for designing new assessments and teaching materials (q47) constant changes mean no time to fully develop and consolidate great content and delivery methods (q49) it was auaa4, when discussing the time involved with all the time allocated for teaching, used the phrase “…it wasn’t teaching, it was the administration of teaching”. in discussing the same issue, auaa5 summed up the feeling of the auaas regarding such administration, when they noted, “i don’t think the administration around teaching is acknowledged enough”. the second of the teaching related factors identified by the auaas in the study is the increased time required with moving to deliver the course in an online/blended format, often in addition to face-to-face classes. the primary issue with this noted by the auaas was that online/blended learning delivery requires more resources, most significantly the time of the auaa. with over 90% of respondents to the questionnaire noting that the use of online environments has increased over the last five years (q32), and over 80% indicting staff have increased their use of electronic feedback for assessments (q33), the pressure for online development is real for the auaas in the study. to meet this requires the auaa to adapt, which includes, more time devoted to developing materials, especially online (q24) time to put stuff online takes away from class time (q47) finding time to deliver high quality online resources (q48) 24 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 however, the study found that the auaas do not perceive that such support and resources are forthcoming, typical of the responses to this are, expectations for on-line delivery without reasonable resources to achieve (q48) drive towards more online learning but with inadequate resources being committed (q48) the move to on-line assessment has increased the time to mark assessment pieces, but no additional marking hours given; you are told you have to do it within the set allowance (q49) in a more comprehensive response during the interview, auaa8 reported, i see this blended learning as being a challenge, and not getting a lot of resources and support, to sort of make the change…i think that’s a bit of a challenge, talking to other people as well, that to use this blended approach, that they’re not getting, they don’t have time. no real time is taken out, their research expectations are being increased and they have to flip classrooms, and so i feel there’s a lot of extra demands and where’s the time coming to fill them? the third teaching related factor creating pressure on the auaas teaching workload, as identified by the auaas in the study is their view that student demands are increasing (q30 and 48). a comment from auaa3 evidences this when they reported, “…certainly students, i think, can be more demanding in some ways”. the student demands that impact on the teaching workload for the auaa were clustered in three groups. the first of these was the demand for more online material, which as noted in the previous section, the auaas in the study feel adds to their workload. the second was demanding faster response times from academics to their enquires, for example, greater student use of email and expected faster teacher response (q30) students expect immediate feedback and responses to queries (q30) …demand from students in terms of responding and the queries and things like that... (auaa2) the third grouping of student demands impacting teaching workload is the demand for more individualised learning, typified by the following comment in response to q48 “…high workloads and increasing as a result of the need to provide more individualised learning opportunities”. the origin and impact of these three groups of student demands is noted in the following comment in q30, “students have been trained (by broader ‘cultural influences’) to complain, so their expectation is for less work on their behalf and more work on academics behalf”. this extra work described by the auaas in the study adds additional pressure to their teaching workload. the fourth factor that affects the auaas in a teaching related way and which creates pressure on the auaas teaching workload is the growing size of classes arising from the growth in student numbers not being matched with corresponding growth in staff numbers. the auaas in the study clearly reported that class sizes are increasing (q23, q47 and q48), which then have an impact on teaching 25 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 load via increased administration related to teaching (e.g., increased marking) and student interactions. the response “larger classes” or very similar, was an important response to q23 in the questionnaire asking what the significant issues facing the accounting discipline are. as would be expected, in response to a question asking what changes the auaas would like to see in the discipline (q24) the primary response reported was for smaller or reduced class sizes. the issue is synthesised by auaa7 who remarked, “…being given increased student numbers without the increased funding”, which then puts increased pressure on the teaching load of the auaa. the final factor identified that adds to the teaching workload pressure of the auaa is the actual amount of class contact teaching many auaas are required to undertake. in response to questions about the significant issues they see the discipline facing (q30), changes they would like to see in the discipline (q24), and challenges ahead to teaching (q48), an important response from auaas in the study was the teaching load they are required to carry. examples of these include: heavy teaching load (q23) reduction of teaching load (q24) larger teaching loads (q48) auaa1 describes the changing teaching landscape this way, “we have semesters, we have trimesters, we have online learning, you know we have intensive teaching with [external campus]”. this changing landscape impacts on the teaching workload of the auaa and adds additional pressure to it. as noted by auaa2 this is an issue that is affecting a number of auaas, … i suppose a lot of my colleagues you know, again probably like everywhere else there’s always an ongoing debate and, and, and concerns about the increasing workloads just in terms of say class contact time and things like that. the final issue within the teaching related theme reported by the auaas in the study involves online teaching. in responding to five of the questions in the questionnaire the auaas very clearly perceived significant pressure to be moving into an online/blended delivery mode of teaching, indicative response to the questions are: too much of a push to “blended learning” (q23 [would like] less pressure to move courses online, accounting is a people based career (q24) pressure for on-line development (q47) pressure to teach solely online (q48) [issue is the] balance of online v face to face (q49) 26 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 figure 5. theme 3—online teaching in particular, this was seen to be a primary challenge expected to be encountered in their teaching in the next five years (q48). while the responses of the auaas indicated much of this pressure came from the university (e.g.: “restructuring to provide more online teaching” q48), the expectations of students were also reported as an important influence. a secondary response to questionnaire q30 (ways student expectations of teaching have changed) involved the desire for more online resources, examples of these responses included, better online learning environment more online teaching more demands for online materials students expect significant online content clearly the auaas in the study perceive a demand from students for more content and resources to be available online (“…increasing proportion opt for online” q30). a major part of the auaas resistance to change, also from their perception of insufficient support in adapting to the online environment. central to this issue was their recognition of needing specialist assistance and training, which was not considered to be available. for example, online development without any help in pedagogy (q47) lack of competent support for online (q47) more training/support for ever increasing online modes (q24) dedicated staff to implement online materials (q24) the training was a bit lacking (auaa8) the lack of support, training and resources available to the auaas for what they perceive to be the inevitable transition to the online environment is of concern to them. it is the third of the issues that are part of the teaching-related theme, following on from curriculum issues and teaching workload issues. the auaas in the study also reported some potential difficulties with the change process, including a resistance or inability to change and having the requisite skills and support to adapt. responding to the questionnaire asking about obstacles to implementing changes into the discipline (q25), the auaas noted resistance to change as an issue, typical responses included: inability to change 27 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 resistance for change from both academics and management difficult to convince ‘status quo’ stakeholders to consider (let alone embrace) fundamental change in the interviews, auaa1 and auaa2 also acknowledged that change would be difficult for a lot of auaas, noting: …i think older academics will struggle with that, simply because that’s the way that they’ve taught for a long time. that’s the way they’ve been taught, and, even though they recognize change, i think a lot of them don’t want to. just normal human behaviour. auaa1 i think we all can be, or need to be starting to think about how can we, you know, given that students are changing and as far as technology how can we, sort of modify or change how we deliver material… [p]eople that are very much stuck in their ways as far as doing things the way they’ve done it for 20 years and if there was, whether it’s, you know, i don’t think we could rely on just individual academics deciding, yes we’re going to change the way we teach our accounting programs. auaa2 4. conclusion and recommendations the objective of this research was to compile and reveal issues facing the auaa, to specifically answer rq1: what are the challenges and opportunities facing the australian university accounting academic (auaa) for teaching in times of disruptive change? table 4 is a summary of those issues as revealed by the auaas. table 4. summary of themes and factors as identified by auaas theme 1: curriculum it soft skills work ready graduates how technology is used in accounting problem solving more industry engagement in course content students excel skills written communication input from industry in curriculum design bringing in learning on accounting related software critical thinking review curriculum to match industry needs more it and accounting systems courses non-accounting based subjects more industry involvement more focus on technology training less emphasis on vocational skills review of need for industry accreditation of courses more computer-based skills 28 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 development theme 2: workload administration research teaching heavy administration reducing time for research and teaching balance between administration and teaching administration meeting research expectations online pressure to publish student demands less time for teaching large classes student contact theme 3: online student expectations resources platform more demand for online materials no help with pedagogy accounting is a people based career students expect significant content lack of online support inability/ resistance for auaa to change blended learning model need for training hard to convince auaa for need for change need for dedicated staff with materials for online based on these identified issues, the following recommendations can be made to assist auaas adapt to this disruptive change. 1) universities need to restructure the amount of general administration that current auaa’s are harnessed with, and provide administrative support to relieve the current administrative burden to allow for time to prepare teaching materials and complete research, rather than waste time on administration that could be completed by a less qualified staff member. 2) university administrations provide additional support in terms of resources to the auaa to assist in the large class sizes. such assistance may take the form of employing people to help with the marking and more administrative tasks. 3) the auaa demonstrably share their skills and passion for accounting to students. the most critical element of an accounting students’ classroom experience is the attitude and skill of the auaa (russell, kulesza, albrecht, & sack, 2000), and that where accounting students have a positive experience, they will engage more (jackling & calero, 2006). 29 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 4) the auaa make ongoing efforts to effectively engage with students, including visual aids, alternate media modes, other voices (e.g., youtube) and in shorter and more focussed content “chunks”. 5) university administration be required to invest in training resources to facilitate the auaa improving and adapting their teaching, particularly in the online environment. resourcing auaas to create quality teaching will increase the prospect of students, as consumer seeking a quality learning experience, being attracted to the particular university. these recommendations can be used to create the acronym asset to create a framework, which can be used as a model to support the auaa in times of disruptive changes for continuously improving the teaching experience for accounting academics. the recommendations should also be used to increase the engagement for students in the accounting teaching environment, hopefully making sure that instead of auaa feeling “gazumped”, they feel supported enough to close the deal, and make the classroom environment conducive to learning for all. figure 6 summarises the current changes in accounting education, and summarises the three challenges of teaching amongst this time of disruptive change, and the recommendations put forward to assist the auaa to cope in such times of this disruptive change. figure 6. summary of teaching challenges and recommendations in reviewing the lived experience of the auaa, the following comment from auaa2 summarises well the values, issues and outlook of the auaas in this study: 30 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 you know, in an, in an average day, an average week, an average month i look back and i say well, yep, it’s been pretty good. i look at it and i try and take a relatively positive attitude…the way i look at it that, yes there are increasing demands on our time and all that stuff we talked about earlier 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(2000). trouble at mill: quality of academic worklife issues with a comprehensive australian university. studies in higher education, 25(3), 279-294. https://doi.org/10.1080/713696158 36 published by scholink inc. https://doi.org/10.1080/713696158 original paper disruptive changing higher education ecosystems: have university academics been gazumped? as a consequence of the whitlam and dawkins reforms, access to higher education in australia became more readily and easily available to the masses, resulting in the massification of higher education (ryan, 2010); massification being “the practice of ... 2. method frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 71 original paper the implementation approach of ideological and political education in college english based on the production-oriented approach xiaomei su1 & min liu2* 1 school of english studies, xi’an international studies university, xi’an, china 2 foreign language and literature institute, xi’an international studies university, xi’an, china * correspondence: min liu, foreign language and literature institute, xi’an international studies university, xi’an, china received: february 25, 2024 accepted: march 14, 2024 online published: march 31, 2024 doi:10.22158/fet.v7n1p71 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v7n1p71 abstract based on the “production-oriented approach”, this paper takes the textbook “new horizon college english (third edition) viewing, listening & speaking” as the carrier of ideological and political teaching of the course, aiming to investigate how to explore the ideological and political elements of the college english course, and how to combine the college english course with the ideological and political elements to realize the integration of the knowledge system and the value system. methodologically, this paper conducted questionnaire surveys with 55 non-english majors in an international studies university and carried out a semester-long teaching experiment. the findings reveal that the students have a high degree of acceptance of ideological and political teaching based on the theory of “production-oriented approach” (poa) in college english courses. the implementation approach explored in this study is to integrate the “ideological and political education through courses” into college english teaching from the aspects of motivating, enabling, assessing, and ultimately integrating the value shaping, knowledge transfer, and ability cultivation, which not only provides more possible implementation approaches to improve college english teaching quality, but also offers more possibilities for the improvement of college english teaching. this study is expected to provide more useful inspirations and references for ideological and political education in college english courses. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 72 published by scholink inc. keywords ideological and political education, college english, production-oriented approach, implementation approach 1. introduction the ministry of education of the people’s republic of china formally issued guidelines for the ideological and political construction of curriculum in colleges and universities in 2020, requiring colleges and universities to play a nurturing role and comprehensively promote the construction of ideological and political education. as a new term emerging in recent years, “ideological and political education” is a kind of guidance on teaching ideology. it follows the teaching principles of the unity of knowledge and action, the connection between inside and outside the classroom, and the combination of teaching by word and example, which is essentially the same as “propagating the doctrine, imparting professional knowledge and resolving doubts” and “establishing morality and educating people” (wen, 2021). specifically, “ideological and political education” mainly focuses on specialized courses, and the main line of value leadership is carried through knowledge transmission and ability cultivation (fang, 2021). college english, as one of the compulsory courses for general education in colleges and universities, is an important position to carry out the education of ideology and politics (chen, 2019), and should also be integrated into the teaching system of ideological and political education, so that it can play an important role in the implementation of the fundamental task of establishing morality and educating people in colleges and universities (liu & lin, 2021). in addition, the college english teaching guidelines (2020 edition) clearly stipulates the specific requirements and explanations related to ideological and political education in terms of teaching content selection and teacher development (he, 2020). at present, although the importance of ideological and political education in college english courses has received extensive attention from scholars (yue & zhuang, 2022), there is still a lack of effective practical explorations of ideological and political education in college english courses (liu & yue, 2020; yang, 2021). therefore, it is necessary to study the implementation approach of ideological and political education in college english courses. the “production-oriented approach” widely advocated by scholars and educators is becoming an indispensable part of improving the effectiveness of college english teaching in china. the theoretical predecessors of poa are the “output-driven hypothesis” (wen, 2013) and the “output-driven, input-enabled hypothesis” (wen, 2014). the poa theoretical system consists of three parts, namely, teaching concept, teaching assumption, and teaching process, which can provide scientific theoretical guidance and practical basis for the research on building the teaching system of english in college. thus, this study aims to carry out ideological and political education in college english courses based on poa. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 73 published by scholink inc. 2. literature review 2.1 concepts, connotations, and principles of ideological and political education cai (2021) explored the connotation of ideological and political education by taking college english courses as an example. huang and xiao (2021) took the problem-oriented approach as a research pathway and put forward six elements in the construction process of foreign language ideological and political education, which answered the question of “what is ideological and political education” in an in-depth way. in addition, zhang and wang (2021) focused on the concept, principle, and implementation of teaching task design, and explored the principle of teaching task design based on value shaping in foreign language courses. 2.2 teaching materials construction sun (2020) defined the teaching objectives of foreign language skills courses in colleges and explained the basic principles and methods of writing foreign language teaching materials focusing on moral education through courses. on this basis, xu (2021) discussed the construction of the moral education of teaching materials for english courses in colleges. and xiao and huang (2021) elaborated on how the preparation of teaching materials reflected the pluralistic syllabus they adopt, while pointing out how teachers can adapt the teaching materials according to the actual situation. 2.3 theoretical framework under the guidance of optimization theory, chen (2019) explored the effective teaching mode of moral education through courses from the whole process of babanski’s teaching. yue and liu (2020) believed that blended teaching had a high degree of compatibility with moral education through courses at the macro level of nurturing philosophy, nurturing goals, nurturing environment, and nurturing paths while emphasizing the important role of learning community in moral education through courses. liu (2022), on the other hand, based on the concept of in-depth teaching, explored the specific approaches of combining the english course with ideological and political education, and realized the integration of the knowledge system and value system. in addition, qin et al. (2023) put forward a theoretical framework for carrying out the effectiveness of moral education through courses in college english courses and its influencing factors based on the activity theory framework from the socio-cultural theory. 2.4 curriculum practice some scholars have carried out the practice of foreign language courses for ideological and political education. for example, liu and lin (2021) took the business english course as an example and constructed the implementation approach of courses for ideological and political education guided by teacher-led, student-led, and content-based programs to promote the concrete practice of the theoretical framework of courses for ideological and political education. si (2021) took the teaching of the course “fundamentals of english-chinese translation” as an example and discussed how to implement ideological and political education in the curriculum of translation teaching. wen (2021) argued that the implementation of ideological and political education in linguistics courses and the incorporation of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 74 published by scholink inc. ideological and political elements in teaching design could realize the fundamental task of cultivating morality and educating people. in addition, zhang and gu (2022) designed and validated a four-pronged innovative model of “pedagogy + language + culture + technology” for english language teaching as an example. some scholars have also implemented ideological and political education in college english courses. for example, shen (2019) explored an effective way of integrating ideological and political education into the college english course. wang (2019), on the other hand, researched the approach to integrating ideological and political education in college english courses based on a ubiquitous learning environment. to summarize, with the efforts and exploration of many scholars, the current research on english ideological and political education has taken shape and achieved certain research results. currently, scholars mainly focus on the theoretical connotation, textbook design, principles, and methods of ideological and political education. although some of the research involves the discussion of the approach to ideological and political education or the design of micro-teaching that combines theory and practice, the empirical research and implementation of ideological and political education in the college english courses is still scarce, and the existing research is lack of in-depth investigation. in particular, there is a dearth of research about the elements mining and implementation approach for the ideological and political education in college english courses based on the poa, which also motivates the present study. given this, this paper applies the poa to guide the integration of ideological and political education into college english teaching, and takes the classroom of “new horizon college english (third edition) viewing, listening & speaking” as an example, to explore the specific implementation approach to ideological and political education in college english courses from three aspects of motivating, enabling and assessing, studying its feasibility, reasonableness and science. 3. research design 3.1 research question (1) how to explore the ideological and political elements in college english courses? (2) how to build an implementation approach for the integration of ideological and political elements into college english courses? (3) to what extent does ideological and political education in college english courses have an effective impact on students’ knowledge acquisition, ability cultivation and value shaping? 3.2 research participants the participants of this study are 55 non-english majors, who are freshmen from an international studies university in xi’an. the study carried out a semester-long experiment in which the textbook “new horizon college english (third edition) viewing, listening & speaking” was used as the carrier of moral education through courses. compared with other specialized textbooks, the teaching material www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 75 published by scholink inc. is compiled with ideological and political elements, and it is a suitable carrier for moral education through courses with the role of refining implicit ideological and political education. 3.3 research method in this study, to gain information regarding the nurturing effect of the implementation approach, a questionnaire was distributed to the learners at the end of the study. the questionnaire has good reliability of cronbach’s α = 0.718 and a 5-point likert scale with 5 levels from “completely disagree” to “completely agree”. by using spss 26.0, the descriptive analysis was conducted with 52 valid returned questionnaires, and the mean values were used to describe the items. (the questionnaire consisted of 15 questions focusing on the feedback survey on knowledge goals (content facilitation, language form and discourse structure), competence goals and value goals.) 4. the implementation approach of ideological and political education through college english courses 4.1 connotation of poa the production-oriented approach (poa) is a teaching theory proposed by wen and her team in line with china’s national situations and with an international perspective, which consists of three parts: 1) teaching concept; 2) teaching hypotheses; 3) teaching process mediated by teachers. the teaching concept is the guideline of the other two parts. the teaching assumption is the theoretical support of the teaching process, and the teaching process is the realization of specific teaching. the poa advocates student-centered learning, emphasizes that teaching must achieve teaching goals and facilitate effective learning, implements the “learning-using integrated principle”, and forms the “output-driven, input-enabled hypothesis”. the whole teaching process of poa begins with output, allowing students to recognize the limitations of their cognition and knowledge, thus stimulating their internal motivation to learn. the poa ends with output, after several rounds of motivating, enabling, and assessing. students output what they have learned in large quantities, to improve the teaching effect (wen, 2015). 4.2 the theoretical framework of mining ideological and political elements in college english teaching materials www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 76 published by scholink inc. figure 1. steps for mining ideological and political elements in college english teaching content (adapted from wen, 2018) figure 1 demonstrates three sequential tasks for mining ideological and political elements in college english courses: understanding education goals, analyzing text content and updating the material. 4.3 the implementation approach of ideological and political education in college english courses-a case study many scholars have offered their opinions and suggestions on how to carry out the construction of ideological and political education in college english courses (e.g., cai, 2021; huang & xiao, 2021; xiang, 2022; zhan, 2022; qin et al., 2023). for example, huang and xiao (2021) point out that the hot issues of the approach of ideological and political education in college english courses are still “what” and “how”. however, the focus is gradually moving and tilting to “how to do it”, because ideological and political education in college english courses is essential “an educational teaching concept”. therefore, the questions of the implementation approach of ideological and political education in college english courses are “what to teach” and “how to teach it”. this study takes the textbook “new horizon college english (third edition) viewing, listening & speaking” as the analysis material, and puts forward suggestions on the implementation approach of ideological and political education in college english courses in terms of clarifying the teaching objectives, designing the teaching contents and tasks, and utilizing the resources in the second classroom. unlike previous studies, this paper intends to dig out the ideological and political elements in the contents of the college english textbook, and use teaching cases for interpretation. the study aims to explore a new approach to ideological and political education in college english courses via the poa, which is conducive to the realization of the integration of the knowledge teaching, ability cultivation, and value shaping in english teaching (the specific implementation approach is shown in figure 2). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 77 published by scholink inc. figure 2. ideological and political implementation approach of college english courses via the production-oriented approach 4.3.1 clarifying teaching objectives the relationship between curriculum and ideological and political education is like the relationship between soup and salt. making a good soup (the knowledge system of the curriculum) is the foundation, while adding good salt (the value system of the curriculum /ideological and political education) is the key. what can the hair (ideological and political elements) adhere to if the skin (curriculum) gone. moral education is the soul of intellectual education, while intellectual education is the foundation of moral education (gong, 2021). therefore, the objectives of classroom teaching should adhere to the unity of explicit and implicit objectives, and the principles of mutual coherence and mutual promotion of knowledge and skills transfer and value leadership. the case study takes unit 5 in book i as an example. the title of this unit is “relax and explore”. the explicit objectives of this unit require students to be able to talk about different types of vacations and interesting places, such as “sightseeing”, “relaxing holidays”, “adventure holidays” and so on, showing the attitude of loving life and the great mountains and rivers of the motherland, and making students focus on the happiness of production-oriented approach teacher-led student-led after class in class before class motivating assessing enabling knowledge teaching +ability training + value shaping trinitarian model educational concept understanding educational goals presenting social scenes designing output tasks participating in topic discussion providing ideological and political input materials establishing classroom learning community creating immersion situations training critical thinking diverse evaluation of ideological and political education second classroom reflection and regulation teacher evaluation & peer assessment fo sterin g v irtu e th ro u g h ed u ca tio n motivating assessing enabling motivating assessing enabling www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 78 published by scholink inc. the spiritual level. at the same time, when determining the objectives of the course, in addition to setting the knowledge and ability objectives of the course, it is also necessary to refine and clarify the “ideological and political objectives” of the course, and organically combine them with the knowledge and ability objectives. in addition, the course is the expansion and deepening of the knowledge of the course, and it is a hidden goal of classroom teaching, which emphasizes the “silent” and “subtle”. finally, the ideological and political elements of the module are “inheriting chinese culture”, “loving the chinese nation”, “telling chinese stories in english”, and “respecting foreign cultures” among the traditional virtues of the chinese nation. “respect for foreign cultures” and so on. accordingly, the implicit objectives are set as follows: first, on the spiritual level, to make students realize the superiority and importance of traditional chinese values, to promote cultural identity, and to maintain a positive attitude towards life as a whole; and second, on the action level, to encourage students to pass on the traditional chinese virtues and carry forward the chinese spirit. overall, through the above, students can be guided to relax, explore the world, and have a wonderful and happy life. 4.3.2 designing teaching contents and tasks the key to making foreign language courses achieve the effect of thinking and educating people depends on the teaching design of foreign language teachers. this study takes the tutorial as an example to illustrate how to design teaching contents and tasks. foreign language teachers can integrate ideological and political education into teaching activities such as role-playing, group discussion, impromptu speech, etc., and then guide students’ behaviors, thoughts, and literacy. for example, in unit 5 “relax and explore”, materials that match the moral education elements of the unit and resonate with the students are explored and used as supplementary materials of the textbook. the themes of this unit are “talking about different types of vacations, interesting places and learning to order in a restaurant”, and the moral objectives of the teaching are to familiarize students with some interesting places and help them learn how to introduce specific things to others after learning this unit. based on the above-set moral objectives, the teaching contents and tasks are designed as follows. teachers will carefully choose input materials that serve the output tasks, use language materials that are high in ideology and promote positive energy to cultivate students’ sentiments and help establish a correct ideological value system. first of all, students are asked to share their after-thoughts based on the classic video “amazing places to visit in china” that they watched before the course, and to express their own opinions about interesting places in china introduced in the video. the purpose is to make students understand and think about the interesting places in china more vividly through the video resources. the learning tasks are as follows: (1) you are going to watch a video clip: “amazing places to visit in china”. if you are asked to choose one from the places mentioned in the video as your travel destination, which one will you choose and why? (2) could you please share one of your unforgettable holidays/ travel experiences with us? (what to do/when to go/how long/ type/place/people/weather/food/culture etc.) (3) what are your preferences when choosing a place to go for your holiday? (big city or small town/travel alone or with friends etc.) the topics of these output www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 79 published by scholink inc. tasks are conducive to students’ establishment of a correct outlook on world，life and values, which also contributes to the realization of the goal of humanism. secondly, students can learn how different individuals spend their vacations by doing listening exercises on “vacation” and thinking about two questions: (1) what is your vacation? (2) what is your preference when choosing a place to go on vacation? these two questions are designed based on two considerations: one is to improve students’ critical thinking ability; the other is to guide students to establish a correct view of happiness and values, to achieve the educational purpose of building up moral character. the learning tasks are designed as follows: do listening exercises about the holiday. consider the following questions with your group members: (1) work in pairs and take turns to talk about your last holiday. (2) what are your preferences when choosing a place to go for your holiday? then, in the part of speaking for communication, the teacher skillfully designs the group of teaching activities. 4.3.3 innovative teaching methods: the poa leading to value leadership this course adopts the poa method. according to the teaching process of the poa, the module consists of “motivating-enabling-assessing” phases. unlike traditional teaching methods, the poa puts the “motivating” of outputs at the beginning of the course. specifically, the “motivating” consists of four segments: 1) the teacher’s understanding of the parenting goals; 2) the teacher’s presentation of communicative scenarios; 3) the teacher’s design of output tasks; and 4) the students’ participation in the discussion of the topic. in the motivating part, the teacher presents communicative scenarios and assigns tasks with “potential communicative value” to make students aware of their linguistic deficits (izumi, 2002), thus stimulating potential motivation for language development (hanaoka, 2007). given the current popularity of smart devices, the output “motivating” segment can be in the form of a video or micro-lesson for students to learn before class, and the teacher only needs to check the student’s understanding of the video, the teaching objectives, and the output task in class. in the enabling session, classroom teaching is teacher-led and student-centered, and a series of language and competence facilitation activities are carried out closely around students’ learning. teachers provide appropriate input materials for the output tasks and guide students to selective learning to facilitate the output tasks. through the output attempts, students gradually realize their lack of competence to achieve the effect of facilitating learning. for example, students can analyze the important and difficult points of the text in small groups to cultivate their awareness of goals. the assessing session is an immediate or delayed evaluation of students’ output tasks, i.e., learning effects, inside and outside the classroom, which is a powerful guarantee for promoting the development of teachers and students and improving the quality of teaching. the poa advocates the formation of a file bag of all output tasks completed by the students and their evaluations, which not only allows the students to experience the progress made in a semester, but also serves as the basis for the students’ formative assessment in the semester. the evaluation phase tests the effectiveness of motivating and enabling output-based activities such as questionnaire design interviews, and remedial teaching to address typical problems in the outputs. throughout the process, the teacher carries out timely www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 80 published by scholink inc. evaluation and positive encouragement by carrying out in-class debates on topics, role-playing, critical thinking training, etc. by evaluating the effective combination of students’ activities and teaching, the teacher can truly tailor the teaching to the student’s needs and personalize the teaching to optimize teaching results. it should be noted that, because courses for ideological and political education are manifested in the principle of unity of progressivity and integration, teachers need to pay attention to gradual progress in the whole teaching process. teachers do not carry out external compulsory indoctrination through homogenized propaganda or hard sermons, but rather, precisely measures, through a series of activities such as the design of communicative scenarios, to guide the students to independently think about the nurturing elements related to this unit, internalized in the heart, externalized in the behavior, to achieve the implicit transformation of the students. through a series of activities such as the design of communicative scenes, students are guided to think about the elements of human development related to this unit, internalize them in their minds and externalize them in their actions to achieve the effect of subtle human development. 4.4 exploring the effectiveness of ideological and political teaching to test the nurturing effect of the course, this study added a special nurturing section to the post-course questionnaire at the end of the course. the questionnaire was designed with 15 questions. among them, about 87% of the students had an understanding of the significance of ideological and political education, believed that the course helped to shape values, recognized the nurturing role of the unit tasks, and favored nurturing practices in teaching, which indicated that most of the students did not have any aversion to the course’s ideological and political education. however, there are also more than 10% of students who have a slightly lower recognition of the natural integration of the curriculum into the five major ideological and political modules, and are skeptical and negative about whether language teaching content and activities are conducive to the enhancement and practice of correct values. in response to this finding, future parenting practices can incorporate more ideological and political elements, such as chinese culture and chinese red history to help students enhance their ideology and become qualified socialist builders and successors. table 1. questionnaire survey of the ideological and political implementation approach of college english courses under the perspective of the production-oriented approach title completely disagree (%) disagree (%) uncertainty (%) agree (%) fully agree (%) watching video 1 on the smart platform before class i can stimulate my interest in learning and guide me to pay attention to or preview the teaching content of this unit. 1.85 16.67 1.85 50.00 29.63 when i watched the video 1, i felt a sense of pride and identity in chinese culture and nation. 1.85 9.26 1.85 40.74 46.30 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 81 published by scholink inc. the important historical events mentioned in video 1 further raise my patriotism. 0.00 9.26 3.70 35.19 51.85 video 1 can arouse my sense of responsibility and mission to “tell chinese stories well in english”. 0.00 12.96 3.70 42.59 40.74 learning the english expression method in video 1 helps to improve my language expression ability to introduce china’s tourist cities in english. 1.85 3.70 7.41 50.00 37.04 the output task of “introducing china’s tourist city or resort” in the video 1 question can not only exercise my language output ability, but also further enhance my feelings of home and country. 0.00 3.70 3.70 57.41 35.19 video 2 helps me to master the basic expression methods and skills of “ordering”, which helps to improve my cross-cultural communication skills. 1.85 7.41 0.00 51.85 38.89 video 2 makes me understand the differences between different cultures and discourse methods, learn to respect other national cultures and discourse habits, and help to improve my cross-cultural awareness. 0.00 3.70 3.70 51.85 40.74 using a multi-modal (audio and video) corpus in teaching can stimulate my willingness to pay attention to chinese culture and improve my ability to tell chinese stories well. 1.85 11.11 5.56 46.30 35.19 through the combination of listening and speaking, teachers can help to improve my future english communication ability in the context of “travel” and “ordering” 0.00 7.41 0.00 35.19 57.41 through the content and activities of language teaching, educational elements can be integrated into the guidance of values. 1.85 11.11 3.7 40.74 42.59 it is acceptable and reasonable for teachers to adjust the original content of the textbook or supplement the extracurricular video. 0.00 3.70 11.11 48.15 37.04 teachers build diversified language output platforms for students, such as personal presentations, role-playing, and group discussions, which help students enhance and practice correct values in practice. 0.00 9.26 3.70 40.74 46.30 tasks such as pair activities and group presentations can help to cultivate my team spirit. 5.56 1.85 1.85 55.56 35.19 the “group discussion” output task can improve my critical thinking ability. 1.85 7.41 7.41 35.19 48.15 in teaching, the arrangement of pre-class language output tasks and test evaluation through the intelligent platform of rain classroom and questionnaire star help improve the efficiency of teaching evaluation. 3.70 11.11 7.41 37.04 40.74 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 82 published by scholink inc. 5. conclusion based on the theory of poa with chinese local characteristics, this study designed a teaching approach applicable to the ideological and political education in college english courses, presented its teaching objectives, teaching contents and teaching methods, matched the teaching contents with the integration points of the moral education through courses, and benchmarked against educating people, and finally evaluated the teaching effects of the college english courses based on this approach. the english course was evaluated in terms of its teaching effect. the results of the study show that the implementation approach of ideological and political education in college foreign language courses proposed in this paper is generally acknowledged by students, stimulates students’ internal motivation to learn, improves the effect of students’ learning of english, and enhances students’ cross-cultural awareness, national sentiment, and values. therefore, the implementation approach of college english courses that incorporates ideological and political education has a certain degree of effectiveness and provides a certain paradigm for the ways and means of incorporating ideological and political education in college english courses. however, this study still has certain shortcomings. the questionnaire survey is based on the subjective feelings and evaluation of the participants, which has certain limitations. in addition, the cultivation of students’ abilities and the improvement of their language level is a long process, and this study has been conducted for only one semester, which leads to the fact that the teaching activities of each part cannot be carried out in a more detailed way, and the evaluation system of courses for ideological and political teaching still needs to be improved. in future research, the teaching practice can carry out a formative assessment of students’ task completion, set up a control group to carry out quasi-experimental research on the effect of competence enhancement, and also design a more detailed evaluation effect scale of courses for ideological and political education. at the same time, for the implementation of courses for ideological and political teaching, universities need to strongly support teachers to participate in teaching-related training to improve teachers’ ideological and political teaching abilities. it is also possible to dig deeper into the motivating, enabling, and assessing of each teaching link, to better highlight the integration of the poa and ideological and political education in college english courses, and to provide more useful reference value for the improvement of the teaching level of college english. projects funds shaanxi provincial research project in philosophy and social sciences “exploration and research on the practical path of the new era’s ideological and political teaching of college english in china” (2023hz417) xi’an international studies university postgraduate research fund program “the mining of elements and the implementation approach of ideological and political education in college english based on the production-oriented approach” (2023ss009) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 83 published by scholink inc. the 14th five-year plan period research project in education and science of shaanxi province “a study on the improvement path of rural english teachers’ information literacy in the digital humanities era” (sgh23y2339) reference cai, j. g. 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(2022). exploring the practical path of ideological and political education in university english courses: telling china’s story in an intercultural way. foreign language education, 2022(5), 55-59. yue, m. m., & liu, z. g. (2020). blended learning caters for morality cultivation: concepts and applications. foreign language education, 2020(6), 15-19. zhan, s. q. (2022). the development of ideological and political education of college english curriculum: advantages, missions and approaches. contemporary foreign language studies, 2022(6), 68-75. zhang, d. y., & gu, x. d. (2022). exploring the ideological and political education innovation model for english education majors with the assistance of information technology——taking the chinese cultural content in multimedia and foreign language teaching as an example[j]. technology enhanced foreign language education, 2022(4), 34-41+114. zhang, j. y., & wang, n. (2021). value shaping-based teaching task design in the ideological-political construction of foreign language courses. foreign languages in china, 2021(2), 33-38. frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no.2, 2021 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) original paper the effects of online learning on alleviating students’ chinese language learning anxiety: a study in a chinese university chen chen1 1 international college, southwest university, chongqing, china received: march 27, 2021 accepted: april 15, 2021 online published: april 23, 2021 doi:10.22158/fet.v4n2p85 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v4n2p85 abstract this study aims at investigating the effects of online learning on alleviating international chinese as a second language students’ foreign language anxiety. participants of the study were 240 international students enrolled in a chinese university, being divided into two groups. in-class group remained their routine chinese learning by following a traditional textbook-based approach, while online group employed computers and the internet. data collection were administrated via two questionnaires with all 240 participants, in-depth individual interviews with eight student participants and their reflective reports. this study found that online learning could relieve international students’ listening, speaking and writing anxiety, but increase students’ reading anxiety. the study also revealed the sources of students’ anxieties in chinese learning in both contexts. implications for the employment of the online approach in chinese language learning and teaching for further development are made on the base of these findings. recommendations for future studies are also provided. keywords chinese as a second language, foreign language anxiety, language skill-specific anxiety, online learning 1. instructions to echo the commencement of belt and road initiative in 2013 and china’s pledge to continue the reform and opening-up policy in 2018, china’s higher education sector has attracted increasing number of international students across the world. to date, more than 500,000 international students are enrolled in different degree courses and short-term immersion programs in more than 820 china’s higher educational institutions (ministry of education of china, 2018). learning and living in china, 85 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 international students have made some achievements, while they are also facing challenges in terms of their chinese as a second language (csl) affected by foreign language anxiety (fla) raised as a key issue (wright, 2017). fla refers to “the feeling of tension and apprehension specifically associated with l2 contexts” (macintyre & gardner, 1994). four components of fla concerning students’ language skills are identified, namely listening anxiety, speaking anxiety, reading anxiety and writing anxiety (luo, 2018). a strong research track on general fla and the four language skills has established over the last decades (jee, 2018). though no inclusive agreements have been made, it is generally recognized that fla has a negative impact on learners’ skill build-up, thereby leading to possible communication apprehension, fear of negative evaluation and test anxiety in foreign language learning (yan & horwitz, 2008). these feelings may have negative impacts on international students’ language development, social and cultural adaption and academic success in chinese universities (liu, 2017). learning in a new online context, students’ perceptions are largely unexplored. though several studies have been conducted to investigate the impacts of technology-supported learning on students’ learning anxiety, most focuses have been put on an english as a foreign language context (daud, daud, & kassim, 2016). there are not many studies on anxiety contextualized in a foreign language learning context by taking the characteristics of chinese language into consideration. sources of international students’ anxiety in online chinese learning have not been fully investigated from a student perspective either (jee, 2018). to fill this research gap and to provide referential information for csl education, the present study is conducted to examine the impacts of online learning approach on international students’ fla from a student perspective. the twofold research questions addressed in the current study are: 1). what are the major sources of international students’ four-language skill-specific anxieties in chinese language learning? 2). what are the effects of online learning on alleviating international students’ general fla and chinese language skill-specific anxieties? 2. literature reviews anxiety has been long studied as an impeding factor to foreign language learning by scholars, language teachers and learners since the introduction of the concept of fla by horwitz et al. in 1986. given its impacts on foreign language learning, empirical studies have been conducted to examine fla in terms of the four-language skill-specific anxieties. listening anxiety has been extensively studied with regard to foreign language learning in an online context: rahimi and soleymani (2015) noticed that the use of mobile learning could reduce efl students’ listening anxiety and improve their listening comprehension; kim (2018) also confirmed that by using mobile phones korean efl students had better experience of listening practice. learning from these studies, one can assume that the technology-supported approach could effectively alleviate 86 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 students’ listening anxiety. this has been further verified by a number of studies focusing on students’ perceptions (cheng & chen, 2019; hwang et al., 2017). however, all these studies have centered upon the listening anxiety in the learning of other languages than chinese. chinese language is of phonological difference from others, demanding students’ different metalinguistic awareness in listening practice (lai & dilley, 2016). whether students’ employment of technologies could effectively relieve their listening anxiety in a chinese learning context remains largely unexplored. in response to this question, the current study is contextualized in a csl listening context. as luo (2014) has put, speaking is the most anxiety-provoking skill in foreign language learning. for this reason, speaking anxiety is one of the main motivators that stimulate extensive research on fla in recent years. studies across the world have been conducted to investigate foreign language learners’ speaking anxiety: liu and jackson (2008) found that many chinese efl students felt anxious about speaking english in public; çağatay (2015) confirmed that turkish efl students experienced a moderate level of speaking anxiety, particularly when communicating with a native speaker of english; luo (2014) also found that chinese as a foreign language students experienced speaking anxiety with their self-perceived linguistic abilities and the perceived difficulty of learning chinese as significant predictors. with the introduction of online learning tools and digital resources, new ways of speaking practice, such as anonymous interaction and non-simultaneous oral interaction, have emerged together with digital resources covering more up-to-date topics. these may have changed students’ experience of speaking chinese, while not many previous studies have noticed. reading anxiety is believed to be related with scripts, writing systems and cultural elements of the language as the key factors (saito, garza, & horwitz, 1999). zhao et al. (2013) found a significant negative correlation between reading anxiety and reading performance for elementary and intermediate levels of cfl learners in the us; joo and damron (2015) noticed that reading anxiety usually occurred in an in-class context. reading in a digital environment, as students may perceive that reading characters on the screen is different from reading hardcopy books (myrberg & wiberg, 2015), learners’ experience may vary, and their reading anxiety may change accordingly as a result. this study focuses on these changes of learning in an online context in terms of reading anxiety. writing is claimed to cause more anxiety than other skill-based practice as writing is product-oriented, which is more demanding for foreign language learners (tsui, 1996). starting from this point, a wide range of studies have investigated learners’ writing anxiety: atay and kurt (2006) used cheng’s (2004) scale to measure efl students’ writing anxiety in a university in turkey, finding that anxious students usually had difficulties in producing ideas in writing; altunkaya and topuzkanamış (2018) went further. they employed web-based tools to help relieve turkish as a foreign language learners’ writing anxiety. chinese language is of some linguistic characteristics, including the inconsistency of form-meaning association, strokes, radicals and the unique formation of chinese characters (chen et al., 2014). writing in chinese may be different from writing in other languages. whether foreign language learners perceived a similar level of anxiety in writing practice is largely unclear. the present 87 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 study centers on a csl context, exploring the effects of online learning on alleviating chinese writing anxiety. after the outbreak of covid-19, students across the world have returned to home and attended learning via the internet. a number of studies have noticed their online foreign language learning and focused on their anxieties caused by new learning context (e.g., milutinovi & savi, 2020; oraif & elyas, 2020; toshmatov & zoyirova, 2020). these studies mentioned that by learning online, foreign language students experienced an overall decrease in their anxieties, while for some learning situations, the level of anxieties was seen to increase. it can be said that online learning can be an effective way to alleviate foreign language students’ anxieties. these previous studies have provided insights of fla and four-language skill-specific anxieties. learning from them, it hypothesizes that anxiety exists among international students’ language learning, while online approach could play a role on alleviating the anxiety. contextualized in a chinese language learning environment, this study, being illuminated by previous ones, focuses on investigating the effects of online learning on alleviating international students’ fla with regard to the four-language skill-specific anxieties from a student perspective. 3. methodology a total of 240 international students enrolled in a university in china participated in this study. all of them were non-native speakers or heritage speakers of chinese. they attended chinese courses via the internet. all 240 participants were equally divided into two groups on the basis of their locations: one was in-class group, and the other was online group. all participants were classified into the intermediate and advanced level group of chinese language courses, and attended modern/advanced chinese courses in-class or online for at least six hours per week. the core curriculum was the same for student in both groups. the present study was conducted from may 2020 to july 2020, lasting for 12 weeks. a highly recognized online platform was employed to assist participants’ learning in the online group. the platform was designed and developed by experienced chinese language experts and teachers in the university for online chinese learning and teaching. traditional courses were presented in multimedia forms, including videos, audios, interactive texts, puzzles and scaffoldings, on the platform. various online interactive learning activities, including group discussions, role-play, presentations and tutorials, were supported on the platform as well. descriptive data were collected via two questionnaires after students’ 12-week learning. the general fla questionnaire was developed from horwitz et al.’s (1986) by taking chinese language and chinese language learning contexts into account. the language skill-specific anxiety questionnaire was adopted from previous studies and was revised regarding the in-class and online chinese learning contexts (cheng, 2004; luo, 2011; pae, 2013; saito, garza, & horwitz, 1999). the questionnaires asked students about their perceptions of anxiety across five domains, including general fla and 88 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 four-language skill-specific anxiety, namely listening anxiety, speaking anxiety, reading anxiety and writing anxiety. all items were surveyed by a 5-point likert scale, with values ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree), so that a higher score indicated a higher level of fla. the statistical package for social sciences (spss) was used for statistical analysis. cronbach’s alpha of the two questionnaires in this study was 0.88 and 0.82 respectively (see appendix i). eight participants were invited to further investigation for their varied backgrounds and educational experiences on a voluntary basis. participants were sampled from diverse academic areas. table 1 shows the demographic information of the eight participants: table 1. participants’ demographic information participants (pseudonyms) gender age nationality learning chinese staying in china other foreign language(s) zhao male 25 thailand 7 years 3 years english qian female 22 vietnam 3 years 2 years english sun female 18 america 5 years 4 years n/a li male 33 chad 5 years 1 year n/a zhou female 19 kazakhstan 4 years 2 years english wu female 22 guinea 6 years 2 years n/a zheng male 19 france 2 years 10 months english wang female 31 egypt 7 years 7 years english, french four students were from in-class group (zhao, qian, sun & li), and the other four were from online group (zhou, wu, zheng & wang). qualitative data were collected through reflective reports of their 12-week chinese learning and in-depth interviews. the reports were designed to collect information on students’ immediate reflections of learning anxieties. the individual interviews provided insight descriptions about their experience of anxiety in chinese learning. the guiding questions were developed by referring to literature (tóth, 2011; zhang & tsung, 2020), and were modified according to the results of questionnaires and students’ reflective reports (see appendix ii). each interview lasted for around 45 minutes. interviews were performed face to face or online. all were tapeor video-recorded. considering interviewees’ backgrounds, chinese mandarin was used for better communication. the transcriptions were translated by professionals, and were double-checked with all interviewees. a back-translation approach was also used to validate the information. constant comparative analysis was used to identify emerging themes from students’ responses to the interviews and their descriptions in the reflective reports. 89 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 4. findings collected descriptive data were analyzed to examine the students’ levels of fla in the two chinese language learning contexts. data showed that students in online group suffered less general anxiety in chinese learning than their peers in a traditional context (m1=3.47, m2=3.11). students’ four-language skill-specific anxieties were also different in the two groups. students experienced more listening anxiety (la), speaking anxiety (sa) and writing anxiety (wa) in a traditional learning context, while their anxiety in reading practice (ra) was high in online learning: table 2. descriptive data of participants’ fla and language skill-specific anxiety in-class group online group m1 sd1 m2 sd2 general fla 3.47 0.71 3.11 0.80 la 3.58 0.64 3.07 0.61 sa 3.69 0.91 3.30 0.77 ra 3.46 0.87 3.68 0.69 wa 3.61 0.95 3.13 0.71 a pearson correlation was performed and found that in both groups, general fla had positive correlation with all four-language skill-specific anxieties. in in-class group, anxieties in aural-oral aspects of chinese language learning (listening & speaking) displayed a higher correlation with general fla than the other two subcategories. in online group, reading anxiety showed the highest correlation with general fla. table 3 and table 4 show the details: table 3. correlation data in in-class group general fla la sa ra wa general fla 1 la 0.747** 1 sa 0.871** 0.839** 1 ra 0.544** 0.561** 0.409** 1 wa 0.719** 0.440** 0.641** 0.622** 1 **correlation is significant at 0.01 (two-tailed). 90 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 table 4. correlation data in online group general fla la sa ra wa general fla 1 la 0.662** 1 sa 0.646** 0.712** 1 ra 0.851** 0.840** 0.419** 1 wa 0.544** 0.498** 0.571** 0.692** 1 **correlation is significant at 0.01 (two-tailed). a multiple regression analysis was performed to examine to what extent the four-language skill-specific anxieties accounted for students’ general fla. data in table 5 showed that the four categories of anxieties explained 77% (r1 2=0.77) and 84% (r2 2=0.84) of the variances of general fla in in-class group and online group respectively. among all four-language skill-specific anxieties, speaking anxiety was the strongest predictor (β=0.611) in in-class chinese learning, followed by listening anxiety (β=0.436), while reading anxiety had the highest regression coefficient in an online context (β=0.724). table 5. regression data of both groups on general fla in-class group online group β t-statistic p-value β t-statistic p-value la 0.436 1.45 0.009 0.289 1.92 0.103 sa 0.611 7.91 0.000 0.513 6.03 0.002 ra 0.189 1.86 0.150 0.724 6.98 0.000 wa 0.340 2.84 0.105 0.450 5.40 0.122 note. n = 240; dependent variable: general fla; r1 2 = 0.77; r2 2 = 0.84. participants from both groups provided some in-depth descriptions of their experience with regard to the two different chinese learning contexts. as reported by participants in in-class group, the listening anxiety was one of the major concerns. the worries of making mistakes and misunderstanding in communication, others’ negative feedback and a lack of learning support were three key reasons raised by these students for their listening anxiety in the classroom, while those aspects of anxiety were much eased in an online context. table 5 lists some participants’ key comments from the two groups: 91 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 table 6. participants’ comments on listening anxiety reasons in-class group online group ineffective communication “i was anxious to follow my teachers’ oral instructions in the classroom. … i might make mistakes if i did not fully comprehend the instructions” (sun) “i was always worrying about mistaking one word for another. there are too many homonyms in chinese” (zhao) “although multimedia materials provided some support to the listening tasks, they still did not solve my problems in fully understanding those chinese words. …(listening) covered more topics. …i was quite unfamiliar with those topics. that brought about more challenges to me.” (zhou) “multimedia materials provided a possibility to have a better understanding of listening questions through vivid images.” (zheng) negative evaluation “i was always afraid of losing face when making a silly mistake.” (qian) “i felt relieved when using a computer for listening practice, particularly in interactive learning. … it was less embarrassing to request a peer to repeat what he or she said via the computer than in a face-to-face way.” (wang) learning support “i was always anxious about finding myself enough support materials. …not many such materials were provided in class.” (li) “as far as i knew i could always replay the listening part and have listening scripts when learning online, i was confident. … i could learn the part in my own pace, rather than following others’ or teachers’ blindly.” (wu) in terms of speaking learning, participants in in-class group stated that they were afraid of speaking chinese. the afraid of ineffective oral communication due to a lack of speaking skills was a major reason for speaking anxiety in a traditional chinese learning context, particularly the traditional communication context did not provide them with enough support. the worries that native speakers would laugh at their pronunciations when talking face-to-face led to their anxiety as well. for online chinese speakers, these worries were alleviated for different reasons. table 6 illustrates the differences of participants’ perceptions of speaking anxiety in the two learning contexts: 92 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 table 7. participants’ comments on speaking anxiety reasons in-class group online group ineffective communication “i was afraid of making mistakes in my speaking. my accents could result in other’s misunderstanding, which might be quite serious in learning and in daily life. … tones matters in modern chinese.” (qian) “people might think i was saying a word while i was actually saying another. but i usually found nothing could be more precise to express my ideas than memes, stickers, emojis and emoticons” (zhou) negative evaluation “speaking chinese in front of my classmates made me tense.” (zhao) “speaking chinese was challenging. … people might laugh at me for my weird pronunciations, though i was trying my best. … that was quite discouraging. sometimes i just wanted to escape from the talk.” (li) “i was bolder to face the computer than my peer classmates when being required to speak chinese.” (wang) “when i did not need to face my classmates in person, i was less concerned about their comments.” (wu) communication support “except from my teachers, i seldom got support when speaking chinese. many people just ignored my mistakes rather than telling me.” (sun) “it felt so good that i could get assistance whenever i needed to better my speaking. … otherwise, i would be very hesitated to turn to a classmate for help. … generally, i did not want my peers to know that i could not finish my part without their help.” (zheng) chinese character and word recognition and syntax of chinese language were two major concerns in students’ reading practice both in the traditional in-class context and in the online one. the new environment did not improve students’ reading experience. for some students, the digital forms of chinese characters and sentence comprehension on the screen increased their levels of reading anxiety. table 8 shows participants’ thinking on reading anxiety: 93 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 table 8. participants’ comments on reading anxiety reasons in-class group online group character and word recognition “many chinese characters look the same!” (qian) “chinese character recognition was full of pressure in a reading test. it cost me a lot of time, while the outcomes were not always satisfying.” (zhao) “from my perspective, screens made reading more difficult. i was struggling to recognize those chinese characters on the screen, which was much harder than doing that on books.” (zheng) “sometimes i was wondering why these characters looked different from what i had learned on the textbooks.” (wu) syntax “i was worried about my reading with those articles in our textbooks. …particularly in hsk tests. … long sentences and complicated structures made reading challenging. (sun) “i was more anxious when i had to read chinese texts on the computer. …computers did not help me understand the sentences … that was even worse when reading a long article. scrolling up and down drove me crazy.” (zhou) “i could not understand what the articles were saying. it was harder for me to analyze the structures and components.” (wang) regarding writing anxiety, international students in in-class group indicated that it was one of their major concerns in chinese language learning in a traditional context. for their peers in the online environment, it was less anxious as new ways of writing with strong support were provided. table 8 shows some key comments from participants of the two groups: table 9. participants’ comments on writing anxiety reasons in-class group online group writing ways “writing one chinese character correctly was quite demanding. writing four hundred characters drove me crazy.” (zhao) “do you know how many radicals are there in chinese language? and do you know how many types of strokes are there? it was a nightmare to memorize all these while i was working out a composition.” (sun) “compared with writing a chinese character stroke by stroke, i definitely prefer to type in pinyin. … after all, there are only 26 letters on the keyboard.” (wu) “thank the scholar who invented pinyin! writing in pinyin made my chinese learning much easier.” (zheng) writing “i was very worried about my writing tasks “writing tasks did not encourage my ideas. 94 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 support as i did not know how to precisely express my thoughts by using chinese. …for many times, my mind went totally blank after reading the writing instructions.” (li) “i needed help when writing a paragraph. but there was always none.” (qian) but i could employ these devices and the internet to trigger my thoughts. … so many interesting things online… perhaps i could be enlightened by a picture or a video on the internet. (wang) writing online provided a wider range of multimedia resources that might be of some help than sitting in the classroom.” (zhou) 5. discussion this study showed that learning chinese in an online context had effects on alleviating international students’ general fla. the new approach helped students relieve their tension when learning and using chinese language. this finding partly concurs with previous studies on fla, suggesting that digital devices and multimedia resources contribute to a reduction in foreign language learners’ anxiety, and usually enhance students’ confidence in future learning (melchor-couto, 2017; yang, lin, & chen, 2018). however, it is noteworthy that the approaches of online learning to relieve students’ fla were different in terms of their four-language skill-specific anxieties. aural-oral aspects of anxieties in chinese learning (listening anxiety and speaking anxiety) were strong predictors of general fla in a traditional context (tables 3 & 5). in the new online environment, the most anxiety-provoking practice was reading, while students’ tense was eased in other learning (tables 4 & 5). as for students’ aural-oral aspects, learning chinese in an online context was found to be useful to relieve their anxiety. students seemed to feel less anxious when listening and speaking chinese online. findings from this study suggested that online learning comforted students’ listening and speaking anxiety via three approaches: facilitating effective communication, helping avoid negative evaluation and providing a supportive self-controlled learning progress. tones and intonations can contrast meanings in modern chinese (zhang & yin, 2009). for csl students, the unique sound-meaning association system of chinese language makes their listening and speaking practice challenging. students suffered strong negative feelings in oral communication in a traditional context that aural-oral aspects of chinese language learning were highly correlated with general fla (tables 3 & 5). participants admitted in this study that they usually had problem in connecting the tonal-syllabic system with the meaning system in chinese correctly, which made them quite embarrassed in communication activities. in a conversational practice, for instance, a student mispronounced 除夕 (chú xī, the new year eve) as 出席 (chū xí, attend). this made his teammates anxious as they found the conversation was hard to understand. all students turned to be silent for a while until they “awkwardly” changed the topic. they hereby suffered great pressure and anxiety of misunderstanding in oral communication and intended to “escape” from using chinese (li in table 7). as noticed in this study, those students in the team attempted to use english to explain themselves 95 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 anxiously after their unsuccessful communication in chinese. the traditional context did not provide a context to help students’ effective communication in the target language, leading to their anxiety in aural-oral aspects of chinese learning and using. online learning relieved students’ anxiety in speaking and listening through facilitating communication. it should be noted that this relief of anxiety in the online context was not achieved by improving csl students’ linguistic or communicative skills, but through multimedia support. compared with participants in in-class group, who had to use their acquired aural-oral skills for effective communication in chinese, those in the technology-supported learning context could employ various multimedia resources, such as vivid images, memes, emojis, short videos and motion pictures to enhance their meaning expression and information transmission. a participant (zhou in table 7) said in the interview: “i usually found nothing could be more precise to express my ideas than memes, stickers, emojis and emoticons.” as a form of the ubiquitous language (lu et al., 2016), these multimedia resources were effective to facilitate communication. as yan and horwitz (2008) have put, successful communication could ease language learners’ tense in using the target language. using multimedia resources in an online context, students’ communication apprehension was much relieved as a result of their successful communication in chinese. however, this study needs to mention that the new learning approach could not solve csl students’ difficulties and misunderstanding caused by the complicated phonetic system of chinese language in oral communication in a broader learning and using context. simply employing multimedia resources could play a role in alleviating anxieties in listening and speaking, but it does not help these students avoid the ambiguity of words and characters with similar or same tones and pronunciations on a regular basis, which should have been a necessity for native and advanced chinese speakers (duanmu, 1999). successful communication in chinese is supposed to achieve via students’ learning and improvement of aural-oral skills, rather than using multimedia resources as communication substitutes. the challenge of communication apprehension that students were facing in a traditional context remained in an online one. students in the online context might employ these resources for communication temporarily. in the long term, however, developing students’ chinese language listening and speaking skills need practice and improvement rather than avoidance. a cloak of protection from others’ negative evaluation was provided by online learning to ease students’ tense. as found from this study, participants in online group indicated that they were less embarrassed when making mistakes in listening and speaking activities (wang in table 6), while those in in-class group considered that as losing faces, largely leading to an increase in their anxiety (qian & sun in table 6). negative evaluation had strong influence on students’ feelings of anxieties of aural-oral performances in a traditional face-to-face context (jiang & dewaele, 2019). in the online context, however, students were “relaxed” when receiving negative evaluation from others in practice. as a student (wu in table 7) admitted: “when i did not need to face my classmates in person, i was less concerned about their comments”. compared with the traditional learning context, where students 96 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 had to face negative evaluation in person, the modern technologies created an independent space for individual student’s learning. in this space, students focused more on themselves rather than external evaluation. online learning provided a low-stress context for students’ listening and speaking practice that encouraged them to take a bolder step in chinese learning with less suffering from aural-oral anxieties. the online learning approach also created a supportive environment for csl students’ aural-oral learning. it effectively alleviated their anxiety. this supportive context provided “a consistent, basic level of support” to students’ language development via various resources as scaffolding (sharma & hannafin, 2007), including pictures, videos, puzzles and mini games. csl students, by employing these resources, “had better understanding” (zheng in table 6) of the learning tasks, whereas the traditional ways of listening and speaking practice was more confusing for less scaffolding was implemented. furthermore, with the support of the integrated multimedia scaffolding in the online context, students’ self-supervised and self-controlled learning progress was enabled as well. in the context, students could learn “in my own pace” (wu in table 5). in the new resource-rich context, international students could develop their language abilities and skills with less anxiety by employing all kinds of supports to tailor their personalized learning. online students enjoyed autonomy in chinese listening and speaking practice with a decrease in negative emotions. this concurred with findings from pishghadam’ study (2009), claiming that autonomous learning could be a way to relieve students’ anxiety. international students’ self-controlled learning and autonomy in learning-related issues with strong confidence and motivation were supported online, rather than following teachers’ requirements stressfully in the classroom. in short, the online approach provided international students a low-anxiety context for their aural-oral learning. compared with their peers in the traditional environment, online students’ anxiety was relieved for effective communication and less concerns about negative evaluation when learning chinese in a resource-rich supportive context. in consistence with previous studies on anxiety (atay & kurt, 2006; chen et al., 2014), the present study suggested that writing anxiety contextualized in an online context was much relieved. this study found that the alleviation of students’ writing anxiety was achieved via two approaches: to change the writing ways and to support idea-generating. a major source of international students’ chinese writing anxiety was to write characters (chen et al., 2014). chinese characters feature a unified configuration of forms associated with unique semantic and phonetic components. cai (2018) and luo (2014) have put that this feature makes writing chinese characters anxiety-provoking, as it is not easy for students to process the semantic-phonetic combinations. in line with these indications, participants in in-class group thought that writing chinese characters “drove me crazy” (zhao in table 9), leading to their strong negative feelings of writing practice (table 3). students believed that writing “stroke by stroke” was challenging, since the components and structures of chinese characters were difficult (sun & wu in table 9). due to the 97 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 linguistic features of the inconsistency of form-meaning associations, students had to face strokes and radicals in writing activities. it was hard for them to “organize” these components into preset script system—the unique formation of chinese character script system. writing tasks were anxiety-provoking for international students in a traditional paper-and-pen context. as observed in this study, writing was “so challenging” for them that it often interrupted their thinking—students “forgot” what to say after they attempted to “piece strokes and radicals into characters” correctly. this made many students stressful. some students doubted themselves that whether they could write a meaningful composition if they focused on characters. as for participants in online group, computers and other digital devices changed their ways of writing. they used pinyin to write online. pinyin is a romanized phonetic spelling system for chinese characters. for the phonological and orthographic uniqueness and complexity of chinese language, for most international students, writing chinese character is more demanding of their metalinguistic awareness than using alphabetic pinyin (koda, 2004). in this respect, participants preferred pinyin as a writing substitute of chinese characters (wu & zheng in table 9). pinyin shares some points with their familiar languages as alphabetical languages, like english, french and thai. writing in pinyin was employed as a way for students to “avoid” (zheng in table 9) the script difficulties. with intelligent association and error correction mechanisms of pinyin input tools on computers, the belief that writing in pinyin was much easier than writing characters on paper was widely accepted by participants in online group. writing in pinyin, as a way to strengthen their confidence and enhance their writing performance, was effectively to alleviate students’ writing anxiety in the online learning context. the other approach that modern icts employed to relieve students’ writing anxiety was to provide a supportive context for composition idea-generating. the production of individual characters is considered as “the most time-consuming” (kubler, 2002) part in traditional paper-based writing. working out a composition in chinese made students anxious since their minds “went totally blank” (li in table 9) to produce meaningful ideas while they were trying to write a chinese character correctly. the traditional writing context did not provide necessary support to their writing activities. as an interviewee in in-class group insisted, they only had limited resources in the classroom to support their writing that could hardly trigger new thoughts and ideas (qian in table 9). for this reason, the traditional approach might provoke students’ writing anxiety as students could not organize meaningful ideas when writing chinese characters. online writing, on the other hand, improved students’ experience by providing various support to their idea-generating. writing practice is a product-oriented process that needs students to generate their own ideas within the prescribed rhetorical frameworks in chinese language (chin, gong, & tay, 2014). it was necessary to have something meaningful to say before students wrote (wang in table 9). modern icts provided a supportive context with various multimedia resources covering a wide range of topics, including images, audios, videos, puzzles and other interactive materials. using these resources, students generated, formulated and developed ideas and put these organized ideas into the chinese 98 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 language system, instead of simply stacking characters as they used to do in a traditional environment. in online writing, a student (wu) employed provided reading materials and links to web resources before he wrote a composition about 城市化 (urbanization). in reflective report, he mentioned that the extending reading on shanghai (浦东与浦西, pudong and puxi) and beijing (古老的城与树, an ancient city and trees) gave him more information about the theme as well as more perspectives looking into the topic. this benefited his writing, while it could be hardly achieved in the classroom as time and resources were limited. writing in the online context, students reported to have more pleasant experience. it was noteworthy in this study that the use of technologies could not relieve international csl students’ anxiety in reading practice. on the contrary, the online approach made their reading more anxiety-provoking than that in a traditional context. found from this study, the increase of reading anxiety level was related with two factors: character and word recognition and syntax. participants in both groups faced a similar anxiety-provoking problem in reading practice: chinese character and word recognition. in a traditional paper-based reading context, as reported by participants, recognizing and distinguishing chinese characters was anxious (qian & zhao in table 8). it is widely assumed that character recognition involves the processing of orthographical and phonological information (hulme et al., 2019). in reading activities, establishing a firm association between visual and verbal representations of the character is meaningful for recognition and comprehension (jin, 2003). due to the nonalphabetic nature of its orthograph, however, the association between meanings and sounds of chinese characters—a square-shaped logographic script system—is largely irregular and unsystematic in morphology and morphophonemic (everson, 2011). that makes chinese character recognition challenging for foreign language learners, particularly for learners whose l1 employs an alphabetic system, like english and french. it was seen in this study that students in a traditional context found chinese character and word recognition on paper time-consuming, while the outcomes were not satisfying (zhao in table 8). that triggered their anxiety in reading practice. as for those in online group, using digital devices for reading did not improve students’ experience. they found chinese characters were even harder to recognize on the screen (wu in table 8), which concurred with previous findings (myrberg & wiberg, 2015). that caused students’ increasing level of anxiety in online reading activities. as noted in this study, online reading did not substantially improve students’ reading skills. at this stage, online reading merely transplanted traditional paper-based reading materials in a screen-based context. the difficulties that students faced in traditional reading in the classroom—processing orthographical and phonological information and establishing the form-meaning association of chinese characters, were still present in online reading. moreover, students said that they found chinese characters “looked different” (wu in table 8) from those printed on paper. that made reading more challenging, and increased students’ anxiety. this study claimed that what students called “differences” were not changes in character forms, but a result of their unfamiliarity of chinese characters. transformation of chinese characters did not really happen 99 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 during the reading process. since a traditional paper-based approach is widely used in various chinese learning and teaching contexts nationwide in china, international students are unfamiliar with chinese characters in digital forms on the screen. as soomro, khan and younus (2019) have mentioned in their study, unfamiliarity with writing script system and foreign language reading anxiety had obvious correlation. new to reading chinese on the screen, students experienced more anxieties than their peers in a traditional and familiar reading context. besides, participants in online group felt anxious in reading practice due to a lack of syntax knowledge. reading is a complicated practice, demanding of a lexicon of individual characters that follow an explicit compositional structure in the language (perfetti, liu, & tan, 2005). as perfetti and dunlap (2008) have suggested, more than a reader’s grammar knowledge of phonology and morphology at the character and word level, reading demands the knowledge of syntax at the sentence level as well. online reading imposed new challenges to students’ comprehension of long sentences and paragraphs, though they had acquired those selected characters. this study noticed that in a traditional context, students intended to “stitch together” sentences and paragraphs that spanned the pages so that they could read the first and the second half of the sentences at the same time. in online reading practice, however, students had to “scroll up and down” the screen (zhou in table 8). that further fragmented meanings of a long sentence. students found it harder to have a complete picture of components and their syntactic relationships in a sentence (wang in table 8). the same challenge existed in reading a cross-page paragraph: meanings were segmented. students could not fully understand. thus, online reading majorly led to increasing anxieties (tables 2 & 5). 6. conclusion and implications this study investigated the effects of online chinese learning on alleviating international students’ general fla and four-language skill-specific anxieties. students’ more positive experience in online chinese learning than in a traditional context was found. online learning eased students’ tense in their aural-oral practice and writing practice from different approaches. as for reading, however, digital devices and materials made students’ reading practice more anxiety-provoking. learning from this study, it is advised that employing the online approach could enhance international students’ chinese language learning experience. abundant supportive resources, self-controlled learning progress, and encouragement from peers and teachers were key to the alleviation of anxieties. it is also important for students to get accustomed to the new online learning approach. online and computer-assisted learning may play a role for education after covid-19 across the world. having better learning experience will help students obtain their anticipated learning outcomes. students and teachers should be aware that the online approach provided some “shortcuts”, which were claimed to be a relief of anxiety. however, such shortcuts might be harmful to students’ language skill development. for example, by using digital tools, students’ writing anxiety was alleviated as they used pinyin instead of characters for writing. pinyin, as lin et al. (2010) have put, is an auxiliary 100 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 phonological coding system, rather than reading or writing itself in chinese. scholars have noticed the negative effects of overdependence on pinyin in chinese language learning and warned that it did not help language development (zhang & min, 2019). adopting new technologies in language education should be appropriate and supportive to students’ language development in the long term. this study heavily relied on scales and students’ provided reports and descriptions. classroom observations and teachers’ opinions would be helpful. future studies are supposed to work with teachers to examine fla and four-language skill-specific anxieties. this could further interrogate the findings for future cfl education, as well as help students and teachers have better understanding and employment of the language learning-related technologies, adopt appropriate learning and teaching strategies, and develop proper curriculum for less anxiety-provoking csl education in the new internet era. acknowledgments this work is supported by the fundamental research funds for the central universities of china (grant number: swu2009501). declaration of interest statement n/a references altunkaya, h., & topuzkanamis, e. 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(2009). a study of pronunciation problems of english learners in china. asian social science, 5(6), 141-146. https://doi.org/10.5539/ass.v5n6p141 appendix i the questionnaire for general fla descriptions sd d n a sa 1. i don't worry about making mistakes in language classes. ** 2. i tremble when i know that i’m going to be called on in chinese classes. 3. it frightens me when i don’t understand what the teacher is saying in chinese. 4. it wouldn't bother me at all to take more chinese classes. 5. during chinese classes, i find myself thinking about things that have nothing to do with the course. 6. i keep thinking that other students are better at learning chinese than i am. 7. i am usually at ease during chinese tests in class/online. ** 8. i start to panic when i have to answer teacher’s questions in chinese. 9. i worry about the consequences of my performances in chinese classes. 10. i don’t understand why some people get so upset over chinese classes. ** 11. in chinese classes, i get so nervous when i forget things i should have known. 12. it embarrasses me to answer the teacher’s questions voluntarily in chinese classes. 13. i get upset when i don’t understand the learning content in chinese classes. 14. i often feel like not going to chinese classes. 15. i am afraid that the teacher is ready to correct every mistake i make. 16. i can feel my heart pounding when i’m going to be called on in chinese classes. 17. i don’t feel pressure to prepare for chinese classes. ** 18. chinese classes progress so quickly that i worry about getting left behind. 19. i feel more tense and nervous in chinese classes than in my other classes. 20. when i’m waiting for chinese classes begin, i feel very sure and relaxed. ** 105 published by scholink inc. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2020.102410 https://doi.org/10.5539/ass.v5n6p141 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 21. i feel overwhelmed by the number of rules i have to learn to use chinese. 22. i am afraid that other students will laugh at me when i use chinese. 23. i feel comfortable around native speakers of chinese. ** 24. i get nervous when the teacher asks questions which i haven’t prepared in advance. sd=strongly disagree, d=disagree, n=neutral, a=agree, sa=strongly agree. **=reversed questions. according processes of the collected data were made. the questionnaire for language skill-specific anxieties* descriptions sd d n a sa listening part i get frustrated when i cannot distinguish among the chinese tones. i get nervous when all the chinese tones sound the same to me. i get anxious when i don’t understand what my classmates are saying in chinese. it frightens me when i don't understand what the teacher is saying in chinese. speaking part it embarrasses me to volunteer speak chinese in classes/online. i can feel my heart pounding when i'm going to be called on in classes/online. i feel confident when i speak chinese in classes/online. ** i feel very self-conscious about speaking chinese in front of other students/online. reading part when i’m reading chinese, i get so confused i can’t remember what i’m reading. i feel intimidated whenever i see a whole page of chinese in front of me. i have difficulty distinguishing among the chinese characters when reading chinese. i feel confident when i am reading in chinese. ** writing part writing chinese characters makes me forget what i’m trying to compose. i’m usually at ease when i’m writing in chinese. ** i freeze up when i am asked to write something without preparation. i feel unsure of myself when i’m writing in chinese. sd=strongly disagree, d=disagree, n=neutral, a=agree, sa=strongly agree. 106 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 *=these items were delivered in random sequence. **=reversed questions. according processes of the collected data were made. appendix ii guiding questions for interviews 1). in general, when do you feel uncomfortable or anxious in chinese classes? 2). why do you think you are uncomfortable or anxious in the class? 3). which of your four-language skill learning (listening, speaking, reading and writing) do you think provokes your anxiety the most? 4). what factors do you think trigger your anxiety in chinese classes? 5). do you think online learning will be/is a way to alleviate your anxiety in chinese learning? why/how? 6). what elements of online learning do your think increase/decrease your level of anxiety in chinese learning? 107 published by scholink inc. original paper 1. instructions 2. literature reviews 3. methodology 4. findings 6. conclusion and implications acknowledgments declaration of interest statement references appendix i appendix ii frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no.4, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) original paper the issue of education in post-conflict reconstruction through the transitional justice process: the case of côte d’ivoire assamoi seraphim desire1* 1 conflict prevention and management, chaire unesco/université félix houphouët boigny abidjan, côte d’ivoire * assamoi seraphim desire, phd student, former member of truth commission of côte d’ivoire received: september 27, 2020 accepted: october 28, 2020 online published: november 25, 2020 doi:10.22158/fet.v3n4p141 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v3n4p141 abstract the inclusion of education in post-conflict reconstruction in a transitional justice process goes far beyond physical construction and educational facilities to become part of national educational planning and policy. the issue of education in post-conflict periods is at the level of the national education system in general and of educational policies and strategies in particular. in côte d’ivoire, as in other countries emerging from violent conflict, even if the issue of education can be identified in the structural and direct causes of the occurrence of conflicts, it must be recognized that the impact of these conflicts on education remains considerable at different levels. thus, taking account of its consequences in post-conflict reconstruction in the context of transitional justice is of great interest both for its contribution to economic growth and for the promotion of fundamental human rights and social cohesion. a full involvement of education in the transitional justice process is a real potential for mutual reinforcement in the reconstruction process. practical synergies between education and transitional justice call for closer collaboration between education and transitional justice actors. keywords education, transitional justice, post-conflict, reconstruction, truth and reconciliation commission 1. introduction unesco considers that education is a human right for all, throughout life, and that access to education goes hand in hand with quality. education is the action of developing a body of knowledge and moral, physical, intellectual, scientific and other values considered essential to achieve the desired level of culture. education enables the transmission from one generation to the next of the culture necessary for the development of the personality and the social integration of the individual. education is also very 141 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 important in human development, particularly in terms of increasing productivity and thus macroeconomic growth, but also in terms of guaranteeing and promoting fundamental rights. integrating education into a process of transitional justice means highlighting these two aspects of education. education is therefore forward-looking. it is about preparing future generations and opening up opportunities for construction. however, in many african countries, war and conflicts of all kinds, by their impacts, tend to destroy the material, physical, organizational and functional supports of education. this is what justifies its consideration in the reconstruction of the state and its adaptation to the sometimes-unexpected changes of the post-conflict period. in côte d’ivoire, the challenge of peace and post-conflict reconstruction after several years of conflicts, ruptures and tears, has led to the establishment of multidimensional mechanisms capable of rebuilding society and laying solid foundations for living together and sustainable development. it is in this context that the new government established the truth and reconciliation commission (trc) to lead the reconciliation and reconstruction process. in carrying out its mission, the work of the heuristics, inquiry, reparations and memory sub-commissions was to focus on several areas including the unavoidable and cross-cutting issue of education. moreover, a society imagines its future -its developmentthrough the education it offers to its young people and its population in general. similarly, transitional justice is an important mechanism, among other things, for its potential to prevent violations and promote human rights in the future through post-conflict reconstruction or post-dictatorial regimes. from this perspective, the issue of education in the post-conflict period goes well beyond the physical construction of schools to the level of the entire system and national education policy in general. however, the integration of the issue of education into transitional justice processes in many states undergoing post-conflict reconstruction has still not been effective. our study will explore the synergies between education and transitional justice in practice. it is necessary to show and appreciate through the case of ivory coast, how the transitional justice process has taken into account post-conflict educational reconstruction? but first, we are going to study the issue of education in the emergence of conflicts and its consequences on the school. we will conclude with perspectives and some recommendations for a closer collaboration between education and transitional justice actors for a reconstruction that takes fully into account the educational issue. 2. method the field investigations were preceded by documentary studies. from a methodological point of view, two investigation methods were used. on the one hand, a critical analysis of the issue of education and the child in the light of legal or statutory texts and instruments, and on the other hand, field investigations. we opted for both a quantitative and qualitative study of the data we collected. to carry out our study, we will use a number of research approaches and methods to highlight the causes and effects of the conflicts in côte d’ivoire in order to consider education in post-conflict reconstruction in an appropriate manner. 142 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 2.1 data collection techniques -group and individual interviews: exchanges during which the interlocutors expressed their perceptions, their experiences of conflict and their appreciation of the inclusion of children in the transitional justice process. this took place in regions or localities (3) severely affected by the conflicts. exchanges with stakeholders also took place during seminars with ngos working on the issue of education and children and 300 children raised in cities heavily affected by the conflicts. the exchanges were structured around two (2) essential points that highlight the issue of education in the causes and consequences of conflicts as well as their consideration in post-conflict reconstruction. -documentary research: we referred to media sources (press, video, radio listening ...). the research took into account the reports of unoci, truth commission, unesco and agencies in charge of integration of ex-combatants and others intervening in the maintenance of peace in côte d’ivoire. this documentary research made it possible to cross-check the information in order to reach more objective conclusions. -observation: it allowed us to see for ourselves information from observed situations, behaviors or events related to the causes and consequences of conflicts on education and children. 2.2 legal framework of the study our study was based on the legal instruments relating to children’s rights. namely: the four fundamental principles of the convention on the rights of the child (note 1) are: non-discrimination, the priority given to the best interests of the child, the right to live, survive and develop, and respect for the views of the child; -optional protocol to the convention on the rights of the child on the involvement of children in armed conflict; jakarta declaration adopted at the international conference on the right to basic education as a fundamental human right and the legal framework for its financing indonesia 2-4 december 2000. 3. results we will show both the structural and direct causes and consequences of conflict on education. finally, we will see how education is taken into account in post-conflict reconstruction through transitional justice in côte d’ivoire. 3.1 the questioning of education in conflicts this point will emphasis on the role of education in the emergence of conflict. it should be noted that although the actions carried out in this framework do not directly relate to the problem of education, their consequences may fall within the typology of causes at the origin of the erosion of the education system and its direct or indirect contribution to the outbreak of conflicts. we shall present them at two levels, namely structural causes and immediate causes. 143 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 3.1.1 structural or indirect causes there is regional disparity and discrimination in the field of education. 3.1.1.1 uneducated populations and regional disparities in education a mixed perception of school by the populations of northern côte d’ivoire. the dissemination of schools is disturbed by the persistence of traditional conservatism and by the standard of living of the population. it concerns parents who reject school, parents who are in favor of excluding young girls from school (surveys, 2014). this typology is based on beliefs that mix traditions and islam. it is “an islamo-animist syncretism, the result of multiple compromises between scriptural islam and pre-islamic traditions that do not provoke profound mutations as the similarities between the two models are so great on the formal level” fadiga k, (1998). the rejection of school is the doing by a minority whose ambition is the perpetuation of agro-pastoral beliefs and practices. children are used as family. rejection of schooling can be a palliative to reduce the shortage of agricultural labor. across the country as a whole, nearly 43% of ivorian youth do not attend normal schooling, with marked geographical disparities. in the north and northwest regions, for example, between 43 and 55% of them do not attend school. the rate drops to 28% in the central-eastern zone. these inequalities are also found in gender: from an early age, girls are the most excluded, i.e., 52.6% of girls are excluded from the school system compared to 47.4% of boys. this entire illiterate population is the victim of manipulation and manipulation by politicians. table 1. school enrolment rates in the north and north-east schooling percentages percentages of out-of-school youth 55% percentages of young people in school 45% figure 1. school enrolment rates in the north and north-east 144 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 table 2. school enrolment in the centre-east schooling percentages percentages of out-of-school youth 28% percentages of young people in school 72% figure 2. school enrolment in the centre-east table 3. comparison of girls’ and boys’ non-enrolment in school schooling percentages percentage of boys out of school 47,4% percentages of girls out of school 52,6% figure 3. comparison of girls’ and boys’ non-enrolment in school 145 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 3.1.1.2 prejudices and discrimination against women and girls through school textbooks fischer (1996) (note 2) thinks that a prejudice is a judgement that can develop outside of any real experience and which is expressed through a set of attitudes and feelings to characterize groups, individuals or objects in schools and in côte d’ivoire for example, (concerning textbooks, examples chosen in exercises,...) value men more and infer women more. between myth and reality, we can see that the sexual division of labor and hierarchization is perpetuated in the field of work under the cover of so-called “natural” skills or impossibilities. “school textbooks are a privileged relay for learning about prejudices. they act as contemporary equivalents of ancient fables, thus shaping minds and nourishing social thought”. these words of fischer, enable us to understand that schooling is a form of developing prejudices and maintaining them. after the structural or indirect causes, it is appropriate to look at the direct or immediate causes. 3.2 the immediate or direct causes: physical violence and attacks on freedom of expression here, we want to shed light on violence against students and teachers, politicization of the schools and universities, and finally the high unemployment rate and problems with birth certificates for school-age children. 3.2.1 violence against students in schools and universities firstly, it should be noted that from 1990 to 2000, the violence was essentially maintained by the political authorities against the groups, socio-professional groups (unions in the education, health and transport sectors) and student movements (fesci), which also responded with violence. this violence subsequently took place among the students themselves. indeed, students allegedly belonging to fesci (the student and school federation of côte d’ivoire) clubbed and murdered other students suspected of being indicators of the government on campus vanga a. f, (2009). since the 2000s, there have been numerous rights violations in the school and university environment involving fesci (the student and school federation of côte d’ivoire). according to human rights watch, members of fesci have been implicated in several cases of rape or violence against students who did not share their views. acts of murder, assault and torture committed against other students reveal abuses of all kinds and especially of freedom of speech and association both in secondary schools and at the university level. 3.2.2 violence against teachers since 2002, fesci has intimidated and occasionally physically abused several teachers and professors because of their political beliefs or because they were campaigning for better working conditions. in november 2007, members of fesci reportedly beat two secondary school teachers who had participated in a teachers’ strike with belts and clubs (le nouveau réveil, abidjan, 2007) (note 3). 3.2.3 politics in schools and universities opposition supporters living in the university townships told human rights watch they must be discreet about their political affiliation. they should avoid holding books or documents in their rooms that could associate them with the opposition, in order to avoid being forcibly expelled from their rooms by fesci. “in the residences, if you do not adhere to the ideals of the ruling party—you cannot 146 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 express yourself”. you have to hide who you are for your safety and survival in order to avoid attacks human rights, 2005: côte d’ivoire (note 4). there is also the politicization of some teachers’ unions. academics, because of their political connections with fesci students, are unable to take action to punish students who are guilty of wrongdoing against their colleagues. 3.2.4 failure of school system and increasing of unemployment the overcrowding in training structures and difficulties in meeting social demand in all sectors of education (primary, secondary and higher education) pose a recurring problem of the profitability of training infrastructures. an increasing number of ivoirians are turning to north africa, france and the usa to compensate for the weaknesses of the higher education training system. the low internal efficiency of the education system is characterized both by excessive repetition rates (43% in cm2, 32% in third class and 28% to 45% in the final year of secondary school depending on the specialties) and by a large number of dropouts (30.8% in cm2 and 32% in third, unesco, 1999 (note 5)). there is also the inadequacy between the different systems (education and training). between 1996 and 1999, there was an increase of more than 10% in the number of offers requiring work experience. in the meantime, the number of offers requiring no work experience is decreasing. this suggests that employers are increasingly interested in a workforce with previous work experience. the loss of confidence is all the more significant in that in 1998 and 2002, only 4% and 3% of jobseekers took steps to look for work with the agepe (agency for the study and promotion of employment) and placement agencies agepe, 1998 (note 6). from 1998 to 2002, there was a considerable drop in the number of placements: 154 to 5; and 62 to 3. table 4. drop in the number of traineeship application years traineeship application 1998 154 2002 62 figure 4. drop in the number of traineeship application 147 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 3.2.5 administrative document problem: the birth certificate it is estimated that nearly 2 million children in côte d’ivoire do not have a birth certificate unesco 2013 (note 7). birth registration is free in the first three months after a child is born, but of the 800,000 new births each year, only half are registered within the legal time limit. many children do not have access or drop out of school because of the lack of a birth certificate. indeed, according to unicef, 4 out of every 10 school-age children in côte d’ivoire may be denied education because their birth has never been registered. the non-registration of births in cote d’ivoire is a chronic problem that has worsened during the crises of the past 10 years. and because of the collapse of the administration in the early hours of the rebellion in 2002. in the light of the above, we can say that education has a responsibility in the logic of the emergence of conflicts through exclusion and discriminatory methods but also through the violence of all kinds maintained in schools and universities. we must now look at the consequences of crises on the field of education. table 5. percentage of births registered registered percentages non-registered birth rates 50% birth registration rate within the deadline 50% figure 5. percentage of births registered within the deadline 3.3 the impact of conflicts on education the evaluation missions carried out by unesco and our research in côte d’ivoire revealed a number of rather negative socio-educational indicators linked to the war and its capacity for destruction and institutional and social disruption. in this section, we will look at the consequences of the conflicts on the whole field of education; among others: on the educational infrastructure and materials, on the education system and on the pupils or learners. 148 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 3.3.1 impact of conflicts on infrastructure and educational material the war in côte d’ivoire had many consequences on infrastructure and educational material, namely: the destruction and deterioration of domestic property, infrastructure, equipment and school and university facilities; looting and sale of school archives and computer and teaching equipment; the closure of teaching and research institutions, the relocation of international institutions and the suspension of their support programs for the development of education/training, and finally the erection of school buildings into military camps. 3.3.2 the impact of the war on the educational system and mechanism the curricula, pedagogical and didactic devices (teaching methods, students’ experience of war, availability of teaching materials, etc.) are all elements that have suffered the consequences of the war. the use of double shifts, which is a disruptive factor in terms of conventional management of school time, is a real demotivating factor in terms of classroom learning. the partition of the national territory has also led to two types of separate education systems. in côte d’ivoire, the objective of education for all supported by unesco, unicef and many ngos has been strongly thwarted by the conflicts and their consequences. with regard to the traditional objectives of school education, i.e., scientific, professional and social training, the effectiveness of emergency measures is weak. indeed, due to the non-existence of the administration in rebel-controlled areas and the feeling of insecurity, teachers left these areas en masse to go to government-controlled areas. this has resulted in the closure of rebel-controlled schools despite efforts to keep children in school. 3.3.3 impact of war on students we will see at this level the displacement of pupils and parents, the drop in their school performance and the rise in the phenomenon of child soldiers. 3.3.3.1 displacement of students and parents this conflict situation has led to hundreds of displaced people to continue their schooling or to do so for their children. these choices are not always made without difficulty, as very often the schools in the host localities, where they exist, are overcrowded. this calls into question the quality of education provided both in occupied areas and in relay schools in open areas. it should also be noted that the functioning of education and training institutions, and therefore programs, has broken down in some occupied areas. in other situations, it is rather the lack of material resources, disease or war-related disturbances that have hindered the schooling of displaced persons. displacement of populations (parents, primary school students) is relatively high during conflicts. during this period, 49% of girls between the ages of 6 and 24 continue their schooling, compared with 60% of boys. when we look at displaced children under the age of 15, 70% of them are still enrolled in school. by contrast, those aged 13 are less enrolled in school 54%. by gender, boys are more enrolled in school than girls; 68% versus 51%. ministry of solidarity and war victims, 2007(note 8). 149 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 3.3.3.2 decrease in students’ performance in côte d’ivoire, the school results of relay or displaced cm2 pupils were negative overall at the end of the 2002-2003 school year (80% failure compared with 80% success for the control pupils). this is due to several conflict-related factors. these include: disorientation, social conditions, transport, food, housing, study, etc.) displaced pupils with educational difficulties live in precarious social conditions. there is also the trauma linked to the torments of war and the feeling of insecurity. 3.3.3.3 rise of the phenomenon of student child soldiers or associated with combatants according to unicef, 250,000 to 300,000 child soldiers (boys and girls under age 18) are involved in more than 30 conflicts around the world. in côte d’ivoire, there are significant numbers of boys and girls in and out of school who are recruited by combatants. some are forcibly recruited or abducted; others enlist to flee poverty, abuse and discrimination, or to seek revenge for acts of violence committed against them or their families. their recruitment is therefore done willingly or by force within the combatant groups. the role of the combatants is also to provide food or medical care to the male combatants. young girls are used as sexual companions to the combatants or carry weapons and the spoils of war, which are always shared to their detriment. indeed, according to the 2011 pnrrc report, “11,136 people, i.e., 10 to 14% of the overall workforce, are women and girls. and 9711 of them have actually fought on the ground as fafn and 1425 women are associated with the frci”. csci election observation mission report 2010 (note 9). also, in november 2002, many girls and boys were recruited either forcibly or voluntarily by military leaders to take part in campaigns of violence. most of them are also associated with combatants, acting as indicators. these groups were first identified by the united nations in 2006. at least 4,000 children have been recruited into the ranks of combatants since the conflict in 2002. côte d’ivoire: former child soldiers are still vulnerable 16 february 2008 (note 10). they monitor the spoils of war and clean up the camps. table 6. effects of the crisis effects of the crisis percentages sexually transmitted infection 30% post-traumatic stress disorder 19% interruption of schooling 51% 150 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 30% 19% 51% sexually transmitted infection post-traumatic stress disorder interruption of schooling figure 6. effects of the crisis it is clear that conflict has a devastating impact on children and their education. in the following lines, we will see how it is taken into account in post-conflict reconstruction as part of a transitional justice process. the international center for transitional justice (ictj) in new york has defined transitional justice in the following terms: “it is a response to systematic and widespread human rights violations”. it aims at the recognition of victims and the promotion of any possibility of peace, reconciliation and democracy. transitional justice is not a new kind of justice, but justice adapted to societies that are changing as a result of a period of human rights abuses. according to freeman and djukic, in the context of tj, the term “transition” should be associated with the period of formal transition from a state of war to a state of peace or from an authoritarian regime to a democratic one freeman, m., djukić, d. et al. (2008). andrieu distinguishes the different mechanisms and processes of tj through the following three categories of action andrieu, k. (2012): legal justice: (prosecuting those responsible (nationally and internationally) restorative justice: (healing victims, rebuilding communities) social justice: (resolving the economic, political and social injustices that may have been at the root of the conflicts. 3.4 taking into account education in reconstruction in this part we will see the degree of integration of education in transitional justice in côte d’ivoire and the participation of children in the different stages of judicial and non-judicial mechanisms. tj is a field that includes post-conflict reconstruction, and more specifically that attempts to understand ways to heal past trauma. it strives to understand what needs to be done to build, from a society in ruins, a new society, stable enough to ensure justice and stability. under these conditions, transitional justice is seen as a series of approaches adopted by societies to address the consequences of serious and systematic human rights abuses. (international center for transitional justice 2008). our analysis will focus on the inclusion of education in these two mechanisms in a holistic approach to transitional justice for sustainable post-conflict reconstruction. 151 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 3.4.1 the inclusion of education in the judicial mechanisms of transitional justice we will talk about national and international legal proceedings. 3.4.1.1 investigations and legal proceedings at the national level article 138.4 of the ivorian penal code condemns the forced recruitment of children. in addition to the traditional courts, the special investigation and investigation unit (usei) was created by decree no. 2013-93 to investigate crimes committed during the crisis period. indeed, the memory of justice was to contribute to peace so that “never again” would prevail in the fight against impunity. for the victims of the crisis who are waiting for justice to be done, this is an important message that maintains the hope that those responsible for the serious crimes committed during the crisis will be brought to justice. however, investigations and prosecutions have not mentioned attacks and destruction of school buildings, let alone the recruitment of children by soldiers. 3.4.1.2 investigations and prosecutions at the international level article 8 of the rome statute of the international criminal court (icc) declares that attacks on school buildings constitute war crimes and are therefore subject to the jurisdiction of the court.93 the court’s jurisdiction over attacks on school buildings is based on article 8 of the rome statute of the international criminal court (icc). unfortunately, these issues have not been raised before international tribunals. unlike other countries such as sierra leone, côte d’ivoire has also failed to record prosecutions against those who have recruited child soldiers. yet this could act as a deterrent to the recruitment of children into fighting forces. increased attention to crimes against children in the courts contributes to the protection and reintegration of children who have experienced conflict and have been victims of rights violations and abuses of all kinds. in total, investigations and prosecutions, both at national and international level, have focused on several crimes and rights violations without specifically addressing crimes suffered by children and those related to education. 3.4.2 the inclusion of education in the non-judicial mechanisms of transitional justice in côte d’ivoire, alongside judicial justice, there were non-judicial mechanisms, which represented restorative justice or justice of forgiveness through dialogue. the truth and reconciliation commission aimed to shed light on past and recent crises in order to identify responsibilities and create the conditions for national reconciliation, to propose means of all kinds that could help to repair damage, to heal the trauma suffered by victims and to fight against injustice and inequalities of all kinds. the operationalization of the non-judicial mechanisms was carried out by the actors of the truth and reconciliation commission through four specialized commissions set up to manage the legacy of several years of conflict in côte d’ivoire. these are the heuristic or historical commission, the enquiry and hearing commission, the reparation commission and the memorial commission. they are responsible for carrying out practical tasks in line with the commission’s objectives. 3.4.2.1 the issue of education in the truth commission in the post-conflict period we will refer to alex boraine who distinguishes three progressive levels of truth: factual truth, personal truth and social or dialogical truth. all of these forms of truth aim to “document and analyze 152 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 both the actual violations of human rights and the structures that allowed or facilitated them” lerner, salomon, (note 11). to these should be added reparative truth. these forms of truth are taken into account in the sub-commissions: heuristics, investigations and hearings, public hearings and memorials. a-the heuristic commission: the heuristics commission work on the search for the root causes of the conflicts: it has critically reviewed the conclusions of past forums and is deepening the search for the root causes of the conflicts that occurred in côte d’ivoire in the period from 1990 to 2011. this research has focused on several themes, including that of education. the search for the root causes of the wars is essential, especially those linked to structural situations of injustice, poverty and exploitation, which must be addressed in order to eradicate them or at least limit their impact on education. the sub-committee in charge of reflecting on education issues included experts on education issues. it carried out its work and made recommendations. these activities took place in the framework of a listening seminar with all the representative structures of ivorian society: political parties, trade unions, civil society organizations, women’s and youth associations, religious leaders, traditional chiefs, national and local elected officials, opinion leaders, territorial administration officials and foreign communities. they communicated their vision of the root causes of the ivorian crisis and opened discussions on all themes including education. summaries of all the proceedings were presented at a restitution workshop and were submitted to a national colloquium. this form of truth called dialogical or social truth is a truth born of the debates and centered on the experience of the participants. this approach also makes it possible to create the conditions for peaceful social relations between the different strata of society, but also to promote democratic values and respect for human rights. b-the hearings and inquiries committee it aims to create a space of exchange sufficiently serene for people by gathering testimonies of individual or personal truths. this restitution of individual memory must then serve to build up a vast database which, when brought together, will serve to build a national collective memory. this sub-commission conducted field work to establish the typology of human rights violations, seek the truth about the harm suffered by victims and identify the perpetrators/perpetrators. collecting more or less confidential data from a person who has suffered a violation and who is asked to tell his or her story in his or her own words allows that person to make a statement. the statement must: enable the population to exercise their right to know in order to claim reparations; enable families to know the truth; enable the recognition of direct and collateral victims; enable the state to take measures to ensure that these things never happen again, i.e., the guarantee of non-repetition; enable an appropriate reparation policy to be put in place; make it possible to know who did what? where and when? when? how? why? in what context? who is a witness? as part of the search for this personal truth, the survey forms included children’s questions in the questionnaire. here there was no special unit for educational questions. it was the unit in charge of gender and children, with the help of the un women, which 153 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 worked to take into account child soldiers and the consequences of conflicts on girls and boys. the issue of education has not been specifically addressed. of the 72,483 people interviewed, there were 757 children, with 55% boys and 45% girls. table 7. hearings and inquiries auditions percentages percentage of children auditioned 98% percentage of other people auditioned 2% figure 7. hearings and inquiries table 8. hearing of children by gender the children auditioned percentage rate of girls auditioned 45% rate of boys auditioned 55% figure 8. hearing of children by gender 154 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 -public hearings: this stage is the one that should contribute to the moral satisfaction of victims as a restorative truth through its therapeutic aspect. for truth and reconciliation commissions, the essence of restorative justice is to seek moral satisfaction for victims during the process. for the vrc, the public hearings were supposed to develop on a larger scale the modes of exchange inaugurated during the collection of testimony. the idea was to implement a dialogue that places the commission between the alleged victims and perpetrators. the public hearings that follow the depositions give the victim the opportunity to publicly tell the story of the violence suffered in order to create catharsis among the populations that listen to it. it also allows the victim to dialogue with her torturer in order to ask for and obtain forgiveness after a sincere repentance following the acknowledgement of the facts committed. at this level, in the commission’s activities, no clear mention was made of the issues of educational prejudice. the commission did not create a separate space for children or young people. some parents testified on behalf of their children. it could have been an opportunity to establish formal links including the signing of a “cooperation agreement” with the ministry of education and the wider education community as was the case in other countries. this would have allowed a better inclusion of education in the process. children did not express their experiences of the crisis at the public hearings, thus undermining the principles of trust, participation and recognition. out of the 81 public hearings we had only two children represented by their parents. table 9. public hearings participants percentages percentage of adult participation in public hearings 97,54% percentage of children’s participation in public hearings 2,46% figure 9. public hearings the memorial: the aim was to make public and accessible the information collected and stored in a specific space that will be the memory of the ivorian nation. this stage should be concerned with drawing up a new code of peaceful coexistence for a new way of living together. this sub-commission 155 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 was charge of given the task of answering vital questions such as: «what does côte d’ivoire want to be»? and “what does it mean to be ivorian?”. for the ethics of reconciliation as desired by the truth commission had to break the cycle of revenge that is maintained by the refusal to forgive offenses and aggressions. commemoration projects actively embody the public education role inherent in many justice initiatives. it should be an opportunity to commemorate and educate not only about the violent past itself, but also about transitional strategies for dealing with the educational consequences of conflict. in côte d’ivoire, a national day of purification of the blood-soaked soil of the victims took place in a context of african tradition. however, the museums, monuments and public art works to offer memory, mourning, dialogue, reconciliation and learning were not built. and yet, in addition to their public educational value, museums and memorials were to be the basis for special programs for schoolchildren, and to encourage visits by school groups who could make them part of their school activities. 3.4.2.2 the issue of education in reparation and rehabilitation in the post-conflict period it was the responsibility of the reparations commission to estimate and evaluate the damages suffered with a view to making reparations, based on the investigations carried out by the “hearings and investigations” commission. reparations can be grouped into two groups: individual reparations and collective reparations. the challenge is to resort to equitable dialogue on the part of the perpetrators of violations and to propose reparations for the benefit of the victims in order to achieve national reconciliation. to achieve this reparation, there are various structures or programs. in particular, the national program for social cohesion (pncs) was established to carry out this mission. -education and individual repairs: the systematic loss of educational opportunities is a violation of children’s rights. in cases where children have been systematically denied education, states have an obligation not only to provide it but also to consider reparations for girls and boys affected by the interruption of schooling due to war. service-based reparations, such as education, may be more appropriate for children because they are more likely to reach their intended beneficiaries. mazurana and carlson (2009.) it is directed at -individuals whose schooling was interrupted due to violence, -the children of victims, -those forcibly recruited by self-defense committees, or law enforcement. these measures include: adult education and literacy programs; access to primary education; access to vocational training; exemption from tuition and examination fees; student housing and meal allowances for recognized victims; implementation of a comprehensive scholarship program, covering tuition, books, transportation, and food for university and technical studies, taking into consideration the specificity of cases and regional quotas. special support should be given to students from the most affected areas. not all of these proposals have been formalized and made in agreement with the ministry of education. their execution depends on the political will of the state. -education and collective repairs: the reconstruction and rehabilitation of schools has been proposed. some proposals have been carried out and others are being implemented as part of national development projects. however, human rights education and peaceful conflict management programs 156 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 were not developed and proposed by the commission as part of the reparations package as a program to be submitted to the ministry of education to be part of the post-conflict education policy. yet it is a component of collective reparations. for mazurana and carlson, “post-conflict education should include educational reparations programs beyond what the state is already obligated to provide”. it should be directed not only toward eliminating educational gaps in the areas most affected by rights violations but, above all, toward a culture of human rights and conflict prevention. 3.4.2.3 institutional reforms the issue of education in auditing or vitting in post-conflict is important. the aim is to promote institutional reform by examining corrupt or incompetent members of the education system in public institutions. this constitutes a transitional justice mechanism that allows for the removal from the system of the agents that were at the root of the conflicts. in côte d’ivoire, however, no audits of the education sector (or of the civil service in general) have been undertaken despite the recognition of the involvement of certain actors in the education system in the outbreak of conflicts. however, methods that could bring renewed legitimacy to the education sector tainted by their role or complicity in human rights violations should be considered. alternatively, the commission should provide for the in-service training of the teachers concerned in conflict prevention pedagogy. 4. discussion the results of the study show that trust, recognition and participation remain the principles and the best route to successful post-conflict reconstruction in a transitional justice setting. as part of de greiff’s (note 12) holistic approach, we also believe that transitional justice should emphasize the recognition of the suffering of all victims and the violations that have affected the whole society as a whole in order to rebuild the social fabric through the restoration of trust. this kind of participation is the basis of democracy and reconciliation itself. it is about seeing victims as rights holders. the educational objective is also part of the promotion of rights within a framework that seeks to recognize, challenge and overcome inequalities. policy development and practice that opens avenues for fuller participation. for victimized children, the recognition offered by their participation can strengthen the transitional justice process through their specific involvement, taking into account their experiences. kofi annan said this: “education is a human right with immense transformative power”. on its foundations lie the cornerstones of freedom, democracy and sustainable human development. kofi annan (1999). its effective inclusion in transitional justice processes will need to be seen in this light and integrate all aspects of the post-conflict reconstruction process. in côte d’ivoire, examination of the consideration of the issue of education in the transitional justice process reveals many aspects of discrimination, particularly with regard to access to education, the politicization of schools and certain forms of school violence. the discrimination observed is the result of an often negative evaluation that operates outside of any experience with the reality in question. these are often negative attitudes and unfavorable judgements of the persons or groups concerned. in 157 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 general, inequality of opportunity for pupils and the failure to take gender into account in certain areas such as education are not only forms of discrimination, but also the causes of the social divide and, above all, of the erosion of the unity of our society. indeed, they concern a form of violence induced by the norms or habits of our structures (political, judicial, family, social, school, religious, and military, professional...). they harm physically and/or psychologically and the individuals in general and in particular to girls and the pupils, including through constraints, threats, sanctions or limitations that hinder their actions and development. these excluded persons then become those who do not find in education, work, politics, family or collective life a social identity and therefore a place in society. these and other examples clearly show the myriad ways in which the education system can contribute to inequality, conflict and violence. inequalities between girls and boys and social injustices are taught, reinforced and entrenched by educational structures. there is uneven pedagogy and textbook content. in addition, there is multifaceted physical violence in schools and universities. the violent school environment as indicated in the results of our study can contribute to or create vulnerabilities, especially for girls and minority groups. it can undermine key aspects of social cohesion, including social and institutional trust, civic cooperation and the rule of law. andy green, john preston and jan germen janmaat (2006). with regard to the impact of the conflict on education, it should be noted that it is linked to a number of factors, including: sociological factors and precarious social conditions, i.e. difficulties related to health care, food, housing and transport. sociological factors are therefore factors in the educational failure of idps. parental competence understood as the father’s ability to invest and exercise authority for the benefit of the displaced child is almost non-existent because displacement further disqualifies poor parents. added to this are psychological factors (trauma linked to the torments of war, feelings of insecurity, etc.) psychological factors are among the causes of the underperformance of the displaced. they are reflected in: school emigration to neighbouring countries (burkina faso, mali, guinea, senegal, togo, ghana, etc.), europe and north america. there is a general feeling of insecurity in both occupied and government areas and the high risk of school deaths confirmed by the disappearance of some 368,000 pupils (primary and secondary) since the outbreak of war in côte d’ivoire. thus, in addition to exposing girls and boys to violence and, in many cases, to serious human rights violations, the conflict is creating serious problems of access to school. the destruction of physical infrastructure, affects students and teachers, exacerbates and reinforces gender inequalities, drastically limits or interrupts the quality of education. in many places, schools have been used as sites of violence and as centers for child recruitment or abduction. susan nicolai and carl triplehorn, (2003), all in all, war is a destructive factor in the social and cultural fabric and educational institutions. indeed, war deregulates the functioning of societies and all these educational institutions. it destroys them totally or partially. on the basis of the examination of the causes and consequences of conflicts on education. education is linked to macroeconomic growth (gary s. becker, 1993). furthermore, research shows that education can contribute to social cohesion. indeed, more educated people participate more in 158 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 social, community and political life zuki karpinska, and julia paulson (2008). the obligation of states to provide basic education to their citizens is clearly stated in international human rights declarations (article 26 of the universal declaration of human rights udhr.) indeed, education is supposed to be linked to the ability of individuals and societies to meet other fundamental rights. since illiteracy is one of the major causes of household poverty, education can play a role in contributing to poverty reduction (world bank, “education and development” 2005). education, especially for girls and women, is linked to positive health outcomes and thus to the ability to claim the right to health; education has been shown to reduce child mortality, positively affect reproductive health, improve child well-being, improve nutritional outcomes, and encourage immunization. indeed, gender-sensitive education that sincerely addresses the needs of girls and women is considered crucial for the elimination of discrimination against women and gender inequality. côte d’ivoire has adopted a judicial and a non-judicial approach to post-conflict reconstruction. the issue of education was mentioned in the commission’s objectives, however, it has not been effectively and fully taken into account in these activities. the judicial mechanisms, even if they have been put in place, have not specifically addressed the issue of crimes relating to the destruction of educational infrastructure and child soldiers recruited by combatants. with regard to non-judicial mechanisms, the inclusion of education in the search for the root causes of conflict has been an innovation in the field of transitional justice in côte d’ivoire. however, the issue of education does not seem to have been really integrated into the commission’s subsequent activities. this was reflected in the commission’s recommendations. at the level of the memorial, it is noted that there has been no “commemoration of schools” that have been badly affected by the conflicts. yet renaming schools could be of considerable importance for children, adolescents and the community at large as an important tool for building memory and as a symbol of moral reparation for students. this type of commemoration in schools can also be an interesting potential at the micro level reconciliation of community members. indeed, according to facing history and ourselves, educational initiatives that use the memory of genocide in transitional justice to promote the values of citizenship have been successful around the world. at the curriculum level, in côte d’ivoire, it should be noted that the commission’s report has not been systematically published. however, in some countries that have experienced transitional justice, such as sierra leone, the united nations children’s fund (unicef) has supported the production of a version of the commission’s report for distribution to primary schools in the country. the report was to be a resource for human rights education as part of the national curriculum. in guatemala, local and international ngos have produced resources that use the commission’s final report to teach a “culture of peace”. from the above reflections, we can see that the practical synergies between education and transitional justice call for closer collaboration between education and transitional justice actors. a process that includes the objectives of updating the most significant links between education and human development and between education and conflict. when the recommendations of a truth commission are intended to influence policy development and practice in a sector such as education, it 159 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 is essential that these recommendations are well grounded in the commission’s conclusion and in the realities and opportunities for sector reform. the recommendations of the truth commission in côte d’ivoire, unlike in other countries, have not been legislated and therefore are not binding. a series of simple practical recommendations for a better consideration of education in the transitional justice process can be made to the commission but also to the state. 5. recommendation to truth and reconciliation commission transitional justice mechanisms that identify children as priority actors should also identify education as a priority and reflect on how it can be addressed. truth commissions should consider establishing formal and concrete collaboration with the ministry of education before and during their work. at the beginning of its activities, the commission should discuss with ministry of education officials how the issue of education could be included in the post-conflict reconstruction process. it should make recommendations and design reparation programs in collaboration with the ministry of education. the commission was to plan “training of trainers workshops” with students and teachers, support the establishment of human rights and peace clubs in schools, organize radio programs on its role and child-facilitated debates, visit schools and organize quizzes and debates for young people. the signing of a “cooperation agreement” with the ministry of education would have ensured that the different aspects of education were well integrated into each stage of the commission’s activities. 6. recommendations to the state at this level, the public authorities should be urged to continue to work tirelessly to push back the frontiers of ignorance in order to enable better schooling. the public authorities must proceed to: take into account the place of the girl child in the conception of education in the post-conflict period. to strengthen the institutional capacity of the education sector to effectively address the main challenges of the sector. these challenges are as follows: -the psychological and moral security of education staff and students; the reconstitution of school and university archives; -the capacity to develop infrastructure, making it possible to estimate and meet the needs for classrooms and the necessary equipment, for the pedagogical comfort of pupils and teachers. -capacities for the qualitative development of the educational service, in order to compensate for the deterioration of the quality of education and to raise it to the level of international norms and standards. anticipation and action-research capacities to study the impact of the war on education, on the social demands for education, on the costs of education, and the impact of the war on the structures and content of the new curricula. -human development capacities to effectively combat poverty in schools, particularly in terms of food, health and school fees. 160 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 -capacities to care for victims of school deregulation, which can be divided into three categories: psycho-affective maladjusted children, victims of the loss of the school year and child soldiers. -negotiation capacities with bilateral and multilateral, national and international partners for the resumption and intensification of programs (technical and financial) in the field of education. -dissemination of images favorable to gender equality. apart from the media, training seminars/workshops for young people, women, journalists, opinion leaders, investigators, community leaders, (...) should take gender into account. -introduce in school textbooks examples of exercises that take into account gender or that value women. -sensitization and information of communities on gender should be done through the media (television, radio, internet, posters, etc.). the use of local and traditional communication structures at the grassroots level on the need for gender equality and on gender issues. -the opening of access to empt (military preparatory and technical school) to young girls. -effectively integrate gender issues into curricula, pre-service and in-service teacher training. -strengthen and extend the reception structures offering a second chance of schooling to out-of-school or out-of-school girls (listening centers and alert brigade). -reinforce girls’ schooling through specific measures such as social mobility between school and family, as the child receives habits, a system of values, beliefs and models of action from his or her family. 7. conclusion the notion of “post-conflict”, defined by the united nations, refers to an ideal model of transition after a war, involving international institutions, states and civil, private and associative actors to overcome tensions together and rebuild a lasting peace. (freeman & djukić, 2008). the criteria surrounding the war offer a wide scope for interpretation, the extent of which only becomes apparent once the conflict is over. it is clear that war does not end with the announcement of the end of the conflict or with the cessation of hostilities, it still remains to be rebuilt. given the enormous importance of education for conflict-affected populations, its reconstruction must be done in a way that enhances its potential to contribute to human development. our study on education in transitional justice in côte d’ivoire examines education as a factor in human development in terms of the process towards: guaranteeing human rights, achieving human security and promoting capacity. in sum the research looks at the links between education and development in the post-conflict context in a holistic approach to transitional justice. the recommendations aim to capture the needs of public education in the post-conflict period in côte d’ivoire. the ivorian commission has not failed to raise the issue of education in its activities. however, the study reveals that education is insufficiently and partially taken into account in the reconstruction process. indeed, the best way to take education into account in the post-crisis reconstruction process is to involve education staff in the commission on a permanent and integral basis 161 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 in order to undertake a constructive working relationship with the ministry of education. such close collaboration with the ministry of education from the beginning to the end of the activities is extremely important not only for its integration into the recommendations and the facilitation of their implementation in educational programs. it is a matter of full cooperation that is both practical and conceptual. this has still not been the case for most of the commissions. references andrieu, k. (2012). la justice transitionnelle. de l’afrique du sud au rwanda (p. 288). paris, collection folio essais, gallimard. andy, g., john, p., & jan germen, j. (2006). education, equality and social cohesion: an over-time analysis (pp. 55-70). london: palgrave macmillan. de greiff, p. (2011). theorizing transitional justice. in m. williams, &r. nagy (ed.), transitional justice. nomos (vol. 1). new york, new york university press. freeman, m., & djukić, d. (2008). jus post bellum and transitional justice. in s. et kleffner (ed.), jus post bellum, towards a law of transition from conflict to peace (p. 213). cambridge university press. kanvaly, f. (1988). gestion des établissements scolaires. actes du séminaire des chefs d’établissements d’enseignement secondaire général et technique de côte d’ ivoire (pp. 101-112). yamoussoukro. kofi annan. (1999). the state of the world’s children 1999 (carol belamy, ed.) new york: united nations children’s fund (unicef). lynn, d. (2004). education and conflict: complexity and chaos (p. 249). london: routledge falmer. margaret, s. (2002). planning education in and after emergencies. paris: united nations educational, scientific and cultural organisation (international institute for educational planning). mazurana, & carlson. (2009). reparations as a means for recognizing and addressing crimes and grave rights violations against girls and boys during situations of armed conflict and under authoritarian and dictatorial regimes (pp. 162-214). ruth rubio-marin, european university institute, florence. see aya aoki et al. (2002). chapter 19: education. in a sourcebook for poverty reduction strategies. jeni klugman washington, dc: world bank, susan, n., & carl, t. (2003). the role of education in protecting children in conflict (p. 40). humanitarian practice network paper, overseas development institute (odi), westminster bridge road london, se1 7jd united kingdom. retrieved from http://www.savethechildren.org/publications/technicalresources/emergenciesprotection/odieducat ionprotection.pdf vanga, a. f. (2009). «la violence scolaire et extra-scolaire en côte d’ivoire », in education, violences, conflits et perspectives de paix en afrique (azoh, lanoueet tchombe, pp. 99-112). paris: karthala. 162 published by scholink inc. https://www.cambridge.org/core/search?filters%5bauthorterms%5d=ruth%20rubio-marin&eventcode=se-au http://www.savethechildren.org/publications/technicalresources/emergencies%20protection/odieducationprotection.pdf http://www.savethechildren.org/publications/technicalresources/emergencies%20protection/odieducationprotection.pdf www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 zuki, k., & julia, p. (2008). desk study: education and fragility, interagency network for education. in emergenices (inee) (p. 26). retrieved from https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.463.6068&rep=rep1&type=pdf notes 1) beyond these principles, we can mention the fundamental rights of the child as defined by the text of the convention: right to an identity (articles 7 and 8), right to health (articles 23 and 24), right to education (article 28), right to family life (articles 8, 9, 10, 16, 20, 22 and 40), right to express oneself (articles 12 and 13), right to be protected from war (articles 38 and 39), right to be protected from exploitation (articles 19, 32, 34, 36 and 39), right to equality and respect for differences (preamble §§ 1, 3 and 7, articles 2, 3 and 28). 2) indeed, for fischer (1996, p. 113), a prejudice refers to “a way of thinking by clichés, that is, the set of simplified descriptive categories based on beliefs by which we qualify other people or social groups”. in other words, stereotypes are a cognitive schema associated with one of the criteria such as: physical appearance, gender, religious, political, ethnic, sexual identity, criteria that define our beliefs and guide our judgements about social groups and their groupings. 3) «des miliciens et la fesci bastonnent des enseignants», le nouveau réveil (abidjan), 20 novembre 2007. 4) human rights watch interview, abidjan, september 30, 2007. 5) the internal and external effectiveness and efficiency of the ivorian system is not sufficient. this is at the root of several negative phenomena, including graduate unemployment (unesco, 1999). 6) “it is disheartening to note that over the years agepe’s placement capacity for internships and employment has been reduced. there is also a lack of endowment of the system with research institutes and centers, laboratories, construction workshops, and public/private partnerships for funding”... (agepe, 1998). 7) women and men have little concern about the preparation of administrative documents and for birth registration and identity documents. pupils without birth certificates cannot take the primary school leaving examination. the birth certificate is therefore an essential document to ensure that girls and boys can remain in the education system (unesco 2013). 8) moreover, the situation of girls is a cause for concern in areas heavily affected by conflict (ministry of solidarity and war victims, côte d’ivoire, 2007). 9) “9711 of them have actually fought on the ground as fafn and 1425 women are associated with the frci” (csci election observation mission report 2010). 10) most of them are also associated with combatants, acting as indicators. these groups were first identified by the united nations in 2006. at least 4,000 children have been recruited into the ranks of combatants since the conflict in 2002 (côte d’ivoire: former child soldiers are still vulnerable 16 february 2008). 163 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 11) lerner, salomon, interview menée le 10 avril 200par salmon, elizbeth, membre du comité de rédaction de la revue internationale de la croix-rouge, et gaillard, philippe, chef de la délégation du comité international de la croix-rouge (cicr) au pérou. la version anglaise de l’interview a été publiée dans international review of the red cross, vol. 88, n° 82, june 2000, pp. 22-2. 12) pablo de greiff, a leading transitional justice theorist and practitioner, who is also director of research at ictj in new york, stresses the need to create synergy between several transitional justice mechanisms. 13) education, especially for girls and women, is linked to positive health outcomes and thus to the ability to claim the right to health; education has been shown to reduce child mortality, positively affect reproductive health, improve child well-being, improve nutritional outcomes, and encourage immunization. reduction (world bank, “education and development”). world bank, “education notes: fast track initiative: building a global compact for education,” washington, dc, world bank, 2005, (human rights, 2005: côte d’ivoire). 164 published by scholink inc. original paper 3.2.1 violence against students in schools and universities 3.2.2 violence against teachers andy, g., john, p., & jan germen, j. (2006). education, equality and social cohesion: an over-time analysis (pp. 55-70). london: palgrave macmillan. mazurana, & carlson. (2009). reparations as a means for recognizing and addressing crimes and grave rights violations against girls and boys during situations of armed conflict and under authoritarian and dictatorial regimes (pp. 162-214). ruth rubio-... frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no.2, 2022 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 67 original paper characteristics of eye movements during musical expression in early childhood by tonality: through quantitative analysis by eye tracking mina sano1 1 department of education and care of early childhood, faculty of education and care of early childhood, tokoha university, shizuoka-city, japan received: june 1, 2022 accepted: june 23, 2022 online published: july 1, 2022 doi:10.22158/fet.v5n2p67 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v5n2p67 abstract early childhood children frequently use body movements while singing songs accompanied to the music. when trying to express the recognition of musical elements by body movement, the child in early childhood creates his own musical expression by thinking and judging while looking at the surrounding children and the accompaniment teacher. this study aims to quantitatively analyze changes in eye movements during musical expression. 3-year-old, 4-year-old, and 5-year-old children at two nursery schools in 2020 and two kindergartens in 2021 (n=118) participated in eye tracking during singing a song using an eye tracker (tobii3). quantitative analysis by three-way anova was mainly conducted on the calculated data. as a result, the increase in data such as number of saccade occurrences and size, and the moving average velocity of saccade, showed that saccades during musical expression in early childhood tended to be larger in major key than in minor key. from the calculated data on saccade, which is the eye movement during musical expression, it was predicted that effective feature quantities of eye movement during musical expression for machine learning could be derived in the same way as feature quantities depended on the results of quantitative analysis of body movement during musical expression. keywords saccade during musical expression in early childhood, anova, tonality, nursery rhyme, the moving average velocity of saccade, feature quantity of movement www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 68 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction the author has used a 3d motion capture system (mvn) to analyze the movement in musical expression of early childhood children and clarify the close relationship between the recognition of musical elements and body movements in early childhood (sano, 2018). in particular, as the practical process of the stepby-step activity deepened the recognition of the musical elements of the children, the increase in the moving average acceleration of the hands and pelvis by the analysis of movement showed characteristic changes with age and differences among child facilities. the author used motion capture technology to extract the developmental characteristics of musical expressions in early childhood, and devised a method for evaluating the developmental process of musical expression in early childhood applying machine learning technique (fernandez-delgado et al., 2014; sano, 2019; 2020). in the research report that used 3d motion capture in the field of education, some discussions were presented on the results of specific analysis of movement in traditional japanese dance and sawing, mainly for adults, and the development of learning support methods (ando et al., 2012; sato et al., 2010). in addition, research on music and movement showed the reaction to adult sounds (burger, 2013), viewing experiments and video analysis on the relationship between the movement and expression of the performer (dahl & friberg, 2007; thompson & luck, 2012). however, these researchers did not capture the musical expressions that occurred in the process of continuous musical practice for young children. regarding machine learning methods, it is also used in educational fields such as behavior recognition and individual recognition methods in daily life (kodama et al., 2015; takada et al., 2012), and learning support of movement such as upturning of elementary school students (matsumoto et al., 2014). but, there have been no research reports that have used machine learning for musical expression in early childhood. the author has conducted machine learning using feature quantities of movement that have caused characteristic changes in the practical process of musical expression in early childhood. as a result, a certain level of classification accuracy was obtained by several classifiers, and derived a discriminant model for the musical expression in early childhood (sano, 2019; 2020). the author focused on the eye movements of early childhood children during musical expression because of the need for additional feature quantities of movement based on the results of these studies. the participant children in the activity of musical expression often watched around other children or a teacher’s accompaniment. the children participating in the activity of musical expression often watched around other children or a teacher’s accompaniment in my investigation by the motion capture technique. the author thought the eye movement during musical expression affected the body movement in musical expression by the participant child. previous studies on eye movements have shown quantitative analysis of eye movements and eye movements related to character recognition, and how eye movements affect judgment by cognitive function (higuchi, 2019; watanabe et al., 2019; kusunoki et al., 2017; mpofu, 2016; seong-un kim, 2016; moreno-estevaa et al., 2018; lin et al., 2018；reumont, 2020; valtakari et al., 2021). an analysis www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 69 published by scholink inc. of the line of sight of a craftsman during forging work using a camera has also be conducted (kitajima et al., 2017). for research using eye trackers in the field of music, eye movements during rhythm hearing and reading (plöchl et al., 2017; lörch et al., 2017; fusase, 2017), gaze behavior of musical instrument players (bishopa et al., 2019; vandemoortele et al., 2018), eye-hand synchronization during instrumental performance (marandola, 2017), differences in reading and listening to melody between music experts and non-music experts (drai-zerbib & baccino, 2018; puutinen, 2018) etc. are presented, but the attention was mainly paid to the participant’s line of sight looking at the display. studies such as eye contact on the possibility of enhancing music conducting skills through a virtual reality learning environment have also been shown (orman et al., 2017; orman, 2016). there is a study (burger et al., 2017) that attempted to analyze the response to music by combining eye tracking and motion capture, but the subject of the study was adults (fink et al., 2019). the author considered using a glasses-type as a wearable system of eye tracker to capture changes in eye movements during musical expression in early childhood children. the eye movements captured by the eye tracker are mainly divided into saccade (rapid eye movement) and fixation. the movement of the eyeball can be quantified by the moving velocity (angular velocity) and the moving distance (magnitude of the angle). to that end, the author thought to focus on saccades during musical expression and find effective feature quantities of eye movement. 2. purpose of this study this study aims to quantitatively analyze the eye movements of early childhood children during musical expression using an eye tracker, and to find effective feature quantities of eye movement in the same method the feature quantities of movement depended on the results of analysis of movement in musical expression. in this paper, the author focuses on changes related to saccade when a child singing a song, and extract characteristic differences depended on tonality, songs, and age. 3. method in order to quantitatively capture the saccade that occurs when an early childhood child is singing, the following research method is used. 3.1 eye tracking of children in early childhood when singing a song children in early childhood are singing songs and watching the accompaniment of the teachers and the children around them. in my past studies, it was confirmed by video analysis when observing the behavior of children in early childhood, but it was not possible to quantitatively capture the actual aspect of eye movements. therefore, in this study, the author tried to quantify the eye movements of children in early childhood during singing by using an eye tracker (tobii glass 3). tobii glass 3 is a glasses-type eye tracker. each participant child wears it in the same way as glasses, is calibrated while being fixed with a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 70 published by scholink inc. strap, starts singing with a signal, and eye-tracks until the end of the singing. it is a 1/50 second time frame at 50hz, and audio and video are recorded at the same time. 3.2 the participant children of eye tracking, inspection contents and inspection schedule table 1 below shows the number of children who participated in eye tracking in 2020 and 2021 and the data acquisition dates for each song in major and minor. table 1. songs by children participating in eye tracking and the date acquiring data in 2020 and 2021 u nursery school (n=28) m nursery school (n=30) y kindergarten (n=30) n kindergarten (n=30) major key “kaerunouta” lyrics: toshiaki okamoto, composer: german folk song august 19, 2020 14: 30-16: 00 june 21, 2021 9: 30-11: 00 july 6, 2021 9: 30-11: 00 "umi" (g major,) lyrics: ryuha hayashi, composer: takeshi inoue august 18, 2020 9: 30-11: 00 “musundehiraite” lyrics: unknown, composition: rousseau may 31, 2021 9: 30-11: 00 “tewotatakimasho” lyrics: junichi kobayashi, composer: spanish folk song june 7, 2021 9: 30-11: 00 june 29, 2021 9: 30-11: 00 “shiawasenaratewotatakou” lyrics: kimura rihito composer: american folk song june 8, 2021 9: 30-11: 00 minor key “ureshiihinamatsuri” lyrics: hachirou satou, composer: koyo kawamura august 18, 2020 9: 30-11: 00 “darumasan” nursery rhyme in japan june 7, 2021 9: 30-11: 00 “hotarukoi” nursery rhyme in japan june 8, 2021 9: 30-11: 00 “teruterubouzu” lyrics: asahara kagamimura composer: shinpei nakayama august 19, 2020 14: 30-16: 00 june 29, 2021 9: 30-11: 00 “genkotsuyamanotanuki” lyrics: yoshiko kayama composer: akihiro komori june 21, 2021 9: 30-11: 00 in 2020, it was difficult to adjust multiple survey schedules due to covid-19. in osaka prefecture, at u nursery school from 9:30 to 11:00 on august 18 and 14:30 to 16:00 on august 19 at m nursery school, only one measurement was taken. since the situation was similar in 2021, the author decided to conduct only a short-term inspection schedule, and eye tracking when singing 5 songs each at 2 kindergartens in shizuoka prefecture according to the schedule shown in table 1. data at y kindergarten was acquired in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 71 published by scholink inc. 9:30-11:00 on may 31, june 7, and june 21st. data at n kindergarten was acquired in 9:30-11:00 on june 8, june 29, and july 6th. in 2020, the number of subjects was 8 for 3-year-old children, 10 for 4-year-old children, and 10 for 5year-old children at u nursery school. at m nursery school, there were 9 of 3-year-olds, 9 of 4-year-olds, and 12 of 5-year-olds. in 2021, the participant number of children was 10 each for 3-year-old children, 4-year-old children, and 5-year-old children in y kindergarten and n kindergarten. these investigations have been approved by the research ethics committee to which the author belongs, as well as permission by the person in charge of the kindergarden that cooperates in the research, the parents of the participant children, and the submission of consent forms. here, out of the songs experienced by the participants in the four child facilities during their everyday life, one song was sung in major key and another one in minor key. the songs are as follows. in 2020, at u nursery school, the song in major key is “umi” (g major, lyrics: hayashi yanaginami, composition: takeshi inoue), and the song in minor key is “ureshii hina matsuri” (a minor, lyrics: sato hachiro, composition: mitsuyo kawamura). the participant children sung, while in m nursery school, the song in major key was “kaeru nouta” (c major, lyrics: toshiaki okamoto, composition: german folk song), and the song in minor key was “teruterubozu” (a minor, written by kagamimura asahara, composed by shinpei nakayama) was sung. in 2021, in y kindergarten, the songs in major key are “musundehiraitte” (lyrics: unknown, composition: rousseau), “tewotatakimashou” (lyrics: junichi kobayashi, composition: spanish folk song), “kaerunouta” (lyrics: toshiaki okamoto, composition: german folk song) is sung, and “darumasan” (nursery rhyme=warabeuta) and “genkotsuyamanotanuki” (lyrics: miko kayama, composition: akihiro komori) are sung in minor key. in n kindergarten, the songs as “shiawasenaratewotatakou” (lyrics: translation: kimura rihito, composition: american folk song), “tewotatakimashou” (lyrics: junichi kobayashi, composition: spanish folk song), “kaerunouta” (lyrics: toshiaki okamoto, composition: german folk song) are sung in major key, and the songs are “hotarukoi” (warabeuta) and “teruterubozu” (lyrics: kagamimura asahara, composition: shinpei nakayama) are sung in minor key. the measurement time per person was 20 seconds for songs in major key and 20 seconds for songs in minor key. 3.3 quantitative analysis of data acquired by eye tracking in this study, in order to capture eye movements, the author conducted a saccade-specific quantitative analysis from fixation to next fixation. therefore, the author quantitatively analyzed the number of occurrences of saccade, the moving average velocity (angular velocity), the average value of the size of movement (total angle), the average of moving distance (total angle), the angular velocity of the moving average of the first saccade (rapid eye movement), and the magnitude (angle) of the first saccade. it was inspected whether these data differed by early childhood facility, age, and major key/minor key. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 72 published by scholink inc. 4. result in this paper, among the calculated data, an example of individual calculation data of eye movement analyzed by analysis software (tobii pro analyzer) and a part of the result of quantitative analysis on the data items presented by methodology are shown. regarding the occurrence of saccade, the analysis results of “tewotatakimashou” (major key) “kaeru no uta” (major key), “darumasan” (minor key), and “teruterubouzu” (minor key), an individual example is shown by age such as 3-year-old, 4-year-old, and 5-year-old. firstly, an example of individual calculation data for eye movement are shown for a song in major key by age. 4.1 movement of the line of sight when singing “tewotatakimashou” (major key) 4.1.1 analysis results of a 3-year-old child when singing “tewotatakimashou” the following figure 1 shows the order of eye movements of a 3-year-old child when singing “tewotatakimashou” and figure 2 shows the heat map. figure 1. gaze plot when a 3-year-old child sings “tewotatakimashou” www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 73 published by scholink inc. figure 2. heat map when a 3-year-old child sings “tewotatakimashou” 4.1.2 analysis results when a 4-year-old child sings “tewotatakimashou” the following figure 3 shows the order of eye movements of a 4-year-old child when singing “tewotatakimashou” and figure 4 shows the heat map. figure 3. gaze plot when a 4-year-old child sings “tewotatakimashou” www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 74 published by scholink inc. figure 4. heat map when a 4-year-old child sings “tewotatakimashou” 4.1.3 analysis results when a 5-year-old child sings “tewotatakimashou” the following figure 5 shows the order of eye movements of a 5-year-old child when singing “tewotatakimashou” and figure 6 shows the heat map. figure 5. gaze plot when a 5-year-old child sings "tewotatakimashou" www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 75 published by scholink inc. figure 6. heat map when a 5-year-old child sings “tewotatakimashou” the above figures regarding an individual case are examples of visualization of the movement of the line of sight. the gaze plot shows the order of movement of the line of sight, and the size of circle indicates the relative length of time that the line of sight stayed there and the participant child was gazing at that part. the heat map shows that the time spent watching in the order of red, yellow, and yellow-green was relatively long. all of the participant children performed their own singing and accompanying movements while paying close attention to the teachers and other children nearby. regarding songs in major key with body movements such as “tewotatakimashou” and “kaeru no uta”, the 3-year-old saccade tended to alternate between the teacher on the right side and the other children on the left side, and finally the other children each other. however, 4-year-olds and 5-year-olds tended to look at the center of the place where the participant child could see the teacher and other children at the same time. regarding songs in minor key such as “darumasan”, participant children tended to sing with facing forward without moving their eyes too much. regarding “teruterubozu” in minor key, the eyes of the participating children were relatively moving because singing was accompanied by their own spontaneous movements with watching around other children at the same time. next, in order to clarify whether there is a statistically significant difference or not in characteristic differences between major key and minor key from these eye tracking results, the author conducted a three-way anova (non-repeated tonality factors: 2 levels, non-repeated early childhood facility factors: 4 levels, non-repeated age factors: 3 levels). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 76 published by scholink inc. 4.2 characteristic differences in saccade between major key and minor key regarding the data acquired by eye tracking, the author focused the change of saccade as calculated data. the following results were obtained as a result of a three-way anova (non-repeated factors as 2 levels in major key/minor key, non-repeated factors as 4 levels in u nursery school, m nursery school, y kindergarten, n kindergarten, non-repeated factors as 3 levels in 3-year-old, 4-year-old, 5-year-old). 4.2.1 the number of occurrences of saccade table 2 below shows the average number of saccade occurrences by major key/minor key and child facility. table 2. the number of occurrences of saccade major/minor key child facility age average sd n 3-year-old 19.875 9.26495 8 u nursery 4-year-old 18 10.50926 10 school 5-year-old 14.9 8.33267 10 3-year-old 14.7778 7.01388 9 m nursery 4-year-old 11 8.80656 10 major key school 5-year-old 16 6.45262 12 3-year-old 26.4483 14.49036 29 y kindergarten 4-year-old 26.1 18.75311 30 5-year-old 30.3333 16.75654 30 3-year-old 16.8966 15.13592 29 n kindergarten 4-year-old 18.7 14.72308 30 5-year-old 15.1071 12.32985 28 3-year-old 21.125 5.66789 8 u nursery 4-year-old 18.1 9.46866 10 school 5-year-old 24.2 12.14542 10 3-year-old 4.8889 1.83333 9 m nursery 4-year-old 6.5556 4.50309 9 minor key school 5-year-old 8.5833 3.75278 12 3-year-old 12 4.45814 17 y kindergarten 4-year-old 12.1111 4.25495 18 5-year-old 15.35 6.45857 20 3-year-old 19 11.49534 15 n kindergarten 4-year-old 21.5 13.54719 20 5-year-old 13.3 10.60834 20 as a result of three-way anova for these acquired data, a main effect/interaction between subjects of the test showed a statistically significant difference (major/minor factor (f(1, 379)=9.953, p<.005, child facility factor (f(3, 379)=9.922, p<.005), major/minor factor * child facility factor (f(3, 379) =11.938, p<.005)). therefore, a simple main effect test and a multiple comparison test by bonferroni’s method www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 77 published by scholink inc. were conducted. concerning major/minor factor/ child facility factor* major/minor factor * age factor, the simple main effect was statistically significant for 3-year-old children (f(1, 379)=15.036, p <.005), 4-year-old (f(1, 379)=14.796, p<.005), and 5-year-old (f(1, 379)=18.106, p<.005) in y kindergarten. as a result of multiple comparison, in y kindergarten, major key was larger than minor key. concerning child facility factor/child facility factor* major/minor factor * age factor, the simple main effect was statistically significant for major key (4-year-old: (f(3, 379)=4.486, p<.005), 5-year-old: (f(3, 379)=9.537, p<.005)). as a result of multiple comparison, 3-year-old and 5-year-old showed a statistically significance in y kindergarten, larger than 3 other facilities regarding major key. 4-year-old in y kindergarten was significantly larger than m nursery school in major key. regarding minor key, 3year-old children in u nursery school and n kindergarten were larger than m nursery school, 4-year-old children in n nursery school were larger than m nursery school, and 5-year-old children in u nursery school were larger than m nursery school. a statistically significant difference was not observed by age, but it was found that the average number of occurrences was significantly larger in major than in minor. 4.2.2 the moving average velocity (angular velocity) of saccade (degrees/second) table 3. the moving average velocity of saccade major/ minor key child facility age average sd n 3-year-old 225.815 66.5225 8 u nursery 4-year-old 224.392 37.61292 10 school 5-year-old 254.645 63.00146 10 3-year-old 238.0011 45.50136 9 m nursery 4-year-old 218.273 47.78794 10 major key school 5-year-old 253.1667 63.9497 12 3-year-old 191.97 97.63757 29 y kindergarten 4-year-old 221.4853 89.85153 30 5-year-old 349.7953 531.74638 30 3-year-old 187.5766 33.10906 29 n kindergarten 4-year-old 216.9787 55.67087 30 5-year-old 205.26 41.1883 28 3-year-old 231.2688 47.18051 8 u nursery 4-year-old 246.329 66.13405 10 school 5-year-old 226.766 37.44762 10 3-year-old 186.3311 44.71741 9 m nursery 4-year-old 220.0822 56.74914 9 minor key school 5-year-old 259.2358 61.12917 12 3-year-old 215.8435 40.8591 17 y kindergarten 4-year-old 213.5211 54.991 18 5-year-old 221.8145 40.48186 20 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 78 published by scholink inc. 3-year-old 208.7093 33.18712 15 n kindergarten 4-year-old 195.1075 39.5047 20 5-year-old 198.2135 34.7814 20 similarly, for the calculation data of the moving average velocity of saccade, a three-way anova was conducted based on the major/minor factor, child facility factor, and the age factor. as a result of the test of the effect between the subjects, a statistically significant difference was not observed, but for songs in major key, 5-year-olds were larger than 3-year-olds and 4-year-olds in y kindergarten. 4.2.3 average size of saccade similarly for the calculation data of the average value of the size of saccade, a three-way anova was conducted based on major/minor factors, child facility factors, and age factors. as a result of the test of the effect between subjects, the main effect/interaction showed a statistically significant difference (major/minor factor: f (1, 379)=8.499, p<.005, child facility factor: f(3, 379) =12.407, p<.005, major/minor factors * child facility factor: f (3, 379)=12.308, p<.005). therefore, a simple main effect test and a multiple comparison test by bonferroni’s method were conducted. concerning the major/minor factor/major/minor * child facility * age factor, a simple main effect was statistically significant in y kindergarten (3-year-old child: f (1, 379)=15.076, p<.005, 4-year-old child: f (3, 379)=18.671, p<.005, 5-year-old child: f (3, 379)=24.166, p<.005). as a result of multiple comparisons, 3-year-old, 4-year-old, and 5-year-old in y kindergarten showed larger in major key than minor key. concerning the child facility factor/major/minor factor * child facility factor * age factor, a simple main effect was statistically significant in major (3-year-old child: f(3, 379)=8.518, p<.005, 4-year-old: f(3, 379)=10.357, p<.005, 5-year-old child: f(3, 379)=12.585, p<.005). as a result of multiple comparisons, 3-year-old, 4-year-old, and 5-year-old children in y kindergarten were significantly larger than other three facilities in major key. 4.2.4 the average value of the total moving distance of saccade similarly, for the calculation data of the total moving distance of saccade, a three-way anova was conducted based on the factors of major/minor factor, child facility factor, and age factor. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 79 published by scholink inc. table 4. average total moving distance of saccade (degrees) major/ minor key child facility age average sd n 3-year-old 177.3925 87.82232 8 u nursery 4-year-old 166.643 106.03598 10 school 5-year-old 126.014 84.17718 10 3-year-old 148.9222 99.34946 9 m nursery 4-year-old 117.874 114.52879 10 major key school 5-year-old 165.0575 96.21823 12 3-year-old 190.5079 132.80593 29 y kindergarten 4-year-old 184.7997 141.44637 30 5-year-old 204.1963 103.82075 30 3-year-old 114.8897 127.50648 29 n kindergarten 4-year-old 138.708 121.25421 30 5-year-old 111.4611 105.18776 28 3-year-old 204.5575 83.86732 8 u nursery 4-year-old 175.55 106.52629 10 school 5-year-old 235.001 148.61351 10 3-year-old 40.8122 30.54065 9 m nursery 4-year-old 55.8367 48.28457 9 minor key school 5-year-old 96.085 56.75702 12 3-year-old 103.5582 54.15056 17 y kindergarten 4-year-old 92.6878 40.46515 18 5-year-old 123.2695 59.87629 20 3-year-old 139.6707 102.94324 15 n kindergarten 4-year-old 143.3985 105.13491 20 5-year-old 97.488 89.47006 20 as a result of the test of the effect between subjects, the main effect/interaction was statistically significant (child facility factor: f (3, 379)=6.539, p<.005, major/minor factor * child facility factor: f (3, 379)=8.23, p<.005). therefore, a simple main effect test and a multiple comparison test by bonferroni’s method were conducted. concerning the major/minor factor/child facility factor * major/minor factor * age factor, a simple main effect was statistically significant in y kindergarten (4-year-old: f (1, 379)=8.718, p<.005)) regarding major key. as a result of multiple comparisons, 5-year-old in minor key was larger than major key in u nursery school, 3-year-old in major was larger than minor key in m nursery school. 3-year-old, 4-yearold, and 5-year-old in major key was larger than minor key in y kindergarten. concerning the child facility factor/major/minor factor * child facility factor * age factors, a simple main effect was statistically significant in minor key (5-year-old: f (3, 379)=4.438, p<.005). as a result of multiple comparison, in major key, 3-year-old and 5-year-old in y kindergarten were larger than n www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 80 published by scholink inc. kindergarten. regarding minor key, 3-year-old in u nursery school was significantly larger than m nursery school and 5-year-old in u nursery school was significantly than other three facilities. figure 7 shows the total moving distance of saccade in m nursery school, and figure 8 shows the total moving distance of saccade in y kindergarten. figure 7. the total moving distance of saccade m nursery school figure 8. the total moving distance of saccade y kindergarten as shown in figure 7 and figure 8, the total moving distance of saccade tended to be larger in major key than in minor key, which was remarkable in m nursery school and y kindergarten. 4.2.5 the size of the first saccade similarly, for the calculation data regarding the size of the first saccade, a three-way anova was conducted based on major / minor factor, child facility factor, and age factor. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 81 published by scholink inc. table 5. first saccade size (degrees) major/ minor key child facility age average sd n 3-year-old 10.24 5.26771 8 u nursery 4-year-old 6.64 3.65792 10 school 5-year-old 6.061 2.17636 10 3-year-old 12.4633 9.17476 9 m nursery 4-year-old 11.579 8.34354 10 major key school 5-year-old 13.4 7.1227 12 3-year-old 76.2845 129.89091 29 y kindergarten 4-year-old 71.2517 105.14894 30 5-year-old 64.698 93.78386 30 3-year-old 6.7159 5.66665 29 n kindergarten 4-year-old 7.0097 4.80204 30 5-year-old 6.7146 5.00763 28 3-year-old 8.2925 6.50261 8 u nursery 4-year-old 8.67 5.047 10 school 5-year-old 12.444 8.62215 10 3-year-old 4.9422 3.86937 9 m nursery 4-year-old 8.84 5.01415 9 minor key school 5-year-old 10.0992 7.26828 12 3-year-old 8.5282 4.7698 17 y kindergarten 4-year-old 7.1517 3.98349 18 5-year-old 8.9725 5.78889 20 3-year-old 7.3647 7.30578 15 n kindergarten 4-year-old 6.7825 4.90401 20 5-year-old 8.723 9.07599 20 as a result of the test of the effect between subjects, the main effect/interaction was statistically significant (child facility factor: f (3, 379)=10.239, p<.005, major/minor factor * child facility factor: f (3, 379)=10.222, p<.005). therefore, a simple main effect test and a multiple comparison test by bonferroni’s method were conducted. concerning the major/minor factor/major/minor factor * child facility factor * age factor, the simple main effect was statistically significant in major key (3-year-old child (f (3, 379)=17.614, p<.005), 4-year-old child (f (3, 379)=16.548, p<.005) and 5-year-old children (f (3, 379)=13.34, p<.005). as a result of multiple comparison, in songs of major key, y kindergartens for 3-year-olds, 4-year-olds, and 5-yearolds were larger than u kindergarten, m kindergarten, and n kindergarten. concerning the child facility factor/major/minor factor * child facility factor * age factor, the simple main effect was statistically significant in major key (3-year-old (f(3, 379)=9.796, p<.005), 4-year-old (f(3, 379)=9.015, p<.005), 5-year-old (f(1, 394)=7.196, p<.005)) in y kindergarten. as a result of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 82 published by scholink inc. multiple comparison, 3-year-old, 4-year-old, and 5-year-old children in y kindergarten showed larger magnitude in major key than other three facilities. figure 9. first saccade size in m nursery school figure 10. first saccade size in y kindergarten as shown in figure 9 and figure 10, the size of the saccade that occurred at the first time tended to be larger in major key than in minor key, which was remarkable in m nursery school and y kindergarten. 4.3 the characteristics of saccade by songs next, in order to inspect whether a statistically significant difference was observed or not in the calculated data regarding saccade for all 10 specific songs, a two-way anova was carried out (non-repeated song factor as 10 levels and non-repeated age factor as 3 levels). 4.3.1 the number of occurrences of saccade by songs table 6 shows the average data regarding number of occurrences of saccade by song. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 83 published by scholink inc. table 6. number of occurrences of saccade by song song age average sd n 3-year-old 15.4138 8.65001 29 kaerunouta 4-year-old 16.4 10.54252 30 5-year-old 17.7097 10.31243 31 3-year-old 19.875 9.26495 8 umi 4-year-old 18 10.50926 10 5-year-old 14.9 8.33267 10 3-year-old 22.1111 14.47795 9 musundehiraite 4-year-old 23.4 21.22472 10 5-year-old 29.7 17.21143 10 3-year-old 31.5789 18.7626 19 tewotatakimashou 4-year-old 29.1 21.06356 20 5-year-old 29.1053 19.24374 19 3-year-old 14.4 9.41866 10 shiawasenara 4-year-old 16.2 12.85647 10 tewotatakou 5-year-old 12.6 10.65833 10 3-year-old 21.125 5.66789 8 ureshii 4-year-old 18.1 9.46866 10 hinamasturi 5-year-old 24.2 12.14542 10 3-year-old 9.75 3.05894 8 darumasan 4-year-old 11.4444 5.17472 9 5-year-old 11.5 4.74342 10 3-year-old 16.125 10.66955 8 hotarukoi 4-year-old 16 10.79094 10 5-year-old 10.3 6.11101 10 3-year-old 12.7222 11.88576 18 teruterubouzu 4-year-old 17.3158 14.86253 19 5-year-old 12.0909 10.00433 22 3-year-old 14 4.69042 9 genkostuyamano 4-year-old 12.7778 3.27024 9 tanuki 5-year-old 19.2 5.71159 10 as a result of the test of the effect between subjects, the main effect was statistically significant with the music factor (f (9, 375)=9.64, p<.005). as a result of multiple comparison, the 3-year-old child’s “tewotatakimashou” was significantly larger than “kaerunouta”, “shiawasenaratewotatakou”, “darumasan”, “teruterubouzu”, and “genkotsuyamanotanuki”. 4-year-old child’s “tewotatakimashou” was significantly larger than “kaerunouta” and “darumasan”. regarding 5-year-old, “musundehiraite” was significantly larger than “hotarukoi” and “teruterubouzu”, “tewotatakimashou” was significantly larger than “darumasan”, “hotarukoi”, and “teruterubouzu”. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 84 published by scholink inc. figure 11. age-specific changes in the number of saccades that occur depending on the song as shown in figure 11, even among the songs in major key, the number of occurrences in “tewotatakimashou” and “musundehiraite” were remarkable. 4.3.2 the moving average velocity of saccade in order to inspect whether a statistically significant difference was observed or not in the calculated data of the moving average velocity of saccade, a two-way anova was conducted by the song factor (10 levels) and the age factor (3 levels). table 7. the moving average velocity of saccade (degrees/second) song age average sd n 3-year-old 198.4259 47.81486 29 kaerunouta 4-year-old 215.969 51.89155 30 5-year-old 222.711 54.63452 31 3-year-old 225.815 66.5225 8 umi 4-year-old 224.392 37.61292 10 5-year-old 254.645 63.00146 10 3-year-old 202.4444 175.4381 9 musundehiraite 4-year-old 222.4 140.10567 10 5-year-old 643.1 875.51286 10 3-year-old 190.6111 27.01139 19 tewotatakimashou 4-year-old 204.255 53.5489 20 5-year-old 202.4784 22.30516 19 3-year-old 195.09 30.01467 10 shiawasenara 4-year-old 219.518 64.88319 10 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 85 published by scholink inc. tewotatakou 5-year-old 209.701 48.17227 10 3-year-old 231.2688 47.18051 8 ureshii 4-year-old 246.329 66.13405 10 hinamasturi 5-year-old 226.766 37.44762 10 3-year-old 211.405 36.22365 8 darumasan 4-year-old 197.7244 23.98627 9 5-year-old 216.874 53.97441 10 3-year-old 212.2813 24.66576 8 hotarukoi 4-year-old 210.799 36.65742 10 5-year-old 195.801 41.2738 10 3-year-old 192.9467 44.82111 18 teruterubouzu 4-year-old 198.6789 50.6791 19 5-year-old 232.595 56.64364 22 3-year-old 219.7889 46.40676 9 genkostuyamano 4-year-old 229.3178 72.72708 9 tanuki 5-year-old 226.755 22.18492 10 as a result of the test of the effect between subjects, the main effect/interaction was statistically significant (song factor: f (9, 375)=3.054, p<.005, song factor * age factor: f (18, 375)=2.803, p<.005). therefore, a simple main effect test and a multiple comparison test by bonferroni’s method were conducted. concerning the song factor/song factor * age factor, a simple main effect was statistically significant in 5-year-old (f(9, 375)=8.641, p<.005). as a result of multiple comparison, 5-year-old children showed significantly larger data in “musundehiraite” than in other nine songs. concerning the age factor/song factor * age factor, age factor, a simple main effect was statistically significant in “musundehiraite” (f(2, 375)=28.012, p<.005). as a result of multiple comparison, 5-yearold children showed significantly larger data in “musundehiraite” than 3-year-old and 4-year-old children. 4.3.3 average size data of saccade in order to inspect whether a statistically significant difference was observed or not in the calculated data of the size of saccade, a two-way anova was conducted by the song factor (10 levels) and the age factor (3 levels). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 86 published by scholink inc. table 8. average size data of saccade (degrees) song age average sd n 3-year-old 7.5052 2.85719 29 kaerunouta 4-year-old 8.6037 2.96961 30 5-year-old 8.4171 3.48662 31 3-year-old 9.1463 2.63067 8 umi 4-year-old 8.805 2.01257 10 5-year-old 7.839 3.1224 10 3-year-old 400.9067 173.44916 9 musundehiraite 4-year-old 401.422 120.26263 10 5-year-old 442.11 181.74859 10 3-year-old 6.6184 1.22373 19 tewotatakimashou 4-year-old 6.748 2.26008 20 5-year-old 7.3774 1.79441 19 3-year-old 6.266 1.81167 10 shiawasenara 4-year-old 6.916 1.92473 10 tewotatakou 5-year-old 6.937 2.29484 10 3-year-old 9.4875 1.90246 8 ureshii 4-year-old 9.721 3.46217 10 hinamasturi 5-year-old 9.339 2.53537 10 3-year-old 8.88 2.02932 8 darumasan 4-year-old 8.1267 3.01173 9 5-year-old 7.616 2.90651 10 3-year-old 6.71 2.10036 8 hotarukoi 4-year-old 6.932 2.33268 10 5-year-old 7.118 3.12936 10 3-year-old 7.3222 2.98825 18 teruterubouzu 4-year-old 6.7268 2.44988 19 5-year-old 9.1723 4.32873 22 3-year-old 8.3289 2.94255 9 genkostuyamano 4-year-old 7.53 2.19371 9 tanuki 5-year-old 8.293 2.59907 10 as a result of the test of the effect between subjects, the main effect was statistically significant in the song factor (f (9, 375)=276.291, p<.005). according to multiple comparisons, 3-year-old, 4-year-old and 5-year-old showed significantly larger data in “musundehiraite” than other nine songs. 4.3.4 the total moving distance of saccade in order to inspect whether a statistically significant difference was observed or not in the calculated data of the total moving distance of saccade, a two-way anova was conducted by the song factor (10 levels) and the age factor (3 levels). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 87 published by scholink inc. table 9. the average of total moving distance of saccade song age average sd n 3-year-old 126.8666 102.49737 29 kaerunouta 4-year-old 141.7307 107.32831 30 5-year-old 147.6052 92.5503 31 3-year-old 177.3925 87.82232 8 umi 4-year-old 166.643 106.03598 10 5-year-old 126.014 84.17718 10 3-year-old 150.9378 152.44822 9 musundehiraite 4-year-old 135.103 112.99221 10 5-year-old 168.456 79.01437 10 3-year-old 218.5353 152.32141 19 tewotatakimashou 4-year-old 217.206 178.77244 20 5-year-old 213.4763 140.28595 19 3-year-old 100.709 96.94952 10 shiawasenara 4-year-old 123.663 116.54486 10 tewotatakou 5-year-old 91.112 83.91147 10 3-year-old 204.5575 83.86732 8 ureshii 4-year-old 175.55 106.52629 10 hinamatsuri 5-year-old 235.001 148.61351 10 3-year-old 86.0938 32.70565 8 darumasan 4-year-old 88.7289 46.00924 9 5-year-old 92.945 56.501 10 3-year-old 113.3513 98.03137 8 hotarukoi 4-year-old 114.315 93.43521 10 5-year-old 77.22 53.50204 10 3-year-old 97.6444 96.73537 18 teruterubouzu 4-year-old 117.2289 104.78197 19 5-year-old 105.9355 86.21995 22 3-year-old 119.0822 65.97339 9 genkostuyamano 4-year-old 96.6467 36.43381 9 tanuki 5-year-old 153.594 48.29937 10 as a result of the test of the effect between subjects, the main effect was statistically significant in the song factor (f (9, 375)=6.67, p<.005). as a result of multiple comparison, in 3-year-old child children’s data regarding the average of total moving distance of saccade, “tewotatakimashou” was larger than “teruterubouzu”. 5-year-old children’s data of “ureshiihinamatsuri” was larger than “hotarukoi”. 4.3.5 the first saccade in order to inspect whether a statistically significant difference was observed or not in the calculation data of the size of the saccade that occurred the first time, a two-way anova with the song factor (10 levels) and the age factor (3 levels) was conducted. table 10 shows the first size of saccade (degrees). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 88 published by scholink inc. table 10. the first size of saccade (degrees) song age average sd n 3-year-old 7.7986 6.61434 29 kaerunouta 4-year-old 8.8443 6.67036 30 5-year-old 9.0384 5.91631 31 3-year-old 10.24 5.26771 8 umi 4-year-old 6.64 3.65792 10 5-year-old 6.061 2.17636 10 3-year-old 232.0822 139.33696 9 musundehiraite 4-year-old 199.29 90.89385 10 5-year-old 181.769 74.0519 10 3-year-old 6.2274 3.9628 19 tewotatakimashou 4-year-old 6.876 4.68213 20 5-year-old 7.1658 5.81135 19 3-year-old 8.596 8.30099 10 shiawasenara 4-year-old 5.776 3.10534 10 tewotatakou 5-year-old 5.572 2.68285 10 3-year-old 8.2925 6.50261 8 ureshii 4-year-old 8.67 5.047 10 hinamasturi 5-year-old 12.444 8.62215 10 3-year-old 9.7813 4.37451 8 darumasan 4-year-old 8.3511 4.33887 9 5-year-old 8.852 6.24701 10 3-year-old 6.0675 4.87504 8 hotarukoi 4-year-old 6.014 4.76115 10 5-year-old 10.701 11.69227 10 3-year-old 6.5317 6.71919 18 teruterubouzu 4-year-old 8.1616 5.00062 19 5-year-old 8.5745 6.54268 22 3-year-old 7.4144 5.0786 9 genkostuyamano 4-year-old 5.9522 3.41426 9 tanuki 5-year-old 9.093 5.62926 10 as a result of the test of the effect between subjects, the main effect was statistically significant in the song factor (f (9, 375)=148.385, p<.005). as a result of multiple comparison, 3-year-old’s data of “musundehiraite” was significantly larger than the other 9 songs in 4-year-olds and 5-year-olds. 5. discussion in this article, the author inspected whether a characteristic difference was observed in eye movements during singing by early childhood children depending on whether the song is in major key or minor key. firstly, regarding the acquired data by eye tracking, the author specified in saccade and conducted a three-way anova based on major key/minor key (2 levels), child facility (4 levels), and age (3 levels). as a result of the analysis, it was found that saccades occurred more frequently in major key than in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 89 published by scholink inc. minor key. regarding the moving average velocity of saccade, the data of 5-year-old children at y kindergarten was larger than 3-year-old and 4-year-old in major key. regarding the size of saccade, the data in major key was significantly larger than the data in minor key regarding 3-year-old, 4-year-old, and 5-year-old children in y kindergarten. the total moving distance of saccade tended to be larger in major key than in minor key, which was more remarkable in y kindergarten. on the other hand, for 5year-old children in u nursery school, the total moving distance of saccade was larger in minor key than in major key, but the data of 3-year-old children in m nursery school in major key was larger than the data in minor key. the size of the first saccade that occurred was remarkable in y kindergarten. the size of the first saccade occurred in y kindergarten and m nursery school were clearly characterized by being larger in major key than in minor key. secondly, in order to inspect whether a statistically significant difference was observed in the calculated data regarding saccade for all 10 specific songs, a two-way anova was carried out (non-repeated song factor (10 levels), non-repeated age factor (3 levels)). as a result, regarding the number of occurrences of saccade, the number of occurrences of “tewotatakimashou” and “musundehiraite” were remarkable in the songs of major key. as for the average moving velocity of saccade, “musundehiraite” was remarkable for 5-year-old children, and “musundehiraite” was also large for the size of saccade. regarding the total moving distance of saccade, the data of “tewotatakimashou” for 3-year-old children were large. it was found that the size of saccade occurred in “musundehiraite” for the first time was large in all ages of 3-year-old children, 4-year-old children, and 5-year-old children. in this way, as a result of quantitative analysis by song, the number of occurrences of saccade was large in “tewotatakimashou” for 3-year-old children. the moving average velocity and size of saccade in “musundehiraite” for 5-year-old children were remarkable. regarding the size of the saccade occurred for the first time, “musundehiraite” was large for all ages of 3-year-old children, 4-year-old children, and 5-year-old children. those results showed that participant children involved in a spontaneous body movement accompanied to singing a nursery rhyme from the beginning of singing “musundehiraite” during every-day life in early childhood facility. in the singing, the participant children, looking at the teacher, other children nearby, and their own hands, put their hands forward and shake them up and down accompanied to the beat. “tewotatakimashou” is also a japanese lyrics that encourages the movement while singing “te-wo-ta-ta-ki-ma-sho”, and the children sung to link with the movement, it was naturally that the moving average velocity and size of saccade especially increased in 5-year-old children. the change in the numerical value of eye movement verified that as the recognition of musical elements progresses, the early childhood child consciously thinks to express his or her recognition of musical elements by the spontaneous body movement accompanied to singing. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 90 published by scholink inc. 6. conclusion as a result of those above quantitatively analysis, it was found that the saccade in the musical expression in early childhood tended to be larger in major key than in minor key, which was remarkable in y kindergarten, depended on the increase in the acquired data for two years. these results of this study made it possible to clarify the characteristics extracted the above quantitative analysis based on the result of analysis in 2020 depending more added data by eye-tracking. according to a result of quantitative analysis in 2020, some differences were found out depended on the two childcare forms between playcentered childcare form and a childcare form of following the montessori method. in the results of eyetracking in 2020, participant children involved in montessori method tended to express the recognition of regularity and tonality regarding musical elements although participant children taking a play-centered childcare form tended to express the recognition of japanese lyrics (sano, 2021). by increasing more added data in 2021 regarding the number of songs and participant children, those results showed more clearly that the children tended to show characteristic change of eye movement depending on tonality and songs. from the calculated data on saccade, which was the eye movement during musical expression of early childhood children, it was verified that effective feature quantities of eye movement for machine learning could be derived in the same way as feature quantities of movement based on the results of quantitative analysis during musical expression in early childhood. in order to extract another 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(2016). an analysis of eye movement and cognitive load about the editorial design in elementary science textbook. universal journal of educational research, 4(3), 570-575. https://doi.org/10.13189/ujer.2016.040314 takada, k., kitasuka, t., & aritugi, m. (2012). examination of personal identification method by gait using markerless motion capture device. research report entertainment computing (ec), 2012, 17. thompson, m., & luck, g. (2012). exploring relationships between pianists’ body movements, their expressive intentions, and structural elements of the music. musicae scientiae, 16, 19-40. https://doi.org/10.1177/1029864911423457 valtakari, n., hooge1, i., viktorsson, c., nyström, p., falck-ytter, t., & hessels, r. (2021). eye tracking in human interaction: possibilities and limitations. behavior research methods, 53, 1592-1608. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-020-01517-x vandemoortele, s., feyaerts, k., reybrouck, m., de bièvre, g., brône, g., & de baets, t. (2018). gazing at the partner in musical trios: a mobile eye-tracking study. journal of eye movement research, 11(2), 6. https://doi.org/10.16910/jemr.11.2.6 watabe, m., matumura, a., & uda, n. (2019). an attempt to extract children’s tastes from gaze movements and facial expressions in storytelling of picture books. proceedings of the 81st national convention, 2019(1), 563-564. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-020-01517-x https://doi.org/10.16910/jemr.11.2.6 frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) original paper records management practices in research institutes in south-west, nigeria ayanda, o. t.1, oloniruha, e. a. 1, & ogungbade, a. a. (miss) 1 1 library department, redeemer’s college of technology and management, mowe, ogun state, nigeria * ayanda, o. t., library department, redeemer’s college of technology and management, mowe, ogun state, nigeria received: august 1, 2020 accepted: august 15, 2020 online published: august 22, 2020 doi:10.22158/fet.v3n3p37 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v3n3p37 abstract this study investigated records management practices in some selected research institutes in nigeria within the framework of records life-cycle concepts. the primary aim is to explore how research records are managed and find out whether records management as a valuable resource of research institutes receives the desired attention as regards quality practice, level of implementation among others. using survey research and stratified random sampling techniques, records management practice questionnaire was designed and used to collect data from two hundred and twenty-three respondents that were randomly selected from six out of the fourteen research institute in south-west, nigeria. the result showed that, research institutes created and managed all types of records predominantly in paper form (68.4%), while the decentralized system of filing was generally practiced in all the research institutes (98%). although various filing methods, simple lists were found to be the main tool used for both records control and retrieval. a high level of records insecurity was found (68%), while records generated were managed manually through filing of hard copies in folders and kept in wooden cabinets, metal cabinet and filing shelves. the management of research records were at great variance with the stipulations of the records life-cycle concept and that research records is yet to attain minimal level or records management implementation. this study recommends that records management practice should be adequately funded; recruiting qualified records managers, and embracing the wide range of opportunities offered by ict for the management of research records. keywords records management practices, records life-cycle, research institutes, record analysis, information communication technology (ict), nigeria 37 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 1. introduction the need for individuals, organizations and institutes to see if their establishments are suited to manage records effectively cannot be overlooked as the importance of proper management and security of records in the success of any organization is paramount and cannot over emphasis. without adequate records, research institutes cannot do their work efficiently or account for their action. records are vital for good governance and efficient management of any organization. the guiding principle of records management is to ensure that information is available when and where it is needed in an organized and efficient manner, and in a well maintained environment. the importance of records management is often underestimated by people who do not directly work in the discipline, its impact on the administrative ability of an organization to operate is indisputable. it is only through the operation of a well-run records management life-cycle program such as record creation and control, record appraisal, record management personnel, records schedule, records preservation, records retention and disposal among others that research institutes retain control of its corporate memory which allows their conduct of business. records management allows an organization to establish and maintain control over information flow and administrative operations. however, oyewole (2008) asserts that records are primarily used to provide evidence that an event or transaction occurred, used as reference to support decision-making and document compliance when analyzing risk. to be authentic, reliable and available to users, records must be authorized, accurate and also comply with the laws and regulations governing records keeping. research records include a wide variety of documentary forms and classes such as reports, maps, photographs, forms, sound recording, motion pictures, correspondence, memoranda, machine-readable records, etc. abioye (2006) posited that 75% of needed information for the smooth-running of an organization is buried in its internally and externally generated records. records are the corporate memory of an organization that created them and they are used to supplement the human memory. seniwoliba, maham and abilla (2017) argued that without records, no assessment can be made of whether individual, private and public organizations have actually carried out the actions and transactions that they need to execute or whether they ensure that their actions and transactions meet the criteria of efficiency, legitimacy of the principles of good governance, and whether they have done things rightly or not. the qualifying element in records over oral information is the evidential value. this is so because, there is always need to prove that something actually happened and this can only be done through evidence found in records. it should be noted that these research institutes under study has different research area such as medicine, agriculture, economy, technology and foreign policy. 1.1 statement of the problem the researcher observed that research institutes had no records management policy to guide and protect the use of research records and as such, records are not recognized as valuable, unique resources which need to be exploited like other resource considering the knowledge economy we are. in most cases, various categories of records are lumped and dumped together in the same storage space. the concept 38 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 of records retention and disposal has been neglected in their management of records which results in volumes of unwanted mass of records. consequently, records are difficult to retrieve. there is a loss of man hour input in searching for information especially misfiled records of research findings which cost money. this could only be realized through the establishment and implementation of records management in the selected research institutes in south-west nigeria which forms the crux of this study. 1.2 research objectives i. ascertain the types of records available the appraisal and retention policy in use; ii. examine the storage and preservation facilities available for research records; iii. determine the usage level of information communication technology in managing research records. iv. find out the challenges hindering effective management of records in the research institutes 2. literature review records are synonymous with human activities and have existed for centuries, the art of records creation and keeping dates back to the ancient civilization and was not peculiar to literate society. the cave paintings of the pre-historic period were in a way a form of records as they saved useful information about the activities and ways of life of the early man. it was the discovery of writing which later facilitated record creation and retention which was developed from pictures and drawings that were used to convey ideas. however, akporhonor (2011), posited that records are any recorded information, regardless of forms or medium received and maintained by an agency, institution or organization or individual in pursuance of its legal obligations or in the transaction of business of any kind. effective records management is a key enabler in achieving business success. access to records and other documents containing strategic information is the basis of sound decision-making which is a unique and vital ingredient that will assist research institutes in their mission. it is obvious that if the information available for decision-making is either inaccurate or incorrectly interpreted, the diagnostic decision is likely to be in error and the action taken will be inappropriate. theran (2012) described records as barometers for measuring the performance of an organization. no organization can succeed in present day business environment that is characterized of uncertainty, high risk, and increased crime rate without functional records management. records after all, can be said to be the life-blood of research institutions and an integral part of business functions to guarantee efficiency, effectiveness and to enable organizations to survive in this accountability era. this needs to be done via a records management programme which is the main implementation vehicle for the records management policy whose aims and objectives must be aligned with those of the organization. popoola (2007) stated that records management involves the effective, efficient and systematic control of the processes of creating, receiving, maintaining, and disposing valuable information about the organization. it is the mean of processing information for optimum accessibility and usability, concern with the origination, collection, organization, storage, retrieval, interpretation, 39 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 transmission, transformation and use. unfortunately, it has become a recurrent issue for records to be irretrievable when required. nigeria administrators are often concern about the alarming rate of misplacement or loss of vital records and slow speed at which needed records are retrieved from their storage. in most cases, misplaced or loss of records delay necessary actions on urgent matters which leads to irrational decisions that translate to social crisis or an embarrassment to the nation. popoola advanced further that records must be actively managed through their life-cycle. gracia (2011) explained that records life-cycle concept had four phases, namely: creation, distribution, maintenance and use, appraisal and disposition. to nwaomah (2013) records management is seen as extending to all aspects of records creation or inscription, use, maintenance and disposal. she posited further that, records managers need to know and understand the life-cycle of records in order to enhance their ability in the management of research records. she concluded by saying that proper management of research records is an essential requirement for efficient and effective problem solving. 3. methodology the research design adopted in this study was survey research design. this is used to seek opinions of individual as regards a problem in which consensus of these respondents will provide the needed solution to the problem at hand. the populations of the study are the staff of research institutes in south-west, nigeria with the total population of two hundred and twenty-three (223) personnel in several departments/divisions/units as records management is a cross-departmental collective responsibility. in all, nine research institutes were randomly selected from the fourteen research institutes in south-west, nigeria. the population of the study is stratified as shown in the table below. table 1. sampled study population s/n research institutes number of sampled number of responded response rate (%) 1 centre for energy research and development, ile-ife 20 15 75 2 centre for management development, lagos 26 23 84.5 3 cocoa research institute of nigeria, ibadan 24 21 84.5 4 forestry research institute of nigeria ibadan 25 22 87.5 5 institute of agricultural research and training, ibadan 31 25 80.7 6 national centre for economic management and administration, ibadan 25 15 75 7 national institute for horticultural research ibadan 25 23 92 8 national institute for oceanography and marine research, lagos 20 17 84.5 40 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 9 nigerian institute of medical research , lagos 27 23 85.19 total 223 192 85.4 source: researcher’s field work survey 2019 the instrument of data collection employed in the research survey is questionnaire which was structured as it provided alternative answer from which they were to select one or more answers. the method of data analysis used was frequency count and percentage for the research questions, while the regression analysis was used for the hypothesis. 4. result analysis descriptive statistical tools of frequency count and percentages were used for the analysis. the demographic data on the population are analyzed below. table 2. the types of records available, the appraisal and retention policy in use in what formats are records received? s/n formats frequency percentage cumulative percentage 1 films 40 26.3 26.3 2 disk 32 21.1 47.4 3 paper 80 52.6 100.0 total 152 100. the findings indicated that paper format is the dominant method of receiving records as indicated by 80 (52.6%) respondents above in table 2. table 3. in what formats are records created? s/n formats frequency percentage cumulative percentage 1 tape 32 21.1 21.1 2 paper 104 68.4 89.5 3 film 16 10.5 100.0 total 152 100. also, responding to the question on the format for records creation, 104 (68.4%) respondents affirmed that records are created in paper forms. this means that paper format is the most popularly used for receiving and creation of records. 41 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 table 4. research records appraisal and records retention policy s/n records appraisal frequency percentage cumulative percentage a not appraised 88 57.9 57.9 1. appraised 24 15.8 73.7 2. no response 40 26.3 100.0 total 152 100.0 table 4 above shows that majority of the respondents 88 (57.9%) are of the view that their institution does not appraise their records for the purpose of retention/disposal. table 5. research records appraisal and records retention policy s/n records disposal options (retention) frequency percentage % cumulative percentage 1. administrative value 61 69.4 69.4 2. evidential value 9 10.2 79.6 3. informational value 9 10.2 89.8 4. research value 9 10.2 100.0 total 88 100.0 administrative value criteria were majorly used in their records retention and disposal which is 61 (69.4%). table 6. do you use computer facilities for records operations? s/no computer frequency % cumulative percentage 1. available 136 89.5 89.5 2. not available 16 10.5 100.0 total 152 100.0 table 7. is your institution connected to the internet? s/n internet frequency percentage (%) cumulative percentage 1. connected 152 100.0 100.0 42 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 table 8. does your institution have a website? c website frequency percentage (%) cumulative percentage 1. available 113 53.3 53.3 2. not available 39 5.3 58.6 total 152 100.0 table 9. which records management function of your institution are automated? s/n automated frequency percentage cumulative percentage 1. records filing, storage, and distribution 8 5.3 5.3 2. records retrieval 39 25.7 30.9 3 records creation 73 48.0 78.9 4. records scheduling 8 5.3 84.2 table 10. does your institution have electronic recording system? s/n electronic recording frequency percentage (%) cumulative percentage (%) 1. available 60 37.4 37.4 2. not available 92 82.6 100.0 total 152 100.0 table 11. is it functional? s/n electronic recording frequency percentage cumulative percentage 1 not functional 49 68.1 68.1 2 functional 23 31.9 100.0 total 72 100.0 majority of the respondents in table 6, 8, 136 (89.5%) use computer facilities for records operation. all the respondents in table 7, 10, 152 (100%) stated that their institution is connected to the internet, in table 8, 113 (53.3%) of the respondents indicated that their institution has a website. the study revealed that creation of records in table 9, 73 (48.0%) is the record management function that is automated in their institution, in table 10, 92 (82.6%) indicated they do not have. hence, most of the respondents affirmed that their institution does not have electronic records system. where they 43 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 have electronic recording system, research revealed that, 23 (31.9%) is functioning while 49 (68.1%) disagreed. table 12. the storage and preservation facilities available for research records what records storage equipment does your institution use? s/n equipment frequency percentage cumulative percentage 1 metal cabinets 43 28.3 28.3 2 open metal shelves 18 11.8 40.1 3 open wooden shelves 83 54.6 94.7 4 others 8 5.3 100.0 total 152 100.0 in table 12, as for the arrangement of records, the study reveals that research institutes relied heavily on wooden shelves for records storage 83 (54.6%). observation showed that some of the wooden shelves were already collapsing under the heavy weight of the records they were bearing. table 13. the challenges hindering effective management of records in the research institutes? item description frequency percentage inadequate funding 70 46 poor records storage facilities 65 42.8 lack of space 52 34.3 inadequate training and motivation 69 45. lack of material and equipment 56 36.8 majority of the respondents complained bitterly and identified certain challenges hindering effective management of research records which is majorly inadequate funding 70 (46%). 5. conclusion management of records in the research institutes is essential for its internal efficiency. however, the study confirmed that management of records was at the rudimentary stage. the holistic approach that is managing records through its life-cycle phases and total quality records management programme was not applied in the management of research records. research records are in deplorable condition. the main goal of management of records in an organization is to provide much needed information on 44 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 demand, in the right format and at the right time. in the selected research institutes, there were also cases of misplacement or loss of records, a situation that does not augur well for their administration. equally important is a records schedule that determines the life expectancy of records. absence of a schedule in the institutions meant a haphazard disposal of their records and this is a fundamental defect in the management of research records. 6. recommendations 1) adequate and good records storage facilities should be provided. there should be proper space planning with enough space allocated for records storage. standard shelving equipment preferably steel should be procured while wooden shelves and racks particularly those that were already collapsing under heavy weight of records should be eliminated. records storage should be centralized. the present practice of having huge records piled up on the floor in staff personnel offices is not ideal for proper tracking of records and retrieval. 2) research institutions should adopt and implement an integrated record management programme based on life-cycle concept. a records center should exist not just in name but also in full professional operation. 3) records appraisal and scheduling must be undertaken to determine the life expectancy of records in the research institutes. although research records are special types of records, it is orthodox to assume that they are all records of permanent value that should end up in the archives. a records schedule is essential to stipulate the disposal action to be taken in respect of research records of the institutions. a well-developed records schedule to meet the peculiar needs of the institutions must, therefore be formulated. 4) qualified records managers/archivists should be recruited, adequate manpower development programme be put in place. they should be motivated, encouraged and supported to make a career in records management. a career path should be developed for them in the scheme of service. 5) a formal training for records management staff is a sine qua non for effective management of records. while some of them might have attended one workshop or the other in the past, majority of trainings they attended were normal general civil service routine that were not specifically geared towards inculcating the nitty-gritty of records management. there was, therefore, a yawning gap between the ideal and the reality on ground in the management of records in the research institutes that were surveyed. 6) the records management programme of the institutions should be well funded. adequate budgetary provisions should be put in place for record offices, management of records especially in the area of storage, equipment and materials. a periodic evaluation of the programme will guarantee improvement and sustain timely availability of research records for efficient problem solving. 45 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 7) research institutes should avail themselves of the wide range of opportunities offered by information communication technology (ict) such as electronic records management to reduce the large volumes of paper and store space for records which will guarantee easy retrieval and eliminate misplacement and loss of records. references abioye, a. a. (2006). records management practices of the court of appeal and the supreme court in the administration of justice in nigeria (ph.d thesis, pp. 49-64). university of ibadan. akporhonor, b. a. (2011). management of records in university libraries in the south-south zone of nigeria. journal of library philosophy. https://doi.org/10.4314/cjlis.v13i1.68233 fijabi, m. n. (2008). managing records for effective administration: a case of nigerian railway corporation. lagos. journal of library and information science, 1(3), 3. garcia, m. (2011) what is records life-cycle? retrieved july 17, 2020, from http://www.wisgeek.com/what-is-records-life-cycle.htm nwaomah, a. e. (2013). job suitability, job satisfaction and institutional factors as determinants of students’ records management effectiveness in south-south nigerian universities (a ph.d thesis). babcock university, nigeria. oyewole, o. (2008). improving your organizations records and information management capacity-part the guardian (p. 34). popoola, s. o. (2007). the retention schedule in organizational records management: a paper presented at a training workshop for administrative officers in university system organized by covenant university, sango-ota, ogun state (p. 2). seniwoliba, a. j., maham, a. v., & abilla, b. j. (2017). challenges of records management in higher education in ghana: the case of university for development studies. international journal of educational policy research and review, 4(3), 29-41. theran, r. (2012). empowering employees for efficient government records management. retrieved from http://blog.ironmountain.com/2012/federal-government-records/empowering-employees for-efficient-government-records-mangement 46 published by scholink inc. https://doi.org/10.4314/cjlis.v13i1.68233 http://www.wisgeek.com/what-is-records-life-cycle.htm http://blog.ironmountain.com/2012/federal-government-records/empowering-employees original paper microsoft word fet-v2n3-p141 frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 141 original paper portable screen time and kindergarteners’ attention with content as a potential moderator kimberly b vigil1* 1 college of education, grand canyon university, phoenix, usa * kimberly b vigil, college of education, grand canyon university, phoenix, usa received: august 5, 2019 accepted: august 15, 2019 online published: august 20, 2019 doi:10.22158/fet.v2n3p141 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v2n3p141 abstract portable screens such as smart phones and tablets are a normal part of children’s everyday lives, yet excessive media use presents a multitude of health and developmental concerns. specifically, the impact of portable screen time on children’s attention is unknown, and screen time could potentially result in negative outcomes including poor school readiness and social difficulties. the purpose of this study was to assess the relationship between portable screen time and kindergarteners’ attention (the first research question), and to investigate learning content as a potential moderator (the second research question). data were collected using the preschool and kindergarten behaviors scale, 2nd edition attention subscales and questionnaires on portable screen time and content, and analyzed via hierarchical multiple regression. results included a significant relationship between screen time and attention, where, as screen time increased, attention decreased, and insignificant findings for a moderating relationship between screen time and content on attention. it was recommended that adults monitor children’s portable screen time to ensure attention is not compromised, and that screen time be utilized for educational purposes using quality programming. recommendations for future research include studies which address portable screen time and learning content, structure/pacing, interactivity, and context of children’s screen time. keywords portable screen time, attention, kindergarten, executive function, content, learning content www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 142 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction today’s children are bombarded with media in nearly all aspects of life. portable media devices such as smart phones, tablets, and portable video games are essentially a normal part of children’s day-to-day routines (lillard, drell, richey, boguszewski, & smith, 2015; radesky, schumacher, & zuckerman, 2015). studies have shown that children spend two to seven hours daily in front of various screens (barlett, gentile, barlett, eisenmann, & walsh, 2011; lillard et al., 2015; nathonson, aladé, sharp, rasmussen, & christy, 2014), and even longer when accounting for media multitasking (bartlett et al., 2011; pea et al., 2012). preschoolers engage in approximately four hours of screen time daily (lillard et al., 2015) and seventy percent of babies under the age of one now take part in some sort of screen time multiple times each week (cingel & krcmar, 2013). screen time habits that are adopted in the preschool years have been reported to be sustained through school and adolescence, and often even into adulthood (zhao et al., 2018). research on whether or not young children can learn from interactive screens is minimal, and the social and emotional impacts of portable screen time on young children need to be ascertained (radesky et al., 2015). as such, it can be argued that it is unclear what the impact of extensive media use has on children’s learning and development, either positive or negative. the general problem is that research has implicated excessive media use by young children (american academy of pediatrics, 2011; american academy of pediatrics, 2016; barlett et al., 2011; jago et al., 2014; radesky et al., 2015; pea et al., 2012) in the formation of negative outcomes including decreases in executive function and increases in aggression (barr, lauricella, zack, & calvert, 2010; lillard et al., 2015; nikkelen, valkenburg, huizinga, & bushman, 2014). recently, media use has shifted to include mobile devices such as smartphones, handheld games (pea et al., 2012) and tablets (radesky et al., 2015). children have been reported to take part in 20% of their entire screen time while using portable devices (pea et al., 2012). some research has found smartphones and tablets to be beneficial to learning (koh, loh, & hong, 2013; larabee, burns, & mccomas, 2014). however, research pertaining to portable screen time and behavior is nonexistent (radesky et al., 2015), and, while content or programming has been investigated in relation to television time, it has been largely overlooked in relation to other forms of screen time (lerner & barr, 2014). in spite of widespread smartphone and tablet use by young children (radesky et al., 2015), the specific problem is that the relationship between portable screen time and children’s attention, a component of executive function, is unknown. 2. literature review to better understand the relationship between screen time and children’s attention, cognitive processes were explored. this included executive function, as well as the positives and negatives of screen time in relation to learning and attention. the literature review also noted the importance of the kindergarten age with regard to development and screen time. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 143 published by scholink inc. 2.1 theoretical framework cognitive processes were the overarching theoretical framework of this study. more specifically, this study addressed attention development as a component of executive function. executive function is the overarching construct of taskand goal-oriented behaviors (cartwright, 2012; reck & hund, 2011) or an “umbrella term” (wagner fuhs & day, 2011, p. 404; willoughby, wirth, blair, & greenberg, 2012, p. 226) encompassing inhibition, attention, and working memory (barr et al., 2010; reck & hund, 2011; nathanson et al., 2014; wagner fuhs & day, 2011). executive function is believed to be grounded in both neurological development and environmental impacts. because executive function begins to develop in infancy, many researchers believe this component of executive function to be based upon the genetic formation of neural circuitry (cuevas & bell, 2014; nathonson et al., 2014), whereas later executive development, such as the growth experienced during the toddler and preschool years, to be based on environmental experiences due to the brain’s neuroplasticity (nathonson et al., 2014). executive function is closely linked to preschool and early kindergarten emergent literacy and math skills (brock, kim, & grissmer, 2018a; brock, murrah, cottone, mashburn, & grissmer, 2018b), and is correlated with school readiness (cuevas & bell, 2014; huber et al., 2018; nathanson et al., 2014; wagner fuhs & day, 2011). 2.2 learning and academic achievement a preponderance of research has addressed the negative health outcomes related to screen time. screen time has been noted to be, “a major public health issue,” and potentially addictive (stiller, schwendemann, bleckmann, bitzer, & mößle, 2018, p. 31), a likely cause of obesity (conners-burrow, mckelvey, & fussell, 2011; karuppiah, 2015), a cause of eye strain and poor posture (karuppiah, 2015), and connected to a plethora of social and emotional problems (conners-burrow et al., 2011; zhao et al., 2018). specifically, media use results in distractions from other relevant tasks, such as sustained attention on toys, parent and child interactions, and homework for older children (barr et al., 2010; mößle, kleimann, rehbein, & pfeiffer, 2010; nikkelen et al., 2014; ostrov, gentile, & mullins, 2013), and inappropriate content may also lead to addictive tendencies (stiller et al., 2018). media use is thought to displace other language-rich interactions with parents or other caregivers, potentially impacting language development (radesky et al., 2015; swartz, 2017; zhao et al., 2018). while excessive screen time is often linked to negative health outcomes because of its sedentary nature, sisson, broyles, baker, and katzmarzyk (2011) discovered that not all leisure-time sedentary behaviors, including computer use, television viewing and reading, produced negative health, specifically weight, outcomes. this lends credence to the assertion that portable screen time may be able to be used as a successful learning tool in spite of its sedentary nature. research has noted that educational programming that may promote positive results entails programs that have specific literacy, numeracy and/or social and emotional or character development goals (although some research has also found that children still overlooked the program’s moral) (ostrov et al., 2013), programs that are well-designed (not simply marketed to young children), programs that are for children two years of age www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 144 published by scholink inc. and older (barr et al., 2011), programs that require children to be mentally active, engaged, and socially interactive, and programs where learning is meaningful (hirsch-pasek et al., 2015). apps that are considered educational are those that contain active, engaging, meaningful and socially interactive content, all under the auspice of a learning goal (hirsch-pasek et al., 2015; radesky et al., 2015). interactive screen time is also an area of screen time research demonstrating possible positive outcomes, particularly in relation to portable screens. interactive screen time in which the user interacts with the interface can potentially increase children’s number sense, basic math skills, and even problem solving and geometric skills (lieberman, bates, & so, 2009). additionally, further emergent research has indicated that visuomotor integration (vmi), or a child’s ability to comprehend and manipulate visual input, including letters and numbers and hands-on learning materials, paired with executive function, are important in developing children’s reading and math skills (brock et al., 2018a; brock et al., 2018b). a preponderance of the research has also indicated that the benefits of screen time are improved when learning technologies are both interactive between the both the user and the screen (hirsh-pasek et al., 2015; hsin, li, & tsai, 2014; lerner & barr, 2014; lieberman et al., 2009) and between the user and the parent, caregiver or teacher (hirsh-pasek et al., 2015; hsin et al., 2014). as such, context of interactive media use may play a role in whether or not children learn from such interactive media (radesky et al., 2015). 2.3 social and emotional development in addition to impacting learning and academic achievement, screen time also impacts social and emotional development. researchers and early childhood experts have long posited that children’s viewing of violent media results primarily in negative outcomes such as aggression and adhd-related behaviors (anderson et al., 2003; karuppiah, 2015; nikkelen et al., 2014; ostrov et al., 2013; radesky et al., 2015). this is particularly the case when it comes to preschool-aged children, potentially because of the formative nature of children at this age coupled with the fact that these children also may not have a clear understanding of fantasy versus reality (nathonson et al., 2014; ostrov et al., 2013). when it comes to screen time habits, boys’ screen time has resulted in larger video game use than girls (cingel & krcmar, 2013; hartmann, jung, & vorderer, 2012). boys’ use of video games is concerning in that video games often coincide with violent content, and, as noted, violent content of media has been linked to greater aggression, violent behavior and adhd-related behaviors (anderson et al., 2003; karuppiah, 2015; ostrov et al., 2013; radesky et al., 2015). whereas boys tended to demonstrate physical aggression post violent screen time, girls tended to demonstrate more relational aggression, or indirect aggression, causing relationship difficulties (conners-burrow et al., 2011; ostrov et al., 2013). additionally, lower socio-economic status (ses) has resulted in greater screen time for girls along with unequal access to media devices (carson, spence, cutumisu, & cargill, 2010). lower ses children are considered at-risk and may be more susceptible to the negative outcomes associated with excessive screen time. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 145 published by scholink inc. it has been noted that responsively attending to the needs of young children and providing positive social environments may improve executive function by ensuring positive neural development and opportunities to practice executive function skills, respectively (kraybill & bell, 2013). many researchers have also reiterated the fact that interactions are needed with parents and caregivers in order for healthy development (both cognitive and social and emotional) (nathonson et al., 2014; swartz, 2017; zhao et al., 2018); thus, interactive screen time between parents and children may serve to aid in the development of executive function. when parents use media as a tool to occupy children for whatever reason, it has the potential to undermine the value of such interactive programming (zhao et al., 2018). screen time used for the purpose of occupying children’s time and/or keeping them quiet has been dubbed an, “electronic babysitter” (zhao et al., 2018, p. 161), and this act essentially eliminates audio input that may potentially aid children in moving information into long term memory, provided the content was intended to be learned (radesky et al., 2015). moreover, children need to develop their own means of regulating their behavior rather than relying on screens (nathonson et al., 2014; radesky et al., 2015). as such, it is clear that the context of screen time is an important factor in determining screen time’s impact on children. 2.4 kindergarten-aged children kindergarten-aged children, or children about ages five or six, are also an important population to discuss in and of themselves, as they are developmentally unique. first, because executive function is closely linked to emergent literacy and math skills (brock et al., 2018a; brock et al., 2018b), differences in executive function skills translates into differing levels of school readiness (cuevas & bell, 2014; huber, yeates, meyer, fleckhammer, & kaufman, 2018; nathanson et al., 2014; wagner fuhs & day, 2011). as such, as children enter kindergarten, they present with a multitude of variances in executive function skills, thus school readiness. second, the ages of five to six are the end of marked improvement in executive function, including attention (cartwright, 2012). as such, the kindergarten year is a pivotal year in the final formation of executive function skills, and, in the case of this study, attention. third, screen time habits have been noted to be formed in early childhood (zhao et al., 2018), and, in particular, portable smartphone addiction in later life significantly impacted both loneliness and shyness (bian & leung, 2015). as such, as children enter kindergarten, solidifying healthy screen time habits is essential to present and future health and well-being. 2.5 research questions previous research has documented the mixed effects of fast paced non-educational versus educational programming on executive function (huber et al., 2018; lillard et al., 2015; nathonson et al., 2014) and this study attempted to clarify this issue while investigating content as a potential moderator. when examining the primary construct of children’s portable screen time in relation to attention with content as a potential moderator, data were collected and analyzed to address the following research questions: 1) is there a relationship between kindergarteners’ portable screen time and their attention? www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 146 published by scholink inc. 2) to what extent, if any, does the type of content viewed by kindergarteners (learning content vs non-learning content) moderate the relationship between portable screen time and their attention? 3. method the purpose of the non-experimental causal comparative design was to ascertain the relationship between portable screen time and kindergartener’s levels of attention via a snapshot of children’s current portable screen time and content viewed. thus, the two research questions were the focus of this study. portable screen time served as the independent variable and attention the dependent variable, with content as a potential moderator. 3.1 study design portable screens were selected for this proposed study on attention, a component of executive function, due to the fact that they are widely available and used by young children (pea et al., 2012), and research on the effects of these devices is largely missing from the literature (radesky et al., 2015). the non-experimental causal comparative design offered the opportunity to determine children’s current portable screen time viewing and type of content viewed, as these variables were presumably already in place, and to analyze these in relation to attention. 3.2 methodology to answer the first research question, while considering a typical weekend day, children’s parents completed a screen time and content questionnaire based upon ostrov et al. (2013). because the study only addressed portable screen time, parents focused on providing their children’s screen time viewing for smartphones, tablets, handheld video game consoles, and laptops to the nearest half hour. portable screen time was reported to the nearest half hour rather than as a range of time (i.e., 0-2 hours, 2-4 hours, etc.) to ensure that any relationship between screen time was not overlooked. for example, a half hour of screen time may not bear the same relationship to attention as does one hour of screen time. lastly, when completing the questionnaire, parents were asked to document typical screen time on smartphones, tablets, video game consoles and laptops separately in an attempt to obtain the most accurate data possible. the individual portable screen times were summed to obtain an overall amount of screen time. additionally, to answer the first research question, parents evaluated attention using the preschool and kindergarten behaviors scale, 2nd edition (pkbs-2, merrell, 2002) and a 4-point rating scale (0 for never, 1 for rarely, 2 for sometimes, and 3 for often) where higher scores are indicative of decreases in attention. the pkbs-2 was chosen because the purpose of the study was to investigate attention, a component of executive function, and the pkbs-2 contains an attention subscale. the pkbs-2 has been utilized in previous research with good internal reliability (azevedo et al., 2014; metwaly, 2015) with the attention subscale, called the attention problems/overactive subscale (pbks-ap/o: 8 items; www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 147 published by scholink inc. problem behavior scale questions 1, 6, 14, 15, 16, 20, 25, 39), having demonstrated good reliability when statistically isolated from the remaining pkbs-2 subscales (azevedo, 2014). to answer the second research question, when completing the questionnaire, parents also listed the programs, apps or games watched or played during their children’s typical screen time. again, each device type was listed separately in an attempt to obtain the most accurate data. these programs, apps or games were then rated as learning or non-learning based upon recommendations from radesky et al. (2015) using www.commonsensemedia.org with a three star or better rating used as an educational rating. non-learning content included any other content such as video games (angry birds or bubble witch, etc.), movies, television shows streamed onto portable devices, or simply internet browsing on portable devices. occasionally, apps were unable to be located on the aforementioned website. in this case, if they were instead found in the app store and were categorized as educational, they were categorized as learning programs. all other shows, games or apps that were not located on the website or on the app store were assumed to be non-learning. a learning index was calculated by dividing the number of learning items by the total number of items. utilizing a rating system that was already in place allowed for greater objectivity of content type, rather than relying on parents to identify learning versus non-learning programming. demographic control variables were input into the analysis first as modeled in previous research (klassen, 2010; lu, 2019; xu et al., 2016). a theory driven hierarchical multiple regression (field, 2009) was then used to ensure assumptions were met. after assessing reliability and validity and checking assumptions, regression analyses were utilized to answer both research questions, with portable screen time as the independent variable, the possible moderator of content acting as a second independent variable, and the dependent variable, attention. in order to better analyze the interaction term data, z-scores were calculated and utilized. this allowed screen time and learning index, two variables with different measures, to be compared utilizing a mean of zero and a standard deviation of one. 3.3 results the mean attention score was just under 8 (m = 7.79, sd = 5.522), where higher attention scores were indicative of decreased attention. mean screen time was about 2 hours (m = 1.934, sd = 1.475) and the mean learning index was about .25 (m = .2566, sd = .282) indicating that about 25% of children’s portable screen time was educational in nature. see table 1 for full descriptive statistics. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 148 published by scholink inc. table 1. descriptive statistics with skewness and kurtosis of non-standardized and standardized variables and interaction term n mean std. deviation skewness/ std. er. kurtosis/ std. er. attention 38 7.790 5.522 1.000 .383 .953 .750 screen time 38 1.934 1.476 .688 .383 .240 .750 learning index 38 .2566 .283 .926 .383 .040 .750 screen time x learning index (interaction term) 38 .6362 .963 2.129 .383 4.284 .750 z score: screen time 38 -.027 .999 .688 .383 .240 .750 z score: learning index 38 -.007 1.01 .926 .383 .040 .750 z screen time x learning index (interaction term) 38 .339 1.05 .843 .383 1.873 .750 to answer the first research question, model 1 accounted for approximately 17.8% of the variability in attention, r2 = .178, f(2, 35) = 3.777, p < .05, adjusted r2 = .131. model 2, then, addressed the potential relationship between screen time and attention. the difference between model 1 and model 2 was not significant. however, model 2 in its ability to predict attention was statistically significant, f(3, 34) = 3.342, p < .05. in model 2, approximately 22.8% of the variability in the outcome was attributed to the addition of screen time into the model. see table 3 for full results of each regression model. to answer the second research question, the learning index was input into model 3, producing insignificant change from the previous model. however, similar to model 2 in its ability to predict attention, it was statistically significant, f(4, 33) = 2.639, p = .05. finally, model 4 of the hierarchical regression analyses addressed the whether or not learning content moderated the relationship between screen time and attention. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 149 published by scholink inc. table 2. pearson correlations for main study variables (n=38) z score: screen time z score: learning index z score: screen time x learning index pearson correlation attention .27* -.08 -.09 z score: screen time z score: learning index z score: screen time x learning index 1.00 .34** .08 .34** 1.00 .23 .29 .23 1.00 * p = .05. ** p < .05. table 3. hierarchical multiple regression analyses predicting attention from screen time and learning index model 1 model 2 model 3 model 4 predictor b β b β b β b β constant 19.34 18.57 18.17 18.24 gender -3.79** -.35 -3.71** -.34** -3.37 -.31 -3.52 -.32 qualifies for free or reduced lunch -3.17 -.30 -2.78 -.27 -2.86 -.27 -2.68 -.26 screen time 1.26 .28 1.50 .27 1.51 .27 learning index -0.73 -.13 -.59 -.11 screen time x learning index -0.44 -.08 r2 0.18 0.23 0.24 0.25 f 3.78** 3.34** 2.64* 2.12 δr2 0.18 0.05 0.02 0.01 δf 3.78** 2.21 0.64 0.27 * p = .05. ** p < .05. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 150 published by scholink inc. the full model of portable screen time and learning content predicting attention, model 4, was neither statistically significant in its change from the previous model, nor was it statistically significant in its ability to predict attention. as shown in table 3, the greatest amount of change in explained variability of the outcome, outside of the demographic control variables, was between model 1 and model 2. models 3 and 4 show very little increase in their ability to account for variability in the outcome. 4. limitations limitations included the fact that only portable screens were investigated. children’s total screen time, including television, home computer time, portable screen time, and media multi-tasking or multiple devices used simultaneously, such as a television on in the background, may play a role in children’s attention. an additional limitation included the fact that parents reported children’s attention, portable screen time, and listed games, apps and shows. they may have inaccurately reported data, or they may have modified data up or down, or to include or exclude certain programming, depending on what they believed was ideal. potential threats to validity included selection and mortality (creswell, 2009). one avenue undertaken in this study to mitigate the possibility of selection threats included the fact that printed materials were sent home to recruit participants, rather than electronic means of recruitment. mortality, or attrition, was also a potential threat to validity which may have been addressed through ensuring a large enough sample size. in this study, only two data sets had to be excluded due to missing data. reliability of the screen time and content measures may have been compromised, as well, due to lack of test-retest assessments. 5. discussion the first research question involved determining whether or not there was a relationship between portable screen time and children’s attention. models 1 and 2 indicated the greatest accountability for the variability in attention attributable to screen time, and model 2 was statistically significant in predicting attention from screen time. the correlation matrix confirmed this small but statistically significant relationship. this small positive relationship between screen time and attention scores, where higher attention scores indicated decreased attention, aligned with current research in which screen time in general resulted in negative outcomes (huber et al., 2018; lillard et al., 2015; nathonson et al., 2014; nikkelen et al., 2014; zhao et al., 2018). furthermore, recent experimental research noted television programming to result in immediate deficits in executive function (lillard et al., 2015; huber et al., 2018). thus, the use of portable screens may mirror previous research utilizing any type of screen, potentially addressing the general problem that the impact of portable screen time on attention was unknown. in this study, findings may have been impacted by parents misreporting data, intentionally or otherwise. additionally, although the rating scale used to determine the learning index was based upon recommendations by radesky et al. (2015) for quality educational programming, the measure may have been too subjective given the fact that some parents explicitly listed their children’s programming, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 151 published by scholink inc. whereas others did not. in order to further investigate, additional research is needed similar to the current study, albeit with test-retest measures in place for screen time and learning index measures to ensure reliability. additionally, future research utilizing a larger sample size will allow for better analyses of the full model and the predictors independently. the second research question involved determining whether or not learning index moderated the relationship between screen time and attention. models 3 and 4 illustrated very small changes in r2; moreover, these changes, and the models themselves, were insignificant. therefore, learning content, and the interaction between learning content and screen time, did not predict attention very well. this is contrary to previous research that has indicated that screen time designed for children with specific learning goals has been found to be beneficial for children (barr et al., 2010; hsin et al., 2014; kirkorian, wartella, & anderson, 2008; lieberman et al., 2009; ostrov et al., 2013; wartella, richert, & robb, 2010). more specifically, smartphones and tablets have been shown to aid in learning, as well (koh et al., 2013; larabee et al., 2014), which again is contrary to what was found in this study. thus, the second research question in this study was unable to address the general problem that the impact of portable screen time on attention was unknown. this discrepancy with regards to content as a moderator between this study and previous research could potentially be because of the unconfirmed reliability of either or both the screen time and learning index measures. it could also be indicative of the fairly small sample size in this study, as well. as such, additional research is needed utilizing appropriate test-retest measures for screen time and learning index measures to ensure reliability, along with larger cases of data to assess both the model as a whole and its individual predictors. 5.1 recommendations an important factor when considering recommendations for practice is the fact that while theory may dictate caution when using screens, the reality of practice indicates that screen time is here to stay (christakis & zimmerman, 2009). from a theoretical standpoint, this study did, in fact, demonstrate small significant levels of predictability in attention based upon portable screen time, where, as screen time increased, attention decreased. however, from a realistic standpoint, smartphone and tablet use by young children has become widespread (radesky et al., 2015), and usage continues. moreover, although the moderating effect of learning content was inconclusive in this study, because previous research has demonstrated that content of television viewing impacts whether or not children learn (barr et al., 2010; nathonson et al., 2014; radesky et al., 2015), it is likely safe to assume that content does, in fact, impact what children can take away from screen time. as such, recommendations for practice include the fact that children’s portable screen time should presumably be utilized for educational purposes, and monitored to both ensure attention is not compromised and that appropriate content is maintained. teachers, parents and caregivers alike can play a role in developing children’s healthy screen time. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 152 published by scholink inc. 5.2 recommendations for educators computers are becoming more and more prevalent in many early childhood classrooms (ihmeideh, 2015), and, in some cases, portable screens are, as well. because executive function has been linked to school readiness (cuevas & bell, 2014; nathonson et al., 2014; willoughby et al., 2012), particularly in at-risk populations (wagner fuhs & day, 2011), with increased executive function associated with greater pro-social skills, fewer behavior challenges and improved academic performance (cuevas & bell, 2014; kraybill & bell, 2013; willoughby et al., 2012), teachers will want to ensure that their students’ executive function skills are not being compromised in the classroom due to excessive or inappropriate screen time. this can be done through the use of well-designed educational programming, and, ideally, interactive programming, as interactive screen time has been shown to benefit learning (lieberman et al., 2009). ideal screen time is that which is incorporated with well-designed content (hirsh-pasek et al., 2015), interactive to the user (huber et al., 2018), and coupled with active engagement and support from parents or teachers (hirsh-pasek et al., 2015; hsin et al., 2014). in order to ensure screen time, either on tablets or computers, meets the aforementioned qualities, it is recommended that teachers make informed decisions regarding the types of programming utilized in their classrooms (ihmeideh, 2015). this is especially important in light of the fact that, in one study, only 40% of teachers were able to identify starfall.com as acceptable programming, and 20% of teachers were unable to identify any acceptable programming at all (arrow & finch, 2013). it is recommended that teachers, or one or more designated school personnel, investigate the efficacy and appropriateness of programming via commonsensemedia.org (radesky et al., 2015; swartz, 2017) or through the use of the haugland developmental software scale (ihmeideh, 2015). additionally, it is recommended that portable technological devices themselves be used in conjunction with already occurring developmentally appropriate practices in the classroom (edwards & bird, 2017). for example, the camera function on an ipad can be used by children to document the stages of their own plant growth, or the video camera function can be used collaboratively by children to document a small group reader’s theater performance for later sharing and/or reflection. 5.3 recommendations for parents because parental monitoring has been shown to be paramount in impressing healthy screen time usage among children, it is recommended that parents institute a chronological approach to screen time. a chronological approach to screen time usage is instituted when very young children are not exposed to any screen time, followed by limited screen time with content monitoring and no bedroom media use for young children, and finally applying these same practices with older children and adolescents (stiller et al., 2018). ideally, when a chronological approach to screen time is in play, the introduction of technology is delayed altogether for very young children (with the exception of video chatting with family and close friends). parents should not feel discouraged at delaying the introduction of screen time, or, with older children limiting their usage, as today’s technology is, “intuitive” (swartz, 2017, p. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 153 published by scholink inc. 141). children, once introduced (or reintroduced) to technology, will pick up on the programming very quickly as today’s technology is designed to be user-friendly. as children begin to be introduced to screen time, it is recommended that parents institute a family media use plan (swartz, 2017). a family media use plan can be found at www.healthychildren.org/mediauseplan, and it sets parameters for the use of screen time in the home. it should disallow screens in children’s bedrooms and limit screen time. moreover, screen time should not occur during meals and the hour prior to bedtime (swartz, 2017). 5.4 recommendations for parents and educators collectively while the above recommendations for parents may sound simple, parents may not have the knowledge needed to institute healthy screen time practices within the family dynamic. moreover, screen time practices, often excessive, are likely already in place. as such, there is a clear need for parents to become educated on best-practices related to screen time. therefore, it is recommended that schools partner with families to provide opportunities for parents to become empowered to make meaningful screen time decisions for their families. perhaps this would entail a family night at school where the school personnel that evaluates the efficacy and appropriateness of programming presents research pertaining to screen time coupled with practical applications to be applied at home. important research for schools to share is the fact that there are many facets of screen time to factor into the screen time equation (huber et al., 2018), such as structure, or pacing, of screen time programming (nikkelen et al., 2014), content (swartz, 2017), and interactivity (huber et al., 2018). additionally, given the mixed and still unclear results pertaining to screen time and attention, children that demonstrate attention difficulties may be better suited for even greater limits and screen time monitoring until further research is completed. 5.5 recommendations for future research recommendations for future research include studies, similar to the current study, which address portable screen time, again due to their widespread use (radesky et al., 2015), and learning content. however, contrary to this study, these future studies will need to include reliable measures for all variables, along with ample data sets or a large enough sample size to allow for better analyses of the full model and the predictors independently. additionally, future studies will need to address the reasons for children’s portable screen time, along with the type of programming utilized. previous research has indicated that the benefits of screen time are improved when learning technologies are both interactive between the user and the screen (hirsh-pasek et al., 2015; hsin et al., 2014; huber et al., 2018; lerner & barr, 2014) and between the user and the parent, caregiver or teacher (hirsh-pasek et al., 2015; hsin et al., 2014). as such, context of interactive media use may play a role in whether or not children learn from such interactive media (radesky et al., 2015). if portable screen time is used as a tool to occupy children for whatever reason, it has the potential to undermine the value of such interactive programming (radesky et al., 2015; zhao et al., 2018). finally, both structure (nikkelen et www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 154 published by scholink inc. al., 2014), or pacing, content (swartz, 2017), and interactivity (huber et al., 2018) need to be investigated, ideally both collectively and separately. acknowledgements the author wishes to thank drs. debra bockrath and kimberly roff for their feedback throughout this study. this article stemmed from dissertation research completed at northcentral university. references american academy of pediatrics. 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(2016). relation of perceptions of educational environment with mindfulness among chinese medical students: a longitudinal study. medical education online, 21. https://doi.org/10.1093/med/9780198734444.003.0028 zhao, j., zhang, y., jiang, f., ip, p., ho, f. k. w., zhang, y., & huang, h. (2018). excessive screen time and psychosocial well-being: the mediating role of body mass index, sleep duration, and parent-child interaction. the journal of pediatrics, 202, 157-162. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpeds.2018.06.029 microsoft word fet-v2n2-p88 frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 88 original paper effective practices of successful blended learning schools anne mathews1* & cheryl ward1 1 san diego state university, san diego, usa * cheryl ward, san diego state university, san diego, usa received: april 4, 2019 accepted: april 18, 2019 online published: april 25, 2019 doi:10.22158/fet.v2n2p88 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v2n2p88 abstract blended learning is a teaching technique utilizing face-to-face teaching and online or technology-based practice in which the learner has the ability to exert control over the pace, place, path, or time of learning. schools that employ this teaching method often demonstrate larger gains than traditional programs due to their increased ability to differentiate and quickly assess student learning. this study sought to determine ways blended-learning models contribute to student success, how blended-learning schools are measuring student success, and how administrators are supporting teachers in their use of blended techniques. in this mixed-methods study, survey data were collected from 230 teachers and 43 administrators in blended-learning programs. interviews were conducted with teachers and administrators at two school sites in the southwestern most region of the united states, along with classroom observations and reviews of participating schools’ local control accountability plans (california department of education, 2017) and mission statements. results yielded five consistent themes: an understanding of student needs to drive individualized instruction, varied and individual success criteria, strong relationships with students tied to decision-making that fosters individual achievement, student needs as a driving force behind the development of school programs, and an increased level of student choice to combat low motivation. keywords blended learning, online education, differentiation, k-12 education 1. introduction since technology has become a ubiquitous force in our lives, schools must prepare students for a 21st century, technology-rich world (marsh, 2012). with the rise of technology in both the workplace and in schools, and with the appeal of the autonomy that blended learning can offer, the number of k-12 students enrolling in both online education and blended-learning programs is growing (corry & www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 89 published by scholink inc. carlson-bancroft, 2014). today, the use of technology and online learning at school and in the workplace has become commonplace. not only has knowledge become decentralized from classrooms and schools, people now create identities for themselves more than ever before based on social media platforms and through online communities (greenhow, robella, & hughes, 2009). “blended learning research, although relatively new, is related to both educational technology research and distance education research” (graham, henrie, & gibbons, 2013, p. 13). blended-learning environments augment face-to-face instruction with technology. often, educators employ blended-learning tools because they find that environments that are “technology-rich where students and teachers have the tools needed to enact better interactions, inquiry, and feedback” are helping students who may have found less success in more traditional environments (brengard, 2016). initiatives such as flipped teaching and distance learning are at the forefront of educational technology research and both have been used in the development of what practitioners refer to today as blended-learning (stacker & horn, 2012). these teaching techniques are helping students achieve success because they offer educators the ability to differentiate and provide multiple ways of learning for different learners simultaneously. technology can augment classroom practices because it helps instructors organize, alter, and deliver course content to different learners within the same class at the same time—a task that teachers often struggle to master in primarily face-to-face classrooms. the purpose of this study was to research practices within classroom-based and whole-school blended-learning programs that school leaders and teachers believe positively impact student success, how these practitioners implement these practices, and how school leaders support and lead the implementation of these structures. this study researched how blended-learning models can function as a better way than traditional models for schools to meet the needs of students who require differentiation and assistance. 1.1 definition of blended learning although there are many definitions of blended learning in research and educational publications, staker and horn (2012) have published a widely-accepted definition of the term that describes a crucial element of blended learning: the ability of the learner to exert some level of control over the time (learning is not restricted to the school day or the school year), place (learning is not restricted to a classroom or single school location), path (learners use adaptive technology or can choose from a menu of activities to demonstrate content mastery), and/or pace of instruction (learning occurs at the learner’s own pace, not that of a classroom comprised of multiple learners). this type of approach may allow students higher levels of autonomy, relevance, and connectivity, which are important to 21st century learners (lemley, schumacher, & vesey, 2014). with the focus on the student and his or her particular needs and skill development, “blended-learning technologies can help … by enabling teachers to create lessons for both inside and outside the classroom that benefit the student, helping them to become a fully functioning global citizen” (jimison, 2011, p. 67). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 90 published by scholink inc. 1.2 blended learning as an innovative pedagogical approach while research in this area is still new, several current theories classify specific learning actions within blended-learning programs. picciano (2009) stated that blended learning can take on many configurations, but that all must employ both face-to-face and online instruction that includes content delivery, social/emotional engagement, dialectic questioning, synthesis of information, and some form of collaboration. additionally, alonso, lópez, and manrique (2005) named seven aspects of learning and teaching with technology: analysis (of the learning task), design (of the learning process, or lesson), development (of concepts), implementation (creating lessons), execution (interacting with the learner via the online portal), evaluation (of learner’s progress and data collected during lessons), and review (with the intent to refine the learning process for subsequent lessons). in a mixed methods comparative study to find out how technology affects students, shapley, sheehan, maloney, and caranikas-walker (2011) conducted research over the course of three years on a one-to-one laptop initiative in texas public schools. by collecting data from both control groups and treatment groups (with 42 schools total participating in the study), researchers administered pre and posttests to students and collected data through surveys to monitor the extent to which skills and learning opportunities were augmented by the use of technology. shapley and colleagues found that with technology integration into elementary, middle, and high schools, students received fewer disciplinary infractions and had slightly higher performance levels than those schools without technology. learner-to-learner interactions and collaboration increased, and students reported participating in a wider range of activities than at the control schools (shapley et al., 2011). 1.3 ingredients of a successful blended learning program to create a successful 21st century blended-learning program in the k-12 public school arena, educators look for ways to facilitate higher-order thinking and inquiry through the use of technology. highlighting this idea, through collecting achievement data on 40 fourth and fifth grade students and measuring critical thinking levels through linguistic analysis during interviews, simpson (2010) found that students who participated in online discussions about their work demonstrated a higher critical thinking level in those online discussions than in face-to-face activities. 1.4 individualization mckeown and colleagues (2014) surveyed faculty members of a first-year blended-learning model at the collegiate level and found that while a lack of face-to-face interactions posed complications, online learning increased instructors’ ability to assess students, to provide meaningful feedback, and to guide student participation. by eliminating the need to confine learning, coaching, and assessment to class hours, instructors of blended-learning programs were able to specialize their feedback and instruction for individual students. in an overview of successful blended and technology-rich programs, launer (2010) identified several components of a successful blended-learning program, including individually paced study (self-study). launer (2010) found that students in the self-study phase of the learning continuum tended to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 91 published by scholink inc. demonstrate higher learning outcomes because they were able to more thoroughly learn content as they read and progressed at their own pace. individualized learning such as this can create a more authentic learning environment in which the learner is interacting with the content instead of acting as a passive learner, as they may in a classroom full of various students all receiving the same lesson at the same time and in the same way (launer, 2010). 1.5 professional learning creating successful blended-learning programs also, in part, depends on professional development that leads to long-lasting and meaningful change in schools that use primarily face-to-face teaching methods. palak and walls (2009) studied the relationship between teacher beliefs and their instructional practices regarding the use of technology in the classroom. the researchers found that teachers were only successful in bringing in new technological supports and techniques to enhance their teaching after participating in professional development that specifically addressed creating student-centered lessons and activities (palak & walls, 2009). by surveying 113 educators in grades pre-k through 12 conducting classroom observations, interviewing students, and analyzing lesson plans, researchers found that professional development, over access to an abundance of technology, had a larger effect on teachers’ instructional practices (palak & walls, 2009). teachers stated that the most important factors that facilitated changes in their pedagogies were their own confidence in using technology and their understanding of how technology can be used to integrate student-centered structures into their classrooms, such as project-based learning and cooperative learning (palak & walls, 2009). furthermore, the researchers stated that practitioners should appreciate small changes and take into account the fact that all participants, students and instructors alike, need extensive training and support (heilesen & josephsen, 2008). in addition to meaningful professional development that demonstrates how technology can be used to drive student-centered learning, other crucial elements in instituting blended learning into traditional classrooms or schools include a context for the change, a sense of urgency, financial support, collaboration, and a catalyst for change (carbonell et al., 2013). 1.6 learner-content interactions within blended learning models, repetition, practice, inquiry, writing, video conferencing, auditory and visual input, note-taking, and self-assessment are just some of the ways in which learners interact with content. these blended programs often have the ability to address the needs of students who are at risk of falling behind their grade level through a student-centered pedagogy that allows students to become self-reliant through asserting some level of control over their own learning (muir-herzig, 2004). through surveying college faculty members at 14 colleges and universities around the world who taught courses using a blend of face-to-face and online activities, lee and dashew (2011) found that instructors rated the ability of their blended-teaching techniques to help students access material as 4.62 on a scale from one (low level of usefulness) to five (high level of usefulness). effective blended-learning programs are using technology to help students collaborate and increase their depth of understanding in different content areas. as singh (2003) explained, online learning has changed from accessing online content www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 92 published by scholink inc. similar to content offered in face-to-face lectures, to interacting with the online content and using it in such a way as to increase the effectiveness of the learning experience. 1.7 learner-learner interactions critics of blended learning cite a lack of collaboration and peer interaction as a downfall of blended learning. thus, practitioners in blended-learning programs are finding new ways for learners to interact with one another in meaningful, content-driven ways to enhance their learning and build online communities experience for students. in a meta-analysis of various blended-learning approaches, lam (2014) described a model that took into account the needs of learners to socialize and collaborate with one another while still allowing them to work at an individualized pace. lam (2014) introduced multiple perspectives important in a blended-learning course, including technological, institutional, pedagogical, and of course, social perspectives. online platforms such as shared workspaces that allow students to collaborate on work (google, wikis, etc.), discussion platforms, chat rooms, and audio or video conferencing are a few of the tools educators use to facilitate interactions among learners in a blended environment. in his study of 93 third graders participating in blended-learning and online programs, chen (2012) found that students learning in blended environments performed significantly better when asked to recall facts and information. 1.8 applications of blended learning in k-12 education the more technology becomes a driving force in our lives, the more it will be used to enhance educational experiences for students. gallardo-echenique, marques-molias, bullen, and strijbos (2015) performed a review of literature that included 127 research studies in an attempt to categorize learners today and their attributes. after clustering texts into 48 themes, researchers found that students today can be categorized as “digital learners,” meaning they are able to access technology for learning easily because they have been exposed to technological tools for most of their lives. gallardo-echenique and colleagues report that students are not “digital natives” because they are not necessarily born with the ability to use technology or are predisposed to its use, but rather have learned how to use it in their everyday lives and, as a result, are able to seamlessly integrate technology tools into their learning and academic studies. thus, these students could be considered digital natives in that they naturally and instinctively used technology for socializing and learning (ting, 2015). light and pierson (2014) studied educators and students as they implemented a blended model for the first time at their school site. through observing 25 math lessons in fourth through twelfth grade classrooms with the use of an observation guide to note student interactions with the program they were using and their reactions to it, as well as the actions and reactions of the instructors while teaching, light and pierson found (2014) that using khan academy (an online instructional delivery site in which the user watches short videos on a topic of their choice and engages in learning activities afterward) as the primary instructional delivery tool in fourth through eighth grade classrooms allowed students to work on tasks that were appropriate to their ability level regardless of their grade level. this helped students master more skills (as indicated through standardized assessments) and concepts than before the use of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 93 published by scholink inc. the program as they moved along the prescribed continuum at their own pace. light and pierson (2014) also found, through observations, that students spent more time on task when using the online program in the classroom and seemed more engaged than when participating in solely face-to-face class interactions. kenney and newcombe (2011) conducted an action research study to determine the most easily digitized and most helpful activities used in a blended-learning format. they stated that the blend of learning activities will continue to foster content delivery via an online platform in an asynchronous environment with face-to-face interactive, higher-order learning activities that complement and reinforce content. focusing on five areas of student experiences in a blended course (improving learning, increasing engagement and involvement, preparing students for course demands and cognitive load, preparing students for face-to-face portions of class, and increasing overall interest in course material), kenney and newcombe conducted surveys and observations to find that 77% of students stated the blended course format in which they participated contributed to their overall learning. additionally, 84% stated that the online assignments contributed to their learning and 59% stated experiencing an increased interest in course content (kenney & newcombe, 2011). when discussing the right blend of activities to most efficiently assist students in a blended program, researchers stated that the students in the blended learning environment will continue to learn course content online and using class time for interactive, higher-order learning activities that complement and reinforce the content (kenney & newcombe, 2011). research points out though, that simply supplying schools with technology is not the best way to enhance learning. instead, “efficient and effective use of technology depends on the equity of access to resources by teachers, students, administrators, and staff” (gulbahar, 2007, p. 953). leading to this conclusion, gulbahar (2007) gathered data through questionnaires and unstructured interviews from 105 teachers, 25 administrators, and 376 students that aimed at finding the impact of technology use within a turkish school, how the schools could create a successful technology integration plan, and how staff could tailor their blended-learning program to the needs of students. results showed that 91% of students preferred to learn from teachers who were “technology-competent” and integrated blended-learning practices into their classes, and 92% stated that they wanted to use more technology-driven learning programs both in and out of class (gulbahar, 2007). this research shows that by using technology to match learning activities to student needs, instructors may increase interest in content. 2. method this study aimed to uncover the organizational and programmatic decisions made by educators and administrators within the field of blended learning and to find how well practitioners believe these methods are helping students achieve school goals. this study sought to answer the following questions: 1) in what ways do blended-learning models used by schools utilizing blended-learning contribute to student success? 2) how are administrators and teachers of schools that utilize blended-learning models using blended learning to help their students attain success on established outcomes? www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 94 published by scholink inc. 3) how are administrators supporting teachers in their use of blended-learning models? 4) how are blended-learning schools measuring student success? to answer these questions, a mixed-methods research design was employed. the first step was to collect quantitative data from surveys. after quantitative data were collected, two school sites were chosen at which qualitative data were collected and analyzed. the qualitative research was conducted as a multiple case study including two school campuses with a quantitative data priority. 2.1 participants and instruments 2.1.1 administrators surveys were sent to 514 administrators overseeing blended-learning programs in primary and secondary district, charter and private schools throughout the united states to anonymously participate in this study. of those emailed, 43 completed the survey. surveys consisted of 19 questions pertaining to the goals, programmatic decisions, and school-wide structures put in place by the administrators at their school sites. prior to sending out surveys to potential participants, the researcher contacted two local school researchers and leaders in the southern california area with whom the researcher had a working relationship, to preview the survey and offer feedback and changes, as a means of securing content validity. administrators who agreed to complete the survey varied in levels of education and experience and were contacted regarding the study via email. after survey data were collected, the researcher selected two blended-learning schools to participate in the case study. administrators were interviewed individually using a semi-structured interview protocol. these interviews lasted approximately 30 minutes and were digitally recorded and transcribed. questions offered opportunities to describe a typical day at their school site, to explain the goals they have established and the various programmatic decisions they have made, their perceptions regarding their program’s effectiveness, and the approach they take with preparing and supporting teachers at their school site. 2.1.2 teachers surveys were sent to 1,372 teachers who were invited to anonymously participate in this study through email. teaching experience among this group of participants varied. of those emailed, 230 completed the survey. surveys consisted of 20 questions pertaining to the classroom practices, assessment, and data collection protocols, and teaching techniques used by teachers at their school sites. from this group of survey participants, four teachers were selected to participate in interviews and observations conducted by the researcher. these four teachers were selected after the schools involved in the case study accepted the researcher’s invitation to participate and administrators at these sites had already agreed to participate. the researcher did not use student achievement scores or other performance factors to determine which teachers would participate. each teacher was interviewed individually using a semi-structured interview protocol. these interviews lasted approximately 30 minutes and were digitally recorded and transcribed. questions offered opportunities to describe a typical day at their school site, to explain their teaching goals and the various www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 95 published by scholink inc. pedagogies they employed, instructional techniques they used and their perceptions regarding their effectiveness, professional development, and coaching they engaged in at their site, and the approach they took with supporting both struggling and accelerated learners. two teachers from each school site who agreed to participation were observed in their classroom settings at a time determined to be mutually agreeable between the researcher, the teachers being observed, and their administrators. the observations lasted approximately 90 minutes each, depending on the coursework and activities the teachers were presenting or facilitating. students were not directly observed; rather the focus of the observations was on the teacher, the decisions he or she made, and the techniques he or she used throughout the course of his or her teaching. the researcher took field notes that were coded after all observations were concluded using an open coding system to find trends in the data collected. 2.1.3 document analysis the researcher obtained the local control accountability plan (lcap) [california department of education, 2017] and mission statements, which were all available for public viewing, from each school participating in the case study. documents were reviewed and coded using an open coding system, as the researcher identified themes that emerged as the documents were analyzed. it was the researcher’s hope that adding document analysis to this research methodology would add meaning to the cases and provide an additional framework from which to view the other data collected. 2.2 research variables several independent variables were present within this research study for which the researcher could not account prior to conducting research. some of these variables included student motivation, ability levels, teachers’ levels of motivation and institutional knowledge, administrators’ levels of motivation and institutional knowledge, and other environmental factors that were present during interviews and observations for which the researcher could not account. all appropriate measures were taken to ensure the data collected were valid despite the presence of these and other possible unknown variables. 3. result the following is a discussion of the researcher’s findings as they relate to each research question. 3.1 in what ways do blended-learning models used by schools utilizing blended-learning contribute to student success? differentiation was selected by teachers as the largest contributor to student success, followed by face-to-face lessons and, next, by differentiation via technology-based platforms. the elements determined by teachers as contributing to student success, however, varied. teachers in enriched virtual blended-learning models (in which students have required individual or small-group face-to-face learning at times determined by the student and instructor, and complete the rest of their courses online at home) selected face-to-face lessons and differentiation via technology-based platforms as the largest contributors to student success, while teachers in a-la-carte programs (in which students take an entirely www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 96 published by scholink inc. online course to supplement learning that takes place at a brick-and-mortar site) identified practice worksheets as most contributing to student success along with differentiation and differentiation through the use of technology. in flipped classrooms and blended-learning rotation models (in which students rotate among different stations in the classroom at a brick-and-mortar site), teachers identified face-to-face lessons as the most contributing element to facilitate student success. administrators of rotation models named differentiation as contributing highly to student success, but administrators in flipped classroom models named self-monitoring and higher order thinking skill development as factors most contributing to student success. among the other types of blended models represented, increased time on task was also identified by administrators as important programmatic factors that help students achieve success. these differing factors led the researcher to determine that student success in blended programs cannot be attributed to one single blended-learning technique. rather, the elements that go into a successful blended program and drive student achievement differ according to the type of blended-learning model each school uses. in flipped classrooms and blended rotation models for example, where students typically spend a “regular school day” at a brick-and-mortar school site and augment their learning via technology, face-to-face lessons are essential to helping students understand content. in blended-learning flex models (in which students learn online, meet onsite with a teacher for some activities, and experience an individually customized program) and enriched virtual models, students learn course content primarily online. thus, differentiation via technology was identified as the highest determiner of student success, primarily because students in these programs use technology for the majority of their learning activities. this learning is primarily individualized and self-directed. thus, student success is dependent on the quality of the technology-based learning programs and teachers’ abilities to find programs that adapt to individual student needs. in every model represented in the study, teachers indicated that face-to-face lessons were the largest contributor to student success. among administrators surveyed, however, differentiation was seen as most contributing to student success. during observations, the researcher noted that a large amount of re-teaching was conducted via face-to-face lessons, with teachers addressing misconceptions and re-explaining concepts with students one-on-one. additionally, opportunities for differentiation were incorporated into the technology-driven activities, during which students could work on varied asynchronous assignments simultaneously in the classroom. the face-to-face encounters and technology-based activities were observed to yield opportunities for differentiation and scaffolding. regarding teaching techniques, 62.5% of teachers surveyed stated that they used face-to-face instruction every day. additionally, 54.81% of teachers surveyed stated they did not integrate discussions via online platforms at all. however, 60.58% of teachers did state that they used online platforms for differentiation. these data indicate that face-to-face approaches are used primarily for instruction and discussion. these techniques are not used by means of online programs. online programs are used to differentiate for www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 97 published by scholink inc. students working at different levels and to allow for skill practice. respondents from all types of blended programs surveyed stated that face-to-face instruction most contributed to student success, indicating that the type of model is not seen as a contributing factor to student success, but rather the combination of face-to-face instruction with online work, which can be a component of any type of blended programs surveyed (with the possible exception of à la carte programs, which comprised 1.76% of respondents) is what practitioners believe drives the success of their program. table 1. mean degree to which administrators believe programmatic elements contribute to the overall success of blended-learning programs mean 1 (greatly contributes) 3 (does not contribute) program element rotation model (n = 18) flipped classroom (n = 3) blended learning model (n = 15) enriched virtual model (n = 3) opportunities for self-monitoring 1.33 1.00 1.20 1.33 higher order thinking skill development 1.56 1.00 1.47 1.67 opportunities to develop social skills 2.22 1.33 1.93 2.33 developing organizational skills 2.28 1.33 1.80 1.33 opportunities to demonstrate self-advocacy 2.00 1.33 1.47 1.33 cooperative group work 1.89 1.33 1.80 2.33 assistance with 2.06 1.33 1.60 1.33 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 98 published by scholink inc. time management extracurricular activities 2.56 1.33 2.27 2.33 increased time on task 1.94 1.33 1.47 1.00 differentiation 1.22 1.33 1.20 1.33 teachers indicated that next to face-to-face instruction, the second largest contributor to student success (64.42%) was the online program(s) used. again, this indicates that it is not the type of blended model used that contributes to student success, but rather the quality of online programs used, which can be employed in any type of blended program. 3.2 how are administrators and teachers of schools that utilize blended-learning models using blended learning to help their students attain success on established outcomes? results indicated that among participants surveyed, the development of higher order thinking skills is the explicitly-taught skill leading most to student success. thus, practitioners are using blended-learning models to allow students increased opportunities to develop higher order thinking skills within their programs. next to this, the development of self-monitoring skills, the development of organizational skills, and the development of time management skills were all identified by teachers surveyed as explicitly-taught skills within their programs that assist students in meeting established success criteria. components of blended programs least contributing to assisting students in meeting success criteria were opportunities for extra-curricular activities, opportunities for social skill development, and opportunities for increased time on task. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 99 published by scholink inc. table 2. degree to which teachers perceive different classroom activities/opportunities contribute to student success in all blended-learning programs represented in the survey activity does not provide (%) does not contribute to student success (%) somewhat contributes to student success (%) greatly contributes to student success (%) n opportunities for student self-monitoring 0.99 3.96 32.67 62.38 101 higher order thinking skill practice/development 0 1.96 29.41 68.63 102 opportunities to develop social skills 0 6.86 48.04 45.10 102 organizational skill development 2.94 2.94 49.22 57.84 102 self-advocacy 2.94 1.96 42.16 52.94 102 cooperative group work 1.96 5.88 43.14 49.02 102 assistance with time management 1.96 1.96 46.08 50.00 102 opportunity for extra-curricular involvement 22.51 11.76 48.04 15.69 102 increased time on task 0.99 9.90 40.59 48.51 101 increased levels of differentiation 0 1.98 40.59 57.43 101 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 100 published by scholink inc. 3.3 how are administrators supporting teachers in their use of blended-learning models? all administrators researched offered various types of support for teachers including on-site and off-site professional development, coaching and observations, plcs, and common preparation time for collaboration. the most widely offered type of support among all types of blended programs was administrator observation, followed by the use of professional learning communities. teachers identified common collaboration time as the most effective type of support offered to teachers, with 61.76% of participants identifying it as “very effective”. also identified by teachers as helpful in developing their skill as blended-learning educators was individual coaching, with 47.52% of respondents identifying it as “very effective”. support offered at the two schools at which qualitative data were collected included individual coaching and common collaboration time. additionally, common collaboration time was identified by the principal of school a as an effective way for teachers at the school site to learn from and support each other, along with daily professional learning community (plc) meetings with credentialed teaching staff. figure 1. types of support offered to teachers at blended-learning schools and their perceived helpfulness collaboration was identified by the principal of school b as an important factor in the program’s overall success, though the use of plcs was not mentioned. the principal of school b stated that in addition to weekly team meetings, the staff is “a highly communicative group. lots of emails, all day, every day”. regarding the use of plc meetings and collaboration, sa-tb stated, “i feel our plcs are really centered around improving the program, which isn’t technically what it is supposed to be yet. it’s hard to look at www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 101 published by scholink inc. student data when i’m not working in an area of specialty.” these responses indicate that staff at the sites researched collaborate with one another, but perhaps not in ways that discuss student growth, data, and curriculum development. teachers surveyed identified onsite professional development and administrative observations as helpful as well, with 49.02% and 44.12% identifying them as “somewhat effective,” respectively. 3.4 how are blended-learning schools measuring student success? among teachers surveyed, curriculum-embedded assessments were identified as the most important indicators of student success. administrators surveyed also identified scores on curriculum-embedded assessments as important indicators of student success, along with scores on school created assessments. interview participants also named several indicators used to assess student learning, including paper-based assessments, progress on online curriculum, and number of credits earned within a specific time period (in the schools researched, this time period was identified as either 3 weeks or 1 month). table 3. mean scores indicating importance of success indicators, as perceived by administrators, used in blended-learning programs (1 = extremely important, 4 = not at all important) measure of success rotation model (n = 18) flipped classroom (n = 3) blended learning model (n = 15) enriched virtual model (n = 3) state test scores 2.11 1.00 2.27 2.33 scores on school-created assessments 2.06 1.33 1.87 1.67 scores on curriculum-embedded assessments 2.28 1.67 1.80 1.33 course grades 2.83 1.67 2.60 1.67 attendance rates 2.67 2.33 2.73 1.67 graduation/ matriculation rates 2.83 1.67 2.67 1.33 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 102 published by scholink inc. both teachers and administrators classified state test scores as “not important” more often than most other modes of student assessment. graduation and matriculation rates were also consistently rated as unimportant, except in blended-learning flex models, in which graduation rates were recognized as the most important success indicators for that type of program. other than state test scores, the only success indicator identified more often as “not important” among administrators was attendance rates. 4. discussion teachers using blended learning would first benefit from knowing their students well so that they could in turn become responsive to their students’ varied academic and socioemotional needs. as represented in the data collected, at the core of this type of instruction is personalization. the teachers studied during the course of this research knew their students well and personalized their educational experiences. they used a general set of instructional and program guidelines set forth by the schools in which they worked, but they deviated from these guidelines when needed on a case-by-case basis. instead of prescribing one preset educational path for all of their students, these teachers used a variety of methods to make sure that each student met his or her learning targets. teachers further personalized student learning experiences by modifying the times during which students came to school, the tasks they completed, and the ways in which they accessed material. this flexibility allowed teachers to make decisions in the best interest of their students, when they felt deviation from originally established educational paths was necessary. secondly, teachers would benefit from infusing student choice into their lessons to increase student motivation and find opportunities to engage students in discussions about decisions that drive or hinder their educational progress. in addition to high levels of personalization, student choice and some levels of autonomy were also components of the programs studied. in the learning centers visited in both school a and school b, for example, teachers allowed students to choose which assignment they worked on first, where they worked, and the pace at which they completed their assignments. when the choices students made did not yield positive results and the teachers felt students needed redirection or assistance, the teachers scheduled one-on-one meetings to talk to students about their progress, diagnose what was not working, and help their students refocus. students were free to make decisions that may affect their educational outcomes, even if at first the decisions did not yield positive results. when this occurred, the teachers observed would intervene, but until then, it appeared that students were allowed to make choices they felt best suited their own learning styles and goals. blended-learning schools need teachers who understand that student choice can motivate learners; moreover, teachers of blended programs need to closely monitor the choices their students are making so that they can intervene when necessary to guide students back toward meeting learning goals. administrators of blended programs would first benefit from understanding the support methods that teachers feel best assist them in their improvement efforts while teaching in blended programs. secondly, administrators would benefit from understanding the laws that regulate blended-learning and non seat-based educational programs. practitioners in the programs studied were intentional in the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 103 published by scholink inc. instructional methods and online tools they used. attention to detail to ensure not only the quality of curriculum but also program compliance appeared to be essential to maintaining a productive program that both meets the needs of students and meets all federal and state guidelines. in reviewing both qualitative and quantitative data from the u.s. blended-learning schools included in this study, the researcher has the following recommendations for both practitioners in blended-learning programs and those looking to support the development or creation of new blended programs. 4.1 infuse flexibility into school accountability law in response to emerging educational accountability laws under the every student succeeds act (essa) established in 2015, public district and charter schools must structure their programs to increase the likelihood that they will be able to meet state and federally established goals, as well as local indicators of school success. the programs that schools are able to offer are often tied to federal or state monies and grants that have specific requirements and compliance regulations. however, if educators aim to support multitudes of learners with different challenges and areas of strength, they must be allowed the flexibility required to do so. this may mean that schools use self-created success indicators to measure student progress rather than externally-created indicators of student learning. the teachers and administrators in the blended-learning programs studied knew their students well and were prepared to facilitate different learning programs for different students if it meant helping them succeed. 4.2 reconstruct the traditional school year calendar teachers and administrators in the blended programs studied created their school year calendars with the needs of their students in mind. school b served students year-round so that they could make up or earn extra credits and either graduate early or spend more time completing learning objectives if necessary. school a offered several tracts so that students could pace themselves as needed to complete their individualized curricular plans on time, and several administrators in the study stated that differentiating for their student population was a main factor that went into the planning of their programs. 4.3 scaffold learning experiences for students educators in the schools studied indicated an understanding that all students will not learn at the same pace and will not have the same challenges and areas of strength. therefore, they used a hybrid of technology and face-to-face activities to scaffold learning experiences for their students. teachers involved in the study were observed allowing their students to practice skills via technology for longer or shorter periods of time, depending on their understanding of that particular skill or concept. several students in the classroom studied received one-on-one assistance in which the teacher used examples, graphic representations, modeling, and questioning to help students understand a difficult concept. the learning target was the same for all students, but the activities they completed and the assistance they received differed based on students’ individual needs. 4.4 limitations one limitation of this study was that it only collected qualitative data from middle and high schools. due to time restraints and a lack of elementary schools interested in participating in the study, the researcher www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 104 published by scholink inc. was not able to collect data from elementary schools. another limitation of the study was that survey data were limited to responses from 230 teachers and 43 administrators. a larger sample size would have allowed the data to be more generalizable to blended-learning schools as a whole. 4.5 conclusion and recommendations for further study more study in this area would benefit practitioners of blended-learning programs looking to improve their balance of technology-based and face-to-face instruction. after completing the research, it became clear that further research is still needed to determine what blend of activities best promotes student success. this would include research into the best ratio of face-to-face to online learning time, and further research into the activities that are best done via face-to-face and that are best done online to maximize student learning and retention of knowledge. furthermore, more research is needed to determine what blend of activities best promotes learner outcomes in different content areas and grade levels. for example, teachers in the study had their students review english language arts content and misconceptions face-to-face after practicing online. is this the most productive blend of activities for english language arts? would the blend of activities need to be different if the subject area were math or history? the cognitive demands of each subject require students to access various skills, and further research may help determine which blended techniques best assist students with this task. as chen (2012) stated, “future research should continue to investigate the effect of blended learning associated with other instructional and learning variables on students’ learning achievement, such as facts, concepts, comprehensions, problem-solving, and critical-thinking skills” (p. 210). to maximize instructional time and help students meet specific content-related learning goals, further research in this area is needed. data from the surveys and school site visits revealed a tendency of blended-learning programs to offer highly individualized curricular paths and a variety of curricular choices for students. all programs included in the research used several types of teaching methods including face-to-face discussions, practice through the use of online and paper-based activities, collaboration, and the facilitation of activities requiring higher order thinking skills. participants noted that increased opportunities for differentiation provided the most help to students in their programs, as well as activities facilitated through face-to-face lessons. the schools visited employed face-to-face lessons and goal-setting with students and teachers, as well as repetition and practice with the use of technology. to measure student success, schools researched used multiple modes of assessment, but valued data from curriculum-embedded and school-created assessments above other types of assessments. state testing scores and attendance rates were seen as the least important success indicators. additionally, schools tended to individualize the paths students were allowed to take toward demonstration of mastery. students were expected to meet the schools’ success indicators, but they were allowed flexibility during the process to do so. administrators and teachers both in traditional and blended programs would benefit from using an individualized approach similar to programs included in this study. the schools researched believed that www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 105 published by scholink inc. it was their ability to differentiate that helped their students the most. thus, schools that can find ways to offer highly differentiated programs for students in which they can make some choices about their curricular path or pace, using guidelines established by staff, will be most successful in leading their learners toward attaining learning goals. if teachers can find ways to create academic interventions tailored to individual students that offer some level of flexibility and administrators can find ways to support teachers and assess student progress on an individual basis, students of all ability levels will be more likely to make academic gains. references alonso, f., lópez, g., & manrique, d. (2005). an instructional model for web-based e-learning education with a blended learning process approach. british journal of educational technology, 36(2), 217-235. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8535.2005.00454.x brengard, a. (2016, january 26). blended learning—geniuses at work. p21blogazine, 3(1). retrieved from http://events/p21blog/1836-blended-learning-geniuses-at-work california department of education. (2017). california department of education. retrieved from http://www.cde.ca.gov/re/lc/ carbonell, k., dailey-hebert, a., & gijselaers, w. (2013). unleashing the creative potential of faculty to create blended learning. internet and higher education, 18, 29-37. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iheduc.2012.10.004 chen, w. f. (2012). an investigation of varied types of blended learning environments on student achievement: an experimental study. international journal of instructional media, 39(3), 205-212. corry, m., & carlson-bancroft, a. (2014). transforming and turning around low performing schools: the role of online learning. journal of educators online, 11(2), 1-31. https://doi.org/10.9743/jeo.2014.2.6 gallardo-echenique, e., marques-molias, l., bullen, m., & strijbos, j. (2015). let’s talk about digital learners in the digital era. international review of research in open and distributed learning, 16(3), 156-187. https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v16i3.2196 graham, c., henrie, c., & gibbons, a. (2013). developing models and theory for blended learning research. blended learning: research perspectives, 2, 13-33. greenhow, c., robella, b., & hughes, j. (2009). learning, teaching, and scholarship in a digital age: web 2.0 and classroom research: what path should we take now? educational researcher, 38(4), 246-259. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189x09336671 gulbahar, y. (2007). technology planning: a roadmap to successful technology integration in schools. computers and education, 49, 943-956. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2005.12.002 heilesen, s., & josephsen, j. (2008). e-learning: between augmentations and disruption? computers & education, 50, 525-534. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2007.09.006 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 106 published by scholink inc. jimison, p. (2011). effective blended learning environments. college & university media review, 17(59), 59-68. kenney, j., & newcombe, e. (2011). adopting a blended learning approach: challenges encountered and lessons learned in an action research study. journal of asynchronous learning networks, 15(1), 47-59. https://doi.org/10.24059/olj.v15i1.182 lam, j. (2014). the context of blended learning: the tips blended learning model. in s. k. s. cheung, j. fong, j. zhang, r. kwan, & l. f. kwok (eds.), lecture notes in computer science: vol. 8595. hybrid learning: theory and practice (pp. 80-92). berlin, germany: springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-08961-4_9 launer, r. (2010). five assumptions on blended learning: what is important to make blended learning a successful concept? in p. tsang, s. k. s. cheung, v. s. k. lee, & r. huang (eds.), lecture notes in computer science: vol. 6248. hybrid learning (pp. 9-15). berlin, germany: springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-14657-2_2 lee, r., & dashew, b. (2011). designed learner interactions in blended course delivery. journal of asynchronous learning networks, 15(1), 68-76. https://doi.org/10.24059/olj.v15i1.183 lemley, j., schumacher, g., & vesey, w. (2014). what learning environments best address 21st-century students’ perceived needs at the secondary level of instruction? nassp bulletin, 98(2), 101-125. https://doi.org/10.1177/0192636514528748 light, d., & pierson, e. (2014). increasing student engagement in math: the use of khan academy in chilean classrooms. international journal of education & development using information & communication technology, 10(2), 103-119. marsh, d. (2012). twenty-first century learning: embracing the call for change. delta kappa gamma bulletin, 78(4), 7-11. mckeown, k., banerjee, m., madaus, j., & gelbar, n. (2014). developing an e-toolbox to facilitate universal design for instruction into online and blended learning. educause review, 1-16. retrieved from http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/ developing-e-toolbox-facilitate-universal-design-instruction-online-and-blended-learning muir-herzig, r. (2004). technology and its impact in the classroom. computers and education, 42, 111-131. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0360-1315(03)00067-8 palak, d., & walls, r. (2009). teachers’ beliefs and technology practices: a mixed methods approach. journal of research on technology in education, 41(4), 417-441. https://doi.org/10.1080/15391523.2009.10782537 picciano, a. (2009). blending with purpose: the multimodal model. journal of asynchronous learning networks, 13(1), 7-18. https://doi.org/10.24059/olj.v13i1.1673 shapley, k., sheehan, d., maloney, c., & caranikas-walker, f. (2011). effects of technology immersion on middle school students’ learning opportunities and achievement. journal of educational research, 104, 299-315. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220671003767615 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 107 published by scholink inc. simpson, a. (2010). integrating technology with literacy: using teacher-guided collaborative online learning to encourage critical thinking. research in learning technology, 18(2), 119-131. https://doi.org/10.1080/09687769.2010.492846 singh, h. (2003). building effective blended learning programs. educational technology, 43(6), 51-54. staker, h., & horn, m. b. (2012). classifying k-12 blended learning. retrieved from http://www.innosightinstitute.org/innosight/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/classifying-k-12-blende d-learning2.pdf ting, y. (2015). tapping into students’ digital literacy and designing negotiated learning to promote learner autonomy. internet and higher education, 26, 25-32. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iheduc.2015.04.004 frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no.3, 2022 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 1 original paper institutional support to academic wellbeing during covid-19 disruptions and the move to emergency e-learning: a time to signal sos associate professor lisa barnes1* 1 avondale university, cooranbong nsw, australia * associate professor lisa barnes, avondale university, cooranbong nsw, australia received: june 9, 2022 accepted: july 27, 2022 online published: july 12, 2022 doi:10.22158/fet.v5n3p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v5n3p1 abstract the covid-19 restrictions in place for 2020 and 2021 were investigated in terms of the changing environment academics were forced into due to stay at home orders, where they entered into emergency e-learning, from home. the effects of emergency e-learning on academic’s workloads, job satisfaction and motivation, as well as overall wellbeing have yet to be investigated and reported. this identified gap in the literature enabled the generation of a research problem and research questions, on the challenges of emergency e-learning for academics in the higher education sector. survey findings show institutions unprepared, academics untrained and under resourced and students disengaged with the online learning environment. the development of the sos model is proposed as a recommendation that institutions need to support their staff and students in the move to the online environment, and to supplement resources and training for academics delivering contact online that was designed for a face-to-face delivery. keywords emergency e-learning, academic wellbeing, covid-19 1. introduction to the research this research will review the higher education sector using a survey conducted to members of accounting and finance association of australia and new zealand (afaanz). in particular it will review literature on academic workload and its impact on job satisfaction and motivation, and the potential impact on overall academic wellbeing, then it will survey members to find the effects of the move to online learning on overall wellbeing of academics. in terms of finding a gap in the literature www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 2 published by scholink inc. for research purposes, this research has identified that little work has been done on emergency e-learning, on workload, job satisfaction & motivation and the impact on wellbeing during the covid-19 pandemic. during the pandemic in 2020, all classes were moved from the traditional face to face delivery or blended mixed mode to a complete online platform, literally within a few weeks, this is the definition of emergency e-learning used for this review (murphy, 2020). during the subsequent lockdowns in 2020 and in 2021, academics were predominately working from home, under pressure from management to deliver content in a new format, whilst sharing facilities with family members also under lockdown. the normal issues of workload have played a part in job satisfaction and motivation of academic staff, and it is the object of this research, so see what or if the pandemic and subsequent move to emergency e-learning whilst working from home, had any changing effect on workload, job satisfaction and motivation and overall academic wellbeing. 2. literature review the higher education sector has seen many changes over the past decade including corporatisation of the sector (melewar & akel, 2005) and a rise in international student levels (zhou et al., 2008). there has also been an increase in the casualisation of staff which can have a negative impact on pedagogical relationships and teaching preparation (leathwood & read, 2020), particularly on full-time staff who manage them. during the pandemic this was exacerbated by the decisions by institutions to move quickly to an online format (emergency e-learning) (murphy, 2020) due to the covid-19 pandemic (world health organisation, 2020) and the decision by the various states and territories to instigate stay at home orders in order to curb the spread of the virus for example the nsw state government stay at home health orders (nsw government, 2020). this was experienced on a worldwide basis, with country after country entering various forms of lockdowns, and people working and studying from home (world health organization, 2020). workload has been a challenge for academics to manage, particularly when there are competing issues with time allocation and tasks to be performed with the traditional demands of teaching, research and administration (long, 2018). previous research has shown a challenge faced by academics is the balancing of life/work pressures (barnes et al., 2020). institutions are pressuring academics to maximize outputs from both teaching and research, asking them to “perform” not unlike business-orientated organisations (graham, 2015). the effect of implementation of technology based learning has been seen as a silent barrier to academics moving online in terms of increased workload, and lack of support and development by institutions (gregory & lodge, 2015). a study in 2014 found that excessive workload for academics can contribute to lower work-life balance and wellbeing, as well as an increased use of compensation strategies to cope with these excessive demands, leading to potential impairment of health (melin et al., 2014). it has also been found that workloads impact on teaching quality, that is the higher the workload the lower the teaching quality (ujir et al., 2020). there is much pressure on academics to motivate and encourage student www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 3 published by scholink inc. performance, but once again this impacts on workload (kember & leung, 2006). it is suggested that workload should be flexible, with a mix of appropriately balanced workload that allows for innovation, stops academic burnout and allows for original research (griffith & altinay, 2020). research in the australian higher education sector have found that academics are dissatisfied with allocation of workload, stating that motivation to contribute to new knowledge is not taken into consideration (lyons & ingersoll, 2010). currently there is much pressure in the higher education sector for academics to perform, performance is basically a combination of teaching, research and service (houston et al., 2006). workload is calculated by a 100% allocation to teaching, research and service, a traditional model is 40% research, 40% teaching and 20% administration (long, 2018). however, most academics would argue that the split between allocations is sometimes not clear, and most of the time adds up to well over 100% leading to a decrease in job satisfaction and motivation, as well as increased stress and work-life balance, which have undesirable effects and create counterproductive behaviours of staff (houston et al., 2006). in the higher education sector, motivation of academic staff is the key resource, so being able to measure and improve motivation can lead to better communication and a more healthy university environment which will also improve the environment of learning for students and increase outcomes of the institution (stankovska et al., 2017). job satisfaction in the past has centred on happy workers being productive workers, but now there is a move to measure job satisfaction on a cognitive basis (moorman, 1993). studies have shown that work satisfaction is also linked to justice, commitment and the perception of fairness (moorman et al., 1993). the type of measures for job satisfaction should be a combination of brief, cognitive and affective measures (thompson & phua, 2012). research has shown that particularly in higher education, job satisfaction is linked to teaching and research activities and job security (oshagbemi, 1997) as well as leadership styles, where servant leaders create more satisfaction than controlling leaders (alonderiene & majauskaite, 2016). job satisfaction can also be caused from intrinsic factors such as motivation (iiacqua et al., 1995). research has found that increased stress leads to a decrease in productivity and vice versa and that quality of work is affected by personal satisfaction (halkos & bousinakis, 2010). this can also have an impact on the organisation, where positive employee commitment can be a comparative advantage for an organisation (bhatti & qureshi, 2007). it has also been found that job satisfaction leads to lower productivity related costs for organisations (arnold et al., 2016) but higher costs of what is dubbed as ‘presenteeism’—where a worker is unwell but comes to work anyway (callen et al., 2013). effort reward imbalance, job demand control and overcommitment also contribute to lower employee wellbeing and increase costs of production to the organisation (schmidt et al., 2019). lower job satisfaction can lead to job burnout which has an impact on both the employee wellbeing, the institution and other stakeholders such as students (song et al., 2020). in a workplace setting wellbeing can simply be the quality of the employees experience and performance (warr, 1987). wellbeing can be defined as successful performance integrating physical, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 4 published by scholink inc. socio-emotional and cognitive functions (pagán-castaño et al., 2020). wellbeing can be seen as a combination of factors such as subjective wellbeing (job satisfaction), social wellbeing (connections and relationships) and eudaimonic wellbeing (intrinsic motivation) (fisher, 2014). wellbeing can be negatively influenced by workload or work exhaustion (grant et al., 2007), and can decrease work-related satisfaction (fisher, 2010), and decrease commitment motivation by increased levels of job stress (applemaum, 2002). workload determines job satisfaction and motivation, and this is turn has an impact on the wellbeing of the employee, as shown by figure 1. figure 1. academic workload and outcomes the 2020 covid-19 pandemic and subsequent delta waves in 2021 (world health organisation, 2021) was a time in which the higher education sector was thrown into flux, with a current delivery of teaching (face to face and online), a move to complete online pedagogy in a short space of time dubbed emergency e-learning (murphy, 2020) and required an upskilling of staff in digital tools (bebbington, 2021). it forced many academic staff to teach from home, whilst balancing home schooling and sharing of facilities with family members, away from conventional classrooms, meanwhile attempting to strengthen their practices in curriculum to respond to student needs (toquero, 2020). higher education teachers who adopted virtual mode during the pandemic faced challenges of network issues, lack of training, and less attendance by students (arora & srinivasan, 2020). academics were also concerned with the health of their students, many of whom experienced an increase in boredom, frustration and higher than usual levels of anxiety (aristovnik et al., 2020). the move to online (ol) or e-learning environment from face to face teaching, has revealed short-falls in institutions resources, staff readiness, accessibility by students and lack of confidence by lecturers (ali, 2020). emergency e-learning, was an assortment of protocols which were set up to rapidly transition face to face students into ol learning classrooms (murphy, 2020). common challenges when moving to the online platform include technological challenges for rural and remote learning, lack of institutional infrastructure, lack of preparedness for delivery and resistance by students to adopt the ol delivery of what was face to face material (dubey & pandey, 2020). ol teaching can also influence job motivation, particularly when there is a lack of professional development and increasing workload (haggerty, 2015). institutions that encourage online delivery have been found to increase academic stress associated with technological requirements (nichols, 2008). recent research has shown there to be three factors for successful e-learning, they include academic workload (research, teaching, service) job satisfaction & motivation academic wellbeing www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 5 published by scholink inc. service support, learning environment and instructor quality (saad & mat yamin, 2021). e-learning success also depends on independence of students, confidence of studying online and accessibility of the online learning materials (noviani, 2021). challenges included teachers lack of technical skills and improperly adapted teaching style to the ol environment (coman et al., 2020). recent research suggests that efficient ol education should include for teachers psychological and professional development programs and technical support to help with the transition from traditional teaching methods to ol education (almazova et al., 2020). communication during the pandemic also came to the forefront for academics, with pressure to produce timely, transparent and relevant information particularly for students (knight, 2020). the learning management systems and online learning support using multimedia software also proved challenging for some lecturers (irfan et al., 2020). interestingly, research during the pandemic has shown that most students use their smart phones for learning in the ol platform and prefer recorded lectures with a quiz to assist learning effectiveness (muthuprasad et al., 2021). there has also been a need for continuous updating of learning and teaching platforms and training for both staff and students (malkawi et al., 2021). there is also pressure on academics to use the pandemic to continuously reform not only the learning environment but also success for the institutions and the communities they operate in (oleksiyenko et al., 2021). whilst most have complained about “zoom fatigue”, academics have also had to run and attend meetings online, complete with internet drop outs and time lags (sklar, 2020). it has been shown that staying at home for extended periods of time can increase risk of mental illness (vutsinas, 2020), and that employees of education institutions could be left in precarious places in relation to their employers, with no tools to prevent online hacking of classes when using tools such as zoom with inherent security issues (paul, 2020). the pandemic also however showed resilience, by both the students and the instructors, even though both were probably experiencing higher than normal levels of anxiety and disease-related fears (ghazi-saidi et al., 2020). figure 2 then identifies the additional stressor of the complete move to emergency e-learning, and it is this stressor that this research would like to further investigate in terms of the impact on academic wellbeing. figure 2. emergency e-learning impact academic workload (research, teaching, service) job satisfaction & motivation academic wellbeing emergency e-learning impact www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 6 published by scholink inc. it is the object of this research to see if the move to emergency e-learning in a work from home setting has had any impact on workload, job satisfaction and motivation and wellbeing of accounting and finance academics in higher education. research problem: what impact has emergency e-learning had on higher education academics workload as well as job satisfaction and motivation and overall wellbeing? research question 1: how has emergency e-learning impacted on workloads of academics in the higher education sector? hypothesis 1: emergency e-learning has increased workloads of academics. research question 2: how has emergency e-learning impacted on job satisfaction and motivation of academics in the higher education sector? hypothesis 2: emergency e-learning has decreased job satisfaction and motivation of academics. research question 3: how has emergency e-learning impacted on academic wellbeing of academics in the higher education sector? hypothesis 3: emergency e-learning has decreased the wellbeing of academics. 3. methodology broadly speaking there are two streams of science, natural science (natural objects) and social science (people), this research is concerned with academics, therefore is a social science study. science is explained as a systematic and well organized collection of knowledge in any topic area using a scientific method (bhattacherjee, 2012). new knowledge can be gained by research which is a process of systematically collecting, analyzing, and understanding information or data to increase our knowledge about topics that are of interest (leedy, 2016). the general research approach involves interaction between three dimensions: research philosophy, research design and research methods (creswell & creswell, 2018). research philosophy is a system of assumptions and beliefs about the evolution of knowledge (saunders, 2019). research methodology is a design for conducting a study, and can be classified into three general types: qualitative, quantitative and mix-methods (creswell & creswell, 2018). the research process requires researchers to seek out different methods available to conduct data collection, analysis and understanding, and to then decide on using one or more of those research methods (chu, 2017). the research method for this study will be to utilize a survey with both qualitative and quantitative questions (mixed method) to be initially administered to members of the accounting and finance association of australia and new zealand (afaanz). afaanz currently has over 850 members who are all associated with the education of finance and accounting in australia and also new zealand (afaanz, 2021). the membership consists of academics in accounting and finance, universities and professional bodies such as certified practicing accountants (cpa) australia and chartered accountants of australia and new zealand (afaanz, 2021). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 7 published by scholink inc. as the researcher is currently a member of this organization, the use of convenience sampling will be used (burke et al., 2020), and as it is administered by a fellow member it is hoped to illicit a high response rate, as they tend to be higher (52.7%) for individuals than for organisations (35.7%) (baruch & holtom, 2008). in order to answer the research problem and research questions, survey questions will be asked on each of the three research questions and some demographic information (see table 1: survey questions). quantitative data collection looks at numerical data, whereas qualitative data collection is looking at narrative answers (sheperis et al., 2017). as there are three research questions, that are all related to emergency e-learning, the first question to ask would be if the academic has moved to complete e-learning from home, as this adds directly to answering of all three research questions. for research question 1, a sliding scale should be used between 0-100%, and that the three sections (research, training and other) must also add up to 100%. sliding scales must be functional and easy to use to increase response rate (chyung et al., 2018). for research question 2, a 4 point likert scale will be used, though this is different from the traditional 5 point likert scale as a mid-point neutral point has been removed (busch, 1993). this is done to basically force an answer to be either positive (very satisfied + satisfied) or negative (unsatisfied and very unsatisfied). the numbers would be labelled as follows: 1 = very satisfied, 2 = satisfied, 3 = unsatisfied, 4 = very unsatisfied. this four-point likert scale would be used to assess attitudes towards job satisfaction and motivation. the same four-point likert scale would be used to answer research question 3, in relation to wellbeing, although this relates to quality and would use the following points, where 1 = very poor, 2 = poor, 3 = good, and 4 = excellent. again adding 1 + 2 = overall poor wellbeing and 3 + 4 = overall good wellbeing. open ended questions are also asked as these have been shown to be a reliable tool to capture feasible content (oberjé et al., 2015). open ended questions are asked in each of the research questions in order to capture reasons behind changes that have been identified prior to covid-19 and post covid-19 during e-learning. finally, two demographic questions have been asked, one on length of time as an academic and then age range, other demographic questions on gender, ethnicity and education will not add value to the research so have not been included (hughes et al., 2016), this gives the research integrity and describes the samples in the research. to ensure accuracy and consistency, each of the three research questions have been approached in the same way, with three questions each. the first two survey questions use a 4-point likert scale and the third question is open ended. this will draw meaningful inferences from the sample, allowing for decision making using a mixed method approach (morse et al., 2006) to ensure validity. the four point likert scales create construct validity in that the scores show a useful purpose (creswell & creswell, 2018; humbley & zumbo, 1996). open ended questions allow for opinions of people from a sample population, which maybe different to that of experts, but can be used to inform valid decision making (sheperis et al., 2017). ethics clearance was obtained even though this is a low-risk project to comply with the australian national statement on ethical conduct in human research (2007) as well as the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 8 published by scholink inc. australian code for the responsible conduct of research (2018). ethics was granted in february 2022 (eth.2022.005) and afaanz published a link to the survey in march, april and may 2022 newsletters. a qr code was set up for the afaanz conference held july 2022, with a direct link to the survey, to be completed by members at the conference. 4. results findings from the survey linked to the monthly newsletter and conference show that 29% of participants indicated that they had been an academic for between 6 to 10 years, 43% indicated they had been in academia for between 11 to 15 years, and 29% had been an academic for over 20 years. 14% of participants stated they were between the ages of 41 to 50 years, 43% were aged between 51 to 60 and a further 43% stated they were over the age of 61. table 1 details initial findings of the move to emergency e-learning. table 1. findings # question findings 1 did you in 2020 or 2021 during the covid-19 pandemic move to complete e-learning from home? 87.5% of respondents answered yes 12.5% of respondents answered no workload 2 what was your workload % distribution prior to covid-19 lockdowns in terms of research % teaching % other % = 100%? research: 57% indicated less and 30% 43% indicated between 30% and 50% teaching: 14% indicated less than 30% 57% indicated between 30% and 50% 29% indicated more than 50% other: 57% indicated less than 30% 29% indicated between 30% to 50% 14% indicated more than 50% 3 what was your workload % distribution during covid-19 lockdowns & elearning in terms of research % teaching % other % = 100%? research: 86% indicated less and 30% 14% indicated between 30% and 50% teaching: 14% indicated less than 30% 14% indicated between 30% and 50% www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 9 published by scholink inc. 72% indicated more than 50% other: 29% indicated less than 30% 43% indicated between 30% to 50% 29% indicated more than 50% placing these changes next to each other makes it very clear that workloads “shifted” during the lockdowns. table 2 demonstrates these changes. table 2. shift in workload after covid-19 workload prior to lockdown during lockdown variation/comments research 57% indicated less and 30% 43% indicated between 30% and 50% 86% indicated less and 30% 14% indicated between 30% and 50% increase from 57% to 86% indicated less than 30%, that is research was not being done during lockdowns. a decrease from 43% to 14% from the between 30% to 50% which also demonstrates less research was being done during lockdown. teaching 14% indicated less than 30% 57% indicated between 30% and 50% 29% indicated more than 50% 14% indicated less than 30% 14% indicated between 30% and 50% 72% indicated more than 50% those who taught less than 30% did not change. those teaching between 30% and 50% decreased from 57% to 14%. those teaching more than 50% rose to 72% from 29%, indicating much more teaching was being done during lockdowns at the expense of research. other 57% indicated less than 30% 29% indicated between 30% to 50% 14% indicated more than 29% indicated less than 30% 43% indicated between 30% to 50% 29% indicated more than a decrease 57% to 29% from working less than 30%. an increase from 29% to 43% between 30% and 50%, and a further increase from 14% to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 10 published by scholink inc. 50% 50% 29%, demonstrated people where also increasing their workload for other, at the expense of research. comments in relation to this change in workload came in the form of the open question. most comments related to the fact that time was spent converting material to the online format as follows: theme 1: conversion of teaching materials to an online format. “due to covid-19 lockdown i had to change the way i was teaching from face to face in the classroom to completely online”. “adapting units that were in-person activity based to being ‘zoom-friendly’ took a lot of time”. “the time spent converting teaching to ol increased in absolute terms, with significant increases in hours 7 days a week so % are of a bigger total workload”. “i found almost all my time was taken up with trying to convert materials designed for face to face teaching into materials suitable for online classes”. “focus on pivoting to online learning”. theme 2: time was spent helping students adapt to the online environment. “the development of learning activities suitable for the online environment and spending more time working with students to encourage them and work through issues”. “it was the 400 emails i received in the first week of school. it was the disconnect from students... and the cheating... oh the cheating!” theme 3: increase in meetings “my administrative load massively increased due to the need to attend meetings so i could relay information to others”. “expectations were very high from students of being available 24/7 to answer emails/messages” theme 4: informal change in workload. “i’m also not sure the change in workload was an official change, just an expectation to add more to my existing workload” “my formal workload allocations didn’t change”. theme 5: resources “also, lack of reliable internet at home meant some tasks took much longer than they should have because of internet downtime”, in summary, time was taken up by moving to the online environment, supporting students during this change, and staying informed by attending meetings. there was no formal recognition of this change in workload, and other challenges included stable internet connections. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 11 published by scholink inc. figure 3. emergency e-learning challenges to answer research question 1: how has emergency e-learning impacted on workloads of academics in the higher education sector? the hypothesis of “emergency e-learning has increased workloads of academics” has been proven correct with the fact that workloads have changed in the ol environment, with research suffering at the expense of teaching. this appears to be an informal change and a contributor to workload “creep” that is increasing workloads overall. participants were then asked what effect the change in delivery of learning had on their overall level of job satisfaction and motivation. prior to covid-19 57% of respondents indicated they were satisfied, and 43% indicated they were very satisfied. no participant indicated either unsatisfied or very unsatisfied. however, after covid-19 14% indicated they were very unsatisfied, 43% stated they were unsatisfied, with an overall score of 57% unsatisfied or very unsatisfied. a complete change from the 0% indicated prior to covid-19. 29% indicated they were satisfied, and no participant indicated very satisfied. this change clearly demonstrated a negative effect of job satisfaction and motivation during the pandemic. when asked if e-learning had impacted on the levels of satisfaction the following reasons where given: theme 1: engagement in online teaching. “yes, the level of engagement of students was frustrating and depressing”. “online teaching was more exhausting and emotionally draining”. “very much. the work to adapt”. “lack of face to face contact with students”. theme 2: communication in the ol platform “ability to communicate in the online environment”. covid-19 e-learning challenges conversion of materials to ol student adaptation informal change in workload increased meetings resources www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 12 published by scholink inc. “i felt students were less engaged and i doubted my ability to communicate properly with them”. “my satisfaction fell as teaching as there was too much work to do, students were struggling”. theme 3: lack of resources “all the issues of zoom (cameras off, etc)”. “i spend a lot of time converting to ol modes, with little sense of satisfaction”. “i also felt integrity of assessment was compromised”. theme 4: lack of institutional support “my university didn’t care”. “things could have been handled better, e.g., 6 weeks after raising awareness of needs for equipment my university finally decided to try and purchase basics (e.g., camera so my students in zoom can see me) but by that time, shelves were empty”. theme 5: increase in overall workload “increased workload in teaching without actual reduction in administrative duties as predicted”. “administration duties in assisting students to learn online have increased significantly”. “i was.... just tired. students complained, and had no concept of the extent we were all going to and the workloads we’d assumed.” theme 6: isolation “the lack of in-person experience”. “isolation”. “very little interaction with others”. figure 4. challenges to job satisfaction & motivation in emergency e-learning job satisfaction & motivation emergency e-learning communication student engagement workload changes isolation resources lack of institutional support www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 13 published by scholink inc. in order to answer research question 2: how has emergency e-learning impacted on job satisfaction and motivation of academics in the higher education sector? again, the hypothesis of “emergency e-learning has decreased job satisfaction and motivation of academics” is correct. wellbeing or quality of life was assessed prior to covid-19 and during covid-19. 86% stated that prior to covid-19 they felt good, with a further 14% stating they felt excellent. during lockdown however this changed with only 57% stating they were good and 43% stated their level of wellbeing was poor. when asked how elearning impacted on wellbeing, they following themes emerged. theme 1: lack of training in the online delivery mode. “it made my job really hard as i enjoy the classroom experience and online was difficult”. theme 2: physical limitations “too much time sitting in front of a computer caused back problems, eye strain and general depression”. theme 3: mental health challenges “i am aware that i was stressed and less able to cope with frustration during early 2020”. theme 4: time with colleagues “less face-to-face contact time with colleagues”. theme 5: increase in administration “more time used in administrative works including recording and editing teaching videos”. theme 6: work flexibility (positive impact) “the negative impacts were at least balanced by the positives of the flexibility of working from home, and the lack of interruptions”. figure 5. challenges to overall wellbeing during covid-19 emergency e-learning overall wellbeing during covid-19 physical challenges lack of training mental health administration colleagues flexibility www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 14 published by scholink inc. in answering research question 3: how has emergency e-learning impacted on academic wellbeing of academics in the higher education sector? the hypothesis of “emergency e-learning has decreased the wellbeing of academics” has again been proven to be correct. using then the initial figure 2 entitled “emergency e-learning impact” with our findings, sos model was developed. this stands for support from the institution particularly in training, resources, and workload, when delivering online content to students which allows them to engage, and finally supplement in terms of training and resources for academic staff in their move from the classroom to the virtual classroom. figure 6. sos model this model shows that with initial institutional support in terms of administration and resources to both academics and students, that the fallout from the emergency e-learning model can be used to enhance the ol learning model going forward. with countries still in various states of lockdown (greyling et al., 2020), institutions need to be supporting their students and staff going forward in the ol environment. it is hoped that we learn from this experience that converting the face-to-face classroom to a virtual one takes time, training, and resources. institutions must also realise that ol learning will also impact on the ability of academic staff to undertake research, as their workload in regard to teaching will substantially increase. academic workload job satisfaction & motivation academic wellbeing emergency e-learning conversion to ol student support meetings resources change in workload communication student engagement isolation institution support resources change in workload training mental health physical health administratio n support colleagues support & resources from institutions ol student support & engagement supplement academic staff www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 15 published by scholink inc. 5. conclusion using answers to a survey administered to members of afaanz, there are many current challenges faced by academics in terms of workload, job satisfaction and motivation and overall wellbeing when converting to emergency e-learning. it is the object of this research to fill the gap of its impact on academics and pose solutions such as the sos model to assist academics to cope with such disruption in the future. in this study, it is very clear that emergency e-learning overall had a negative impact on academics in terms of their increased workload, their level of job satisfaction and motivation which lead to their overall wellbeing or quality of life to be negatively impacted. it is hoped the sos model can be used in the future to support both staff and students by institutions in the move to the online classroom. future research would include the collection of additional data from other conferences on an international basis for comparison to the australia and new zealand experience. finally, this research would like to allow one of the participants to have the final statement in relation to the effect of emergency e-learning on their overall wellbeing during the pandemic of covid-19: “i didn’t go into teaching to talk to computer screen” references afaanz. 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(2020). public health emergency of international concern. retrieved from https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/events-as-they-happen world health organisation. (2021). correlates of protection will emerging data allow increased reliance on vaccine immune responses for public health and regulatory decision-making? world health organisation retrieved from https://www.who.int/news-room/events/detail/2021/09/03/default-calendar/save-the-date---will-e https://www.securitymagazine.com/articles/92085-managing-domestic-violence-in-a-work-at-home-world https://www.securitymagazine.com/articles/92085-managing-domestic-violence-in-a-work-at-home-world www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 21 published by scholink inc. merging-data-allow-increased-reliance-on-vaccine-immune-responses-for-public-health-and-regul atory-decision-making zhou, y., jindal-snape, d., topping, k., & todman, j. (2008). theoretical models of culture shock and adaptation in international students in higher education. studies in higher education, 33(1), 63-75. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075070701794833 frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 104 original paper training path of computer application ability and computational thinking of normal university students under the background of teacher professional certification kaitian luo1 1 computer science and technology, sichuan mimzu college, kangding city, china received: november 6, 2024 accepted: november 23, 2024 online published: december 4, 2024 doi:10.22158/fet.v7n2p104 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v7n2p104 abstract since the implementation of teacher professional certification, it has effectively promoted the construction of hardware and software of normal major in colleges and universities, especially the construction of modern smart classroom, interactive microclassroom, online teaching case base, multimedia computer room, vr virtual laboratory, etc., which provides the basic guarantee for the improvement of information technology ability of normal students. the cultivation of computer application ability and computational thinking is the essential core quality of “four good teachers” in the information age. through the interpretation of “certification standards”, the paper analyzes the current situation of normal university students’ computer application ability, and probes into how to cultivate normal university students’ computer application ability and computational thinking under the background of normal professional certification. keywords teacher training, college students, certification, computer, information technology, computational thinking under the basic teaching professional certification concept of “student-centered, output-oriented and continuous improvement”, since the implementation of teacher professional certification in 2017, the quality of teacher education has been promoted and a student-centered teacher education system has been gradually formed. with the in-depth application and development of education informatization and the internet, the graduates of normal major have a strong computer application ability and the establishment of computational thinking has become the first of various necessary teacher literacy. most of the new college students come into contact with computer late, and their application level of common computer www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 105 published by scholink inc. skills is obviously too low, and it is difficult to adapt to the network environment and online and offline mixed learning after entering the university. therefore, how to guide and help students master modern computer office technology, basic computer network technology, commonly used computer video and audio production technology, and necessary plane graphics and image processing technology in the course of “basic computer application” and education and teaching practice, as well as daily student activities, comprehensively improve their computer application ability and establish computational thinking? it is of great significance. 1. requirements and objectives of the top-level structure of teacher professional certification for normal students’ information technology literacy 5.2 [quality and ability] in the “implementation measures for normal professional certification of colleges and universities”, it is clear that normal students should have strong classroom teaching, information technology application and learning guidance and other education and teaching abilities. 2.5 technology integration “of the” graduation requirements “of the” secondary education professional certification standards “(level 3) is clear: normal university students should initially master the methods and skills of applying information technology to optimize subject classroom teaching, and have the initial experience of using information technology to support learning design and change students’ learning style. from the implementation measures of teacher professional certification and related certification standards, it is not difficult to find that mastering information technology and using information technology to improve normal college students’ teacher literacy, building teaching design ability and classroom teaching ability have become an important content and module of current normal college students’ learning and development. this requires that in the process of normal teaching, we must take the improvement of students’ information technology ability as the most basic core ability to cultivate normal college students, whether from the perspective of teacher certification or from the aspect of information technology literacy improvement, normal college students should always take teacher skills as the core quality to improve. at the same time, if normal university students want to develop sustainably, they should also master the necessary information literacy. for example, if our students want to participate in various competitions, they must create and refine their own courseware or competition video through the improvement of information literacy. no matter from the basic graduation requirements of normal college students, the requirements of teacher certification, or the follow-up development of normal college students in different stages or different development dimensions, normal college students should take information technology literacy as the core quality in the four years of college to cultivate and hone. 2. analysis of the current situation of computer application ability of normal students most of the current normal university students’ computer application ability only stays in the basic stage of learning and application of common office software. on august 28, 2023, china internet network www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 106 published by scholink inc. information center (cnnic) the 52nd “china internet development statistics report” shows that: as of june 2023, the number of internet users in china has reached 1.079 billion, and the internet penetration rate has reached 76.4%. students account for about 20% of the total internet users, a relatively high proportion. from this data, it is not difficult to see that students have become a large group of internet users. they have been highly accustomed to learning through the internet and expressing their thoughts and opinions through the internet. more importantly, college students have fully adapted to online teaching after the covid-19 epidemic has been normalized, and their online learning time has increased significantly compared with before the epidemic. as normal university students, if they do not have a strong computer and network application ability at the beginning of college, it is difficult to adapt to the subsequent professional courses. however, the core of the basic computer course that normal university students learn can include the three major office software, namely word, excel and poerpoint. the computer knowledge or ability of this module is far from adapting to the mixed teaching mode of offline and online. 2.2 normal university students’ strong computer application ability is the basis for improving their normal literacy and learning other courses computer has become an important basis and tool for learning. only after college students have mastered a certain degree of computer application ability can they better adapt to the subsequent study of other university courses. at present, according to the requirements of teacher certification and normal college student training goals, especially the education information 2.0 action plan requires “to accelerate the modernization of education and the construction of education power, promote the development of education information in the new era, cultivate new engines of innovation-driven development, and train innovative talents in combination with the national internet +, big data, a new generation of artificial intelligence and other major strategic tasks.” it is imminent to focus on cultivating the computer application ability of normal students. in the teaching practice of “computer application basis”, it plays an important role in cultivating college students’ computer application ability, innovation ability and calculation thinking, promoting college students to master the commonly used calculation skills and comprehensively improving the information literacy of normal college students. 2.3 at present, normal college students are highly dependent on the internet and computers for autonomous and fragmented learning, but the computer skills they should master are not perfect after the epidemic, as the era of rapid development of knowledge economy and information economy, the network has become an indispensable part of college students’ study, life and work, especially in the learning link, the use of the network for active learning and independent learning has become the mainstream. at the same time, students can quickly realize online learning and fragmented learning in any place through modern electronic devices such as mobile phones, tablets, laptops and so on. and some free or low-cost high-quality online courses also have a great impact on students, many students can almost in the case of no or very little pay, according to their interest in knowledge, to choose some of the famous online courses for independent learning. it can be said that in the era of big data, knowledge has www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 107 published by scholink inc. no boundaries, and learning has become the norm. as students, they need to continue to learn. as college teachers, they also need to constantly update and learn more systematic and comprehensive information technology knowledge, and master the methods and methods of network teaching flexibly. when our normal university students do not master the corresponding computer hardware and software skills, it is difficult to adapt to the current learning mode. 3. the current situation of information technology training hardware construction in college normal majors take z university as an example. in recent years, in order to improve the training quality of normal majors, the university has invested a lot of money to build the hardware conditions required for running various normal majors. at present, it has built and put into use 14 smart classrooms with cloud transmission and other functions, 11 professional lecture training microclassrooms for students, 3 powder writing training rooms for video playback (a total of 150 practice positions), and 15 computer rooms (a total of more than 1000 seats) for all kinds of routine software practice and learning. at the same time, online databases such as future school, super star online course and school online have been built, covering excellent teaching cases or video resources of nearly 800 courses. from the above hardware construction, it is not difficult to see that the current general colleges and universities have already possessed the basic hardware and software foundation for training and improving normal literacy. however, through the author’s investigation of zefficient, it is found that there is a similar phenomenon in this university and other universities, that is, many teacher skills training rooms are only used when courses are set up, and the utilization rate is very low. 4. explore the cultivation path of normal university students’ computer application ability and computational thinking 4.1 through the reform of the outline, teaching, practice, assessment and other links of “computer application basis”, we should focus on cultivating computer practical skills and establishing computational thinking in normal schools at present, all colleges and universities set up courses of “fundamentals of computer application” in their freshman year. although the name of the course offered by each school is different, the main content still focuses on the introduction of basic computer knowledge and the training of skills in the use of common office software, including: computer development and overview, windows operating system, word word processing, excel spreadsheet, poerpoint production, network foundation and other six modules. however, with the rapid development of network information technology, especially the popularization of online and offline mixed teaching mode during the epidemic period, as well as the in-depth application and integration of modern live broadcasting technology and internet technology, students only master ordinary basic computer skills, and it is difficult to adapt to the teacher’s requirements of interactive teaching. therefore, in the freshman year, it is necessary to strengthen the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 108 published by scholink inc. top-level design to carry out reform. at the same time, teachers of computer courses should fully enable students to become the master of learning through flipped classroom, so that they can strengthen the training of skills in practice, especially the practical ability of computers, such as mastering the most basic word typesetting, the data processing of spreadsheets, and the design and production of ppt. on this basis, it is necessary to boldly increase the processing of graphics and images, the use of the network, video and audio editing, programming and computational thinking and other modules. in the practice process of college students’ actual learning, a large number of students are required to self-cultivate and exercise computer skills in their spare time, such as the typesetting of papers, the design of ppt for various activities, the design of background and the editing of video and audio activities, as well as the design and processing of some simple small programs that use computers to solve problems in daily life. all of these can improve college students’ computer hands-on ability and establish computational thinking to a certain extent. in the assessment of the course of computer, the focus is to examine the daily teaching process, students in the practice of some achievements or participate in some computer skills competition, rather than focusing on the final exam. 4.2 focus on cultivating students’ information technology processing ability through computer practical activities looking at the various kinds of competitions carried out by normal colleges at present, the main competition is the teacher skills competition, of course, it also includes courseware making and ppt design and production, text entry competition, layout design, resume design teaching plan design and so on. in order to improve the computer application ability of college students, as a grass-roots department, first of all, we should strengthen the design of computer practical skills from the top-level system. for example, various competitions such as network culture festival, computer operation skills contest, program design contest, courseware making contest, ppt design and production contest, resume making contest, paper typesetting contest, advanced data processing contest, internet competition can be used to guide and help students consciously cultivate and improve computer skills in practice. when each college has the support of the system and activities as the carrier, college students will take the initiative to step off the internet, put down their mobile phones, and participate in various activities, so as to exercise and improve their ability through participating in activities, especially as normal college students, they can master computer skills and improve their information technology ability in daily activities or competitions. 4.3 taking the improvement of normal literacy as the core, the second tutorial system is introduced to strengthen the training of normal university students’ computer application ability in practice as we all know, the improvement of normal university students’ teacher literacy and skills should not only stay in the classroom, but also need a lot of training and polishing in daily study and life to improve college students’ teacher literacy. through the introduction of the second tutorial system, the focus is to pay attention to how students improve their own literacy in the 4 years of college life through the guidance and supervision of teachers. the operation of this mode can reflect the advantages of the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 109 published by scholink inc. training mode of master’s apprentices, and at the same time allow an ordinary college student to get special guidance from a teacher in the study and life of the university, especially in the improvement of normal literacy. the tutor can let the students under his guidance participate in the courses taught by the teacher, and know how the teacher prepares for and attends classes. in particular, it is necessary to let students fully understand how the teachers in the university obtain some teaching resources or materials through the current information technology, so as to organize and make them into courseware or beautiful ppt, and finally show them in front of the students for teaching. for example, if the normal university student has poor language ability, the teacher can give accurate guidance and arrange him to participate in corresponding activities, or listen to corresponding courses more, or conduct online consultation to improve and make up for his shortcomings. when students participate in various activities or social practices, our instructors can ask them to boldly use modern computer technology, network communication technology, multimedia technology, or current we-media means to improve their information literacy or computer hands-on ability. 4.4 actively open the teacher skills training room, promote the computer application ability of college students through the incentive mechanism, and strengthen the self-awareness of students to strengthen the teacher skills training “master leads the door, practice in the individual”, in the teaching system of the university, what we advocate now is to take students as the main body, the direction of education reform is to flip the classroom, so that students become the center of learning. in order to improve the computer skills and information technology level of college students and teacher literacy, the grass-roots departments can open skills training rooms free of charge, such as public computer rooms, three pen characters training rooms, microclassrooms and so on. when our students use the card, it will form the corresponding big data, in the selection of three good students, outstanding student cadres or some other awards, especially in the development of party members or determine the party activists, you can use these data as an evaluation factor. because this can not only improve their teacher skills and information technology level, but also can improve the conduct score, improve their comprehensive gpa. such strengthening mechanism and incentive mechanism will invisibly motivate our students to take the initiative to strengthen the training of normal skills and the improvement of computer skills. about the author luo kaitian (1977 --), male, han nationality, born in yibin, sichuan province, associate professor of computer science and technology, sichuan mimzu college, master of software engineering, main research interests are complex networks and computer applications. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 110 published by scholink inc. fund project sichuan university for nationalities education reform project “research on the cultivation of computer application ability and computational thinking of normal university students under the background of teacher professional certification”, project number: x-jg202333. references li, j. (2019). research on the cultivation of core quality of normal college students under the standard of teacher professional certification. nanning normal university master thesis. luo, r. z., & jiang, k. (2023). paths to improve the training quality of normal university students under the background of professional certification. journal of teacher education, 2023(6), 115-122. wang, z. l. (2023). research on improving strategy of informatization teaching ability of normal university students based on virtual reality. journal of hubei vocational and technical college, 2023(03), 157-162. microsoft word fet-v3n2-p24 frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 24 original paper responsiveness of arab women in israel to genetic screening tests prior to/during pregnancy sara gabarin1* 1 west university of timisoara, timisoara, romania * sara gabarin, phd student, west university of timisoara, timisoara, romania received: april 14, 2020 accepted: april 26, 2020 online published: april 26, 2020 doi:10.22158/fet.v3n2p24 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v3n2p24 abstract hereditary morbidity is a severe health problem in the muslim arab society in israel. there are populations where the prevalence of the mendelian type hereditary diseases is 1 in 4 or 5 residents (al aqeel, 2007). one of the reasons for this is the high prevalence of relation marriage, which as of 2009 accounted for 24% of all marriages (na’amnih et al., 2015). despite this high prevalence, responsiveness to performing hereditary screening tests in israel is very low among arab women. for example, in performing fragile x screening tests, only 9.1% of arab women reported having performed the test, compared to 52% of jewish women (romano-zlicha & shochat, 2011). keywords responsiveness, arab women, genetic screening test , prior to/during pregnancy, hereditary, morbidity, israel 1. introduction the subject of low responsiveness to performing screening tests was investigated from a number of angles, though not at a high frequency, with an emphasis on potential reasons for non-responsiveness. for example, one cause that was found to be connected to performing screening tests is religion. arab women in israel define themselves as religious with a high prevalence relative to the general population and stood at 87.6% (romano-zlicha et al., 2011). in light of this, one possible source that could serve as an authority promoting responsiveness is religion, and yet, as of the publication of this article, no fatwa was issued promoting the obligation to perform screening tests. this is despite the fact that, in 2007, when the subject of screening tests in light of islamic was discussed at an international conference in saudi arabia, it was said that although one cannot demand genetic tests to be included in the marriage contract (given the nature of the contract and possible punishments sanctions under this www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 25 published by scholink inc. contract), performance of the tests could still be encouraged while maintaining the confidentiality of the test performer (al aqeel, 2007). with the exception of the romano-zlicha et al. (2011) study, not been many studies have been conducted in israel on the causes of responsiveness to the performance of screening tests among arab women, and this one was also conducted many years ago. therefore, there is a great need for research to examine the latest data and causes today. 2. research methods this article deals with a pilot study conducted among muslim arab women in israel as part of a more comprehensive study, which was conducted in 2019. the study was conducted at community health centers in the northern and central areas of israel, among a pilot sample of 20 muslim subjects, ages 18 and older, who were recruited in a convenience sample by distributing questionnaires at community centers, women’s centers and to mothers of children in elementary schools by the researcher and by sending a link to the questionnaire by mail, whatsapp groups and social media. after receiving their written informed consent, the subject were asked to fill in the questionnaire in the arabic language on the subject of performance of hereditary screening test and demographic data. the findings of the questionnaire were analyzed by the researcher using the spss software version 24. no wage was guaranteed to the subjects. the researcher has no personal or financial interest in the research findings. 3. research findings 3.1 description of the sample the sample consists of 20 arab women, ages 18-44, the age of fertility. this is a convenience sample recruited from family health clinics in arabic-speaking communities in the northern and central areas. all subjects are muslim, with high school education and above. table 1 describes the demographic characteristics of the subjects. table 1. summary of the sample’s demographic characteristics percent % number of subjects (n) demographic variable marital status 27.3 6 single 59.1 13 married 4.5 1 divorced degree of education 22.7 5 full bagrut certificate 40.9 9 ba 22.7 5 ma www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 26 published by scholink inc. 4.5 1 phd degree of religiosity 9.1 2 secular 72.7 16 traditional 9.1 2 very religious number of children 31.8 7 0 30 11 2-3 9.1 2 4 and above only 5 respondents (25%) responded that they performed the hereditary screening tests. two of the positive respondents reported that they performed the screening tests after having an abortion or giving birth to a sick child, and the other 3 reported that they performed the tests after giving birth to at least one child. on the question of personal position regarding the performance of screening tests, the responses of all respondents were at a medium level or higher (min=3, max=5, av=4.65). if so, the positions are positive. table 2. summary of factors affecting subjects’ decision to perform hereditary screening tests prevalence 5 average 4.65 maximum 5 minimum 3 do you personally support screening tests is your decision to perform screening tests influenced by: 4 2.90 5 1 economic considerations 1 3.00 5 1 religion 5 3.55 5 1 parents’ position 5 3.60 5 1 spouse’s position 5 3.95 5 1 health considerations 5 4.50 5 1 having knowledge of performance of screening tests 5 4.35 5 1 availability of the tests at health funds 5 4.50 5 1 possible existence of a law requiring the performance of the tests www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 27 published by scholink inc. in terms of the factors that influence the decision of the subjects to perform the screening tests, it was found that economic considerations have the lowest influence (min=1, max=4, av=2.90) among the factors, with none of the respondents saying that the economic decision had a significant influence on her. the influence of considerations was moderate (min=1, max=5, av=3.00), although the common answer was that religion had no effect on the decision to perform screening tests. considerations of the surrounding positions had a higher influence—the parents’ position was described as having a medium or higher influence (av=3.55) as well as the spouse’s position (av=3.60). the greatest influence was of factors related to the law and the health system—the greatest importance was attributed to the availability of information on screening tests (4.35-4.50). table 2 summarizes the dispersion data of the position scores toward the screening tests and the degree of perceived influence of various factors on it. in an examination of the relationship between performing the screening tests and considerations and positions using the chi-squared test, it was found that there is a clear connection only between the performance of screening tests and economic considerations. the other connections were not significant (table 3). table 3. connections between performance of the screening tests and considerations significance of the connection x2 value .329 2.222 personal position on the performance of the tests .016* 12.1 economic considerations .483 3.47 religion .528 2.222 parents’ position .764 1.15 spouse’s position .461 2.57 health considerations .639 1.69 having knowledge of performance of screening tests .190 4.76 availability of the tests at health funds .059 7.42 possible existence of a law requiring the performance of the tests *p<0.05 in examining the connection between a personal position on the performance of the screening tests and consideration variables using the chi-squared test, no significant connection was found between the variables. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 28 published by scholink inc. table 4. connection between personal position and performance of the genetic screening tests significance of the connection x2 value .566 6.73 economic considerations .645 6.02 religion .436 5.89 parents’ position .807 3.01 spouse’s position .224 8.20 health considerations .064 11.91 having knowledge of performance of screening tests .526 5.14 availability of the tests at health funds .951 1.62 possible existence of a law requiring the performance of the tests in addition, in examining the connection between positions and performance of the screening tests and demographic variables, no significant connection was found with any demographic variable. however, a significant connection was found between the marital status and the position of the subjects towards the performance of screening tests as shown in table 5. table 5. connection between demographic variable and positions and the performance of the screening tests performance of hereditary screening tests positions on the performance of screening tests significance of the connection x2 valuesignificance of the connection x2 value .287 16.44 .781 22.0 year of birth .166 3.59 .045* 9.744 marital status .513 1.33 .287 5.0 degree of religiosity .511 3.29 .301 9.5 years of education *p<0.05 4. discussion one can see from the analysis of this sample that, although the respondents verbally attribute a relatively low significance to religious considerations in the performance of the screening tests, in practice, the only significant connection between the performance of the screening tests and the considerations was actually with the religion variable. this finding is also supported by the literature. according to romano-zlicha et al. (2011), there is a connection between the woman’s degree of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 29 published by scholink inc. religiosity and her intention to perform screening tests. in fact, if one examines at the religion of islam, there is no uniform policy of what can be done at all if the screening demonstrates an unusual finding, although in the past decade there has been a policy of encouraging the performance of screening tests to prevent parental suffering (al aqeel, 2007), and there are even recommendations of the limit date for the performance of screening tests—120 days from the date of conception, since then it is believed that the soul enters the fetal body and the abortion becomes a killing (zlotogora, 2014). on the other hand, it can be argued that in the present sample there is no significant connection between the degree of religiosity itself and the intention or positions to perform hereditary screening tests. this finding unequivocally contradicts the data of romano-zlicha et al. (2011). one possible explanation is the difference in the sample—the present study is a pilot sample with a low measure of representation of the population and therefore it is quite possible that findings would be different in a larger sample. if to continue the examination of the question of religiosity with a comparative view, one can see that in the countries surrounding israel—cyprus, saudi arabia, gaza, great awareness is attributed to the performance of screening tests in the religious context. cyprus’ religious authorities may refuse to marry in the church a couple who did not perform hereditary screening tests, in gaza the non-performance of screening tests can serve as grounds for divorce (cousens, gaff, metcalfe, & delatycki, 2010). no connection was found between the performance of the screening tests and economic aspects. this finding is inconsistent with the literature. according to romano-zlicha et al. (2011), economic considerations and the existence of supplementary insurance influence the intention of arab women to perform hereditary screening tests. no significant connection was found between the performance of the screening tests and the influence of family members (parents or spouse). one can see an explanation for this in the policy of screening tests in israel. the main target audience for training and the performance of the screening tests is women, while men are only offered the option by the initiative and knowledge of the spouse (ministry of health, 2016). in addition, the procedure itself is relatively new (the original is from 2004), and therefore it is likely that the parents are unaware of the tests. the lack of knowledge by the family and spouse makes their ability to influence a woman’s awareness or decision to perform screening tests is low. therefore, further research is required on the spouse’s awareness and position towards the performance of the test. in addition, in the current sample, a significant part of respondents are unmarried (single or divorced) and it is quite possible that their position toward the spouse’s position is influenced by their marital status. there is a need to examine the differences between married and unmarried women on the subject of screening tests in a larger and more representative sample. there was no significant connection between the performance of the screening tests and/or the positions of the subjects towards the tests and variables related to the health organizations (availability of the tests, the existence of knowledge or the existence of legislation on the subject of screening tests). a possible explanation in the literature is that screening tests performance services for arab women in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 30 published by scholink inc. israel have only just begun (zlotogora et al., 2006), and so it is quite possible that there is a perceived insignificance of something that is not available at all—the knowledge and the tests themselves. the subject of change in the policy of screening tests for arab women in terms of training and availability requires further research. 5. summary and conclusions while this is a one-sample pilot study, there are differences between the findings of the existing sample and those described in previous studies in israel. the study indicates a lack of responsiveness to the screening tests and the possible influence of religious factors on the performance of the screening tests, although the connection is of the religious factors, but not the degree of religiosity. there is room for more research into the influence of other factors, as there may be differences in the light of a more representative sample, as well as a more in-depth study of the specific influence of religion, religiosity, and religious factors on arab women’s readiness to perform screening tests. references al aqeel, a. i. (2007). genetic counseling to the muslim world: the challenges. in 2ndpan arab human genetic conference. retrieved november 17, 2019, from http://www.cags.org.ae/e10alaqeel.pdf cousens, n. e., gaff, c. l., metcalfe, s. a., & delatycki, m. b. (2010). carrier screening for beta-thalassemia: a review of international practice. european journal of human genetics, 18(10), 1077-1083. https://doi.org/10.1038/ejhg.2010.90 ministry of health. (2016). medical administration circular 11/2016: screenings in the population to detect couples at risk of childbirth with severe hereditary diseases. retrieved may 29, 2018, from https://www.health.gov.il/hozer/bz11_2016.pdf na’amnih, w., romano-zelekha, o., kabaha, a., rubin, l. p., bilenko, n., jaber, l., ... shohat, t. (2015). continuous decline of consanguineous marriages among arabs in israel. american journal of human biology, 27(1), 94-98. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajhb.22610 romano-zelika, o., & shochat, t. (2011). use of genetic tests and imaging tests for prenatal diagnosis by pregnant women in israel. jerusalem: national center for disease control, ministry of health. zlotogora, j. (2014). genetics and genomic medicine in israel. molecular genetics & genomic medicine, 2(2), 85-94. https://doi.org/10.1002/mgg3.73 microsoft word fet-v1n1-p109.doc frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 109 original paper influence of bologna process on the academic mobility of students in the siberian universities anna m. varaksa1* & ol’ga i. kovtun1 1 department of economic theory, novosibirsk state university of economics and management, novosibirsk, russia * anna m. varaksa, department of economic theory, novosibirsk state university of economics and management, novosibirsk, russia received: may 2, 2018 accepted: may 13, 2018 online published: may 28, 2018 doi:10.22158/fet.v1n1p109 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v1n1p109 abstract in the article the change students mobility level after the entry of russia in bologna process is considered. the difficulties of the russian higher education in the organization of the academic exchange of students—geographical remoteness of universities of siberia from the intellectual centers of europe and russia are investigated. in this article we will pay special attention to the proceeding mobility of programs. students of universities of the city of novosibirsk are the object of the research. to study their mobility the data from novosibirsk state university of economics and management was used. method of a research was induction, to study mass behavior of students on the example of one organization introduction was used as a method of a research. also we used analysis, synthesis, mathematical modeling. for descriptive reasons we constructed schedules and charts. keywords bologna process, system of the higher education, academic mobility, siberian region 1. introduction it is known that the soviet system of the higher education considerably differed from formation of the european countries and the usa. after the collapse of the ussr the higher education still kept structure: the expert—the candidate of science—the doctor of science. but about 10 years ago russia joined bologna process. thereof the system of russian education completely exchanged. bologna process brought as the positive, as well as negative moments. in our article we will study one of the elements characterizing integration of russian education in international—the academic mobility of students. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 110 published by scholink inc. after signing of the bologna declaration by russia its universities got an opportunity for creation of the educational programs focused on the world labour market and meeting the european educational standards. the bologna process also influences on the opportunities for increasing in the academic mobility of students and teachers. the academic mobility is training, teaching, carrying out researches abroad after which the student, the teacher or the researcher comes back to the main educational or scientific institution. it can be implemented through special programs of exchanges within government agreements, agreements between higher education institutions or associations of higher education institutions, and also individually by students/teachers/researchers with higher education institutions or the scientific organizations. let’s note that the academic mobility can be entering—arrival of foreign teachers, the researchers studying to the country or proceeding—departure of teachers, researchers, pupils abroad. besides physical mobility mark out institutional mobility (creation of branches of educational institutions in other countries, cross-border campuses) and mobility of programs (implementation by educational institutions of joint educational programs, programs of double diplomas) (the concept of development of the academic mobility in the russian federation, 2013, p. 2). according to the institute of international education the numbers of international students in european countries increase from 565,039 in 2005 to 974,926 in 2015 (institute of international education, 2016). accession of russia in september, 2003 to bologna process was an important step on the way of association of higher educational institutions of russia with the european system of the higher education (varaksa, 2015). it is necessary to place emphasis to the fact that the big area of the country is among unique factors of the russian higher education. because of this factor, universities of siberia and the far east are at rather long distance from the largest and popular universities of the country. 2. method & materials 2.1 siberian universities it is the thesis we will illustrate with comparison of the students’ mobility of two russian universities: novosibirsk state university (nsu), novosibirsk state university of economics and management (nsuem). originally we will allocate the directions of the academic mobility and we will specify what motives induce students to leave for study to other country. further we will consider what students of specialties are most inclined to training abroad, and also financing sources for training of students. as a result we will have to define what advantages the academic mobility at the macro and micro levels gives. the international educational programs in the following countries are provided for students of nsu: japan, korea, china, france, germany, and the netherlands. conditions of participation vary depending on the country. practically of all countries is among the main requirements: excellent progress and knowledge of english at the high level, and also compliance of the directions of training. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 111 published by scholink inc. among other things, makes a reservation that it is possible to take part in the program only after receiving consent of the dean of faculty and the research supervisor. in some countries there is a possibility of receiving a grant on a competitive basis. at the same time, students are given an opportunity to live in the hostel (both on paid, and on a free basis). knowledge of national language of the country is required only for the students studying on exchange in germany. and for participation in the educational program of the netherlands only graduates of a bachelor degree or magistracy are accepted (website of novosibirsk state university). the object of the research is exchange programmers for russian students in nsuem. the period of research is the last three academic years, from 2015 till 2018. 2.2 importance of cooperation high-quality international cooperation of universities is very important for realization of the purposes of bologna process. that merging of universities did not cause problems further, it is important to agree initially about mutual recognition of diplomas and the credits, to develop joint programs, and also to think over various joint researches. besides, you should not forget that planned schedules of training in the different countries in practice differ. it is worth dealing with this problem, it can affect interest of students. owing to not joining of curricula on a semester the student can be forced to study less a part of a semester in the country, and then, upon return, to pass a part of other semester. bologna process acted as one of the ways to increase competitiveness of russian universities on a global scale and an opportunity to use and develop the most valuable national resource—human capital. it should be noted that development of the academic mobility acts as one of necessary conditions for improving of the russian education quality system and, as a result, export promotion of russian universities educational services. 3. results let’s consider mobility of students of novosibirsk state university of economics and management. within student’s exchange students of nsuem can master a part of the educational program or pass language training in foreign partner universities. at choice china, south korea, germany, the republic of south africa, the usa, india are offered. let’s note that it is possible to pass only a language training (chinese courses) in china. in addition, an opportunity to participate in exchange programs of the ministry of education and science of the russian federation is given. the total of students annually increases in a geometrical progression. this fact demonstrates the growth of interest in the international programs of training. and also that training abroad becomes more available to siberian students. foreign researcher van mol noticed that “those who engage in international academic mobility might experience their investment as a way of differentiation, associated with better educational and labour market perspectives compared to their non-mobile counterparts” (van mol, 2017). main motives of students’ participating in foreign exchange programs are following: www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 112 published by scholink inc. desire to gain the foreign diploma about education. an opportunity to learn (or to improve) a foreign language. to get acquainted with foreign culture. and also get new experience, communicating with students and professors from other countries, testing new methods of teaching in different disciplines, which use foreign professors. to improve a portfolio while try themselves in various competitions, contests and conferences during training in foreign higher education institutions. to accumulate experience in the field of specialization. to find more prestigious work after the termination of the university because a lot of employers in different countries and in russia as well value international study and internships. figure 1. students—participants of exchange programs in nsuem during 3 academic years lörz, m., nicolai, n., & heiko, q., 2016. general conditions of exchange programs of nsuem:  good level of knowledge of language (national or english) the participant of the program has to be not below b1/b2 on the european scale (intermediate);  the direction of training in the accepting higher education institution has to correspond to the direction of training of the student in nsuem;  the exchange programs training in the accepting university is carried out free of charge, at the same time training in nsuem is paid in full. costs of journey, accommodation, food, execution of the visa and other documents are paid by the student independently [website of novosibirsk state university of economics and management & website of novosibirsk state university]. the structure of expences for academic mobile programs is presented in figure 2. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 113 published by scholink inc. 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 at the expense of the state  budget due to full recovery of  services figure 2. the number of students at the expense of the state budget means and at the expense of a full recovery lörz, m., nicolai, n., & heiko, q., 2016. over the countries the greatest number of students is trained in china (see figure 3). also popularity among the students of nsuem is also given to training in programs of exchange in higher education institutions of germany and spain. in comparison with world students mobility as başak bilecen notes more than half of all international students move to the united states, the united kingdom, australia, france, and german (oesd education at a glance, 2012). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 114 published by scholink inc. figure 3. the choice by students of countries of residence according to programs of the academic exchange lörz, m., nicolai, n., & heiko, q., 2016. but despite successful participation in integration processes, russia it is necessary to make additional efforts on activation of the academic mobility, being guided by the international tendencies of internationalization of education. according to data of oecd, now, the share of foreign students in russia makes 3,9% of total of students while in the usa this indicator reaches 16,6%, in great britain—13%, australia—6,6% (plaksy, 2012). only 0,8% of the russian students whereas in the european countries, such as austria, estonia, germany, this indicator makes from 5 to 7% study abroad [oesd education at a glance 2012, & report of the department of external relations of novosibirsk state university of economics and management 2015-2016/2015-2016/2017-2018 academic year]. we are interested in fact who participated in programs of exchange in nsuem and what programs they are interested in (see figure 4) and whether students and faculty members improve their skills and cvs through mobility. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 115 published by scholink inc. figure 4. participating students in programs of exchange: differentiation in specialties report of the department of external relations of novosibirsk state university of economics and management 2015-2016/ 2015-2016/2017-2018 academic year. the entry of russia into the world trade organization (wto) and the planned accession to the organization for economic cooperation and development (oecd) causes importance and priority of growth of efforts on increase in competitiveness of russian education in the conditions of the open international environment. especially it should be noted that interchange by students is important in various directions—economy, mathematics, biology: to humanitarian and technical science. from these positions it is interesting to review what students of what directions are chosen foreign training. apparently from the figure 4, regional studies enjoy the greatest popularity that to a wave it is logical from positions of the choice of a further profession. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 116 published by scholink inc. 4. discussions for comparison we will specify possibilities of mobility for students of the most high-rating russian higher education institution—st. petersburg state university (st. petersburg state university). at students of st. petersburg state university is much more opportunities for training abroad. partners of st. petersburg state university are 350 higher education institutions from 60 countries of the world among which there are higher educational institutions of europe, america and asia. among them there are leading higher education institutions of europe, such as sorbonne, hamboldt, (humboldt university of berlin), free university of amsterdam, austrian national university, ludwig maximilian university of munich and others (the concept of development of the academic mobility in the russian federation, 2013). in a semester about three-four places on which it is possible to get are allocated for each specialty of universities having gpa not less than four and the good level of knowledge of english. here it is necessary to emphasize that also the grant and the place of residence is provided to especially caused a stir students that considerably cuts personal expenses of the student. the university promotes exchange not only students, but also professorial and scientific shots, and also participates in the international scientific educational programs and exhibitions. in st. petersburg state university more than ten joint educational programs are implemented, we will note importance of the fact that according to fifteen programs training are in whole or in part conducted in english. from stated above we see that mobility of the students studying in university, being not in the european part of russia is much lower, than the students who are trained in larger and more prestigious universities of russia. about the same idea in european countries wrote lörz markus and his colleagues (lörz, nicolai, & heiko, 2016). they point out that students mobility is more developed in more prestigious universities and students from underprivileged families less often intend to study abroad. but despite geographical remoteness, novosibirsk state university has rather high rating among higher educational institutions of russia and europe. and students of nsu have rather wide choice of the countries for training on exchange. 5. conclusion it is worth to remember that territorial remoteness of siberia from the intellectual centers of europe and russia at the organization of the academic exchange of students demands big material inputs. at the same time, if to resolve the matter at the expense of students and not to give opportunities on free or preferential participation in exchange, the probability that only wealthy students will be able to get a better and convertible education is high, and clever and capable students from needy families will have no mobile opportunity. thus, as showed our research, the academic mobility of the siberian students annually increases. they are attracted both by the study fact abroad, and an opportunity to get additional experience of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 117 published by scholink inc. communication. china and germany act as the most attractive countries for students from siberian universities. in the conclusion we would like to note that connection the scientific and educational capacity of siberia and the far east to capacities of the russian western region can possibly create powerful educational and research bases which will provide complex advancing of the russian universities to the leading positions of the educational services world market. let’s consider merits and demerits of signing of the bologna declaration by russia for student’s mobility. advantages:  first, possible improving of the russian education quality due to using in educational process modern educational technologies and innovations; sharing of experience with western colleagues can enlarge possibilities for professional developments.  secondly, increasing mobility of students and staff in universities and expansion of opportunities to have internship or to find a job in the european countries for professors and graduates of the russian higher education institutions.  thirdly, increasing the export of educational services (abeysekera & dawson, 2014). limitations:  reduction training time (and, as a result, and decreasing in education level) due to introduction of two-level system (a bachelor degree and a magistracy).  academic and scientific society accepted two-level system of training and adopt their educational programs to it with great difficulty.  discrepancy of planned schedules of training in various countries makes it difficult to organize the process of students’ exchange. the bologna process attempts to lower these obstacles within the european higher education. but in cooperation with russian universities partnership relations with concrete organization is more valuable.  recognition of russian universities diplomas in european countries can lead to considerable outflow of young engineers, doctors, and teachers, especially highly qualified stuff, from russia. we focus attention on the main reasons for “brain drain” from our country and they are not only in the bologna process. scientists and teachers want to work in better conditions, to have prospects and high level of the salary. references abeysekera, l., & dawson, p. (2014). motivation and cognitive load in the flipped classroom: definition, rationale and a call for research. higher education research & development, 34(1), 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2014.934336 bilecen, b., & van mol, c. (2017). international academic mobility and inequalities. journal of ethnic and migration studies, 8, 1241-1254. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183x.2017.1300225 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 118 published by scholink inc. bransford, j., brown, a. l., & cocking, r. r. (eds.). (2000). how people learn: brain, mind, experience, and school. washington, dc: national academy press. institute of international education. (2016). open doors data. retrieved june 7, 2016, from http://www.iie.org/opendoors libin, i. y., ceara vasquez, m., oleynik, t. l., & bologna process. (2012). prospects for russia [the electronic document]. the international magazine of experimental education, 9. retrieved from http://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/bolonskiy-protsess-perspektivy-dlya-rossii-1 lörz, m., nicolai, n., & heiko, q. (2016). why do students from underprivileged families less often intend to study abroad? higher education, 72, 153-174. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-015-9943-1 novikova, v. m. (2012). problems and prospects of russian higher education [electronic document]. bulletin of mgimo university. retrieved from http://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/problemy-i-perspektivy-rossiyskogo-vysshego-obrazovaniya oesd education at a glance. (2012). retrieved from http://www.oecd.org/edu/highlights.pdf/ plaksy, s. i. (2012). bologna process in russia: pluses and minuses [the electronic document]. knowledge. understanding. ability, 1. retrieved from http://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/bolonskiy-protsess-v-rossii-plyusy-i-minusy report of the department of external relations of novosibirsk state university of economics and management 2015-2016/2015-2016/2017-2018 academic year. (n.d.). the concept of development of the academic mobility in the russian federation. (2013). van mol, c. (2017). do employers value international study and internships? a comparative analysis of 31 countries. geoforum, 78, 52-60. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2016.11.014 varaksa, a. m. (2015). an integrated approach to the study of the national economy. scientific problems of transportation in siberia and the far east, 1, 6-9. website of novosibirsk state university of economics and management (ninh). (n.d.). retrieved from https://nsuem.ru/international/student-exchange/ website of novosibirsk state university. (n.d.). retrieved from http://www.nsu.ru/university/oms/mobil_nost_ website of st. petersburg state university. (n.d.). retrieved from http://abiturient.spbu.ru frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no.3, 2022 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 36 original paper a project for life sciences students and physics students involving a cell phone wathiq abdul-razzaq1 & bilal rana2 1 department of physics and astronomy, west virginia university, morgantown, usa 2 department of biology, west virginia university, morgantown, usa * wathiq abdul-razzaq, email: wabdulra@wvu.edu received: july 20, 2022 accepted: august 3, 2022 online published: august 17, 2022 doi:10.22158/fet.v5n3p36 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v5n3p36 abstract an increasing number of life science students are taking physics courses in college as more physics-based medical technologies are being implemented in hospitals and clinics. most of these students are unable to appreciate the connection between physics and their fields when taking a typical physics course. one of the best ways to bridge physics with another area of study is to involve students in a small but exciting research project such as relating the physics of microwaves to biological organisms. a cell phone was used to study the effect of its emitted microwaves on the growth of tomato plants after exposing the seeds to the signal during germination. keywords interdisciplinary education, introductory college lab project, undergraduate research 1. introduction it is important that we emphasize the application of physics to biology and health when teaching introductory physics courses to life-science students. one of the most interesting applications is the effect of electromagnetic waves, such as microwaves, on humans. almost all students have cell phones and they get anxious when they realize that these phones emit microwaves. in this study, a biology student and his physics professor conducted this research to understand the effect of cell phone signal on tomato plants. plants and humans are both biological organisms and one may use plants to have some indication on what may affect humans. the exposure to microwaves at the frequency of cell phones have increased from natural levels by a factor of about 1018 due to man-made cell phones and other wireless devices (bandara, 2018; philips, 2012; raines et al., 1981). microwaves are non-ionizing waves that cause thermal heating in mailto:wabdulra@wvu.edu www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 37 published by scholink inc. microwave ovens which operate at a frequency of about 2.54 ghz. cell phones however operate at frequencies of about 1 ghz and with much less power than microwave ovens—they do not cause heating effects giving the impression that they are not harmful. however, some studies have proven that cell phone signals can have an impact even with the absence of a thermal effect. viokow et al. (2011) for example, showed that exposure to a 50-minute cell phone placed on the ear of a person increased brain glucose metabolism in the region closest to the antenna, though the clinical significance of this finding is not known. many other studies suggest that cell phone signals are harmful to animals (aldad, 2012; esmekaya, 2011; mith-roe, 2017; ruediger et al., 2009) while other studies did not show any effect on animals or humans (hirose et al., 2008). though plants are biological organisms, few studies have been conducted on them. these studies resulted in various conclusions in regards to the effect of cell phone signal on germination, plant growth, etc. (jonas, 1952; haggerty, 2010; vian et al., 2006). all these studies used microwave transmitters, but we used a cell phone instead to mimic real life situations. 2. experimental conditions we chose to study washington cherry tomato plants because they are responsive in a relatively short period. all seedlings and growing plants in this experiment were grown in a biochamber gc-16 growth chamber that allowed us to set temperature, humidity, co2 levels and lighting. nutrient, light and temperature factors remained the same for all experiments. the growth chamber was set to a temperature of 24 ºc, co2 of 350 ppm, and humidity of 50%. a motorola cell phone that has an exposed antenna was used with at&t service at an operating frequency of 890 mhz. the reason we used a phone that has an exposed antenna so that the student can place the antenna near the plants instead of guessing where the antenna is if we use a modern phone. 3. procedure and results a filter paper was placed in an empty 10 cm diameter petri dish and then dampened with ionized water. twenty-five seeds were placed in a grid approximately 1 cm apart and then the dish was tightly wrapped with parafilm. we exposed these seeds to the cell phone signal during germination and labeled them “germination exposed—batch #1”. the same was repeated for another 25 seeds in a separate dish labeled “control—batch #1” which would not be exposed to cell phone signal. the cell phone was placed such that its antenna was directly over the 25 seeds of the “germination exposed” petri dish as shown in figure 1. a computer was arranged to make about 315 min. of phone calls during the 72 hours of the germination period. we selected at random ten of these 25 germinated seeds and buried each seed in a cell of soil placed in a perma-nest tray. the 25 “control” seeds were germinated for 72 hours without exposure to the cell phone signal, then 10 seeds were selected at random and likewise buried in separate cells of a perma-nest tray parallel to the “exposed” seeds as shown in figure 2. the above experiment was repeated two more times; we will refer to them as batch www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 38 published by scholink inc. #2 and batch #3. the three trays for batch #1, #2 and #3 were placed into the growth chamber, with conditions described above, and were allowed to grow into plants for 35 day without exposure to the phone signal during growth. figure 1. tomato seeds germinating in a dish while exposed to the signal from the antenna of a cell phone figure 2. the figure shows two of the three batches. the “germination exposed” and the “control” plants are facing each other in each tray after 35 days of growth above ground, the stem lengths of each plant of the “germination exposed” plants and of the associated “control” plants were measured. the stem length of batch #1, #2 and #3 are plotted in figure 3 versus plant number (the germination exposed plant is given the same plant number as the control plant that is facing it in the tray). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 39 published by scholink inc. we can see from figure 3 that for each of the three batches, the stem lengths (red dots) of “germination exposed” plants were in general less than those (blue dots) of the control plants. we used the function “weight” in the kaleidagraph software to draw the red and the blue lines to guide the eye for the trends of the data. 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 batch #1 s te m l e n g th ( c m ) plant number 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 batch #2 s te m l e n g th ( c m ) plant number www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 40 published by scholink inc. 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 batch #3 s te m l e n g th ( c m ) plant number figure 3. the steam length for the three batches. the red represents the germination exposed plants and the blue represents their associated control plants. we have two missing red points from batch #3 because two plants did not grow above ground for a rough analysis, we took the average of the actual values of the red dots and the average of the actual values of the blue dots of all three batches and found that the average stem length of the “germination exposed” plants (red dots) is shorter than that of the control (blue dots) by about 20%. interestingly, there are studies that showed the effect of microwaves radiations on the growth of plants such as a study that exposed oil bearing seeds to rf radiation and found increased rates of germination (jonas, 1952). another study (haggerty, 2010) on the effects of rf radiation on aspen plants found that exposed plants displayed a reduction in shoot length and leaf area. 4. discussion from physics point of view, the microwaves emitted by a cell phone should have some effect on plants. that is because the magnetic field of microwaves oscillates and according to faraday’s law of induction, an oscillating magnetic field induces electric current—this induced current in the seeds during germination perhaps was the cause for shorting our plants. since the human body is a living organism like plants, students should be encouraged to think that the induced current induced by the cell phone may have some effects in our bodies when we use such a phone. this effect however might be very small and unnoticeable—as mentioned in the introduction, scientists so far do not agree about the consequence of the effect of cell phones on humans. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 41 published by scholink inc. we recommend that this interdisciplinary project be conducted as part of introductory biology labs or introductory physics labs in collage to show the applications of physics on living organisms. only a non-expensive cell phone and a controlled space to grow the plants are needed to do this kind of work. references aldad, t. s., gan, g., & gao, x. b. (2012). taylor h. s. fetal radiofrequency radiation exposure from 800–1900 mhz-rated cellular telephones affects neurodevelopment and behavior in mice. sci rep, 2, 312. https://doi.org/10.1038/srep00312 bandara, p., & carpenter, d. o. (2018). oceania radiofrequency scientific advisory association, scarborough, qld 4020, australia (pb); and institute for health and the environment, university at albany, rensselaer, ny, usa (doc), the lancet. planetary health, 2(12), 509-547. https://doi.org/10.1016/s2542-5196(18)30221-3 esmekaya, m., ozer, c., & seyham, n. (2011). 900 mhz pulse modulated radiofrequency radiation induces oxidative stress on heart, lung, testis and liver tissues. gen physoil biophys, 30, 84. https://doi.org/10.4149/gpb_2011_01_84 haggerty, k. (2010). adverse influence of radio frequency background on trembling aspen seedlings: preliminary observations. international journal of forestry research, 2010, 1. https://doi.org/10.1155/2010/836278 hirose, h., suhara, t., kaji, n., sakuma, n., sekijima, m., nojima, t., & miyakoshi, j. (2008). mobile phone base station radiation does not affect neoplastic transformation in balb/3t3 cells. bioelectromagnetics, 29(1), 55. https://doi.org/10.1002/bem.20362 jonas, h. (1952). some effects of radio frequency irradiation on small oilbearing seeds. physiological plantarum, 5, 41. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1399-3054.1952.tb08229.x mith-roe s. l., wyde, m. e., stout m. d., et al. (2017). evaluation of the genotoxicity of cell phone radiofrequency radiation in male and female rats and mice following subchronic exposure. environmental mutagenesis and genomics society annual conference; raleigh, nc, usa; sept 9-13. philips, a., & lamburn, g. (2012). natural and human-activity-generated electromagnetic fields on earth. childhood cancer; london; april 24-26. raines, j. k. (1981). electromagnetic field interactions with the human body: observed effects and theories. nasa technical reports server, nasa-cr-166661. retrieved from https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa. gov/19810017132.pdf ruediger, h.w. (2009). genotoxic effects of radiofrequency electromagnetic fields. pathophysiology, 16, 89-102. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pathophys.2008.11.004 vian, a., roux, d., girard, s., bonnet, p., paladian, f., edavies, e., & ledoigt, g. (2006). microwave irradiation affects gene expression in plants. plant signal behav., 1(2), 67. https://doi.org/10.4161/psb.1.2.2434 https://doi.org/10.1038/srep00312 https://doi.org/10.1016/s2542-5196(18)30221-3 https://doi.org/10.4149/gpb_2011_01_84 https://doi.org/10.1155/2010/836278 https://doi.org/10.1002/bem.20362 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1399-3054.1952.tb08229.x https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pathophys.2008.11.004 https://doi.org/10.4161/psb.1.2.2434 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 42 published by scholink inc. volkow, n. d., tomasi, d., wang, g. j. et al. (2011). effects of cell phone radiofrequency signal exposure on brain glucose metabolism. jama, 305, 808-313. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2011.186 https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2011.186 frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no.2, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 45 original paper designing a mixed model (anp-swot) to evaluate practical scenarios in the development of rural cooperatives in iran mohammad taleghani1 & ataollah taleghani 2 1 department of industrial management, rasht branch, islamic azad university, rasht, iran 2 ted rogers school of management, toronto metropolitan university, toronto, canada received: march 11, 2023 accepted: march 27, 2023 online published: april 12, 2023 doi:10.22158/fet.v6n2p45 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v6n2p45 abstract rural cooperatives as a small member-owned organizations are the potential to facilitate socio-economic development in rural areas. this study presents a novel hybrid method to develop strategies for development of rural cooperatives. it combines swot analysis, tows strategic alternatives matrix, and the analytic network process (anp). swot was used to analyze the external and internal environment of rural cooperatives in iran using the contributions of a team of experts. this team identified 19 swot sub-factors. a tows matrix was then constructed and the internal and external environmental sub-factors were combined to create good strategic alternatives. the expert team used the tows matrix to identify 11 strategic alternatives. anp was applied to prioritize the strategic alternatives. according to the experts’ team, the presented combined approach helps managers to choose the best alternative strategies considering both internal and environmental factors. keywords rural cooperatives, analytical network process, strategy development, swot analysis, iran 1. introduction a cooperative is a business or organization owned by and operated for the benefit of those using its services. profits and earnings generated by the cooperatives are distributed among the members or their user-owners. cooperatives are organizations with the potential to facilitate socio-economic development and to reduce poverty, especially in rural areas (fao, 2012; getnet & anullo, 2012; united nations, 2013). they are relevant to the realization of sustainable development goals. cooperatives help decrease poverty by providing employment, livelihoods, and services (wanyama, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 46 published by scholink inc. 2019). rural cooperatives produce economic benefits as well as social development, inclusion, and empowerment (choobchian, kalantari, asadi et al. 2015; ifad, 2014; sadighi & darvishinia, 2010). in many countries, agricultural cooperatives help overcome the limitations of family farms to help them compete with capital-intensive farming (herbel, rocchigiani, & ferrier, 2015) by increasing efficiency through increased productivity per unit of input and increased quality per unit of output (altman, 2018). in china farmer cooperatives connect technical, social and economic dimensions of farming practice. they provide corresponding services to link farmers to relevant actors, include extension agencies, research institutes and supermarkets (yang, klerkx, & leeuwis, 2017). cooperatives represent a means of maintaining the independence of their members. they enable small-scale producers to scale up their operations, expand their bargaining power, and take better advantage of global market opportunities. these organizations empower farming families by providing access to inputs and services like credit, training, storage facilities, and technology to improve the profitability of smallholder farming. they help farmers process, transport, and market their produce (ifad, 2014; suh, 2015; wanyama, 2019). in addition, cooperatives are a source of stability and predictability to farming. in negotiations with the government over agricultural policy, they have acted on behalf of their members’ interests (chase, 2019). ifad (2014) reports that in africa, cooperatives help young women and men gain access to opportunities that are often blocked by traditional age-related barriers. the role of poverty reduction of cooperatives is well recognized. international organizations such as the fao, un, ilo, and international cooperative alliance have reported that cooperatives are the most suitable types of organization for addressing all dimensions of reducing poverty and exclusion. the way in which cooperatives reduce poverty varies. they can identify economic opportunities for their members (lorendahl, 2020), empower the disadvantaged to defend their interests, provide security to the poor by allowing them to convert individual risks into collective risks, and mediate member access to assets that they utilize to earn a living. in rural areas where private businesses hesitate to go and public authorities do not provide basic services, cooperatives play a major self-help role. they give a stronger voice to rural groups and provide opportunities for productive employment as well as offering health care, education, potable water, improved sanitation, roads, and market access (franks & mc gloin, 2017; henry & schimmel, 2021). rural cooperatives are especially important in the developing world because more than half of humanity (3 billion of 5.5 billion people) live in rural areas and most depend directly or indirectly on agriculture for their livelihoods (world bank, 2017, 2014). the role of agricultural cooperatives is instrumental in helping family farms overcome limitations and become competitive with capital-intensive farming (herbel et al., 2021). as a whole, strong cooperatives and other producer organizations are able to overcome difficulties by offering their members services such as access to natural resources, information, communication, input and output markets, technologies and training. they facilitate participation in the decision-making process. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 47 published by scholink inc. practices like group purchasing and marketing help farmers gain market power and get better prices on agricultural inputs and other necessities (fao, 2012). with cooperation, rural residents can have a voice in rural policy-making and to exchange ideas across borders. these organizations put people before profit and help them to achieve shared social, cultural, and economic aspirations. a cooperative is a social enterprise that promotes peace and democracy. the iranian rural community has a long history of informal cooperatives in community-based organizations. boneh, haraseh, and wareh are examples these cultural and traditional organizations. formal iranian rural cooperatives emerged in 1935, when the government established the first rural cooperative in davoodabad village in garmsar, but the emergence of rural cooperatives accelerated after the 1979 revolution. the most recent report by the central organization of rural cooperatives of iran on the network of rural cooperatives in iran lists 2941 cooperatives with more than 4,500,000 members. rural cooperatives and other farming organizations have a far-reaching effect. since strategy formulation and management is a plan to obtain a sustainable competitive advantage for any firm (spulber, 2022), the present study developed a novel hybrid method to improve strategy-making for rural cooperatives. the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (swot) approach and the threats, opportunities, weaknesses, strengths (tows) strategic alternatives matrix were employed in combination with the analytic network process (anp) to achieve this task. 2. methodology 2.1 swot analysis swot analysis is a simple but useful framework for analyzing organizational strengths and weaknesses (internal environments) and opportunities and threats (external environments). it focuses on strengths, minimizes threats, and takes advantage of opportunities (wheelen & hunger, 2012) to attain a systematic approach and support for a decision. it involves systematic thinking and comprehensive diagnosis of factors relating to a new product, technology, management, or planning (weihrich, 2012). the results categorize factors into internal (strengths, weaknesses) and external (opportunities, threats) and enable decision makers to compare opportunities and threats with strengths and weaknesses. if swot analysis is done correctly, it can be a good base for strategy formulation (babaesmailli, arbabshirani, & golmah, 2012), but it cannot quantitatively measure the importance of each factor in decision-making or assess which factor influences most influences a strategic decision (pesonen, kurttila, kangas et al., 2011, shrestha, alavalapati, & kalmbacher, 2014). swot has no means of analytically determining the importance of factors or of assessing the fit between swot factors and alternative decisions (babaesmailli et al., 2012). in recent years, researchers have tried to improve this weakness by combining it with techniques such as ahp (eslamipoor & sepehriar, 2014, görener, toker, & uluçay, 2012, lee & walsh, 2011, shrestha et al., 2014) and anp (zarafshani, sahraee, & helms, 2015). although swot approach in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 48 published by scholink inc. combination with ahp can provide a quantitative measure of importance of each factor on decision-making, it also assumes that all factors should be independent and determines the priority of alternatives based on this assumption, which is not always true. interdependency can exist among swot factors and could change the final priority of alternatives (yüksel & dagdeviren, 2017); therefore, it is important to consider dependency among the factors. the present study has used the anp in place of ahp to determine the priority of strategies. anp can be adopted to accommodate the concern of interdependence among selection factors or clusters (yüksel & dagdeviren, 2017). 2.2 tows matrix the tows matrix is an essential completion tool. it illustrates how external opportunities and threats facing an organization or a cooperative can be matched with its internal strengths and weaknesses to form four sets of possible strategic alternatives (so, st, wo and wt) (wheelen & hunger, 2012). so (maxi-maxi) strategies use strengths to maximize opportunities. st (maxi-mini) strategies use strengths to minimize threats. wo (mini-maxi) strategies minimize weaknesses by taking advantage of opportunities. wt (mini-mini) strategies minimize weaknesses and avoid threats. this is a good way to take advantage of brainstorming to create alternative strategies that might not otherwise be considered. it forces strategic managers to create various kinds of growth and retrenchment strategies (weihrich, 2018). swot can be applied to create a tows matrix to deploy strategies (aslan, çınar, & kumpikaitė, 2012). the internal and external factors obtained through swot analysis can be replaced in a tows matrix (figure 1). the tows matrix helps to systematically identify relationships between threats, opportunities, weaknesses and strengths, and offers a structure for generating strategies on the basis of these relationships (weihrich, 2018). tows matrix external factors opportunities (o) 1. 2. 3. 4. threats (t) 1. 2. 3. 4. in te r n a l f a c to r s strengths (s) 1. 2. 3. so: maxi-maxi strategies that use strengths to maximize opportunities st: maxi-mini strategies that use strengths to minimize threats weaknesses (w) 1. 2. 3. wo: mini-maxi strategies that minimize weaknesses by taking advantage of opportunities wt: mini-mini strategies that minimize weaknesses and avoid threats figure 1. tows matrix www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 49 published by scholink inc. 2.3 the analytic network process (anp) the anp is a multiple-attribute decision-making method that is a generalization of the ahp which considers dependence between elements in the hierarchy. the ahp hierarchy formation is a linear (top-down) structure, where anp is a non-linear structure that extends in all directions (sevkli, oztekin, uysal et al., 2012). this enables anp to model complex problems in the real world. this method considers mutual and interdependent relationships among criteria, sub-criteria and alternatives by assessing their relationships (saaty, 2014). it solves decision-making problems in which interrelations and correlations between decision-making levels (goal, criteria, sub-criteria and alternatives) are considered. the world requires decisions that involve the interaction and dependence of higher-level elements in a hierarchy with lower-level elements. this means they cannot be structured hierarchically; thus, anp is represented by a network rather than a hierarchy (saaty & vargas, 2019). this network includes cycles connecting its components of elements or levels with loops that connect a component to it. because swot factors are not usually independent, it is necessary to determine the inner dependence of swot factors by analyzing the effect of each factor on the others. 2.4 proposed swot-tows-anp model and its application the present study introduces a hybrid method to improve strategy-making for rural cooperatives that combines the swot approach and tows matrix with anp. figure 2 compares a hierarchy and a network structure for swot-tows. the hierarchy (figure 2.a) comprises a goal, levels of elements, and connections between the elements. these connections are oriented only toward elements in lower levels, but a network (figure 2.b) has clusters of elements with elements in one cluster connected to elements in another cluster or in the same cluster. a hierarchy is a network with connections going only in one direction (saaty, 2016). figure 2 includes outer and inner influences. the first compares the influence of elements in a cluster on elements in another cluster with respect to a control criterion, the latter compares the influence of elements in a group on each other. figure 2. (a) linear hierarchy and (b) network structure for swot-tows b. network structure a. linear hierarchy www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 50 published by scholink inc. the present study implemented a network structure because the elements of swot are dependent. first, the swot factors and sub-factors were detected by identifying the internal and external factors of swot. an expert team comprising 10 individuals familiar with the central organization of rural cooperatives in iran was employed. they were invited to meet and became familiar with the research methodology and its aim and were then asked to detect the swot factors and sub-factors. they detected 19 swot sub-factors (table 1). next the tows matrix was constructed. the expert team was again employed for swot to fulfill the tows strategic alternatives matrix. they constructed the tows matrix and the so, st, wo and wt strategies. figure 3 indicates the experts identified eleven main strategies for rural cooperatives development based on interactions between swot sub-factors. table 1. swot factors and sub-factors internal factors strengths (s) weaknesses (w) s1. ability to optimize provision of production inputs for members. s2. facilitate implementation of government policies. s3. ability to apply professional management. s4. ability to improve value and supply chains of products. s5. facilitate provision of technical and financial services. w1. managers of cooperatives do not have complete authority. w2. farm ownership is not separate from farm management. w3. cooperatives have no specific statute. w4. lack of management knowledge in cooperatives. w5. poor performance and economic potential of cooperatives external factors opportunities (o) threats (t) o1. legal support of cooperatives. o2. existence of governmental facilities and supports. o3. frequency of rural cooperatives and their members o4. existence of national and international successful samples. o5. existence of different levels of support structures from local to international (such as unions). t1. existence of parallel organizations. t2. imbalance of national funds for needs of cooperatives. t3. lack of implementation of legal protection. t4. instability of government policies and programs. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 51 published by scholink inc. tows matrix external factors opportunities (o) o1, o2, o3, o4, and o5 threats (t) t1, t2, t3, and t4 in te r n a l f a c to r s s tr en g th s (s ) s1 s2 s3 s4 s5 so maxi-maxi strategy so1. facilitate procurement of production inputs and develop supply and value chains of rural cooperatives inputs and products to benefit from opportunities such as legal supports and facilities. so2. implement public policy and provide technical and financial services using rural cooperatives to benefit from support structures and existing successful examples. so3. specialization of management of rural cooperatives to benefit from opportunities. st maxi-mini strategy st1. increase competitiveness and reduce dependency of rural cooperative on financial, legal, and governmental support through provision of production inputs and optimization and improving supply and value chains. st2. involve rural cooperatives in policy planning and implementation and provide financial and technical services. st3. increase competitiveness and reduce dependency of rural cooperative on financial, legal, and governmental supports by developing and promoting professional management of rural cooperatives. w ea k n es se s (w ) w1 w2 w 3 w 4 w 5 wo mini-maxi strategy wo1. enhance authority and knowledge of current management and educate professional managers for rural cooperatives to benefit more from available opportunities. wo2. authorize specific statute for rural cooperatives for multiplicity and existence of successful examples and their support structures. wo3. develop programs to improve performance and economy of rural cooperatives for maximum benefit of opportunities such as financial support and facilities. wt mini-mini strategy wt1. improve competitiveness and reduce threats emanating from lack of credit and government support and political and programmatic instability through development of knowledge and rural cooperatives management. wt2. policymaking and planning to improve performance and economy of rural cooperatives to enhance competitiveness and reduce threats of instability of policies, programs, lack of funding and government supports. figure 3. tows matrix for rural cooperatives development in iran www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 52 published by scholink inc. the third step develops the network structure of the problem. the network structure of the problem (figure 1.b) was defined to select the best strategies for rural cooperative development as the goal of network (g). swot factors identified as criteria (c), swot sub-factors as sub-criteria (sc), and the tows strategies as alternatives (a) were placed into the network structure (super matrix wn): g c sc a wn g 0 0 0 0 c w21 w22 0 0 sc 0 w32 w33 0 a 0 0 w43 1 when using anp to model a problem, a network structure should represent the problem and pairwise comparisons are required to establish relations within the structure (saaty & vargas, 2013). questionnaires were designed to allow pairwise comparison. each expert completed the pairwise comparison matrix between the derived factors. the scale of values represented the intensity of opinion from 1 (equal) to 9 (extreme importance). it was used to detect the priority and interdependency of factors using the geometric mean of expert opinion. next, the priority of each tows strategy was determined using anp as follows (babaesmailli et al., 2012; shakoor shahabi, basiri, rashidi kahag et al., 2014; yüksel & dagdeviren, 2017): 1) pairwise comparisons of swot factors assuming no dependency among factors are used to calculate the weight of the main swot factors (criteria) according to the goal (w21). the weight (priority) of each factor is calculated as (table 2): 2) comparisons of swot factors based on the assumption of dependency between swot factors (w22) (table 3). the weight (priority) of any factor is calculated using eq. 1. 3) calculate the weights of relative importance of swot groups (w2) by multiplying w21 by w22. w21 w22 w2 0.000 0.672 0.500 0.323 0.427 0.351 w2 = w21× w22= 0.570 0.000 0.250 0.089 × 0.110 0.275 0.333 0.265 0.000 0.588 0.427 = 0.258 0.097 0.063 0.250 0.000 0.037 0.116 4) pairwise comparison of each swot sub-factor (w33) (table 4) and measurement of the weight of a sub-factor (w3) by multiplying w33 by w2 (table 5). the priorities of the sub-factors in each factor are calculated using eq. 1. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 53 published by scholink inc. 5) calculate the relative importance of any alternative strategy (soi, sti, woi, wti) for the corresponding sub-factors. these weights are derived from the relative pairwise comparison matrix (w43) using eq. 1. 6) form the super matrix (wn) using the matrices (w21, w22, w32, w33, and w43). because the weight of any alternative strategy derives from the normalized supper matrix, normalize the super matrix to calculate the weight of any alternative strategy. 7) calculate the ultimate weight of any alternative strategy; this requires empowerment of the super matrix to a steady state. the result of super matrix is called the limit matrix (saaty 2004, saaty 2006, saaty and vargas 2013). the limit matrix was developed using super decision software (ver. 2.4). the limit matrix includes the priorities of each tows strategy (table 6). table 2. pairwise comparison of swot factors w21 s w o t priorities s 1.00 5.00 1.00 9.00 0.427 w 0.20 1.00 0.20 5.00 0.110 o 1.00 5.00 1.00 9.00 0.427 t 0.11 0.20 0.11 1.00 0.037 cr=0.035 table 3. inner dependency matrix of swot factors vs. other factor strength w o t priorities w 1.00 2.00 5.00 0.570 o 0.50 1.00 4.00 0.333 t 0.20 0.25 1.00 0.097 cr=0.024 weakness s o t priorities s 1.00 3.00 9.00 0.672 o 0.33 1.00 5.00 0.265 t 0.11 0.20 1.00 0.063 cr=0.028 opportunity s w t priorities s 1.00 2.00 2.00 0.500 w 0.50 1.00 1.00 0.250 t 0.50 1.00 1.00 0.250 cr=0.000 threat s w o priorities www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 54 published by scholink inc. s 1.00 4.00 0.50 0.323 w 0.25 1.00 0.17 0.089 o 2.00 6.00 1.00 0.588 cr=0.009 w22 s w o t s 0.000 0.672 0.500 0.323 w 0.570 0.000 0.250 0.089 o 0.333 0.265 0.000 0.588 t 0.097 0.063 0.250 0.000 table 4. pairwise comparison of swot sub-factors (w33) strengths s1 s2 s3 s4 s5 priorities s1 1.00 0 0.50 0 0.25 0.25 0.33 0.069 s2 2.00 0 1.00 0 0.33 0.33 0.50 0.111 s3 4.00 0 3.00 3 1.00 1.00 0.50 0.247 s4 4.00 0 3.00 3 1.00 1.00 2.00 0.326 s5 3.00 3 2.00 0 2.00 0.50 1.00 0.247 cr=0.052 weaknesses w1 w2 w3 w4 w5 priorities w1 1.00 3.00 2.00 0.20 0.25 0.108 w2 0.33 1.00 0.50 0.14 0.17 0.046 w3 0.50 2.00 1.00 0.17 0.20 0.070 w4 5.00 7.04 6.02 1.00 2.00 0.463 w5 4.00 6.02 5.00 0.50 1.00 0.313 cr=0.027 opportunities o1 o2 o3 o4 o5 priorities o1 1.00 1.00 3.00 5.00 2.00 0.323 o2 1.00 1.00 3.00 5.00 2.00 0.323 o3 0.33 0.33 1.00 3.00 0.50 0.114 o4 0.20 0.20 0.33 1.00 0.25 0.052 o5 0.50 0.50 2.00 4.00 1.00 0.188 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 55 published by scholink inc. cr=0.010 threats t1 t2 t3 t4 prioritie s t1 1.00 2.00 2.00 2.00 0.400 t2 0.50 1.00 1.00 1.00 0.200 t3 0.50 1.00 1.00 1.00 0.200 t4 0.50 1.00 1.00 1.00 0.200 cr=0.000 table 5. final priority of each swot sub-factor environment criteria and priority scores (w2) sub-criteria factor priority scores (w33) sub-criteria overall priority scores (w3) sub-rank internal strengths (s) 0.351 s1 0.069 0.024 4 s2 0.111 0.039 3 s3 0.247 0.087 2 s4 0.326 0.114 1 s5 0.247 0.087 2 weaknesses (w) 0.275 w1 0.108 0.030 3 w2 0.046 0.013 5 w3 0.070 0.019 4 w4 0.463 0.127 1 w5 0.313 0.086 2 external opportunities (o) 0.258 o1 0.323 0.083 1 o2 0.323 0.083 1 o3 0.114 0.029 3 o4 0.052 0.013 4 o5 0.188 0.048 2 threats (t) 0.116 t1 0.400 0.046 1 t2 0.200 0.023 2 t3 0.200 0.023 2 t4 0.200 0.023 2 3. result the present study offered a hybrid method as a strategy for rural cooperative development. the swot technique was first used to analyze the internal and external environment of rural cooperatives. swot identified the strategic factors and sub-factors through the use of expert opinion. next, a tows www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 56 published by scholink inc. strategic alternatives matrix constructed so, st, wo and wt strategies. a total of 11 strategies were defined. the swot factors and sub-factors had inner and outer dependency; thus, anp was implemented to determine the dependencies among factors, sub-factors, and the final priority of alternative strategies. the results indicate that implementation of so2, so1 and st2 strategies are of greater priority than the other strategies. these strategies can play a central role in development of rural cooperatives in iran. it seems such enhanced version of swot analysis method is capable to provide enriched insights for strategic management. it can help managers to choose the best alternative strategies considering both internal and environmental factors. because these factors and sub-factors that affect decisionand strategy-making are generally dependent, application of anp in combination with swot analysis and tows matrix comprised a useful and successful tool for strategy-making and choosing between strategic alternatives. 4. discussion 4.1 internal and external environment space of rural cooperatives this study used the anp-swot-tows hybrid method to choose better strategies the development of for rural iranian cooperatives (rics) assuming dependency. table 5 and figure 4 show that in the internal space, the strengths (0.351) of rural cooperatives were greater than the weaknesses (0.275). strength s4 was the most important strength for the rics and s1 was the least important (figure 5). weakness w4 (lack of management knowledge) was the most important weakness and w2 (ownership of farms not separate from farm management) was the least important. in the external space, the opportunities (0.258) were greater than the threats (0.116). table 5 and figure 5 shows that the greatest opportunity was o1 (legal supports of cooperatives) and the greatest threat was t1 (existence of parallel organizations). figure 4 shows that the internal challenges of the rics (weaknesses) are greater than its external challenges (threats) and the positive aspects of the rics (strengths and opportunities) are greater than its negative aspects (weaknesses and threats). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 57 published by scholink inc. figure 4. internal and external environment space of rics (swot factors) figure 5. graphical interpretation of pairwise comparisons of swot sub-factors 4.2 proposed tows strategies for irc development the inner and outer dependency of the swot factors and sub-factors indicates that so strategies are the most powerful tows strategies for ric development and wt strategies are the least powerful (figure 6). the final priorities of the alternative strategies are shown in figure 7 and table 6. they indicate that so2, so1, and st2 are, in order, the three best tows strategies and wo2 is the weakest tows strategy for ric development. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 58 published by scholink inc. figure 6. tows strategy spaces for rics figure 7. graphical interpretation of tows strategies space of ric table 6. priorities for each tows strategy alternatives group alternatives normal ideal ranking so (0.331) so1 0.131 0.980 2 so2 0.134 1.000 1 so3 0.066 0.492 10 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 59 published by scholink inc. st (0.320) st1 0.099 0.742 6 st2 0.111 0.83 3 st3 0.110 0.823 4 wo (0.175) wo1 0.105 0.783 5 wo2 0.005 0.033 11 wo3 0.066 0.494 9 wt (0.174) wt1 0.094 0.706 7 wt2 0.080 0.594 8 as was observed above, this study presented a combined approach to help managers choose the best alternative strategies considering both internal and environmental factors. because these factors and sub-factors that affect decisionand strategy-making are generally dependent, application of anp in combination with swot analysis and tows strategic alternatives matrix comprised a useful and successful tool for strategy-making and choosing between strategic alternatives. references altman, m. 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(2015). strategic potential of the vermicompost agribusiness in iran: a swot analysis. journal of agricultural science and technology, 17(6), 1393-1408. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resourpol.2014.07.001 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agsy.2003.09.004 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1430-9134.1994.00355.x https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2014.11.009 https://doi.org/10.1016/0024-6301(82)90120-0 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agsy.2014.02.005 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ins.2007.01.001 frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no.3, 2022 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 22 original paper contextualization of an introductory physiology course to address student disengagement during remote learning in aotearoa stephen j. brown1 1 department of interdisciplinary studies, faculty of health and environment, auckland university of technology, auckland, new zealand received: july 17, 2022 accepted: august 1, 2022 online published: august 16, 2022 doi:10.22158/fet.v5n3p22 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v5n3p22 abstract extended periods of population lockdown during the covid-19 pandemic required many university courses to be delivered completely online, and for a student, this can lead to feelings of isolation, disconnectedness, and disengagement. this article proposes a hypothetical modification to an undergraduate course in physiology to address possible student disengagement when studying remotely. through contextualisation, the delivery of course content is made relevant to everyday life experiences in aotearoa (new zealand)—this approach may improve retention of material and sustain interest in the course. four scenarios are presented which align physiology content with information sources that present a context relevant to the lived experience in aotearoa. each scenario’s learning outcomes, course content, and assessment are constructively aligned, consistent with current pedagogical practices in course design. it is suggested that adopting this contextualisation approach may increase the likelihood of student course completion, reduce student attrition, and increase student engagement during periods of extended remote learning. further, it is suggested that using contextualisation presents an opportunity to redesign a higher education course to focus more on the relevance of academic material to the real-world lived experiences of students. keywords contextualization, student engagement, undergraduate, physiology education www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 23 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction in many countries, the response to the covid-19 pandemic was to introduce extended periods of population lock-down during which physical access to many social institutions was prohibited or severely restricted. universities rapidly adapted to this lock-down by developing their online delivery of courses to a dispersed and isolated student population (remtulla, 2020). university faculty created ways of delivering courses remotely using the internet (iyer, aziz, & ojcius, 2020), and different software programmes like microsoft teams®, zoom®, google classroom®, webex®, moodle®, and blackboard®. although not new, these online technologies and digital learning management systems have now become the main-stream applications used in the remote delivery of online higher education (liu et al., 2020). these online platforms allow both the synchronous delivery of learning experiences and the asynchronous accessing of course content by students. learners are encouraged to make use of online study materials uploaded by their institution, for example, watching pre-recorded lectures, and participate in group discussions on multiple social media platforms. in addition, small group problem-based learning (pbl) and case presentations followed by discussion have also been used to engage learners with online content (dumford & miller, 2018). however, maintaining student engagement with online courses during remote learning remains a major challenge in higher education, and it is likely that novel approaches to course design will be required if online learning is to become the new normal. the shift from “learner as the receiver” to “learner as the constructor of meaning” is defined as constructivism (marlow & page, 2005; moore, 2008). this conceptual framework asserts that learners are constantly updating their knowledge based on their everyday experiences, and learners create meaning in relationship to these experiences. in the constructivist framework, the motivation for learning rests with the learner not the instructor, while the instructor’s primary responsibility is to create conditions that support student engagement in the learning process. contextual learning is based on this constructivist theory of teaching and learning. contextualization refers to the educational process of relating content within a curriculum to an everyday setting or situation, and students can connect this content with the context in which it could be used (baker, hope, & karandjeff, 2009; llopart & esteban-guitart, 2017). the content within a curriculum is supported by relevant, authentic scenarios which resonate with learners’ life experiences. an advantage of this type of instruction is that the attention of learners is captured through the presentation of relevant content within an explicit application. using this approach, learners are more likely to retain information and recognize the relevance of this information in solving novel problems which arise in their everyday lives. students studying an undergraduate course in many disciplines related to human health will attempt to learn introductory concepts in human physiology. this material is typically delivered in large cohort first-year introductory courses which service other academic disciplines such as nursing, midwifery, and physiotherapy (ladage et al., 2018; higgins-opitz & tufts, 2014). although physiology is a subject that is integral to the studies of many health disciplines, students often find it difficult, resulting www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 24 published by scholink inc. in high failure rates, particularly among those students who study physiology in their very first semester at university (ernst & colthorpe, 2007; michael, 2007; tufts & higgins-opitz, 2009). student engagement with large physiology service courses can also be problematic (brown et al., 2018) although this can vary depending on the type and level of physiology course, with the lowest total engagement score for a lower-level course (hopper, 2016). one could speculate that contextualization of physiology curricula in an introductory course could address student disengagement and improve knowledge retention, thus providing a better knowledge base for students progressing into specific health disciplines. contextualising the content of a physiology course with everyday life experiences may improve student knowledge construction and result in deeper, more meaningful learning (borges & mello-carpes, 2014). contextualization of physiology curricula with events of everyday life has been shown to positively impact student learning and influence a student’s decisions and practices beyond the classroom (alves et al., 2021). this contextualization has been used as an integration strategy to embed understanding of physiology with other appropriate knowledge related to human health (alves et al., 2021; hillyer & gordon, 2020). thus, contextualisation may be a novel pedagogical strategy suitable for maintaining student engagement during extended periods of remote learning. 2. a contextualized physiology framework based on lived experience in aotearoa—four example scenarios in this article, four example scenarios are presented which potentially offer a framework for contextualizing an introductory physiology curriculum suitable for an undergraduate physiology course in aotearoa, new zealand. each scenario is contextualised by either an infographic produced in aotearoa, or readily available public documentation produced in aotearoa—these resources help to connect the course content with the everyday lived-experience of new zealanders. each scenario is presented with a brief introductory paragraph outlining the background physiology, followed by a tabulated plan which constructively aligns the academic content, learning outcomes, and assessment of the topic. 2.1 scenario: the physiology of the nervous system the nervous system is a communicating system in the body and is the centre of all mental activity (thought, learning, and memory). the nervous system acts through electrochemical impulses and neurotransmitters to cause muscle contraction and glandular secretion. input from receptors informs the brain and spinal cord about both external and internal environments. sensory receptors detect stimuli such as temperature, light, and sound from the external environment, while visceral receptors detect variations in blood pressure, ph, carbon dioxide concentration, and the levels of various electrolytes in the internal environment. sensory input is converted into electrochemical signals (action potentials) that are transmitted to the brain and/or the spinal cord. sensory input is integrated to create sensations, to produce thoughts, or to form memories. decisions are made each moment based on this sensory www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 25 published by scholink inc. input. nervous system responses include sending signals to muscles, causing them to contract, or to glands, causing them to produce secretions—this is the motor function role of the nervous system. suggested in table 1 is a plan which constructively aligns the content, learning outcomes, and assessment of the nervous system. also, reference is made in table 1 to the head impact assessment (hia) protocol (figure 1) used in relation to head collisions incurred during the game of rugby. this infographic has relevance in aotearoa due to the popularity of both rugby league and rugby union, and the extensive participation of both males and females in this activity. table 1. constructive alignment plan for the nervous system context physiology content learning outcomes assessment the head injury assessment (hia) protocol is a process introduced by world rugby to assist with identification and management of head impact events with the potential for a concussion. neurometabolic events of concussion include neuronal release of excitatory neurotransmitters and efflux of k+, persistent ca2+ influx, and reduced cerebral blood flow. ionic fluxes during an action potential. synaptic communication, and excitatory and inhibitory neurotransmitters. brain and spinal cord protection. understand normal function of the nervous system. understand the role of neurotransmitters in the nervous system. . describe the anatomical organisation of the adult brain and spinal cord. explain the role of excitatory neurotransmitters in action potential generation in a neuron. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 26 published by scholink inc. figure 1. infographic supporting the nervous system (salmon et al, 2020) 2.2 scenario: the physiology of the endocrine system the endocrine system is a communicating system in the body acting through chemical messengers called hormones. the actions of the endocrine system are measured in minutes, hours, or weeks and are more generalized than the actions of the nervous system. endocrine glands are ductless, and their secretory products (hormones) are carried by the blood throughout the entire body, yet they affect only certain cells. the specific cells that respond to a given hormone have receptor sites for that hormone. all the cells that have receptor sites for a given hormone make up the target tissue for that hormone. in some cases, the target tissue is localized in a single gland or organ. in other cases, the target tissue is www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 27 published by scholink inc. diffuse and scattered throughout the body so that many areas are affected. hormones bring about their characteristic effects on target cells by modifying cellular activity. protein hormones react with receptors on the surface of the cell, and the sequence of events that results in hormone action is relatively rapid. steroid hormones react with receptor sites inside a cell this method of action involves synthesis of proteins; it is relatively slow. hormones are very potent substances and very small amounts of a hormone may have profound effects on metabolic processes. because of their potency, hormone secretion must be regulated within very narrow limits to maintain homeostasis in the body. many hormones are controlled by some form of a negative feedback mechanism. in this type of system, a gland is sensitive to the concentration of a substance that it regulates. a negative feedback system causes a reversal of increases and decreases in body conditions in order to maintain a state of stability or homeostasis. suggested in table 2 is a plan which constructively aligns the content, learning outcomes, and assessment of the endocrine system. also, reference is made in table 2 to the “contraception—your choice” infographic (figure 2) produced by new zealand family planning. this infographic is produced by a non-profit organisation in aotearoa which offers free reproductive health advice for rangatahi (youth) and supplies resources for health professionals working with whānau. table 2. constructive alignment plan for the endocrine system context physiology content learning outcomes assessment the oral contraceptive pill is a combination of oestrogen and progestogen (see figure 2). it alters the ovarian cycle to eliminate ovulation. medicines. endocrine signals use a diverse range of chemicals secreted by widely distributed, ductless glands. receptor – hormone complexes trigger metabolic changes in target cells. hormone chemical structure. location of endocrine glands and regulation of hormone release. mechanisms of hormone action on target cells. understand the role of the endocrine system in controlling bodily functions. understand the interaction between hormones and hormone release. describe the action of lipid-soluble, and water-soluble hormones on target cells. explain the homeostatic control of body function by the endocrine system. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 28 published by scholink inc. figure 2. infographic supporting the endocrine system (retrieved from: https://www.familyplanning.org.nz/media/304332/fp_a3_cyc_chart_pamphlet_gtpmay2020.pdf) 2.3 scenario: the physiology of the cardiovascular system the cardiovascular system consists of the heart, which is a muscular pumping device, and a closed system of vessels called arteries, veins, and capillaries. blood contained in the circulatory system is pumped by the heart around a closed circuit of vessels as it passes again and again through the various “circulations” of the body. the vital role of the cardiovascular system in maintaining homeostasis depends on the continuous and controlled movement of blood through the capillaries that permeate every tissue and reach every cell in the body. it is in the microscopic capillaries that blood performs its ultimate transport function, where nutrients and other essential materials pass from capillary blood into fluids surrounding the cells as waste products are removed. numerous control mechanisms help to regulate and integrate the diverse functions and component parts of the cardiovascular system to supply blood to specific body areas according to need. these mechanisms ensure a constant internal environment surrounding each body cell regardless of differing demands for nutrients or production of waste products. as in the adult, survival of the developing embryo depends on the circulation of blood to maintain homeostasis and a favourable cellular environment. in response to this need, the cardiovascular system makes its appearance early in foetal development and reaches a functional state long before any other major organ system. the foetal heart begins to beat regularly early in the fourth week following fertilization. suggested in table 3 is a plan which constructively aligns the content, learning outcomes, and assessment of the cardiovascular system. also, reference is made in table 3 to the managing high blood pressure graphic (figure 3) used by the new zealand heart foundation as an information sheet www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 29 published by scholink inc. on hypertension. this graphic has relevance in aotearoa due to a high incidence of hypertension in the adult population, and the disparities in cardiovascular health evident in ethnic groups within aotearoa. table 3. constructive alignment plan for the cardiovascular system context physiology content learning outcomes assessment cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in nz. kiwi women are 5 times more likely to die from heart disease than breast cancer. hypertension (see figure 3) is a “silent killer” and a risk factor for many co-morbidities. cardiovascular health is a main concern in aotearoa. heart disease, hypertension, and coronary artery disease are associated with atherosclerosis, myocardial infarction, arrhythmias, and heart failure. anatomy of the cardiovascular system, including structure of the heart and blood vessels. blood composition and the regulation of blood volume. understand normal function of the cardiovascular system. understand pressure regulation in the cardiovascular system. describe normal cardiovascular function and the regulation of cardiac output. explain the regulation of arterial blood pressure in a healthy adult. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 30 published by scholink inc. figure 3. infographic supporting the cardiovascular system (retrieved from: https://www.heartfoundation.org.nz/resources/blood-pressure-a5-pamphlet) 2.4 scenario: the physiology of the urinary system the principal function of the urinary system is to maintain the volume and composition of body fluids within normal limits—one aspect of this function is to rid the body of waste products that accumulate because of cellular metabolism. the urinary system maintains an appropriate fluid volume by regulating the amount of water and electrolytes that are excreted in the urine. continuous filtering of blood plasma by the kidneys requires adequate blood pressure and renal blood flow. filtration, and selective reabsorption and secretion, allow precise regulation of numerous plasma constituents. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 31 published by scholink inc. regulating the concentrations of various substances in the body fluids and maintaining normal ph of the blood plasma are essential functions of the urinary system. in addition to maintaining fluid homeostasis in the body, the urinary system controls red blood cell production by secreting the hormone erythropoietin. the urinary system also plays a role in maintaining normal blood pressure by secreting the enzyme renin. suggested in table 4 is a plan which constructively aligns the content, learning outcomes, and assessment of the urinary system. also, reference is made in table 4 to a new zealand ministry of health infographic on the treatment statistics for kidney failure in the nz population (figure 4). this infographic has relevance in aotearoa due to the high costs associated with renal dialysis, and the increased likelihood of renal failure as a symptom of uncontrolled diabetes. the infographic also identifies the different incidences of renal failure and treatment of kidney disease in the ethnicities within aotearoa. table 4. constructive alignment plan for the urinary system context physiology content learning outcomes assessment kidney disease affects 5% of new zealanders (see figure 4). treatment for kidney disease may include surgery or dialysis. māori and pasifika have a higher incidence of dialysis compared to nz european. renal anatomy and physiology of the nephron. renal control of blood plasma homeostasis. interaction between the urinary system and the cardiovascular system. renal autoregulation and the role of the juxtaglomerular apparatus in maintaining glomerular filtration rate (gfr). neural and endocrine influences on renal control of plasma volume. understand the role of the urinary system in homeostasis. understand the influence of renal function in maintaining blood pressure. describe normal renal function and the process of urine formation. explain the role of the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system in the maintenance of blood volume. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 32 published by scholink inc. figure 4. infographic supporting the urinary system (retrieved from: https://www.health.govt.nz/system/files/documents/pages/2016-nz-nephrology-activity-report.pdf) 3. discussion four scenarios which contextualise physiology content have been presented whereby freely available information is used to identify the relevance of the physiology to the everyday lives of new zealanders. scenarios on the two main controlling systems (nervous and endocrine systems), and two regulating systems (cardiovascular and urinary systems) have been selected as these are commonly used as foundational material for understanding human physiology (michael, 2007). facilitating the student’s ability to mobilize cultural, scientific, and technological knowledge to understand reality and to address everyday situations is an important aspect of contextualization pedagogy (alves et al., 2021). thus, the engaged learner who is prepared to invest their own time and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 33 published by scholink inc. effort is more likely to benefit from this approach than others (esteban-guitart, 2016). although it is more usual to introduce students to physiological content describing normal, healthy functioning of the body before introducing them to disease processes, in the suggested scenarios, pathophysiology (defined as the disordered physiological processes associated with disease or injury) is used to emphasise the link between knowledge of the system and the population. unfortunately, it is often an encounter with pathophysiology, for example, a family member or friend with a serious chronic health condition, that provides a connection between learning physiology and the lived experience in aotearoa. learning takes place when new information is presented in such a way that learners can construct meaning based on their own experiences, and it is suggested that contextualization of physiology content can promote learning in this discipline (borges & mello-carpes, 2014). an approach relating physiology to the daily life experienced by students can make the teaching process more motivational and significant and we suggest that this method of content delivery can address student disengagement during periods of extended remote learning (remtulla, 2020). the contextualization of content can provide a “hook” into the established knowledge required at an introductory level of understanding in physiology but with an approach to physiology topics which relate to the students’ daily life. shared student experiences which resonate with common life scenarios can provide contextualization of fundamental basic science concepts, such as those learned in physiology. on campus, this has been achieved by creating spaces where students can learn through collaborative experiential learning and self-inquiry, for example, a high-fidelity simulation laboratory (hillyer & gordon, 2020), however, this is not possible during remote learning. the online environment for course delivery has limited utility in providing meaningful interactive spaces for collaborative experiential learning, and it is suggested that contextualisation of course content based around common experiences may represent an alternative pedagogical strategy which is more suitable for remote learning. 4. conclusion traditional expository practices used in university course delivery may not be effective in the context of prolonged periods of remote learning (roy et al., 2020). the current article suggests that contextualization of physiology content with everyday life experiences could be used as a strategy to maintain student interest and engagement. in addition to the content of a course in physiology being contextualized, the active involvement and cognitive engagement of students needs to be achieved by encouraging students to go beyond the superficial acquisition of content and interconnect physiological phenomena to their personal experience. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 3, 2022 34 published by scholink inc. acknowledgement the author (sj brown) is grateful to be the recipient of financial assistance from the school of health and the environment, auckland university of technology, to cover the costs of publication. references alves, n., carrazoni, g. s., soares, c. b., de souza da rosa, a. c, soares, n. m., & mello-carpes, p. b. (2021). relating human physiology content to covid-19: a strategy to keep students in touch with physiology in times of social distance due to pandemic. advances in physiology education, 45, 129-133. https://doi.org/10.1152/advan.00214.2020 baker, e. d., hope, l., & karandjeff, k. (2009). contextualized teaching and learning: a faculty primer. retrieved from http://www.careerladdersproject.org/docs/ctl.pdf borges, s., & mello-carpes, p. b. (2014). physiology applied to everyday: the practice of professional contextualization of physiology concepts as a way of facilitating learning. advances in physiology education, 38, 93-95. https://doi.org/10.1152/advan.00113.2013 brown, s. j., power, n., bowmar, a., & foster, s. (2018). student engagement in a human anatomy and physiology course: a new zealand perspective. advances in physiology education, 42, 636-643. https://doi.org/10.1152/advan.00035.2018 dumford, a. d., & miller, a. l. (2018). online learning in higher education: exploring advantages and disadvantages for engagement. journal of computers in higher education, 30, 452-465. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12528-018-9179-z ernst, h., & colthorpe, k. (2007). the efficacy of interactive lecturing for students with diverse science backgrounds. advances in physiology education, 31, 41-44. https://doi.org/10.1152/advan.00107.2006 esteban-guitart, m. (2016). funds of identity. connecting meaningful learning experiences in and out of school. new york: cambridge university press. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9781316544884 higgins-opitz, s. b., & tufts, m. (2014). performance of first-year health sciences students in a large, diverse, multidisciplinary, first-semester, physiology service module. advances in physiology education, 38, 161-169. https://doi.org/10.1152/advan.00067.2013 hillyer, j. m., & gordon, k. a. (2020). connecting anatomy and physiology concepts in an interdisciplinary high-fidelity patient simulation with undergraduate nursing and allied health students. advances in physiology education, 44, 113-118. https://doi.org/10.1152/advan.00212.2018 hopper, m. k. (2016). assessment and comparison of student engagement in a variety of physiology courses. advances in physiology education, 40, 70-78. https://doi.org/10.1152/advan.00129.2015 iyer, p., aziz, k., & ojcius, d. m. 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(2018). variation in behavioural engagement during an active learning activity leads to differential knowledge gains in college students. advances in physiology education, 42, 99-103. https://doi.org/10.1152/advan.00150.2017 liu, x., zhou, j., chen, l., yang, y., & tan, j. (2020). impact of covid-19 epidemic on live online dental continuing education. european journal of dental education, 24(4), 786-789. https://doi.org/10.1111/eje.12569 llopart, m., & esteban-guitart, m. (2017). strategies and resources for contextualising the curriculum based on the funds of knowledge approach: a literature review. the australian educational researcher, 44(3), 255-274. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13384-017-0237-8 marlow, b. a., & page, m. l. (2005). creating and sustaining the constructivist classroom. thousand oaks, ca: corwin press. retrieved from https://openlibrary.org/books/ol8433357m/creating_and_sustaining_the_constructivist_classro om michael, j. (2007). what makes physiology hard for students to learn? results of a faculty survey. advances in physiology education, 31, 34-40. https://doi.org/10.1152/advan.00057.2006 moore, k. d. (2008). effective instructional strategies: from theory to practice. thousand oaks, ca: sage publications. retrieved from https://study.sagepub.com/moore4e remtulla, r. (2020). the present and future applications of technology in adapting medical education amidst the covid-19 pandemic. jmir medical education, 6(2), 20190. https://doi.org/10.2196/20190 roy, d., tripathy, s., kar, s. k., sharma, n., verma, s. k., & kaushal, v. (2020). study of knowledge, attitude, anxiety & perceived mental healthcare need in indian population during covid-19 pandemic. asian journal of psychiatry, 51, 102083. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajp.2020.102083 salmon, d., romanchuk, j., murphy, i., sullivan, j., walters, s., whatman, c., … van der vis, k. 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(2009). what makes the learning of physiology in a pbl medical curriculum challenging? student perceptions. advances in physiology education, 33, 187-195. https://doi.org/10.1152/advan.90214.2008 https://doi.org/10.1152/advan.00150.2017 https://doi.org/10.1111/eje.12569 https://doi.org/10.1007/s13384-017-0237-8 https://doi.org/10.2196/20190 http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2019-100949 https://doi.org/10.1152/advan.90214.2008 microsoft word fet-v1n2-p137 frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 137 original paper using remotely accessible microscopy in the elementary classroom jared ashcroft1*, walter klingerman2 & brandon rodriguez3 1 chemistry, pasadena city college, pasadena, ca, united states 2 nanotechnology, north seattle college, seattle, wa, united states 3 educator professional development, nasa jet propulsion laboratory, pasadena, ca, united states * jared ashcroft, chemistry, pasadena city college, pasadena, ca, united states received: july 19, 2018 accepted: july 31, 2018 online published: august 1, 2018 doi:10.22158/fet.v1n2p137 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v1n2p137 abstract elementary children are at an age of investigation and exploration. in today’s society, this exploration often occurs using technology. whether learning to type with typing club, using google to search for information on yellowstone national park or designing and creating a city in minecraft, technology has become a part of every child’s existence. early access to technology could be the impetus to a students’ pursuit of a degree in stem disciplines. presented here is a conglomerate of university, community college and high school sites that provide free access to advanced scientific technologies remotely for students to view and manipulate for themselves. the remotely accessible instruments in nanotechnology (rain) network provides scanning electron (sem), atomic force (afm) and confocal microscopes to educators and allows an opportunity to connect with higher education scientist across the globe, with the goal of using technology to enhance the teaching of science to our children. keywords remote instrumentation, microscopy, elementary education, scale of universe 1. introduction “water bear” megan yelled, shocking teachers. the class generally had no idea what a water bear was, so zooming continued. several students yelled guesses: flower petal, dogs hair and of course underpants. fifth graders are so predictably unpredictable. finally, upon zooming in enough where the image is recognizable and a cacophonous of sound reverberates through the room, several students scream in fear while others yell the correct answer: “spider”. this activity was the first experience www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 138 published by scholink inc. using the remotely accessible instruments in nanotechnology, known as the rain network in an elementary school classroom. rain, despite at first glance seeming advanced for the casual elementary student, allows teachers to bring advanced technologies, specifically different types of microscopes to the elementary school classroom. in the first century, romans would view objects through glass to make the images larger. some would say this was the first microscope. since this time, children have been amazed using microscopes to view images that cannot be seen by the eye, such as the water bear, also known as tardigrades, as found in the experience in the fifth-grade classroom (figure 1). being able to visualize at such a minute scale is one of the early science discoveries young scientists will remember. it is imperative that activities using a microscope are designed to have a favorable impact on our children’s view of science (holstermann, 2010). figure 1. image of water bear collected by scanning electron microscope (pailly, 2015) there are various types of microscopes and activities demonstrating how they work (zimov, 2004). most common is the optical microscope, which utilize lenses and visible light to magnify images. a typical light microscope can magnify up to 500x the original image, which allows imaging of samples in the micrometer range, though the most advanced light microscopes can magnify up to 2000x and image to about 200 nm. a specialized light microscope, called a confocal microscope, is a type of optical microscope that uses a spatial pinhole to block out of focus light from imaging. this focused beam of light allows for direct, noninvasive imaging of live specimens. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 139 published by scholink inc. figure 2. objects imaged by eye and microscopes in 1931, hans busch developed the first electromagnetic lens, leading to the advent of electron microscopy (rudenberg, 2010). the electron microscope uses a beam of accelerated electrons at the source to magnify an image (robertson, 2013). the most advanced electron microscope, called a scanning transmission electron microscope has achieved 50 pm resolution and 10,000,000x magnification. typical scanning electron microscopes (sem) can obtain a resolution of 50 nm and 50,000x magnification. in other words, whereas light microscopes can image cells or bacteria, an electron microscope can image small molecules and even atoms (figure 2). activities have been designed to bring virtual scanning electron microscopes to the elementary school classroom (harlow, 2011). this work aims to expand on this “virtual” aspect of bringing microscopy to the classroom by utilizing the rain network to bring advanced technologies, such as a scanning electron and confocal microscope by live imaging and having students at elementary schools run the instruments directly through remote access. the activities are designed to bring a sense of excitement to science for the students, as well as help students understand the scale of the universe. 2. modeling an atom and light microscope to begin, students build an optical microscope (nasa, 2000; tsagliotis, 2012) and make a model of the bohr atom (schaefer, 2017). by constructing the different models (figure 3), students will become engaged in the activity and develop a rudimentary understanding of optical microscopy and makeup of an atom that contains protons, neutrons and electrons. though these models are oversimplifications, they are appropriate for helping elementary students begin to develop an understanding of optical microscopy and atomic theory. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 140 published by scholink inc. figure 3. a. student constructed bohr atom. b. homemade optical microscope (tsagliotis, 2012) 2.1 what’s that image: a guessing game using remotely accessible scanning electron and confocal microscopy 2.1.1 materials: computer, projector after gaining student excitement and engagement through model design and construction students will be introduced to the rain network, which provides use of scanning electron (sem) and confocal microscopes for free. this free service available to educators allows classrooms to schedule live imaging with technicians at several universities where sem and confocal technology is available and can even be remotely controlled by students! directions to set up a rain session can be found at http://www.nano4me.org/remoteaccess under the heading “getting ready for remote access”. it is important to note, that the rain network also provides a scientist that will explain microscopy theory to the students if needed. in real-time, imaging of various samples was performed, starting close up in the nanometer range (figure 4). students guess the sample as it is zoomed out. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 141 published by scholink inc. figure 4. sequence of sem image from 5000x to 35x of a spider in two separate groups of students (ten minutes at each microscope), the sem and confocal microscope were used simultaneously to show the difference between optical and electron imaging (figure 5). as students view the images and attempt to guess the sample, they are asked to take notes on the differences and similarities between the two microscopy techniques. sem imaging can be magnified to a greater extent than the confocal microscope, and the images are all black and white, whereas the confocal microscope does not have as great magnification, but images are in color. in this sense, students can directly visualize the difference between the two microscopic techniques, which will be assessed after the activity. it is important that as imaging occurs, the scientist discuss the scale of the images being seen as a way to prepare students for the assessment performed in activity 2. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 142 published by scholink inc. figure 5. electron (top) and confocal (bottom) microscope image sequences from 5000x to 35x of dandelion 2.2 scale of the universe as a means of assessing the understanding of scale demonstrated by making the bohr atom and using the remotely accessible microscopes, students are given a sheet of paper with sixteen cutout images (figure 6). students cut out each image and on a separate sheet of paper, glue the images in the correct box with the following headings: eye, light microscope, electron microscope or cannot be seen (figure 7). in this manner, students demonstrate simple understanding of the scale of the universe. this activity combined with using remote access to the sem and confocal microscope aims to assist elementary students in visualizing different scales, which is an appropriate precursor to teach about the metric system. for more advanced students, the cutout images could correspond to a metric unit, such as nano or kilometer and students correctly place the image in a box that is ordered from smallest metric unit to largest metric unit. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 143 published by scholink inc. figure 6. cutout images of varying scales figure 7. what microscopes and eyes can see 3. extensions the power of the rain network is enhanced when used to study natural science phenomenon. educators can schedule a session to last two hours or fifteen minutes, depending on activity and need. examples of quick activities that can utilize rain to enrich studying chemical composition are shown www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 144 published by scholink inc. in figure 8. if studying geology, one can image mineral samples and using a device called electron dispersive spectroscopy (eds) determine elemental analysis of samples. imagine having a series of minerals or even everyday items from home, such as salt. the students can do physical examinations of the sample, discuss the chemical composition of each and then use rain to show what the chemical composition actually is. figure 8a is a limestone (caco3), while figure 8b is an image of rat bone that can show presence of calcium using the eds as shown by the spectrum in 8c. this would be a great method of discussing compounds verse elements. students can even send unknown samples to the rain network and schedule a time to run the instrument themselves. they can be forensic scientists! figure 8. a. sem image of limestone with elemental analysis b. sem image of bone c. elemental analysis of bone the rain network does not have to be limited to chemistry. biological structure and function can also be observed using the network. for example, geckos are able to walk up glass without falling (figure 9a and 9b). this is due to the setae on gecko’s feet (figure 9c). a teacher could ask students “how can gecko’s walk on glass?” after allowing time for answers, the rain network can be used to zoom in on a gecko’s foot. as the image is zoomed in to the nano scale, the setae on the gecko’s foot can be observed and the fact that the attraction of these setae to the glass is what allows the gecko to walk on glass. asking the students how this can be utilized in everyday life could lead to an interesting discussion. maybe they will come up with tape or gloves, which would be appropriate since like in the movie mission impossible, adhesive tape inspired by geckos feet has allowed people to climb up walls (you, 2014). in fact, a group at stanford has been using the gecko feet properties to develop gecko gloves that can be used to scale glass walls (figure 9d, hawkes, 2014). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 145 published by scholink inc. figure 9. a. gecko on glass b. gecko’s foot c. setae nanostructures on gecko’s foot d. stanford university gloves inspired by geckos (hawkes, 2014) 4. assessment students are assessed on how well they place the images in the correct section on the worksheet, as well as doing a summative assessment on microscopy. from these assessments, the teacher expressed a desire for the rain network to increase the amount of discussion on microscopy theory before the two activities. an informative video, “types of microscopes: electron, light and fluorescence” can be shown to introduce microscopy theory. the fifth-grade students performed well on activity 2, correctly placing on average 13/16 image, carbon nanotube and radiation being the choices missed most often. a formative assessment, asking students to draw the microscopes, as well as pictures showing the sizes of images observed by the light and electron microscope, allows for students to demonstrate their sense of the scale of the universe. the three assessment questions can be asked as the experiment is performed or as a cumulative assessment at the conclusion of the activities. an example of a student’s model is shown in figure 10. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 146 published by scholink inc. figure 10. formative assessment questions about scale of the universe. a. student drawing of a microscope b. student drawing of particles used in electron microscopy c. student drawing of images seen by eye as well as zoomed in with an electron microscope the following rubric can be used to assess the formative assessment in figure 10: table 1. scale of the universe formative assessment rubric 1 2 3 4 addressing unseen images student does not draw any pictures of matter not seen by the eye student illustrates the atom or light, but does not show protons or electrons. student illustrates the atom for the electron microscope and light for the light microscope. student illustrates the atom, as well as shows the presence of electrons and protons. addressing seen images. student does not draw any zoomed in or zoomed out images. student draws an example of an image that can be seen by the eye, but does not demonstrate zoomed in images from microscopes. student draws an example of an image seen by the eye and one zoomed in image demonstrating scale seen by a light or electron microscope. student draws an example of an image seen by the eye and a zoomed in image demonstrating scale seen by a light and an electron microscope. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 147 published by scholink inc. 5. teacher feedback the rain activity was performed in five elementary school classrooms. the teachers especially liked the expense of the program and the ease of set up. they also were enthusiastic having experts in labs across the country that could interact with their students. one teachers said “this was an incredible educational experience”. as a note, it is imperative that the teacher did a test session for using rain. at one school, the test session was done the same day and due to connection issues, the rain experience almost had to be cancelled. therefore, the test session should be done at least one day before the rain session is performed in the classroom. 6. conclusion understanding a sense of scale and size is vital for success in science and is an important concept within the next generation science standards. two activities were designed and performed in an elementary school class that aim to bring an understanding of the scale of the universe to children at a young age. the use of a scanning electron and confocal microscope remotely and in real time brings a sense of how we can visualize small things. used in tandem with the scale of the universe cut-outs assist students to visualize the very big to the very small. using these tools helps to bring a sense of wonder and excitement to the class, providing students engagement in their science learning, promoting a critical spark towards pursuing a science degree in the future. references figure 1: “microscopes”. nobelprize.org. nobel media ab. (2014). web. 24 apr 2018. retrieved from http://www.nobelprize.org/educational/physics/microscopes/ hakes, e. w., eason, e. v., christensen, d. l., & cutkosky, m. r. (2014). human climbing with efficiently scaled gecko-inspired dry adhesives. journal of the royal society interface, 12, 20140675. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2014.0675 harlow, d. (2011). virtual inquiry experiences. science and children, 49(4), 42-45. holstermann, n., grube, d., & bögeholz, s. (2010). hands-on activities and their influence on students’ interest. research in science education, 40(5), 743-757. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11165-009-9142-0 microscopy video: “types of microscopes: electron, light and fluorescence”. (n.d.). retrieved from https://study.com/academy/lesson/types-of-microscopes-election-light-fluorescence.html nasa education. (2000). building a microscope. retrieved from https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/350502main_optics_building_a_microscope.pdf pailly, j. (2015). sciency words: panspermia. retrieved from http://www.scifiideas.com/science-2/sciency-words-panspermia/ robertson, b. (2013). science 101: how does an electron microscope work? science and children, 51(1), 76-78. https://doi.org/10.2505/4/sc13_051_01_76 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 148 published by scholink inc. rudenberg, h. g., & rudenberg, p. g. (2010). origin and background of the invention of the electron microscope: commentary and expanded notes on memoir of reinhold rüdenberg. advances in imaging and electron physics, 160, 207-286. https://doi.org/10.1016/s1076-5670(10)60006-7 schaefer, m. (2017). how to make a bohr model of the atom. scienceing.com. retrieved from https://sciencing.com/make-bohr-model-atom-7729497.html tsagliotis, n. (2012). build your own microscope: following in robert hooke’s footsteps. science in school. retrieved from https://www.scienceinschool.org/2012/issue22/microscope you, j. (2014). gecko-inspired adhesives allow people to climb walls. retrieved from http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014/11/gecko-inspired-adhesives-allow-people-climb-walls zimov, s. (2004). science 101: how do microscopes work? science and children, 41(4), 17. standards alignment standard 4-ps4-2 wave and their applications in technologies for information transfer performance expectation 4-ps4-2 develop a model to describe that light reflecting from objects entering the eye allows objects to be seen. dimensions science and engineering practice developing and using models: develop a model to describe a phenomenon. students will be given opportunities to construct representative models based off the images collected from two types of microscopes in order to explain which tool is needed when. disciplinary core idea ps4.b electromagnetic radiation: an object can be seen when light reflected from its surface enters the eyes. the movement of electrons and photons can be used to create images of microscopic objects. via the movement of these particles, students will be able to visualize an array of microscopic objects. crosscutting concept cause and effect influence of engineering, technology, and science, on society and the natural word. students will produce blueprints of their models via analysis of microscopic images with scientific instruments, demonstrating to students how their classwork is tied to technology. just as their blueprints determine how microscopes are used and in what circumstances, so too are the technologies used in advanced scientific research today. frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no.2, 2021 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) original paper implementation of asynchronous educational modules to improve student understanding of statistical analysis in stem undergraduate courses sophia barber1*, sophia ibargüen1*, chloe sharp1, janet teng1, daisy kim1, richard luu1, jared ashcroft1, yu-chung chang-hou2 1 department of chemistry, pasadena city college, pasadena, usa 2 department of math & computer science, pasadena city college, pasadena, usa received: april 10, 2021 accepted: april 28, 2021 online published: may 14, 2021 doi:10.22158/fet.v4n2p108 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v4n2p108 abstract due to the covid-19 pandemic, many undergraduate students have been given no other option but to take their classes remotely. this has provided many challenges for both students and instructors, especially in the stem field due to the required laboratory coursework. for this reason, alternative methods of distance learning are needed to optimize student laboratory experiences. the sudden transition to a remote format and adjusting to a new learning environment has proven to be difficult for both students and faculty. it has also been established throughout the pandemic that students perform substantially worse in on-line coursework compared with traditional, in-person classes. students in a general chemistry course were introduced to innovative asynchronous lab modules that could be performed at home with the additional opportunity of conducting statistical analysis tests. these modules utilize discussion boards, graphing assessments, and labs to teach students how to perform different statistical tests and to familiarize students with the dataclassroom, google sheets, and microsoft excel platforms. this asynchronous learning format will promote both overall student engagement in stem courses and student understanding of statistical analysis, thus exhibiting the potential to implement these modules in future undergraduate stem coursework. keywords statistical analysis, distance education, remote learning environments, modular learning systems, stem learning strategies 108 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 1. introduction in early 2020, due to unforeseen circumstances brought about by the covid-19 pandemic, the entirety of the education system transitioned to a remote format (aristovnik et al., 2020; daniel, 2020; neuwirth et al., 2020). several studies have supported that remote course formats greatly hinder student learning and content retention (bashitialshaaer et al., 2021; barton, 2020; onyema, 2020; syafril & novrianti, 2021; wester et al., 2021). such a transition was not only challenging for students who had to adapt to an unfamiliar learning environment, but it proved equally as challenging for educators of all grade levels who were required to develop an online curriculum in a matter of weeks (bartalesi-graf et al., 2020; green et al., mukhametshin et al., 2021; parker et al., 2021; sahu, 2020). as a result, not all concepts previously integrated into course curriculums were seamlessly transitioned to fit this new remote learning format (dhawan, 2020; humphrey & wiles, 2021; perets et al., 2020). in many stem courses, without access to a physical lab, the course lab components seemed to suffer exponentially (hallett et al., 2020; thomas, 2021; qiang et al., 2020). statistical analysis in stem courses at the undergraduate level, a vital skill required of any prospective stem professional (smith et al., 2019; watson et al., 2020; watson et al., 2020), serves as an example of one such topic that greatly suffered as a result of losing the in-person laboratory component that made such necessary skills more than abstract concepts and offered students the opportunity to draw connections between their applications and everyday life (hydorn, 2018). it is essential to identify solutions that would optimize stem focused asynchronous learning, especially in terms of improving laboratory coursework in times when in person labs are not available. asynchronous lab activities that can be performed safely at home without a science laboratory were designed and implemented in a general chemistry course as a supplement to strengthen existing course curricula with a focus on statistical analysis and graphing techniques. these asynchronous modules were developed to increase engagement in distance education, as well as to be employed when in-person laboratories are available. the modules allow students to gain an understanding of the foundation of statistical analysis and why it is crucially important in stem. emphasis was placed on reinforcing students’ ability to decipher the major components of statistics, whether that be how to interpret and analyze data or how to perform chi-square and anova tests using a variety of learning platforms. in addition, students were encouraged to participate in peer discussion boards foster soft skills and research skills such as critical thinking, problem-solving, and communication. once the students developed a familiarity with statistical modules, they then proceeded to the practice of application. utilizing their novel statistical knowledge and skills, students were provided opportunities to demonstrate their understanding of both basic statistical analysis concepts and practical applications in a series of interactive modules and reflective assessments. as the skilled technical workforce becomes increasingly reliant on technology, the ability to conduct statistical analysis becomes even more of a necessity for prospective stem professionals (ali & bhaskar, 2016; enders et al., 2017; oster & enders, 2018). statistical analysis skills can be taught in 109 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 online courses by utilizing resources on various on-line platforms, such as nanohub, an on-line repository of over 1,000 nano-based simulations, which enable professors to implement lectures, simulations, and course material through canvas. by establishing educational modules that incorporate online-based programs such as dataclassroom and excel to teach data analysis, students will be better prepared for achieving success within future stem professions. table 1. student demographics gender male 10 female 20 other 0 prefer not to specify 0 race/ethnicity asian/pacific islander 16 hispanic/latino 10 black/african american 0 white/caucasian 3 biracial 1 other 0 prefer not to specify 0 2. methodology students were given a pre-course survey and statistical analysis assessment for the primary purpose of establishing a baseline of student statistical analysis knowledge in the general chemistry and chemical analysis ii course at pasadena city college. the responses collected from the assessment and survey played a formative role in the development of the asynchronous modules, allowing them to be tailored specifically to meet the needs of students who come from diverse social and educational backgrounds (table 1). students then proceed to work their way through the modules with interactive checkpoints in the form of discussion boards and summative assignments that gauge retention throughout the modules. once students completed the modules, they took the same statistical analysis assessment to gauge the effectiveness in conveying core statistical analysis topics. the post assessments were analyzed using a matched-pair t-test and the data collected was used to ascertain learning gains in statistical analysis. 110 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 3. program inputs in analyzing the pre-modular survey responses, it became apparent that 66% of students enrolled in the general chemistry and chemical analysis ii had not taken a statistics course during their undergraduate career (table 2). in addition, despite the fact that 93% of students enrolled in the course were stem majors, 85% of the students who had not taken a statistics course had no further plans to enroll in such a class at some point in their undergraduate career. in the same survey, it became apparent that many students were not familiar with commonly used graphing platforms in the stem field such as microsoft excel and google sheets (figure 1). students also showed a notable lack of familiarity in constructing graphs using python, which will be addressed in future applications. table 2. class inputs student count 30 percentage of students who are stem majors 93.33% percentage of students who have not taken a statistics class 66.66% percentage of students who have not taken a statistics class, and do not plan to take a statistics class 85% figure 1. student familiarity with various graphing platforms and techniques. error bars constructed using ± 1 sem. n = 30. while the majority of the class had not taken a statistics course thus far in their undergraduate careers, many students recognized the importance of mastering statistical analysis skills, as they prove vital to the stem workforce (figure 2). surprisingly, although an even greater majority of students indicated that they had no intention of taking a statistical analysis course in their undergraduate careers, 32% of students did indicate on their pre-modular survey that they enjoyed statistics. within the same line of questioning, students were also asked where they gauged their own statistical analysis skills on a scale of one to five. unsurprisingly, with 67% percent of students lacking any prior statistical analysis classes, students reported that statistical analysis was not a skill set that they were particularly confident in. 111 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 figure 2. student sentiments towards statistical analysis. error bars constructed using ± 1 sem. n = 30. the questions that students were given on the pre-modular assessment were based around calculating the mean of a dataset (q1), calculating standard deviation of a dataset (q2), defining the term standard deviation (q3), understanding and distinguishing the difference between a chi-square test, a t-test, and an anova test (q4), determining when it would be appropriate to use a t-test when given a particular set of data (q5), and identifying when it would be appropriate to use an anova test when given a particular set of data (q6). the responses of the pre-modular assessment, which was scored on a scale of zero to five, showed that students had a much stronger understanding of primarily entry level statistical analysis tests but lacked a solid foundation in statistical analysis tests of increasing difficulty (figure 3). 4. dataclassroom modules dataclassroom is an online graphing program that allows students to learn statistical analysis and its significance, especially in scientific and research environments. dataclassroom not only provides streamlined methods for performing statistical tests such as t-tests, anova tests, and chi-square tests, but it also enables students to create detailed step-by-step graphical representations of the statistical analysis methodology to facilitate the learning process even further (nieves, 2020). by incorporating dataclassroom in canvas modules, students are given opportunities to practice the data analysis skills that supplement their conventional lectures. 112 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 figure 3. student pre-assessment results. error bars constructed using sem ±1. n = 33 within the modules, students are provided a full introduction to dataclassroom, including both key definitions and video tutorials, and are required to use the dataclassroom platform throughout the modular learning system. examples of key assignments utilizing this platform include the “glassware dry lab” and the “food lab.” these labs aim to replicate the common “glassware analysis lab” taught during in-person courses, providing students with both real data that promotes students’ exposure to common glassware while also teaching the difference between precision and accuracy. while the “glassware dry lab” is completed in an entirely online setting, the “food lab” also promotes student engagement by allowing students to perform the lab in a hands-on setting at home. in this lab, students choose a food and a drink to weigh using three different weighting methods and analyzed which method gave the most precise results and which gave the most accurate results, as compared to the advertised weight on the packaging. while each student had the opportunity to perform the lab in their own kitchen, students also worked remotely with their peers to develop a procedure. once results were collected and uploaded to a shared document, students were instructed to graph the results in excel and dataclassroom and write a lab report on their findings (figure 4). discussion boards, where students were able to share ideas with the class were also utilized to promote student engagement and mimic a scientific forum. by completing both the “glassware dry lab” and the “food lab,” students developed a foundational understanding of applying statistical analysis skills to real-world problems, developing a proper lab procedure, determining the difference between precision and accuracy, and recognizing the most useful glassware types when attempting to obtain a highly accurate result. in addition, upon completing the modules, students proceeded to utilize their newly acquired understanding of statistical analysis to properly perform chi-squared and t-tests using a given dataset. 113 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 figure 4. example scatter plot and anova data for the food lab 5. discussion once students completed the asynchronous modules, post-survey, and post-assessment, their responses were analyzed to determine whether or not the modules had been effective in increasing students’ understanding of statistical analysis concepts. the data collected from these responses showed significant improvement in their scores, particularly in questions two through six (figure 5). question one simply requested students calculate the mean of a data set, which is once again considered to be a simpler statistical analysis test to perform. therefore, it was not surprising that students scored consistently well on this question in both the preand post-modular assessments. it is because such a significant increase in students’ scores was observed through utilization of a matched-pair t-test that it can be confidently concluded that these modules did indeed help students gain a greater understanding of calculating standard deviation of a dataset (q2), defining the term standard deviation (q3), understanding and distinguishing the difference between a chi-square test, a t-test, and an anova test (q4), determining when it would be appropriate to use a t-test when given a particular set of data (q5), and identifying when it would be appropriate to use an anova test when given a particular set of data (q6). 114 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 figure 5. comparison preand post-assessment scores. error bars constructed using ± 1 sem. n = 33. q2-q6: p < 0.01. in post modular survey responses, students reported an increase in familiarity with all graphing platforms, most notably with dataclassroom (figure 6). such an increase was to be expected as the distance education modules provided opportunities for students to practice creating graphs and performing statistical analysis tests in google sheets and microsoft excel. the notable increase in the students’ familiarity with dataclassroom was expected as the modules specifically used this platform. therefore, in obtaining the desired results, the assertion that the asynchronous modules were effective in their mission to increase students’ understanding of statistical analysis concepts and familiarity with useful graphing platforms is supported. figure 6. student overall familiarity with various graphing platforms and techniques. error bars constructed using ± 1 sem. n = 30. p < 0.05. 115 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 students’ overall sentiments towards statistical analysis and their own abilities to effectively exercise their statistical analysis skills also underwent change over the course of several weeks in which the modules were completed (figure 7). while no statistically significant difference was seen for students’ perceived importance of statistical analysis in stem (p = 0.586), this was not unexpected as, even before completing the modules, students ranked the importance of statistical analysis in stem as 4.6/5, with 5 being very important. students’ confidence in their own statistical analysis skills and their own enjoyment of statistical analysis did show a statistically significant increase, p = 0.021 and p = 0.027, respectively. these increases in both students’ enjoyment of statistics and statistical analysis skills as perceived and studied through assessments, thereby shows the benefits and wide impacts of employing such statistical analysis modules in the distance education classroom. figure 7. student overall sentiments towards statistical analysis. error bars constructed using ± 1 sem. n = 30. p values for “perceived student statistical analysis skills” and “student enjoyment of statistics” < 0.05. 6. future applications considering the degree of reliance the skilled technical workforce has on technology, a basic foundational understanding of the programming language python is also extremely beneficial for students. as a programming language that is applicable in a multitude/diversity of fields, python allows students to develop computational thinking while also strengthening their problem solving, planning, and procedural thinking skills (auer et al., 2018; calderon, 2019; lee et al., 2017). a python based statistical analysis module using google colab and jupyter notebook is currently in development for this reason. thus far, the python module includes an “introduction to python” lesson with graphing examples, a survey, and a definitions page. students then proceed to lessons focused specifically on calculating standard deviation in python and creating line graphs, swarm plots, and box and whisker plots. while this module is still in its early stages, once completed and implemented into the classroom, students will 116 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 develop both their statistical analysis and computational thinking skills simultaneously, thus becoming more multi-dimensional candidates for the stem workforce. in addition to the python coding module, a standard curve module will be designed although the standard curve module was not a part of the original set of modules to teach students statistical analysis skills, after students completed the original dataclassroom modules, a distinct lack in understanding of the standard curve was identified. because of this, a separate module focused specifically on teaching the standard curve will be created. students will first be given a key terms definitions page and several informational videos that teach them how to graph standard curves in excel and dataclassroom. students will then be given several assignments and labs, including the “stolen painting mystery” lab, and the “drink of choice” lab. the stolen painting mystery lab presents students with evidence left by a thief and requires students to graph and compare multiple standard curves to determine which of the suspects is the thief. the drink of choice lab asks students to graph a standard curve to identify an unknown value while also further promoting student engagement by adding a hands-on element that can be performed at home. throughout both labs, students will continue to participate in discussion boards, allowing them to learn from their peers. the current state of stem, where students are assessed on contrived labs meant to give a specific answer are inequitable and geared for success of elite students. there is a clear need to increase success and engagement of all students. the asynchronous, active learning labs described allow students to engage with science, while simultaneously providing an avenue to increase statistical analysis of data. these modules, designed to provide students an authentic laboratory activity during the covid-19 pandemic education shutdown, will also further increase student outcomes and knowledge with easy infusion into in person labs. increasing students’ analytical skills and abilities will increase future success in more complex classes and in their future professional career. acknowledgements this project was supported by the micro nano technology education center (mnt-ec). nsf ate due 200028. special thanks to dr. tanya faltens, mnt-ec partner from purdue university, and dr. aaron reedy. references ali, z., & bhaskar, s. b. 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(2021). the factor analysis of online learning barriers on learning evaluation course during covid 19 pandemic. journal of physics: conference series, 1779(1), 012021. https://doi.org/10.1088/1742-6596/1779/1/012021 thomas, o. (2021). pandemic brings paradigm shift. kai tiaki: nursing new zealand, 27(1), 28-29. watson, j., fitzallen, n., english, l., & wright, s. (2020). introducing statistical variation in year 3 in a stem context: manufacturing licorice. international journal of mathematical education in science and technology, 51(3), 354-387. https://doi.org/10.1080/0020739x.2018.1562117 119 published by scholink inc. https://doi.org/10.1051/shsconf/20219701042 https://doi.org/10.1080/10691898.2018.1484674 https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.0c00879 https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.0c00609 https://doi.org/10.1080/0020739x.2018.1562117 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 watson, j., fitzallen, n., & chick, h. (2020). what is the role of statistics in integrating stem education? in integrated approaches to stem education (pp. 91-115). springer, cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52229-2_6 wester, e. r., walsh, l. l., arango-caro, s., & callis-duehl, k. l. (2021). student engagement declines in stem undergraduates during covid-19–driven remote learning. journal of microbiology & biology education, 22(1). https://doi.org/10.1128/jmbe.v22i1.2385 120 published by scholink inc. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52229-2_6 https://doi.org/10.1128/jmbe.v22i1.2385 original paper frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no.4, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) original paper research on effectiveness evaluation method of weapon equipment shang shanyu1* & jia man sun1 1 logistics university of people’s armed police force, dongli district, tian jin, china * shang shanyu, logistics university of people’s armed police force, no. 1 huizhi ring road, dongli district, tian jin, china received: august 11, 2020 accepted: august 29, 2020 online published: september 9, 2020 doi:10.22158/fet.v3n4p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v3n4p1 abstract due to the wide application of high and new technology in weapons and equipment, modern weapons present the characteristics of complexity and systematization, and their effectiveness analysis and evaluation are paid more and more attention, which has become an arduous and urgent task in the research of weapon equipment system. only by using scientific methods and technology to evaluate the effectiveness of various types of weapons and equipment, can we have a profound understanding of the characteristics and application value of weapons and equipment, ensure that the army can give full play to the operational potential of weapons and equipment, improve the operational efficiency, and explore the correct direction of the construction and development of weapons and equipment. therefore, systematic research on weapon equipment effectiveness evaluation method is a necessary way for every military equipment effectiveness researcher to seek effective and accurate quantitative analysis of weapon equipment effectiveness method. 1. concept and classification of weapon equipment effectiveness although the research on the effectiveness of weapons and equipment began as early as the second world war, there is no complete consensus on the definition of the concept of effectiveness. in the national military standard gjb1364-92, the definition of effectiveness is “the ability to achieve the specified objectives under specified conditions”; other descriptions of effectiveness include: “effectiveness is the ability to complete the task”, “effectiveness can also be understood as the probability of achieving the target” (quoted). either definition has one thing in common, that is to say, effectiveness reflects the “degree of completion of the task” (quoted). according to the definition of effectiveness, weapon equipment effectiveness describes the degree to which weapons and equipment 1 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 complete specified tasks under specific operational conditions, and reflects the characteristics and level of weapons and equipment at a certain stage. according to the needs of weapon equipment theoretical research, the effectiveness can be divided into four categories as follows: (1) single effectiveness: the degree (citation) that can be achieved in terms of single use target when using weapons and equipment. single effectiveness is the evaluation of the ability of weapon equipment in fire application and firepower support. the corresponding operational target is also single, such as shooting efficiency, reconnaissance efficiency, penetration efficiency, communication efficiency, operation efficiency, etc. (2) system effectiveness: the possibility (reference) of weapon system to complete a set of specific tasks under certain operational conditions. system effectiveness reflects the ability of a weapon system to achieve the specified targets, and is a measure of the average comprehensive capability level of the weapon system. because the system effectiveness and the effectiveness of each element of the system constitute a nonlinear relationship, the system effectiveness can be obtained by a variety of individual effectiveness comprehensive calculation. (3) higher system effectiveness: the degree to which the weapon equipment system of systems (sos) completes the specified tasks under the condition of sos confrontation. system effectiveness is aimed at the combat system, and reflects the combat capability to complete the specified tasks under the background of system confrontation. although the weapon system of systems belongs to the category of weapon system, the concept of system effectiveness is more abundant than the concept of system effectiveness for the higher level system above the level of weapon equipment system. therefore, the system effectiveness is not included in the system effectiveness in this paper. (4) operational effectiveness: also known as force effectiveness, the degree of expected objectives that can be achieved by using weapons and equipment systems and their combat forces to carry out operational tasks under the specified operational environment. the operational effectiveness reflects the combat capability of weapon equipment system cooperating with strategy and tactics under the interaction of hostile parties. according to the theory of system engineering, both system effectiveness and system effectiveness are the effectiveness of subsystems at different levels in the war system. individual effectiveness is the basis of system effectiveness, and each single effectiveness is combined to form the overall effectiveness of the system. each subsystem coordinates and interacts with each other to maximize the system effectiveness. therefore, system effectiveness can be regarded as a subordinate index of system effectiveness. operational effectiveness is closely related to the capabilities of relevant combat units, while the capabilities of combat units are affected by the system’s capabilities therefore, combat effectiveness is the ultimate effectiveness and fundamental quality characteristic of any weapon equipment. 2 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 2. overview of weapon equipment effectiveness evaluation methods the effectiveness evaluation method is a means or tool for quantitative evaluation of the military usefulness of weapons and equipment. with the deepening of effectiveness evaluation research, the combination of evaluation method and high-tech shows more and more complex, quantitative and systematic characteristics. there are a lot of methods to evaluate the effectiveness of each scheme. however, there are not many methods to evaluate the effectiveness of each scheme. according to the classification of weapon equipment effectiveness, this paper divides the methods suitable for weapon equipment effectiveness evaluation into single effectiveness evaluation method, multi index effectiveness evaluation method, system effectiveness evaluation method and combat effectiveness evaluation method. (1) individual effectiveness evaluation method since the single effectiveness correspondence is a single target combat action, on the basis of selecting appropriate indicators, the focus of single effectiveness evaluation is to model the capability of weapon equipment in each basic link of combat action (such as reconnaissance, communication, protection, shooting, etc.). typical single effectiveness evaluation models are: shooting effectiveness index evaluation model, communication and command effectiveness index evaluation model, search efficiency index evaluation model, maneuvering effectiveness index evaluation model, protection effectiveness index evaluation model, survival effectiveness index evaluation model, availability index evaluation model, and credibility index evaluation model. (2) multi index effectiveness evaluation method the multi index effectiveness evaluation is applicable to the weapon equipment which is more complex and difficult to measure by a single index. it mainly integrates multiple index information of weapon equipment, evaluates its effectiveness comprehensively, and obtains the overall situation reflecting its effectiveness. compared with single effectiveness evaluation, multi index effectiveness evaluation is a more comprehensive evaluation method. the methods suitable for multi index effectiveness evaluation include generalized index method, probability synthesis method, multi-attribute utility analysis method, distance evaluation method based on positive and negative ideal points, principal component analysis method, grey theory related method, set pair analysis method, nonlinear dynamic system theory method, etc. (3) system effectiveness evaluation method because the weapon system is composed of weapons and related equipment, the weapon system can be regarded as a complex with a set of operational functions. therefore, the system effectiveness depends on a group of functions that the system completes the specified tasks under certain conditions, and the evaluation of system effectiveness can be completed through the comprehensive description of these functions. there are five kinds of system effectiveness evaluation methods: test statistical method, analytic method, comprehensive evaluation method, simulation based evaluation method and neural network based evaluation method. 3 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 (4) higher system effectiveness evaluation method weapon system effectiveness evaluation method weapon equipment system is a kind of combat that implements system of systems confrontation in modern information warfare. compared with general weapon system, its structure is more complex, its tasks are more diverse, and its functions are more comprehensive. the uncertainty of the combat process and the complex correlation of different levels of systems put forward higher requirements for the evaluation of its comprehensive “effectiveness contribution”, the system effectiveness evaluation method should not only follow the layered principle and aggregation and equivalence principle, but also combine with the simulation modeling method to realize the accurate and efficient evaluation of system effectiveness. the evaluation methods of system effectiveness include index method, equivalent analysis method, architecture optimization method and system simulation method. no matter which method is used, the equipment system of systems must be modeled, and the effectiveness data must be processed comprehensively. (5) operational effectiveness evaluation method the operational effectiveness of this paper refers to the effectiveness of the combat unit to complete the expected combat tasks with weapons and equipment. the effectiveness degree here is the coincidence degree of action effect and mission requirements. therefore, the evaluation of weapon equipment operational effectiveness can be quantified by establishing effect and demand function. the methods that are suitable for combat effectiveness evaluation include: combat simulation method, support vector machine evaluation method, data cultivation and mining method, and distributed interactive simulation method. 3. conclusion there are many academic papers about weapon equipment effectiveness evaluation. although this paper only selects some representative papers to review, it can grasp the research direction of system effectiveness evaluation. improper, welcome criticism and correction! reference jin, c. z. (2017). research on evaluation method of navy equipment system contribution based on mmf-ooda. nanjing: nanjing university of technology. ding, h. b. (2014). effectiveness evaluation of missile weapon system based on system confrontation. shenyang: northeast university. dong, l. d. et al. (2008). research on effectiveness evaluation method of weapon equipment system. weapon equipment automation, 2008(3). guo, q. s. et al. (2003). introduction to equipment effectiveness evaluation. beijing: national defense industry press. 4 published by scholink inc. original paper frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 111 original paper exploring the implementation path of curriculum ideology and politics in senior high school english teaching qian yao1* & ruiling yue1 1 foreign languages department, taiyuan normal university, jinzhong, china received: november 20, 2024 accepted: december 11, 2024 online published: december 29, 2024 doi:10.22158/fet.v7n2p111 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v7n2p111 abstract under the guidance of the fundamental task of fostering virtue through education, curriculum ideology and politics is integrated into various disciplines. based on elaborating the concept of curriculum ideology and politics and the necessity of integrating it into senior high school english teaching, this article focuses on discussing the implementation path of integrating curriculum ideology and politics into senior high school english teaching, addressing the problems faced by integrating curriculum ideology and politics into senior high school english teaching. this includes strengthening teachers’ ideological construction, innovating english teaching methods, and exploring ideological and political elements in textbooks, in order to enhance senior high school students’ ideological and political education and cultivate a new generation of capable young people. keywords senior high school english, curriculum ideology and politics, paths 1. introduction in december 2016, the general secretary emphasized at the national conference on ideological and political work in higher education: “fostering virtue through education should be taken as central task of higher education. we should integrate moral and political education into every aspect of the entire education process, striving to elevate china’s higher education to a new level (zhang, 2016, december 9).” subsequently, curriculum ideology and politics has been integrated into various disciplines across universities, continuously permeating and evolving. education stands as the foundation of a nation and the key to its prosperity. hence, alongside higher education, basic education holds equal importance. during the basic education stage, students acquire essential skills, gain subject knowledge, and also need to cultivate correct emotions, attitudes, and values throughout the learning process. therefore, ideological and political education should also be www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 112 published by scholink inc. integrated within basic education. as a language tool for international communication and a core subject in basic education, english must evolve with the changing times. hence, the english subject should consider incorporating curriculum ideology and politics into the teaching process. however, given the current state of senior high school english teaching, integrating curriculum ideology and politics into english instruction remains challenging. therefore, how to align the characteristics of senior high school english subject teaching with curriculum ideology and politics construction, thereby further enhancing the quality of high school english education, deserves deeper contemplation and exploration. 2. the necessity of integrating curriculum ideology and politics into currently, we are at the historical juncture of the strategic whole process of realizing the great rejuvenation of the chinese nation and the great changes in the world that have not been seen in a century. we are in a critical period for the chinese nation to achieve the great struggle goals of our country. there is a need for a large number of outstanding talents who are rooted in the chinese land, have a global vision, and a world outlook. foreign language education bears an important historical mission and responsibility in this regard (jiang & li, 2020). as an integral part of senior high school education, senior high school english teaching should take the strengthening moral education and cultivating people as its fundamental task, combine curriculum reform with educational value, and cultivate builders and successors of our country in the new era. specifically, the necessity of integrating curriculum ideology and politics into senior high school english teaching is reflected in the following three aspects: first, it is an inevitable requirement of the cultivation objectives of general high school english curriculum standards. as general senior high school english curriculum standards (2017 edition, revised in 2020) states: we should fully implement our country’s education policy, foster virtue through education, enhance our students’ well-rounded development, promote fairness in education, and nurture a new generation of capable young people who have a good and all-round moral, intellectual, physical, and aesthetical grounding, and are well-prepared to join the country cause (2020). therefore, in english teaching, teachers must strictly follow the requirements of the curriculum standards to subtly integrate the core values of our nation into the curriculum in the first-line teaching, guide students to form innovative consciousness and a sense of responsibility for the times, and also integrate fine traditional chinese culture into classroom teaching to give full play to the educational value of senior high school english courses. secondly, there is a practical need for the country to cultivate talents with a global perspective and cross-cultural communication skills. the unique value of the english subject lies in enabling students to view issues from an international perspective and develop cross-cultural communication and awareness. the world is currently in a period of great development, transformation, and adjustment, characterized by multi polarization, economic globalization, social informatization, and cultural diversity. the fate of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 113 published by scholink inc. humanity is closely linked, and the interests of various countries are deeply integrated. however, at the same time, china is also facing various severe challenges in the process of increasingly open development. english courses with international characteristics are duty-bound to undertake the task of educating and guiding students to have a correct understanding of the global situation and international issues. front-line english teachers should consciously establish the awareness of cultivating capable young people for the country, and continuously promote the process of curriculum ideology and politics in english courses. also in classroom teaching, teachers not only cultivate students’ language ability, but also enhance their cultural awareness. then, students can accurately grasp the changes in the international situation and the prospects of china’s development. besides, teachers should guide students to understand and compare the similarities and differences between fine chinese and foreign cultures, thereby enhancing national pride and fostering a sense of responsibility for spreading fine chinese culture to the outside world. thirdly, there is also a fundamental need for adolescent development during critical periods. the senior high school stage is a crucial phase for the development of adolescent’’ emotional attitudes and personality formation, as well as the shaping of their worldview, outlook on life, and values (lv, 2020). if excessive emphasis is placed on students’ academic development while neglecting the cultivation of their moral qualities, it will hinder the comprehensive and healthy development of high school students. traditional chinese culture has always attached great importance to the cultivation and development of morality, placing the word “virtue” in the forefront. senior high school english teachers should actively explore and analyze texts such as fine traditional chinese culture and advanced chinese culture that appear in textbooks. while improving language knowledge and skills, they should continuously enhance students’ cultural confidence. during this critical period of their development, they should gradually form a correct and positive worldview, outlook on life, and values. 3. the problems faced by the implementation of curriculum ideology and politics in senior high school english teaching however, the journey towards truly integrating curriculum ideology and politics into senior high school english teaching is exceedingly complex and challenging. owing to the longstanding traditional teaching mode in english instruction, short-term shifts are unlikely to be profound or fundamentally transformative. specifically, the implementation of curriculum ideology and politics in senior high school english courses faces the following issues: an exam-oriented approach, coupled with teachers’ one-sided thinking; a monotonous approach, leading to a standardized curriculum ideology and politics; and a neglect of the teaching materials, resulting in limitations in the use of textbooks. 3.1 an exam-oriented approach, coupled with teachers’ one-sided thinking in the educational landscape of our country, there has been a consistent emphasis on nurturing students into all-round quality talents in terms of morality, intelligence, physical fitness, aesthetics, and labor skills. however, against the backdrop of exam-oriented education, an increasing number of parents, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 114 published by scholink inc. schools, and teachers attach greater significance to academic grades, thereby intensifying the education of disciplinary knowledge while disregarding ideological and political education for students. it becomes rather challenging for students to enhance their ideological and moral character through english. despite the fact that the topic of curriculum ideology and politics has been raised long ago and our country places considerable emphasis on students’ ideological education, numerous schools and teachers haven’t implemented this effectively. simultaneously, teachers still adhere to traditional teaching viewpoints, maintaining that english is merely a language discipline and that students’ primary task is to enhance their language application abilities, namely the four skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing. furthermore, some english teachers have only a cursory understanding of curriculum ideology and politics. they misinterpret “curriculum ideology and politics” as “ideological and political courses”, arguing that moral education is the main responsibility of school administrative departments and that ideological and political education does not fall within the purview of english teaching; some even contend that curriculum ideology and politics pertains to higher education institutions and has no bearing on basic education. such notions are partial and fail to truly grasp the essence of curriculum ideology and politics. objectively, in contrast to the english discipline, the integration of curriculum ideology and politics into other disciplines is relatively effortless. for example, disciplines such as history, chinese, and politics possess abundant philosophical connotations and diverse cultural heritages. when teaching such courses, teachers can readily incorporate certain moral education concepts, from which students can gain benefits. regarding the english discipline, however, teachers encounter difficulties in operational control. in fact, the compilation of english textbooks is based on the objective of core disciplinary literacy. as english teachers, they ought to actively implement disciplinary education and education throughout the entire process. if they can fully utilize the moral education elements in the textbooks, students will reap significant benefits. nevertheless, the majority of english teachers have failed to comprehend and implement the connotation and orientation of core competencies, thereby unable to carry out curriculum ideology and politics. 3.2 a monotonous approach, leading to a standardized curriculum ideology and politics at present, the teaching methods of curriculum ideology and politics in senior high school english courses are rather simplistic. traditional teaching classrooms mostly employ the discussion methods and direct instructions. teachers should inspire and guide students, and provide individualized teaching based on their characteristics. english is a discipline that combines instrumental and humanistic qualities (yin & wu, 2023). however, the majority of english teachers only recognize its instrumental aspect and thus overlook its humanistic nature. from the instrumental perspective, english is a language that bears the history of a nation. therefore, the methods for learning the language should be rich and diverse. from a psychological perspective, students entering the senior high school stage already have a certain ideological and knowledge foundation. thus, the textbooks cover topics such as www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 115 published by scholink inc. international affairs, environmental protection, and life, which could enable students to innovate their thoughts by relating them to real life. nevertheless, due to the requirements of the times, some english teachers have endeavored to incorporate ideological and political elements into their english courses, but they merely remain at a shallow level. teachers merely raise some elevated questions symbolically at the end of the class, such as “what did you learn from the passage?” “what do you think of the character in the story?” without any transition, they rush students to summarize a profound principle from a short passage. in fact, it is extremely difficult for students to think deeply within 3 to 5 minutes. such a teaching approach is somewhat formulaic. the integration of curriculum ideology and politics into english classes must not be stiff or fixed. instead, teachers should stimulate students’ enthusiasm and enable them to study actively and proactively. 3.3 a neglect of the teaching materials, resulting in limited use of textbooks textbooks, as the main carrier of teaching content and the foundation of education, are closely related to the realization of teaching goals. how to use them is a direction that teachers should carefully explore. teachers should creatively explore the ideological and political elements in textbooks and expand related teaching resources. however, teachers often overemphasize the input of the second language culture in textbooks while neglecting their inherent ideological and political functions. one reason for this is the lack of attention paid to textbooks. nowadays, teaching resources are abundant, and teachers consider textbook content relatively simple, thus relying mainly on other resources to assist teaching. in fact, although textbooks may seem simple, they are also profound. textbook editors and writers cannot include all principles and knowledge in them. only when teachers carefully study and fully understand the content can they supplement the combined content based on the textbooks to students, enabling them to absorb the ideological and political elements. secondly, teachers lack the ability to develop textbooks that integrate the concept of ideological and political education in courses (wang & xiao, 2021). they fail to sort out the ideological and political elements in english textbooks in light of the learning characteristics of high school students and help them establish correct core values. moreover, if teachers do not pay close attention to daily life and integrate it into the application of foreign language textbooks, they cannot enhance students’ moral education awareness and foster cultural confidence. 4. the implementation of curriculum ideology and politics into senior high school english teaching in view of the above problems faced by the integration of curriculum ideology and politics into senior high school english teaching, the following will explore the implementation paths of curriculum ideology and politics in senior high school english teaching from three aspects: teacher ideology, teaching methods and curriculum resources. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 116 published by scholink inc. 4.1 strengthening teachers’ ideological construction senior high school english teachers are the main body of imparting knowledge, and their ideological and political quality level has an indirect impact on students. therefore, teachers should transform their educational ideas and truly enhance their political literacy. first of all, schools should actively carry out ideological and political education and training activities for english teachers, enabling them to deeply understand the essence of ideological and political education, thereby improving their theoretical level and further applying it in actual teaching activities. secondly, senior high school english teachers themselves should have a correct attitude and consciously shoulder the responsibility of the times. they should not only have solid cultural knowledge but also attach importance to the study of political theory. teachers should pay attention to social hot topics and current political affairs, learn about the outstanding deeds of advanced figures, keep the mainstream values in mind, and then externalize them in daily teaching. for example, teachers can select articles and materials with moral value. these contents have certain ideological depth and reference value, which can arouse students’ discussions and thinking and involve some ideological and political topics. for instance, teachers can choose some biographies of famous people as supplementary materials. the biographies of famous people often have a certain influence, and their personality qualities and ideological viewpoints can make students reflect and give them inspiration. taking the text the power of good in unit 2 of the compulsory book 3 of the foreign language teaching and research press as an example, the genre of this text is an autobiography, mainly introducing the life of nicholas winton. the title “the british schindler” of this text is worth exploring by teachers: who is schindler? what are his deeds? these questions may trouble students’ reading. therefore, teachers should search for relevant clips of schindler’s speeches and deeds before class and play them in the introduction part to let students understand winton’s personality qualities. the theme of this article is “the power of good deeds”, and teachers can share and display the deeds that moved china in the post-reading part, allowing students to think about good deeds and their importance unconsciously. finally, teachers should invite students to share their understanding of good deeds and put them into practice. 4.2 innovating english teaching methods in classroom teaching, in addition to traditional teaching methods, teachers can use innovative teaching methods such as tasks-driven teaching, scenario simulation teaching, etc. to complete the design of each teaching link. in addition to the convenience of the internet today, teachers can use the network platform to assist classroom teaching, integrate images, audio, video and other resources, and give full play to the advantages of new media technology in teaching. the use of information technology is vivid and rich, which helps students absorb and internalize relevant ideological and political content. unit 2 let’s celebrate, a compulsory course for senior high school english in the foreign language research edition, mainly discusses the topic of “festivals”. teachers can introduce artificial intelligence software into the classroom to allow students to communicate face-to-face. the main intention is to enable students to quickly perceive cultural differences and appreciate excellent cultures. secondly, teachers www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 117 published by scholink inc. should actively mobilize students’ initiative in the classroom and engage in debates and reflections related to ideological and political elements. taking the real father christmas as an example, the holiday mentioned in the article is western christmas. teachers can guide students to think of traditional chinese festival-spring festival, and explore the similarities and differences between the two festivals to help students better understand local culture. subsequently, the teacher can ask a question “what’s your favorite chinese festival?” and divide everyone into several groups to answer in a competitive manner, expressing the value and significance of traditional chinese festivals. this teaching mode can enable students to perceive and deeply love their own ethnic culture from an international perspective, and stimulate their sense of national pride. after class, schools can hold various forms of ideological and political education themed activities, such as english handouts, patriotic speech competitions, debate competitions, etc., which can not only cultivate students’ moral education quality, but also return to the original intention of english teaching, which is to improve language ability. 4.3 exploring ideological and political elements in textbooks teachers should be adept at uncovering the ideological and political elements hidden within textbooks. this involves not only analyzing unit themes but also encompassing the three dimensions of core competencies. using the 2019 foreign language teaching and research press (fltrp) compulsory one as an example, this article delves into the ideological and political elements present in the textbook. unit 3 family matters centers around the thematic context of human and self. the discourses present scenes like a grandfather resolving conflicts with his son, two athlete brothers uniting and moving forward, and family members preparing a birthday party for grandmother. these scenes help students deepen their understanding of family and enhance their emotional cognition. through the teaching of these discourses, teachers can extend their lessons to the cultural heritage of traditional chinese families, thereby enabling students to truly understand family roles and reevaluate familial relationships. unit 5 into the wild focuses on the thematic context of human and society. through depictions of animal migration and the life of chinese pandas in the netherlands, students can comprehend the relationship between humans and nature, fostering respect and protection for the natural world. 5. conclusion the integration of curriculum ideology and politics into senior high school english teaching is irresistible. through analyzing the problems faced by the integration of curriculum ideology and politics into senior high school english teaching, three approaches are put forward: strengthening the ideological construction of teachers; innovating english teaching methods; exploring ideological and political elements in textbooks. in short, english teachers should have a far-reaching intention to carry out moral cultivation in the reform of senior high school english teaching, and nurture a new www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 118 published by scholink inc. generation of capable young people who have a good and all-round moral,intellectual, physical, and aesthetical grounding and are well-prepared to join the country cause. references jiang, f., & li, y. (2020). new positioning of foreign language education and innovation of global governance talent cultivation mode under the goal of “cultivating virtue and nurturing talents”. foreign language electronic teaching, 6, 27-31. lv, y. (2020). efforts should be made to implement the fundamental task of cultivating morality and talents through the use of unified textbooks for the three subjects. curriculum, textbook, teaching method, 40(10), 4-7. ministry of education of the people’s republic of china. (2020). curriculum standards for senior high school english (2017 edition, 2020 revision). beijing: people’s education press. wang, w., & xiao, l. (2021). dilemma and path of ideological and political construction of foreign language curriculum in primary and secondary schools. educational theory and practice, 41(29), 55-58 yin, k., & wu, t. (2023). reconstruction of the cultural analytic paradigm of english teaching in china from the perspective of humanistic education. modern english, 9, 60-63. zhang, s. (2016, december 9). the general secretary emphasized at the national conference on ideological and political work in colleges and universities: integrating ideological and political work into the entire process of education and teaching will create a new situation for the development of higher education in china. people’s daily, 1. frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no.2, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 1 original paper us presidential awards: an outcomes analysis steven oppenheimer1*, dominique evans-bye1, mindy berman1, helen chun1, alvalyn lundgren1, terri miller1, & orenda tuason1 1 department of biology and center for cancer and developmental biology, california state university, northridge, northridge, ca 91330-8303 received: march 7, 2023 accepted: march 22, 2023 online published: april 5, 2023 doi:10.22158/fet.v6n2p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v6n2p1 abstract around 99% of u.s. presidential awards for mentored student research in science go to college level mentors like steve oppenheimer. we have an opportunity here to describe the research and mentorship outcomes of two us presidential awardees. one is steve and the other is a high school teacher, dominique evans-bye, who also achieved a us presidential award for mentored student research in science. dominique is one of only about two at the high school level, of hundreds in decades given at the college level. because of the rarity of high school presidential award winners, we show here what can be done at the high school level. and we show how vastly different, yet similar, university and high school programs can be. we believe that this paper is the only one ever to explore university and high school mentored student research in one place. we also review high school student research from the new journal of student research abstracts and show that it is sometimes every bit as good as university level research and should be considered an important part of the u.s. research effort. this may be the first time such a statement has been made. this review from our lab should help others understand what goes into a u.s. presidential award, the highest white house mentoring award in the nation, administered by the national science foundation. the important accomplishments of dominique will help high school and middle school teachers enhance their student research programs if they choose to do so. motivation is key. 1. introduction a recent paper in this journal (note 1) focused on dominique evans-bye’s presidential award and terri miller’s and orenda tuason’s student research abstracts. dominique’s project examined the possibility of past water on mars with collaboration with experts and funding, as done at the college level. here we continue exploration of dominique’s program and other high school level student research as well as college level research. we examine the nuts and bolts of the logistics of presidential awards at both www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 2 published by scholink inc. the high school and college levels. 2. main body we show exciting research by dominique’s, terri’s and orenda’s students, as examples of the hundreds of students at the high school and middle school levels who publish in the new journal of student research abstracts (notes 2-29). but motivation, in addition to collaboration and funding, is key in having students do a level of mentored research of high enough quality to earn a us presidential award. motivation is essential at both the high school and college levels. most instructors do not have the motivation to do what dominque, terri and orenda have, as it takes a lot to do the collaboration, obtain funding and use their background. while we do not have a paper from this lab on high school motivation, we do have one on college level motivation (note 30). steve owns the copyright. here it is. (#s) refer to references for this motivation paper and not for overall paper. higher education research 2019; 4(2): 42-45 doi: 10.11648/j.her.20190402.14 issn: 2578-9341 (print); issn: 2578-935x (online) motivating college students: evidence from 20 years of anonymous student evaluations steven b. oppenheimer department of biology and center for cancer and developmental biology, california state university, northridge, u.s.a email address: to cite this article: steven b. oppenheimer. motivating college students: evidence from 20 years of anonymous student evaluations. higher education research. vol. 4, no. 2, 2019, pp. 42-45. doi: 10.11648/j.her.20190402.14 received: may 12, 2019; accepted: june 15, 2019; published: june 26, 2019 abstract: the career outcomes of hundreds of college students, mostly biology majors, mentored by u.s. presidential awardee (paesmem) steven oppenheimer, over a 47 year period, at california state university, northridge, were tracked and recorded. the motivational strategies that putatively helped lead to these career outcomes were gleaned from 20 years of anonymous student evaluations. in addition, evidence is presented that the motivational strategies, in some cases, were a likely cause of student career success and not just correlated with it. the student evaluations suggest that boundless energy, enthusiasm, clarity and organization keep students excited and engaged, helping to motivate them to succeed. motivation at the pre-college level is also discussed, as by the time students enter college their career www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 3 published by scholink inc. choices are often already made. these programs helped win a u.s. presidential award, the highest u.s. award for student mentoring. 1. introduction steven oppenheimer, received a u.s. presidential award for science student mentoring presented by president obama at the white house [1-7]. this award is the highest u.s. award for science student mentoring. the award was primarily based on hundreds of documented distinguished career outcomes of steve oppenheimer’s mentees, summarized by herstein (2016) [1]. in this paper the specific student evaluations from 20 years of anonymous student comments are reviewed and the specific motivational strategies to help students succeed are summarized. these strategies are discussed in the context of global thoughts on motivation and how individual faculty motivation fits into other factors that keep students motivated and engaged [8-9]. the relationship between faculty motivational strategies as being causal versus being correlated with student success is discussed [note 8], as is motivation at the pre-college level, perhaps most important of all [10-11]. 2. methods this paper gleans from about 20 years of required anonymous student evaluations of california state university, northridge biology professor steven oppenheimer, how the motivational approaches used affected the students in their own words. an abbreviated version of student evaluations can be found using google (at rate my professor, steven oppenheimer, california state university northridge). most of the evaluations concern the upper division majors biology course embryology, biology 441, and some are about the lower division mixed majors, non-majors course biology of cancer, biology 285. the actual 20 years of evaluations can be obtained by contacting steven.oppenheimer@csun.edu. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 4 published by scholink inc. 3. results and discussion motivational strategies from student evaluations. while the quantitative evaluations were all at the top of a 5 point scale, they do not capture the flavor of the motivational strategies used. some of the verbatim (some shortened) comments by the students over the 20 year period were as follows: fun and interactive, offers research opportunities, passionate, inspirational, patient, motivating, clear, interesting, organized, treats students with respect, positive vibe, very approachable, easy to understand, cares about 43 steven b. oppenheimer: motivating college students: evidence from 20 years of anonymous student evaluations student success, straightforward, enjoys teaching, great sense of humor, understand more in other classes because of dr. oppenheimer’s teaching, engages students, best professor ever, very clear, makes sure students understand, keeps us focused, i always enjoy coming to class, optimistic, very good communicator, excellent knowledge of the topic, definitely keeps us awake, intriguing and engaging, encourages questions, love his energy, the best class i ever had. some additional flavor of steve oppenheimer’s philosophy of motivation was presented at the white house on jan 6, 2010, when oppenheimer was recognized by president obama, nsf and the white house. the official white house/nsf brochure produced for the presidential award ceremony said of oppenheimer: putting into practice his belief that laboratory research experiences should be available to all interested students, he has developed an open door model that encourages students of all economic strata and ethnic groups to participate in his research. his record has proven true his often-stated expectation that any interested student can succeed in scientific research and can go far into the professional career ranks of science, including the ph.d. and m.d. (a copy of this nsf/white house produced brochure can be obtained by contacting www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 5 published by scholink inc. steven.oppenheimer@csun.edu). specific example of motivation putatively causing a specific career outcome. the documented career success of so many hundreds of students mentored by steve oppenheimer played a key role in the u.s. presidential award as noted by the nsf presidential award peer review panel. the evidence presented is mostly correlation and does not provide any clarity on causal relationships. serendipity has provided an example that gets more into possible causal relationships. this is about one student, of several, who made a donation to the university of student scholarship (s) in honor of steve oppenheimer. but in this case an astute reporter unraveled how motivation by steve oppenheimer led to her acceptance to stanford university medical school (and is now a co-director of emergency medicine at a large los angeles hospital). here is some of her story in her own words [8]. her daughters asked, mom, how did you become a doctor...in unraveling 20 years worth of layers she remembered dr. oppenheimer. she decided to make the gift to the university because she said dr. oppenheimer changed the trajectory of her life. it began when she took oppenheimer’s undergraduate embryology course biology 441, the main subject of the anonymous student evaluations presented above. after that she worked in oppenheimer’s research lab. [7]. she said being in dr. o’s lab as an undergraduate was awesome. he encouraged every person that walked into the lab to do everything they wanted to do and helped them find ways to do it. she said oppenheimer’s encouragement made a profound impact on her life...he gave me the confidence to apply to medical school. he gave me the study skills, research skills and knowledge base to succeed. he said you’re the best and you can become a doctor if you want to be one. he gave me the confidence to apply to medical school he changed the trajectory of my life. see the great article about this student that is provided here (camacho, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 6 published by scholink inc. 2018) [8]. it’s hard to assign causality to motivational strategies. but this story comes close. here follows the camacho (2018) [8] article. it is important to present it in its entirety to truly provide the details of how steve oppenheimer’s motivation does the job. in emergency rooms across the united states, nurses, doctors and hospital staff know never to say the “q” word. the dreaded word isn’t “question,” “quarrel” or “quick” — it’s “quiet.” it’s a rare time for an emergency room when the phones aren’t ringing and patients aren’t arriving, but that can all change in minutes, according to an er superstition. as soon as someone remarks, “it’s going to be a quiet night, isn’t it?,” everything changes: ambulances flood the er with patients until it’s bursting. as a doctor of emergency medicine and co-medical director of burbank emergency medical group at providence saint joseph medical center in burbank, it’s a situation that celina barba-simic ’92 (cell and molecular biology) knows all too well. barba-simic’s only access to medical care as a child was the busy county emergency department, which “normalized” long waits, chaos and language barriers for the alumna. when she decided to pursue a career in medicine, emergency medicine was the only specialty she considered. “attending to people at times of crisis represents the greatest privilege of medicine,” barba-simic said. “i am most grateful to be able to alleviate anxiety and have an impact on patients’ acute medical needs...” barba-simic always knew she wanted to work in medicine, but she never imagined that learning not to say the “q” word would be such a valuable lesson — nor did she know that she would be drawn to the fast-paced world of emergency medicine. her path became clearer when she took a human embryology course with — and later joined the center for cancer and developmental biology of — esteemed biology www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 7 published by scholink inc. professor steven oppenheimer at california state university, northridge. his influence on her was so profound that barba-simic recently made a gift to the csun college of science and mathematics to create the dr. celina barba-simic biology scholarship in honor of dr. steven oppenheimer. the annual scholarship will provide one award for an undergraduate student with demonstrated financial need who is also conducting laboratory research in the college of science and mathematics’ department of biology. she decided to make the gift, she said, after her daughters asked her a tough question: “mom, how did you become a doctor?” “one day they just asked me how i did it,” barba-simic said. “and i really tried to unravel all of those layers of skills and education.” higher education research 2019; 4(2): 42-45 44 in unraveling 20 years’ worth of layers, barba-simic remembered her inspiring professor of human embryology. “dr. oppenheimer at csun gave me the comfortable, accessible starting point where i could really start building those skills and seeing that there are possibilities,” she said. “he was absolutely essential.” her time at csun oppenheimer, who has mentored thousands of students during his 40-year tenure as a csun professor, said that barba-simic stood out when she was an undergraduate. “celina had sparkle, spark and enthusiasm seldom seen in students,” oppenheimer said. “the combination of her enthusiasm and my enthusiasm made for great success. celina’s spark was inspirational.” after getting to know the professor — now emeritus — barba-simic joined the famed oppenheimer lab. “being in dr. o’s lab was awesome. he made it approachable and hands-on,” she said. “everything was accessible. he encouraged every person that walked in there to do everything they wanted to do and helped them find ways to do it.” in the lab, barba-simic helped research cell surface www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 8 published by scholink inc. carbohydrates in adhesion and migration, to explore how cells’ surface sugar-containing receptor sites change during development. the study aimed to determine the function of those carbohydrates in order to find causes of cancer-cell spread. barba-simic said the professor’s encouragement made a profound impact on her life. “you walk in and he’s saying, ‘you’re wonderful and you’re the best!’ it was life-changing, his teaching and his classes,” she said. “it prepared me for medical school. i knew i had the study skills, the research skills and the knowledge base [to succeed].” although she learned many things from him, the most important idea the professor instilled in barba-simic was this: you can be a doctor if you want to be. “i reflected on the impact my time in dr. oppenheimer’s lab had on my career,” barba-simic said. “he gave me the confidence to apply to [medical school]. dr. oppenheimer changed the trajectory of my life.” motivation! overcoming barriers a first-generation college student born in mexico and raised in pacoima, barba-simic and her parents came to the u.s. when she was three months old. she started working at the age of 15 and had two jobs by the time she was 16. she used her wages to pay for essentials. “when i was graduating high school, i brought the uc application to my mom and was like, ‘how many of these boxes can i check off?’ i think the applications were around $50 each,” barba-simic said. “and she said, ‘oh, honey, we can’t afford that and you can’t move away from home.’” financial and cultural constraints led barba-simic to csun, where she initially enrolled as a physical therapy major. once at csun, she encountered cultural barriers to her education from well-meaning family and friends. “i knew i wanted to be a physician, but everybody told me, ‘oh, don’t be a doctor. it takes too long and you’re going to get married anyway,’” barba-simic said. despite the financial and cultural barriers, barba-simic paved her way to medical school by volunteering at the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 9 published by scholink inc. veterans affairs sepulveda ambulatory care center, just a few miles east of campus, doing research and participating in on-campus organizations such as chicanos for community medicine. at the end of her undergraduate time at csun, barba simic received multiple awards including graduating student of the year award from the department of biology and the minority achievers in science student of the year award. she also received multiple scholarships, fostering her appreciation of the financial needs of low-income students and later inspiring her to make a gift to aid those in need. barba-simic made the gift to her alma mater in hopes of supporting “csun students that share similar challenges and career goals.” as an involved undergraduate, barba-simic applied for — and later received — the national institutes of health minorities access to energy related careers grant, with oppenheimer’s encouragement, she said. “the grant paid for two years [of undergrad], so i was able to stop working,” she said. “in the summer, the grant allowed me to conduct research in a department of energy lab and use the skills that dr. o taught me. “i was lucky to be at lawrence-berkeley national laboratory working under dr. levy ... where my job was to irradiate mice brain cell cultures, subjecting them to different levels of radiation and testing bragg peaks using the linear accelerator. this was but a small part of the research that dr. levy used to perfect proton therapy for high-precision treatment of brain tumors and vascular malformations,” she added. perseverance after graduating from stanford medical school, barba simic completed a three-year emergency medicine residency at harbor-ucla medical center, where she started work as early as 4 a.m. and ended as late as 7 p.m. — the following day. this meant barba-simic often worked 38-hour shifts and 120-hour weeks. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 10 published by scholink inc. on top of extremely long hours, in the first three months of her residency, barba-simic became pregnant with her first child. she went to her fellow residents and asked to switch schedules around so that her vacation was at the end of her first year. “once i switched it all, i went to my residency director and said, ‘i have a plan.’ i did not miss a day,” barba-simic said. “i actually went into labor my last day. i guess you’re so used to, as a minority, working harder and trying to prove yourself that it’s just part of you.” at the start of her residency, she was one of two women in a class of 12, but she didn’t let that disparity discourage her from accomplishing her goals and realizing her full potential. “you make it happen,” she said. “i’m kind of tough — i think that’s the pacoima in me.” motivation! steve’s nsf presidential award committee evaluated data on student co-authored publications and student career outcomes. some of steve’s student co-authored publications (1). steven oppenheimer, mindy berman, helen chun, alvalyn lundgren, stacy tanaka, aphrodite antoniou, terri miller, greg zem, applied science research for all part 1 pre-college level, american journal of applied scientific research 6: 72-75 (2020). doi:10.11648/j.ajasr.20200606.11. (2). r. dou, z. hazari, k. dabney, g. sonnert, p. sadler, early informal stem experiences identity: the importance of talking science, sci. edu. 10.1002/sce.21499 (2019). the only one that is not a steve co-authored pub. (3). s.oppenheimer, covid-19 pandemic, glycobiology, glycan shields, vaccine strategies, heparin sulfate: a mini review, american journal of applied scientific research 6(2): 46-48 (2020). (4). s.oppenheimer, cell clusters in cancer metastasis: a mini review, american journal of applied scientific research 6(2): 43-45 (2020). doi: 10.11648//j.ajasr.20200602.13. (5). smith, t., oppenheimer, s.b., involvement of l-rhamnose in sea urchin gastrulation: a live embryo assay, zygote, doi:10.1017/s0967199413000452 (2013) (6). singh, s., karabidian, e., kandel, a., metzenberg, s., carroll, jr.e., oppenheimer, s.b., a role for polyglucans in a model sea urchin embryo cellular interaction, zygote doi:10.1017/s0967199413000038 (2013) (7). ghazarian, h, b.idoni, s.oppenheimer. a glycobiology review: carbohydrates, lectins, and implications in cancer therapeutics). acta histochemica, vol. 113, pages 236-247 (2011) pmcid pmc3027850. on the order of 10,000 downloads. one of the most of all time. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 11 published by scholink inc. (8). dreyfuss, j. and s. oppenheimer. cyclodextrins and cellular interactions in e. bilensoy, ed., cyclodextrins in pharmaceutics, cosmetics, and biomedicine, current and future industrial applications, john wiley and sons, hoboken, n.j., chapter 15, pp. 287-295. (2010). (9). idoni, b. h.ghazarian, s.metzenberg, v.hutchins-carroll, s.oppenheimer, and e.carroll jr. use of specific glycosidases to probe cellular interactions in the sea urchin embryo. experimental cell research, vol. 316, pp. 2204-2211 (2010) pmcid pmc2921930 (10). alvarez, m., nnoli, j., carroll, e.j., jr., hutchins-carroll, v., razinia, z., oppenheimer, s.b., exogenous hyalin and sea urchin gastrulation, part ii: hyalin, an interspecies cell adhesion molecule, zygote 16: 73-78 (2008). pmcid pmc2557437 (11). carroll, e.j., jr., hutchins-carroll, v., coyle-thompson, c., oppenheimer, s.b., hyalin is a cell adhesion molecule involved in mediating archenteron-blastocoel roof attachment, acta histochemica 110: 265-275 (2008). pmid 18262230 (12). contreras, a., vitale, j., hutchins-carroll, v., carroll, e.j., oppenheimer, s.b., exogenous hyalin and sea urchin gastrulation. part iii: biological activity of hyalin isolated from lytechinus pictus embryos, zygote 16: 355-361 (2008). pmcid pmc2586997 (13). oppenheimer, s.b., alvarez, m., nnoli, j., carbohydrate-based experimental therapeutics for cancer, hiv/aids and other diseases, acta histochemica 110: 6-13 (2008). pmcid pmc2278011 (14). oppenheimer, s.b., cellular basis of cancer metastasis: a review of fundamentals and new advances, acta histochemica, 108:327-334 (2007). this paper garnered the most downloads of all papers in this elsevier journal, august 06-march 07 (813 downloads). pmid16730054 (15). petrossian, k., banner, l., oppenheimer, s.b., lectin binding and lectin effects on human cancer and non-cancer cell lines: examination of issues of interest in drug design strategies, acta histochemica 109: 491-500 (2007). (16). razinia, z., carroll, jr., e.j., oppenheimer, s.b., microplate assay for quantifying developmental morphologies: effects of exogenous hyalin on sea urchin gastrulation, zygote 15: 1-6 (2007). (17). sajadi, s., rojas, p., oppenheimer, s.b., cyclodextrin, a probe for studying adhesive interactions, acta histochemica 109: 338-342 (2007). pmcid pmc 1988679 (18). zem, g.c., badali, o., gaytan, m. hekmatjou, h., alvarez, m., nnoli, j., katus, e., oppenheimer, s.b., microbead analysis of cell binding to immobilized lectin: an alternative to microarrays in the development of carbohydrate drugs and diagnostic tests, acta histochemica 108: 311-317 (2006). (19). ghazarian, h.,coyle-thompson, c., dalrymple, w., hutchins-carroll, v., metzenberg, s., razinia, z., carroll, jr., e.j., oppenheimer, s.b., exogenous hyalin and sea urchin gastrulation, part iv: a direct adhesion assayprogress in identifying hyalin’s active sites, zygote 18: 17-26 (2010). pmcid pmc2817981 (20). oppenheimer, s. & meyer, j. (1982). carbohydrate specificity of sea urchin blastula adhesion component, experimental cell research, 139, 451-456. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 12 published by scholink inc. (21). idoni, b., ghazarian, h., metzenberg, s., hutchins-carroll, v, carroll, jr., e., & oppenheimer, s. (2010). use of specific glycosidases to probe cellular interactions in the sea urchin embryo. experimental cell research, 316, 2204-2211. (22). liang, j., aleksanyan, h., metzenberg, s., & oppenheimer, s. (2016). involvement of l-rhamnose in sea urchin gastrulation. part ii: alpha rhamnosidase, zygote 24, 37-377. (23). k. crocker, j. deleon, l. telliyan, k.aprelian, a. rosenberg, n. pouri, g. beltran, v. ramirez, d. kaufman, a. petrosyan, d. nazarian, m. magistrado, s. matinian, d. hanna, s. eskandari, f. atanante, a. nerses, g. zem, s. oppenheimer a kinetic assay for drug discovery: part 2, sodium sulfate american journal of applied scientific research 2020; 6(2): 39-42 http://www.sciencepublishinggroup.com/j/ajasr
doi: 10.11648/j.ajasr.20200602.12
issn: 2471-9722 (print); issn: 2471-9730 (online) (24). v. nahapetyan, s. delos santos, k. crocker, d.tobar, d.nazarian, h. chirishyan, g.beltran, r. dubin, l. reque, p. singh, b. cardona, g. royce bachinela, l. sarkisyan, g. zem, s. oppenheimer a manual kinetic assay in a fixed yeast model for drug discovery american journal of applied scientific research 5, no1: 28-35. doi 10.11648/j.ajasr.20190501.15 (2019). (25). aleksanyan, h., liang, j., metzenberg, s., oppenheimer, s.b., terminal alpha-d-mannosides are critical during sea urchin gastrulation, zygote doi: 10.1017/so967199416000113 (2016). (26). a. ghazarian, oppenheimer, s microbead analysis of cell binding to immobilized lectin. part ii: quantitative kinetic profile assay for possible identification of anti-infectivity and anti-cancer reagents http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.acthis.2014.07.015, acta histochemica 116 (2014) 1514-1518. (27). singh, e. karabidian, a. kandel, s. metzenberg, e. carroll, jr,. s. oppenheimer, a role for polyglucans in a model sea urchin embryo cellular interaction, zygote (cambridge university press), (2013), doi.10.1017/s096719943000038 (2013). (28). h. ghazarian, c. coyle-thompson, dalrymple, v. hutchins-carroll, s. metzenberg, z. razinia, e. carroll, jr., s. oppenheimer exogenous hyalin and sea urchin gastrulation, part iv: a direct adhesion assay – progress in identifying hyalin’s active sites zygote 18: 17-26 (2010). (29). a. contreras, vitale, v. hutchins-carroll, e. carroll, jr, s.oppenheimer. exogenous hyalin and sea urchin gastrulation, part iii: biological activity of hyalin extracted from lytechinus pictus embryos zygote, vol. 16, pp. 355-361 (2008). (30). e. carroll, jr., v. hutchins-carroll, c. coyle thompson, s. oppenheimer hyalin is a cell adhesion molecule involved in mediating archenteron blastocoel roof attachment, acta histochemica, vol. 110, pp. 265-275 (2008). (31). m. alvarez, j. nnoli, e. carroll, jr., v. hutchins-carroll, z. razinia, s. oppenheimer exogenous hyalin and sea urchin gastrulation, part ii: hyalin, an interspecies cell adhesion molecule, zygote, vol. 16, pp. 73-78 (2008). (32). m. alvarez, j. nnoli, s. oppenheimer carbohydrate-based experimental therapeutics for cancer, hiv/aids and other diseases, acta histochemica, vol. 110, pp. 6-13 (2008). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.acthis.2014.07.015 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 13 published by scholink inc. (33). k. petrossian, l. banner, s. oppenheimer lectin binding and effects in culture on human cancer and non-cancer cell lines: examination of issues of interest in drug design strategies, acta histochemica, vol 109, pp. 491-500 (2007). (34). z. razinia, e. carroll, jr, s. oppenheimer microplate assay for quantifying developmental morphologies: effects of exogenous hyalin on sea urchin gastrulation, zygote, vol 15, pp. 1-6 (2007). (35). s. sajadi, rojas, s. oppenheimer cyclodextrin, a probe for studying adhesive interactions, acta histochemica, vol. 109, pp. 338-342 (2007). (36). s. oppenheimer cellular basis of cancer metastasis: a review of fundamentals and new advances acta histochemica, vol. 108, pp. 327-334 (2006). (37). g. zem, o. badali, gaytan, hekmatjou, m. alvarez, j. nnoli, katus, s. oppenheimer microbead analysis of cell binding to immobilized lectin: an alternative to microarrays in the development of carbohydrate drugs and diagnostic tests, acta histochemica, vol. 108, pp. 311-317 (2006). (38). l. welty, e. heinrich, c. garcia, l. banner, m. summers, l. baresi, s. metzenberg, c coyle-thompson, s.oppenheimer analysis of unconventional approaches for the rapid detection of surface lectin binding ligands on human cell lines acta histochemica, vol. 107, pp. 411-420 (2006). (39). c. coyle-thompson, s. oppenheimer a novel approach to study adhesion mechanisms by isolation of the interacting system, acta histochemica, vol. 107, pp. 243-251 (2005). (40). e.heinrich, l. welty, l. banner, s. oppenheimer direct targeting of cancer cells: a multiparameter approach, acta histochemica, vol. 107, pp. 335-344 (2005). (41). m. khurrum, hernandez, eskalaei, o. badali, c. coyle-thompson, s. oppenheimer carbohydrate involvement in sea urchin gastrula cellular interactions acta histochemica, vol. 106, pp. 97-106 (2004). (42). m.maldonado, g. weerasinghe, f.ambroise, yamoah, m. londono, j. pelayo, grigorian, s. oppenheimer, the charged milieu: a major player in fertilization reactions, acta histochemica, vol. 106, pp. 3-10 (2004). (43). l. ngo, m. barajas, g. weerasinghe, g. zem, s. oppenheimer a new histochemical approach for studying sperm cell surfaces, acta histochemica, vol. 105, pp. 21-28 (2003). (44). m. khurrum, g. weerasinghe, e. soriano, r. riman, o. badali, s. gipson, medina, alfaro, v. navarro, c. harieg, l. ngo, t. sakhakorn, l. kirszenbaum, khatibi, abedi, m. barajas, g. zem, a. kirszenbaum, razi, s. oppenheimer. analysis of surface properties of human cancer cells using derivatized beads, acta histochemica, vol. 104, pp. 217-223 (2002). (45). v. navarro, s. walker, o. badali, abundis l. ngo, g. weerasinghe, m. barajas, g. zem, s. oppenheimer. analysis of surface properties of fixed and live cells using derivatized agarose beads, acta histochemica, vol. 104, pp. 99-106 (2002). (46). b. salbilla, h. vaghefi, chhabra, hall, bworn, sadoughi, e. francisco, l. attas, s. walker, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 14 published by scholink inc. nguyen, s. oppenheimer. analysis of cell surface properties using derivatized agarose beads acta histochemica, vol. 101, pp. 271-279 (1999). (47). v. latham, s. oppenheimer. a simple image analysis method for evaluating cell binding to derivatized beads acta histochemica, vol. 101, pp. 263-270 (1999). (48). v. latham, m. tully, s. oppenheimer. a putative role for carbohydrates in sea urchin gastrulation acta histochemica, vol. 101, pp. 293-303 (1999). (49). v. latham, l. latham, s. oppenheimer desktop computer-based image analysis of cell surface fluorescence patterning from a photographic source acta histochemica, vol. 98, pp. 295-300 (1996). (50). j. philip, rodriguez, r. bada, f. ambroise and hernandez, s. oppenheimer. charge interactions in sperm-egg recognition, acta histochemica, vol. 99, pp. 401-410 (1997). (51). ghoneum, vojdani, a. banionis, lagos and gill, s. oppenheimer the effects of carcinogenic methylcholanthrene on carbohydrate residues of nk cells toxicology and industrial health, vol. 13, no. 6, pp. 727-741, 1997. (52). v. latham, martinez, l. cazares, hamburger m. tully, s. oppenheimer. accessing the embryo interior without microinjection, acta histochemica, vol. 100, pp. 193-200 (1998). (53). r. roque, s. herrera, yeh,. j. philip, t. borisavljevic, l. brunick, miles, haritunians, c. addy, r. bada, h. vaghfi, s. matsumoto, g. picionelli and rodriquez, s.oppenheimer cell adhesion mechanisms: modeling using derivatized beads and sea urchin cell systems, acta histochemica, vol. 98, pp. 441-451 (1996). (54). m. daily,v. latham,c. garcia, c. hockman, h. chun, m. oppenheimer, s. west, k. rostamiani, r.chao, e. pollock,s. oppenheimer producing exposed coat-free embryos, zygote, vol. 2, pp. 221-225 (1994). (55). m. spiegler, s. oppenheimer. extending the viability of sea urchin gametes, cryobiology, vol. 32, pp. 168-174 (1995). (56). v. latham, j. ducut, k. rostamiani, h. chun, lopez, s. herrera, s. oppenheimer. a rapid lectin receptor binding assay: comparative evaluation of sea urchin embryo cell surface lectin receptors, acta histochemica, vol. 97, pp. 89-97 (1995). (57). v. latham, s. herrera, k. rostamiani, h. chun, s. oppenheimer. rapid identification of lectin receptors and their possible function in sea urchin cell systems, acta histochemica, vol. 97, pp. 373-382 (1995). (58). m. ghoneum, a. banionis, gill and romero, s. oppenheimer demonstration of involvement of mannose residues on nk cell cytotoxicity using lectin coupled beads, natural immunity and cell growth regulation, 10:132 (1991). (59). s. oppenheimer, biology and cultivation of teratoma cells, in tests of teratogenicity in vitro, north holland, amsterdam, pp. 261-274. (60). s. oppenheimer, human made carcinogens vs. natural food carcinogens: which post the greatest cancer risk? american clinical products review, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 16-19, february 1985. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 15 published by scholink inc. (61). s. oppenheimer cancer and stress, longevity letter, 2(6): 3, 1984. (62). s. oppenheimer, carcinogens in food and water, longevity letter, 2(9): 2-3, 1984. (63). s. oppenheimer carcinogens in the home, longevity letter, 3(5): 2-4, may 1985. (64). s. oppenheimer preventing cancer, american longevity 1 (no.1), pp. 1-5, 1983. (65). meyer, p. thompson, r. behringer, r. steiner, saxton, s. oppenheimer. protease activity associated with loss of adhesiveness in mouse teratocarcinoma. exp. cell res., 143, pp. 63-70, 1983. (66). meyer, s. oppenheimer. carbohydrate specificity of sea urchin blastula adhesion component, exp. cell. res., 139, pp. 451-456. 1982. (67). s. oppenheimer causes of cancer: gene alteration versus gene activation, amer. lab., pp. 40-46, november 1982. (68). j. meyer, s. oppenheimer isolation of species-specific and stage-specific adhesion promoting component by disaggregation of intact sea urchin embryo cells, exp. cell res., 137, pp. 471-476, 1982. (69). c. capelle, j. meyer, s. sorensen, s. oppenheimer isolation of aggregation inhibitory factor from non-adhesive mouse teratoma cells, exp. cell res., 131, pp. 470-476, 1981. (70). w. childress, freedman, c. koprowski, doolittle and p. sheeler, s. oppenheiimer, surface characteristics of separated subpopulations of mouse teratocarcinoma cells, exp. cell res., 122, pp. 39-45, 1979. (71). m. grodin, nystrom, j. scordato, m. cantor, s. oppenheimer. relationship of adhesiveness of cells in culture with specific enzyme activity, exp. cell res., 122, pp. 149-157, 1979. (72). m. asao, s. oppenheimer. inhibitor of cell aggregation by specific carbohydrates, exp. cell. res., 120, pp. 149-157, 1979. (73). s. oppenheimer introduction to the symposium and studies on the surfaces of separated and synchronized tumor and embryonic cell populations. american zoologist, 19, pp. 801-808, 1979. (74). s. oppenheimer, cell surface carbohydrates in adhesion and migration. american zoologist, 18, pp. 12-23, 1978. (75). b. bales, brenneman, l. knapp, lesin, a. neri, e.pollock, s. oppenheimer. modulation of agglutinability by alteration of the surface topography in mouse ascites tumor cells. exp. cell res., 105, pp. 291-300, 1977. (76). b. bales, lesin, s. oppenheimer on cell membrane lipid fluidity and plant lectin agglutinability: a spin label study of mouse ascites tumor cells, biochemica et biophysica acta, 465, pp. 400-407, 1977. (77). j. meyer, s. oppenheimer the multicomponent nature of teratoma cell adhesion factor, exp. cell res., 102, pp. 359-364, 1976. (78). a. neri, m. roberson, d. connolly, s. oppenheimer quantitative evaluation of concanavalin a receptor site distributions on the surfaces of specific populations of embryonic cells, nature, 258, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 16 published by scholink inc. pp. 342-344, 1975. (79). d. connolly, s. oppenheimer cell density-dependent stimulation of glutamine synthetase activity in cultured mouse teratoma cells, exp. cell res., 94, pp. 459-464, 1975. (80). m. roberson, a. neri, s. oppenheimer, distribution of concanavalin a receptor sites on specific populations of embryonic cells, science, 189, pp. 639-640, 1975. (81). s. oppenheimer. functional involvement of specific carbohydrates in teratoma cell adhesion factor, exp. cell res., 92, pp. 122-126, 1975. (82). m. roberson, s. oppenheimer. quantitative agglutination of specific populations of sea urchin embryo cells with concanavalin a exp. cell res. 91, pp. 263-268, 1975. (83). k. krach, a. green g. nicolson, s. oppenheimer. cell surface changes occurring during sea urchin embryonic development monitored by quantitative agglutination with plant lectins, exp. cell res., 84, pp. 191-198, 1974. (84). s. oppenheimer utilization of l-glutamine in intercellular adhesion: ascites tumor and embryonic cells, exp. cell. res., 77, pp. 175-182, 1983. (85). r. potter, m. barber, s. oppenheimer. alteration of sea urchin embryo cell surface properties by mycostatin, a sterol binding antibiotic, developmental biology, 33, pp. 218-223, (86). s. oppenheimer j. odencrantz, a quantitative assay for measuring cell agglutination: agglutination of sea urchin embryo and mouse teratoma cells by concanavalin a, exp. cell res., 73, pp. 475-480, 1972. (87). s. oppenheimer, t.humphreys isolation of specific macromolecules required for adhesion of mouse tumor cells , nature, 232, pp. 125-127, 1971. (88). s. oppenheimer m. edidin, c. orr and s. roseman. an l-glutamine requirement for intercellular adhesion, proceedings of the national academy of sciences usa, 63, pp. 1395-1402, 1969. (89). s. oppenheimer, motivating college students: evidence from 20 years of anonymous student evaluations, higher education reseach, doi: 10.11648 (2019). please note: most of the co-authors on these papers are students. these are only the full length peer-reviewed papers from the oppenheimer lab. published abstracts and national presentations are not included. here are some of steve’s student career outcomes. updated list 2020/some mostly long term research mentees and other mentees of steve oppenheimer and what has become of them (many completed masters (*) and have published with steve). most are accurate. best guesses or past positions for some. some inadvertent duplications may be included. tim jordan, d.m.d., dentist * www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 17 published by scholink inc. loren knapp, ph.d., u chicago * wayne shepard, dentist * dan connolly, ph.d. johns hopkins, scientist, monsanto * marie roberson, ph.d., uc davis * dorothy haskett, research associate * jim meyer, senior scientist, amgen * tony neri, ph.d. uc irvine, vice president preclinical division, miikana therapeutics * robin hale, retired, was director of special applications research, rockwell * gary toedter, ph.d., uc davis, senior scientist, manager, coulter electronics * bob nystrom, ph.d. uc davis or colorado state * chuck sternburg, ph.d., uc irvine, professor, riverside community college * carol koprowski, ph.d. usc, professor or adjunct professor usc * bob freeman, ph.d., ucla(?) * martin grodin, research associate * john scordato, ph.d. usc * paul aunchman, environmental pollution , health inspector * bill childress, ran computer firm * chris capelle, m.d. * richard behringer, ph.d., professor * steve sorenson, d.d.s. * bill saxton, ph.d. u colorado, professor * peter thompson, m.d. *. r. clay steiner, m.d. * mina alikani, lead specialist, cornell in vitro fertilization program * stanley liang, ph.d., harvard * karen simpson, usc dental school * julie gorchynski. m.d., clinical medicine director, uc irvine now texas, professor, big csun donor * elias azzam, research associate * susan crowther, professor, college of the canyons * larry tawa, m.d. * sheryl fulop, d.v.m. * heber becker, ucla medical school * karen berg, m.d. * dana nojima, ph.d., u minnesota * phil patenaude, k-12 teacher * www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 18 published by scholink inc. arunas banionis, m.d. * pradnya kuwwadekar, research scientist * miriam golbert, professor, community college * debra kowal, forensic technologist, community college instructor * helen fredell, k-12 teacher * jerome puttler, k-12 teacher * linda esmaili, research scientist * marci spiegler, community college instructor * mohsen saidinejad, ph.d. pgm * greg bentley, research associate * alice stanboli, biotechnology research scientist * mehrnoosh saghizadeh, biotechnology research scientist * tanya borisavljevic, m.d. * sandra matsumoto, ph.d., u utah, industry scientist * ani issaian, cal tech electron microscopy facility director * ron roque, pollution inspector, city of los angeles * pat krueger, u.s. forest service scientist * valerie dunn, research scientist, industry * michael daily, m.d. * brian salbilla, research associate? * norman lautsch, research associate? * john slack, was in med school * majid heydarizadeh, ph.d. pgm * ana garcia-flack? * mary keens, criminologist * miguel rocha, research associate * bibi aguero, research scientist, industry * tun-yin joseph yeh, ph.d., u utah * cynthia hochman, d.v.m. * vern traxler, criminologist * jessy philip, criminologist * virginia latham, senior research associate * pavanjit chhabra, d.d.s. * audra mckenzie, research associate * paul narguizan, ed.d. or ph.d. usc professor or adjunct professor * houman vaghefi, m.d./ph.d. chicago med? * tharenee sakhakorn, d.d.s.? * www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 19 published by scholink inc. bernard hunwick, ph.d. pgm? * vanessa navarro, m.d. * sheri walker, m.d. david khatibi, m.d. * lital kirszenbaum, d.v.m. pgm uc davis * lyla ngo, medical school * evelyn soriano, was in ph.d. pgm lily welty, ph.d. or masters pgr ucsb * eileen heinrich, ph.d. ucla, postdoc * ziba razinia, ph.d. pgm yale, post doc. u penn * hesam hekmatjou, was in harvard dental school astrid hernandez, k-12 teacher anna martinez, stanford medical school luis rodriguez, ph.d. cornell, senior scientist nih monica tully, k-12 teacher * maria abundis, ucsd medical school juan carlos pelayo, ucsf, m.d. edward yamoah, ucsf m.d. gayanee weerasinghe, johns hopkins/nih ph.d. pgm marcella barajas, u minnesota ph.d. pgm arash razi, nyu dental school * karina garcia, west virginia u masters pgm nasim monajemi, m.d. pgm claudia garcia, ph.d. harvard, senior scientist sabino herrera, d.v.m. uc davis karen brannon, m.d./ph.d. pgm u kansas celina barba, m.d. stanford medical school, emergency room physician, co-direct, emergency department rhodelio cruz, ph.d. uc berkeley * jeanette ducut, ph.d., ucsd, postdoc karolin abedi, pharmacy school rashad riman, dental school stephanie gipson, criminologist juan sosa, medical school melena grigorian, phg.d. pgm edna francisco, science writer liat attas, medical school www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 20 published by scholink inc. talin haritunians, ph.d. pgm cecil addy, m.d. krystal jarvis, laboratory technician * linda brunick, ph.d. pgm monica londono, research associate mike kaliko, chiropractic pgm * maribel alvarez, ph.d. pgm uc irvine karineh petrossian, ph.d. pgm city of hope * jennifer nnoli, ph.d. pgm, sloan kettering rashad riman. dental school christine le, dental school * arjang naminik, dental school * arbi keshishian, dental school * evelin adamian, dental school rabin ebrahimi, pharmacy school souren basmadjian, pharmacy school mike astete, dental school jehan murugaser, m.d. stacy tanaka, k-12 teacher ignacio saldain, k-12 teacher* oliver badali, cosmetics scientist rowena bada, nurse azalia contreras, community college instructor* pouria parsa, m.d. massoud agahi, m.d. mary haghi, m.d., pediatric endocrinologist neema oroomchi, medical school ardy khou, dental school sina samie, medical school anush margarian, pharmacy school marie gonzalez, pharmacy school allen tabibian, m.d., facc, cardiologist ralph buoncristiani, d.d.s. stephen e. jones, m.d. andy solkovits, m.d., assoc. professor uc davis erica dent, master of health administration pgm usc jenieke allen, admit.ph.d. pgm* www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 21 published by scholink inc. justin dreyfuss, ph.d. pgm, usc* diana naderi, admit md pgm brian idoni, research tech ii usc* margaret lemell (aranda), m.d. richard karout, pharmacy school arbi keshishian, dental school*, tiffany smith, pa program christine le, dental school* arjang naminik, dental school* william dalrymple, osteopathic school of medicine ziba razinia, ph.d. yale, postodc u penn* earl sandroff, d.m.d. susan wensel, monsanto r&d* kim krach, m.d.* sokuntheavy so, research technician oliver badali, cosmetics industry chemist collete bibayan, admitted 2 pharmacy schools vanessa navarro, m.d., family practice san diego* mark sussman, ph.d., distinguished professor san diego state herry budiyono, hospital patient analyst* claudine bulan, cytology training program, wisconsin houman vaghefi, md, ph.d, radiation oncologist* poria edalat, dental school lauren michaels, veterinary school basmah akhter, pharmacy school nareeneh zadori, pharmacy school eileen heinrich, ph.d. ucla, now staff scientist at city of hope* jordan vallejo, h.s. summer res 2yrs, purdue university, mechanical engineering niosha edalat, usc dental school and admissions ambassador forooze rashidi, instructor college of the canyons* odette arman, in vitro fertilization clinic embryologist* mark colgin, clinical laboratory technologist drew edelberg, high school research student, b.s. berkeley, ph.d. program, solid state physics, columbia university maria atikyan, masters in nursing program alexandra mokh, instructor/professor, la valley college* pam klein, m.d., vice president clinical development at genentech www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 22 published by scholink inc. tina askari, research associate* hurig katchikian, medical school* marianna muradyan, pharmacy school usc lana darghali, pharmacy school lusineh mirzakhani, admitted to pharmacy school evelyn adamian, dentist ofelya tonyan, accepted western university of health sciences jigar patel, medical school jenieke allen, ph.d. program cedars sinai* krystal jarvis, teacher* hamid davoudi, college teacher, pa program* forooze rashidi, teacher* odette arman, in vitro fertilization embryologist,* ronik khachatoorian, ph.d. ucla, postdoc ucla mirey qubrosi, technical associate, product testing research oryla wiedoeft, edd, teacher, asst. principal, jouliana davoudi, dental school usc* debrin yahya-kashani, csun nutrition masters program yukiko kanda, masters program in social work john sobhani, research associate ucla tiffany smith, pa program* usc keck school of medicine suprita singh, ph.d. program penn state* hye na kim, research assistant ignacio saldain, hs teacher* jung suh, amgen quality control analyst krystal jarvis, research associate* careen khatchitorian, ph. d pgm, uc riverside marina hernandez vergara, k-12 teacher ravneet gill, md pgm hamid allatabakhsh, dentistperiodontist anita aloian, optometry pgm, western university eddie karabidian, usc dental school* hamid davoudi, pa program* pam klein, m.d., oncologist, head biotechnology company noreen warner, pa program lenny mayorga, lenny, usc dental school edmund petrossian, med school www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 23 published by scholink inc. nomiki kolettis, ph.d. pgm uc riverside, now research associate yukiko kanda petrus, masters of social work pgm csun anasheh ghazarian, research technician sokunttheavy so, research technician hiensen hiesmantjaja, med school armin sarkissian, med school ivette ramos ortega, med school, 9-19-14, remarkable testimonial sent virginia hutchins carroll, laboratory manager college of the canyons* samantha arvizu, technical associate mai phan, csun m.s.pgm, research associate gayani weerasinghe, passed bar, patent attorney miriam golbert, chair, biology department, college of the cabnyons* heghush aleksanyan, csun m.s. pgm, teaching assoc, medical school alex kandel, law school-berkeley helen chun, ph.d. and postdoc ucla, assoc.prof., chair biology, csu dominguez hills karina garcia, ph.d. program, history rod blourtchi, admitted medical school /pa program brandon wallace, medical school samantha arvizu, technical associate thermofisher jing liang, research associate weizmann institute* shabnam sorooshiani, dental school elizabeth aquije, ucla school of medicine carol chavez, ucsf dental postbac pgm magy eskander, admitted to pharmacy school haike ghazarian, ph.d. pgm, city of hope* heghush aleksanyan, medical school* ralph buoncristiani, d.d.s. mona kelvani, admitted to pharmacy school carol chavez, accepted roseman dental school, utah nomiki kolettis, research associate genentech anasheh ghazarian, los angeles county sheriff’s crime lab technologist program destinney cox, accepted csun biology masters m. larijani, emergency room physician alice chalikian kouyoumdjian, chiropractor sayeh behnia, admitted to pharmacy school www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 24 published by scholink inc. mai phan, career protein chemist* jim bollinger, dentist christina irikyan, clinical laboratory scientist jouliana davoudi, dentist, graduated from usc dental school* bermans iskandar, pediatric neurosurgeon, university of wisconsin john sobhani, admitted usc dental school haike ghazarian, ph.d. city of hope, postdoctoral fellow* salmeen andkhoy, registered nurse stacy tanaka, teacher, magnet coordinator, new medical magnet at northridge middle school. jasper chang, loma linda university school of pharmacy karen pastrano, accepted uc san francisco and pittsburgh schools of dentistry and pittsburgh ph.d. program jenieke allen, ph.d. * justin dreyfuss admitted rosalind franklin, medical school* massoud agahi, m.d. vascular surgeon maribel alvarez, ph.d celina barba, m.d., stanford, co-director emergency medicine, providence st. joseph medical center burbank, scholarship donor to csun in honor of dr. oppenheimer raff khechoumian, accepted masters pgm rosalind franklin university of medicine and science dayana tobar, ventura county medical center residency program karoline rostamiani, tenure track community college professor yun lee, accepted to pharmacy school karoline rostamiani, tenure track community college professor carol chavez, dmd, roseman university college of dental medicine kristel crocker, accepted into clinical laboratory scientist training program byron aquino, accepted into clinical laboratory scientist training program regie canta, accepted into clinical laboratory science program dominique evans-bye, u.s. presidential award recipient, high school teacher and superb student research mentor arya saleh, m.d., internal medicine peyman saadat, m.d., reproductive endocrinologist it all started… in 1969 at johns hopkins, steve oppenheimer’s research career began with a paper published in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 25 published by scholink inc. the proceedings of the national academy of sciences, u.s. (pnas) that was considered by many to be the first strong evidence implicating cell surface carbohydrates in intercellular adhesion done in a cancer cell system (oppenheimer, et al., pnas vol 63,1395-1402 (1969)). now, we will present some of dominique’s, terri’s and orenda’s mentored student research projects. for those interested in viewing what can be done at the pre-college level, you might look at the published student research (2-29). dominique’s, terri’s and orenda’s work are examples of what can be done at the pre-college level. surveying high-risk fire areas: mapping homelessness via infrared sensors daniel bet sarghez, matthew keshishian, gabriela marcucci, vahe haleblian, and d. evans-bye (teacher) anderson w. clark magnet high school 4747 new york ave., la crescenta, ca 91214 abstract our cubesat (small cube satellite) mission was to document homeless encampments within a high-wildfire-risk area and to determine if they are occupied or not by using infrared remote sensing. first, we evaluated a flir infrared sensor on a parrot anafi unmanned aerial vehicle (uav) to show proof of concept. our evaluation proved that ir could identify homeless camps. next, we built a cubesat from the xinabox xk90 and arduino iot bundle kits. however, our cubesat went through numerous revisions to fix problems, including removal of the xinabox. the flight-ready version of our cubesat used an adafruit mlx90640 infrared sensor in it to determine where people have set up residence within the high-vegetation region of hansen dam recreation area. since this area is federal aviation administration (faa) unmanned aircraft systems (uas)-controlled airspace, we used a tethered weather balloon to fly our cubesat. we imported our data into arcgis online for analysis to determine where camps have been established. frequent fires are common in this area due to heavy dry brush and a large homeless population that often starts fires for cooking and warmth. the risk is intensified during the fall, when santa ana winds are common. the purpose of this mission was to evaluate the use of an infrared sensor to identify homeless camps in high-fire-risk areas in order to save lives and nearby property. our research question was: can an aerial ir sensor be used to document homeless encampments in wildfire-prone areas? our hypothesis — an ir sensor in our cubesat would be able to identify homeless encampments — was accepted. introduction the u.s. department of education developed the career and technical education (cte) mission: cubesat as a national challenge “to build technical skills for careers in space and beyond” (cte mission: cubesat). as part of our honors gis and remote sensing class, we submitted a proposal to build a cubesat with an infrared sensor to identify homeless encampments within high-fire-risk areas. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 26 published by scholink inc. homelessness has been a persistent problem in the los angeles area, with l.a. county seeing a 13% increase in homelessness from 2019 to 2020 (l.a. homeless services authority). covid-19 exacerbated this issue, as costs for common goods rose and many jobs were lost (l.a. controller). another incessant problem the region faces is wildfires. california is plagued by frequent droughts, causing extremely dry vegetation in many areas. arid areas, combined with a growing homeless population and strong santa ana winds, make l.a. county a hotspot for wildfires (cal fire). the confluence of these issues occurs when homeless people settle in high-fire-risk areas in l.a., such as the hansen dam recreation area. this creates a twofold problem: frequent fires caused by people residing in homeless encampments, and risk to those in the area who may be unaware a fire has started. this is due to the homeless either lighting fires to stay warm or cook food, or discarding materials such as lit cigarettes, which endangers themselves and others. our proposal was chosen as one of five national finalists, and we were provided a $5,000 budget to fulfill our mission. our research question was: can an aerial infrared sensor be used to document homeless encampments in wildfire-prone areas? our hypothesis was that an infrared sensor in our cubesat could identify homeless encampments in the hansen dam area. our group initially intended to fly a drone over our survey area, but after conducting a site suitability analysis we found that our survey area overlapped with faa uas-controlled airspace, which is a no-fly zone for drones. this is because there are three airports in close proximity to our study area. to overcome this, our group changed our launch method to a weather balloon that remained tethered to avoid air traffic. the purpose of this mission was to evaluate the use of an infrared sensor to identify homeless camps in high-fire-risk areas in order to save lives and nearby property. our research question was: can an aerial ir sensor be used to document homeless encampments in wildfire-prone areas? our hypothesis was: if we used an ir sensor in our cubesat, then we would be able to identify homeless encampments. materials and methods before starting our project, we evaluated an infrared flir sensor by flying a parrot anafi uav over the willoughby preserve in ventura in an effort to obtain a proof of concept of our mission. after obtaining a proof of concept, we chose to study the hansen dam area because it fit best within our parameters (figure 1). this area is an open space, has a lot of dry brush, is within a high-fire-risk zone, and is known to harbor camps of homeless people. to determine areas that could be imaged with a drone, we used a site suitability analysis that was created in arcgis online (figures 2 and 3). to begin with, we wanted our study area to be within a 15-mile radius of clark magnet high school to keep commuting distances short. this was achieved by adding a 15-mile buffer radius around the school. since our data had to be collected from the air, we needed to take into consideration and map any faa uas-controlled airspaces in our 15-mile buffer zone. next, we mapped open spaces (green areas) in which a drone or payloadcarrying device could fly, and ruled out the open spaces that reside in controlled airspaces for drones, but kept them on our list for a weather balloon. after determining the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 27 published by scholink inc. open spaces in which we could fly, we ascertained which areas are considered to be moderate to high-risk fire areas (orange hexagons), and defined any intersecting open spaces within wildfire-risk areas (figure 2). running these geoprocesses identified the open spaces that met all of our criteria, shown in purple (figure 3). figure 1: map of our study area that displays the fire risk present there www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 28 published by scholink inc. figure 2: this is the site suitability analysis we ran to determine sites that met our criteria and could be surveyed with a uav. figure 3: the purple squares are the locations that were possible study areas, as they met our parameters. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 29 published by scholink inc. with the $5,000 budget, and the study area in mind, our team began to design and build our flight-ready cubesat. the following components were used: an aluminum frame that contained the hardware of our cubesat; an external power bank that supplied our arduino with power; an 8238 meteorological balloon with an inflated diameter of 9 feet to carry our payload; and an arduino mlx90640 lite, which ran our gps, thermal imaging, and data storage. this arduino was accompanied by an arduino mlx90640 thermal camera that captured all of the thermal imaging data used for our results, and by a device running strava, an app that recorded the elevation of the flight. these two devices were the major components of our subsystems. our original subsystems sketch can be seen in figure 4, but it underwent a near-complete overhaul before our flight to match the guidelines of the competition. the structure remained relatively similar, but the xinabox had to be removed for reasons that are expanded upon in the computing section. the solar panel and power bank ended up being a singular item, and our team logo was excluded from the final flight, as mounting it reduced the structural integrity of the payload. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 30 published by scholink inc. figure 4: our subsystems sketch for power, our team used the onboard battery with the arduino iot carrier board. however, in case this proved insufficient, we included a redundant system, which was a 30,000 mah power bank that had a solar panel on the top. the battery was replaced and the power bank fully charged before the flight to ensure that power would not be a concern. tests with the power bank and battery yielded a minimum of 10 hours of use before depletion, which was far beyond what was necessary for the flight. to launch our cubesat, we used a weather balloon filled with just enough helium to carry the payload. the amount of helium needed was calculated by using the lifting capacity of helium, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 31 published by scholink inc. 30.34 g/ft3, and multiplying that by the weight of our cubesat, which was 0.88 kilograms. as a result, we needed a minimum of 30 cubic feet of helium to lift it. the cubesat frame with the components mounted inside was subjected to a heavy shake test before launch to ensure that wind would not dislodge any critical components. once the frame was mounted to the balloon with zip ties, we attached the balloon to a 120-foot-long nylon line on a cave diving reel and filled it with helium. since our study area was near three airports, we could not risk losing the balloon, so we put redundant safety protocols in place. we tied our nylon line to the balloon, then folded and secured it with duct tape. two students held the line during the operation, one held the reel, and one held the line itself a few feet up from the reel. our weather balloon remained tethered during the entire flight. our teacher advisor kept a pellet gun on hand to immediately deflate the balloon in case of emergency. our project had three main computing components: thermal imaging, gps, and communication. while we originally planned to use xinabox for the latter two, a problem with the xinabox software prevented us from flashing the firmware onto our chips and using them. we thus had to improvise and use the arduino as an all-in-one solution. our thermal camera, the mlx90640 (figure 5), took a 24x32 image with a 55˚ field of view, with each individual pixel reporting a thermal reading. the arduino mkr iot carrier also included an ambient temperature sensor. to find where thermal readings were present, we programmed the arduino mkr wifi 1010 board to compare these two readings. if any pixel of the mlx90640’s image was more than 15% hotter than the ambient temperature, a thermal reading was reported and the gps coordinates at the time of the picture being taken were reported. we used ble (bluetooth® low energy) to communicate with our ground team. we also had to calculate the height we needed to fly our cubesat using field of view (fov), which can be seen in figure 6. figure 5: mlx90640 camera www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 32 published by scholink inc. figure 6: field of view (fov) calculations figure 7: thermal readings (https://bit.ly/3umcrvn) from a flir sensor are shown in bright yellow. image taken in ventura with a parrot anafi thermal uav as proof of concept. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 33 published by scholink inc. to secure our components to our payload, we used a combination of zip ties and velcro® tape. velcro tape was used to secure our largest component, which was the solar power bank, as the zip ties were unable to support its bulky size. however, we opted for zip ties to secure our arduino (figure 8), gps module (figure 9), and thermal camera. by crisscrossing the zip ties, we were able to secure these smaller parts and prevent them from breaking off. the removal of the xinabox kit resulted in a challenge when it came to balancing the weight of the cubesat payload; however, doing so was necessary to ensure our thermal camera at the bottom of the payload would get a clean shot of the area below it. we secured the gps module and arduino carrier board on opposite sides of the cubesat, and the rest of the components were either secured on the top or bottom as identified in our original subsystem sketch (figure 10). we tested the balance of the payload by holding the balloon attached to it close to the ground, and we found that it was able to stay perpendicular to the ground. figure 8: arduino mkr board, including an ambient temperature sensor and an mkr wifi 1010 board www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 34 published by scholink inc. figure 9: grove gps module figure 10. final cubesat model and mounting system www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 35 published by scholink inc. for communication and data storage, we used a twofold approach in case of equipment failure. our primary method of communication was ble, which is a low-energy variation of bluetooth capable of communication up to 300 feet away with line of sight. however, due to the unreliability of such wireless communication methods, we also included an sd card on an arduino lan board that would store any data recorded before it attempted to communicate with our ground station. our data was stored in the form of a csv file to allow the creation of a story map on arcgis. the data points were recorded in four columns: latitude, longitude, elevation, and thermal reading. all four of these points were collected by the sensors mentioned above. for our ground component, we had to find an alternative to the xinabox ground station to receive data from our satellite. as noted, we opted for ble as our communication method. to receive this data, we used an application called nrf connect that is available on android and ios devices. this allowed us to connect to the mkr wifi 1010 board (figure 8) remotely and provided an output console log that reported the four elements described in the communication and data storage section. figure 11: photo showing a homeless encampment in natural color to prove the accuracy of the ir sensor www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 36 published by scholink inc. figure 12: location and elevation (https://bit.ly/3gsgbf1) of cubesat flight 1 from strava app figure 13: map of flight path and elevation of the cubesat (https://bit.ly/3naxqks) during flight 2, with the darker the color, the higher the elevation. the elevation changed due to a wildfire and the need to lower the balloon to keep it away from fire department helicopters. figure 14: overview (https://bit.ly/3bkrp6h) of second flight over hansen dam https://bit.ly/3naxqks www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 37 published by scholink inc. figure 15: second flight over hansen dam zoomed to the tessellations on fov ir sensor (https://bit.ly/3vygpjn) positive readings figure 16: our final flight after obtaining the results from our flights, we utilized arcgis online to analyze our results. we began by adding the gpx file from the strava app that had the location coordinates and elevation data. we buffered the flight path to 60 feet on either side of the cubesat and used that as an fov boundary. then we created a tessellation analysis of 5x5 bins and set it to the boundary of 60 feet. the visibility range of the map was set to show ir data when zoomed in to the “buildings” level. the 5x5 bins that were marked red indicated thermal readings that were 15% or higher than the total ambient temperature of the area, and represented possible homeless encampments. the total ambient temperature of the area was determined by our arduino’s infrared sensor. the elevation data was used to create a 3d arcscene that displayed the elevation change during the cubesat’s flight and aided in determining the view distance of the thermal camera. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 38 published by scholink inc. results our team was able to conduct one flight with a parrot uav equipped with a flir infrared sensor over a dry riverbed in ventura. the readings of the flir sensor (https://bit.ly/3bfrjxy) are shown in bright yellow (figure 7). our initial exploration proved that an ir sensor was capable of identifying homeless camps in heavy brush. two subsequent flights with our cubesat using the arduino ir sensor were conducted in the hansen dam area to identify the locations of homeless encampments. we created an overview (https://bit.ly/2y1tvjy) of the second flight over hansen dam where trackpoints are shown in yellow (figure 14). using an mlx90640 thermal camera, we were able to find the coordinates of homeless encampments in a high-fire-risk area. pixel readings that were 15% higher than ambient temperatures were recorded and designated as positive for the presence of homeless camps (figure 15). symbology of the data was classified with ambient readings as light green, and thermal readings over 15% ambient as light red. we identified five camps within a 13,300-square-foot area. we ground-truthed our data with visual confirmation (figure 11). we created a strava walk activity map to display the locations and elevations of the cubesat flights (figure 12). a map of flight path and elevation (https://bit.ly/3ne5xu5) of the cubesat during the second flight is shown in figure 13, with the darker the color, the higher the elevation. we used an arcgis story map (https://bit.ly/3ezzdc5) to communicate our results with the city of los angeles fire department. discussion/conclusion our cubesat design process involved a series of failures that culminated in a success; without these roadblocks, we would not have had such a successful flight (figure 16). problems first began to rear their head as soon as we attempted to upload firmware to our xinabox flight stations, as neither of our students responsible was able to get the program running. after postponing working on our subsystems for two weeks in hopes of a software update, we ended up opting to move all of the functionality our xinabox was responsible for to our arduino. this also signified our first success, as we were able to put together a configuration for our arduino that included all of the necessary components for a flight station: wireless connectivity and communication, sensors, thermal cameras, power, and onboard storage. however, as we dipped our feet in the waters of success, a wave of new challenges rose to meet us. we had many problems with developing code on the arduino. our first and most persistent issue was our arduino failing to connect to a com port on windows devices. thankfully, our student software developer was able to borrow a laptop running macos to be able to upload his code. once our code was successfully uploaded to our arduino board, all that remained was to ensure our hardware was able to function properly. this is where we faced the majority of the roadblocks in our project. our team attempted to use four different thermal cameras before finding one that gave us readings accurate enough at a long distance, with some being poorly calibrated and others lacking the resolution to take accurate thermal measurements. however, our fifth attempt, with the mlx90640 camera, proved to be successful. another component that gave us grief was the gps module. because https://bit.ly/3bfrjxy https://bit.ly/2y1tvjy https://bit.ly/3ezzdc5 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 39 published by scholink inc. we were surveying a heavily wooded area in l.a. county, we had problems getting our original gps to connect before launching through the trees. we decided to swap out our mkr gps shield for a grove gps module, which is specifically designed to pick up a weak signal in areas with high-rise buildings that would obstruct it. although our project was not its intended use case, it ended up working and we got a gps signal despite the dense vegetation. however, any time a hardware component was changed, it required the software to be changed. this ended up becoming a major time sink, but we managed to get a working final prototype in time for flight week. upon our flight, we were faced with both a failure and a success. after allowing our balloon to gain some altitude, we found that our ble connection was extremely unstable. we were very rarely able to receive any data at our ground station. however, this also proved the success of our onboard storage system. despite the failure to record data during the flight, after the flight we were able to recover all flight data from our sd card as a csv file. this proved the success of our redundant data recording system. another interesting event during our second flight was the outbreak of a wildfire. our arcscene map (figure 13), showing elevation, had a sudden drop in elevation near the homeless camps. the reason was that a fire broke out, and helicopters flew in overhead to reach the scene quickly. the balloon needed to be lowered to avoid interfering with them, despite it restricting our data range. our biggest achievement over the course of this project was our adaptability. our team ran into problems at about every step of the development process, but we were able to overcome them by being flexible and dividing work among team members. while our student software developer worked on rewriting code for a new component, our design team worked on a way to integrate it into our cubesat frame. by the end of the project, our cubesat only contained the original arduino baseboard from the first prototype, and it ended up working better than we had expected from our original subsystems sketch. another major success of our project was the implementation of redundant systems. as discussed previously, by using two methods to record data we were able to ensure that we had all of our measurements by the end of the flight. even though our wireless communication between the flight and ground stations failed, our onboard storage system was a success. another example of a successful redundant system was the power. while the onboard battery was sufficient according to the specifications provided by arduino, after our flight we found that it had been depleted and the board had fallen back to our power bank for energy. without having this backup battery system, our arduino would have died halfway through the flight and failed to record or communicate any data. one thing we would do differently given the chance to do this project again would be not waiting for a xinabox software update. if we had begun moving our functionality to the arduino instantly instead of waiting for two weeks, we would have had much more flexibility in our scheduling before flight week. in a best-case scenario, we might have been able to create two prototypes, one with arduino for www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 40 published by scholink inc. subsystems and one with xinabox. however, this proved not to be a major roadblock, as our arduino prototype was functional. another mistake our team made was testing components one at a time. a more prudent approach would have been to buy a batch of components for each function: multiple thermal cameras, computing boards, gps modules, and wireless communication modules. this would have eliminated the time we had to wait between trying and returning parts, as this involved a minimum two-day wait from amazon. this alteration to our procedure would have given us more time to polish our prototype before our first flight. the biggest success and differentiating factor in our project was the integration of our data into a story map (https://bit.ly/2xrpghb). this representation of our data is much more interactive than a table with coordinates, and it combines our knowledge from activities throughout the year in class with what we learned from completing the project. the biggest lesson we learned from this experience is the importance of having redundancy in your systems, along with having a backup plan. in both cases where redundancy was implemented in our final cubesat prototype, it ended up being necessary and saving our flight. we also would not have been able to overcome many of the challenges discussed earlier in this report if we had not prepared alternative approaches for certain components. conducting this project without these precautions would have resulted in a comprehensive failure. our project ended up being a success due to the iterative approach we used, and this method is not something we would change if we were to participate in this competition again. it gave us the chance to refine our subsystems and payload design while also learning more about troubleshooting hardware and software. we were able to contact captain steve marotta from the city of los angeles fire department and share our cte mission: cubesat story map with him. he provided us with his thoughts and suggestions regarding the project. marotta agreed that homeless camps are especially dangerous in the creation and spread of wildfires in the l.a. area. he also agreed that mapping the hansen dam recreation area was a good idea due to the high amount of vegetation and homeless people who reside there. he added that “this type of intelligence will help us to focus rescue and evacuation of homeless people during vegetation fires. the other benefit is that it will help us to locate patients during ems incidents.” marotta suggested that we share our data with the police department to help them locate suspects more efficiently. our research question was: can an aerial infrared sensor be used to document homeless encampments in wildfire-prone areas? after analyzing our data we came to the conclusion that it is possible to document homeless camps using an ir sensor. our hypothesis — an infrared sensor in our cubesat would be able to identify homeless encampments — was accepted. acknowledgments https://bit.ly/2xrpghb www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 41 published by scholink inc. first, we would like to thank the u.s. department of education for giving us the opportunity to create this project. we also would like to recognize the help from luminary labs, which managed the cte mission: cubesat. thank you to captain steve marotta from the city of los angeles fire department for taking the time to communicate with us and provide his thoughts on the cubesat project. thank you to kyle and larry fuller, who helped with thermal imaging of the willoughby preserve in ventura with their parrot anafi drone and shared their data with us. special acknowledgements to the parents who helped. special thanks to lauris bye for help with the helium, teacher david black for equipment, and dino’s party supply for not charging us for extra time with the helium cylinder. thank you to everyone who stood by us while we worked on this tough, yet rewarding project. literature cited for note 29. cal fire. “stats and events.” california department of forestry and fire protection (cal fire), state of california, 3 dec. 2021, https://www.fire.ca.gov/stats-events cte mission: cubesat. “the challenge.” cubesat, 16 june 2021, https://www.ctemissioncubesat.com/the-challenge/ galperin, ron. “covid-19 job losses in l.a.” los angeles city controller ron galperin, 10 nov. 2020, https://bit.ly/3omepts the los angeles homeless services authority. “2020 greater los angeles homeless count results,” 3 6961 simple yet important is a seed floating test a good indication of seed viability? annabelle bilbray, payton bilbray, emily coplan, naomii donovan, landen gutierrez, jameson hernandez, angelica pacheco leora, dustin minnicks, eli zaccardo, emma zaccardo, shayden monroe (staff), sarah pryor (staff), and t. miller (teacher, retired) boys & girls club of the colorado river, laughlin unit 1975 arie dr., laughlin, nv 89029 the purpose of the experiment was to see if a floating water test is a good way to determine if a seed will germinate. the hypothesis was that the test would be a good one for nasturtium seed viability. we believed the seeds that sank would be denser, and so more of them would germinate. nasturtium seeds were dropped into a container with water and soaked for 15 minutes. after this time, the seeds were separated into those that floated and those that sank. two large plastic containers with holes in the bottom were filled with potting soil. fifty seeds that floated were planted in one container and 50 seeds that sank were planted in the other container. the seeds were watered every day. at the end of two weeks, 33 seeds (66%) that floated germinated, and 28 seeds (56%) that sank germinated. the hypothesis seemed incorrect because more seeds that floated germinated. 6962 http://www.fire.ca.gov/stats-events http://www.ctemissioncubesat.com/the-challenge/ https://bit.ly/3omepts https://bit.ly/3omepts www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 42 published by scholink inc. leachate-filtering efficacy of varied liners marta pambukhchyan and o. tuason (teacher) crescenta valley high school 2900 community ave., la crescenta, ca 91214 to prevent the leaching of contaminated water (leachate) into the surrounding environment, current landfills utilize a system of liners that often contain bentonite powder, a material intended to filter acidic leachate and release clean water. this research aimed to test different powders’ neutralizing abilities to find a better alternative to the currently used bentonite. it was hypothesized that if the basic powders kaolin (kl), diatomaceous earth (de), and activated charcoal (ac) were used to filter acidic leachates, then the most basic powder would shift the ph closer to neutral than bentonite. this was tested through gravitational filtration by placing each clay into holed cups and running them through with lemon juice (ph of 4.8) or vinegar (ph of 4.5). the filtered samples were collected and the average ph changes for each powder were recorded. as shown from the means, de and ac displayed higher ph increases than bentonite, while kl clay failed to filter any leachate. the data were analyzed by conducting one-tailed (directional) t-tests. the final comparisons of de (avg. ph=6.57, sd=0.11, n=5, p=0.023) and ac (avg. ph=6.54, sd=0.15, n=5, p=0.068) with bentonite (avg. ph=6.45, sd=0.3, n=5) revealed that de had the highest ph increase. the t-test results gave sufficient evidence (p=0.023) to conclude that de powder is a better filtering alternative to bentonite. future research will investigate other factors that contribute to the finest landfill powder. (editor’s note: for the work summarized in this abstract, marta was selected as a finalist in the earth and environmental sciences category at the virtual regeneron international science and engineering fair 2021. see more project details at https://bit.ly/3hla1rb. congratulations marta and great work!) 3. conclusions this paper presents a look at a presidential award at the high school level and college level, with motivation being instrumental in achieving this honor. the high school research is as good or better than some university level work and should be considered as an important contribution to the u.s. research effort. we present a how-to-do-it look at the factors that have resulted in presidential awards and feel that many other individuals can benefit from this exploration if they are interested in doing so. steve’s and dominique’s programs are very different, yet similar, as can be seen. student success in quality research is seen in both. motivation is a key for success. as john kennedy once said, we don’t do what is easy. we do what is hard. you can do it, if you want to. it can be fun rather than work. that’s the attitude of steve and dominique and many of the others who mentor student research. terri miller, for example, loves it so much that she still mentors student research in retirement at boys and girls clubs. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 43 published by scholink inc. acknowledgements thanks to carolyn oppenheimer for a massive amount of formatting time and csun leadership for over 50 years of support. notes note 1. evans-bye, d., berman, m., chun h., lundgren, a., oppenheimer, s. nsf presidential award webinar, frontiers in education technology, vol 5 #1, 2022. note 2. oppenheimer, s., ed., new journal of student research abstracts, volumes 1-27. http://scholarworks.csun.edu/handle/10211.3/125029 this collection contains volumes i xxvii of the new journal of student research abstracts. 27 volumes (1995-2022). published in conjunction with csun and several publishing partners, and edited by csun biology faculty member steven oppenheimer, the journal contains abstracts of k-12 student science experiments and some full length papers. note 3. volume i (1995) note 4. volume ii (1996) note 5. volume iii (1997) note 6.volume iv (1998) note 7.volume v (2000) note 8. volume vi (2001) note 9. volume vii (2002) note 10. volume viii (2003) note 11. volume ix (2004) note 12. volume x (2005) note 13. volume xi (2006) note 14. volume xii (2007) note 15. volume xiii (2008) note 16. volume xiv (2009) note 17. volume xv (2010) note 18. volume xvi (2011) note 19. volume xvii (2012) note 20. volume xviii (2013) note 21. volume xix (2014) note 22. volume xx (2015) note 23. volume xxi (2016) note 24. volume xxii (2017) note 25. volume xxiii (2018) note 26. volume xxiv (2019) http://scholarworks.csun.edu/handle/10211.2/1786 http://scholarworks.csun.edu/handle/10211.2/1787 http://scholarworks.csun.edu/handle/10211.2/1789 http://scholarworks.csun.edu/handle/10211.2/1793 http://scholarworks.csun.edu/handle/10211.2/1806 http://scholarworks.csun.edu/handle/10211.2/2145 http://scholarworks.csun.edu/handle/10211.2/2146 http://scholarworks.csun.edu/handle/10211.2/2147 http://scholarworks.csun.edu/handle/10211.2/2148 http://scholarworks.csun.edu/handle/10211.2/2149 http://scholarworks.csun.edu/handle/10211.2/1970 http://scholarworks.csun.edu/handle/10211.2/1973 http://scholarworks.csun.edu/handle/10211.3/127948 http://scholarworks.csun.edu/handle/10211.2/1982 http://scholarworks.csun.edu/handle/10211.2/1983 http://scholarworks.csun.edu/handle/10211.2/1974 http://scholarworks.csun.edu/handle/10211.2/1984 http://scholarworks.csun.edu/handle/10211.2/4442 http://scholarworks.csun.edu/handle/10211.3/127954 http://scholarworks.csun.edu/handle/10211.3/161024 http://scholarworks.csun.edu/handle/10211.3/179857 http://scholarworks.csun.edu/handle/10211.3/198965 http://scholarworks.csun.edu/handle/10211.3/206671 http://scholarworks.csun.edu/handle/10211.3/214658 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 44 published by scholink inc. note 27. volume xxv (2020) note 28.volume xxvi (2021) note 29. volume xxvii (2022) note 30. oppenheimer, s.b., motivating college students: evidence from 20 years of anonymous student evaluations, higher education research 4 (#2), pp. 42-45 (2019). http://scholarworks.csun.edu/handle/10211.3/218138 https://scholarworks.csun.edu/handle/10211.3/222646 frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 1 original paper feasibility study of collaborative education model in higher education under the background of “internet+” rong wang1* 1 department of educational and phychological science, yuncheng university, yuncheng, shanxi, china * rong wang, e-mail: rongw932@gmail.com received: november 15, 2023 accepted: december 1, 2023 online published: december 19, 2023 doi:10.22158/fet.v7n1p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v7n1p1 abstract this study investigates the application of the collaborative education model in higher education within the “internet+” context. it examines how rapid advancements in information technology have reshaped higher education, fostering the collaborative education model. the study combines literature review and empirical research to analyze the model’s core elements, implementation strategies, and impact on higher education. it delves into the transformations in teaching, learning, and management due to “internet+”, and defines the collaborative education model’s concept, principles, and significance. key elements like instructional design, student participation, and teacher roles are explored, highlighting interdisciplinary integration, teamwork, and teacher transformation. the study discusses implementation strategies such as planning, technological support, and faculty training. empirical research, including case studies, interviews, and observations, assesses the model’s effectiveness. the paper concludes by summarizing findings, acknowledging limitations, and suggesting future research directions for enhancing the collaborative education model in higher education. keywords collaborative education model, “internet+”, higher education, instructional design, student participation and cooperation, teacher roles, implementation strategies, empirical research 1. introduction in recent years, “internet+” has had a profound impact on higher education, driving innovation and transformation in educational models. the collaborative education model is gaining attention in higher education due to its emphasis on student participation, teacher support, and comprehensive www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 2 published by scholink inc. collaboration. this study explores the application of the collaborative education model in higher education under the background of “internet+”. it reviews the impact of “internet+” on higher education, elucidates the concept and principles of the collaborative education model, explores its core elements, and proposes implementation strategies. the goal is to provide valuable references and guidance for higher education, promoting the application and development of the collaborative education model in the context of “internet+”. 2. the impact of the internet on higher education 2.1 advancement of educational informatization the development of internet technology has greatly propelled the progress of informatization in higher education. this transformation is first reflected in the digitalization and networking of educational resources. a large number of teaching materials, including e-books, online courses, and open lectures, have become easily accessible through online platforms, greatly enriching the content and methods of teaching. in addition, the application of information technology has also promoted the diversification of teaching methods, such as online interactions, virtual laboratories, and simulation, providing students with more diverse and flexible ways of learning. with the widespread use of mobile internet and smart devices, learning has become more convenient and personalized. students can access learning materials, participate in online discussions, and even complete experiments and projects anytime and anywhere through smartphones or tablets. the flexibility of this learning approach greatly enhances learning efficiency, allowing students to learn according to their own schedules and learning preferences. furthermore, educational informatization has also driven the transformation of educational assessment and management methods. through learning management systems (lms), teachers can track students’ progress, analyze learning outcomes, and provide more targeted guidance and support. meanwhile, the application of big data analysis and artificial intelligence technology enables educational practitioners to identify students’ learning needs more accurately and design personalized teaching. the development of internet technology has not only changed the acquisition of educational resources and teaching methods but also fostered innovation in educational assessment and management, profoundly impacting higher education. 2.2 innovation in educational models the internet has revolutionized educational models, shifting from teacher-centered to student-centered approaches. the “flipped classroom” model is an example, where students independently study online before class, and in-class time is dedicated to discussions and activities. this model fosters self-learning and critical thinking. personalized learning paths have also flourished with internet technology, allowing students to choose resources and progress based on their interests and needs. blended learning and online platforms further support student-centered education. blended learning combines online and offline activities, enabling students to apply online knowledge in interactive classrooms. online platforms like moocs offer diverse courses, allowing students to access www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 3 published by scholink inc. high-quality content globally. internet technology has facilitated collaborative learning and cross-cultural communication. students can collaborate with peers worldwide, engaging in joint learning and problem-solving. this cross-cultural exchange broadens perspectives and develops cross-cultural communication skills, enhancing competitiveness in a globalized era (shi & yang, 2018). 2.3 global sharing of educational resources the internet’s development has enabled global sharing of educational resources, enhancing learning opportunities. students and teachers can access and exchange resources through online platforms, broadening knowledge and perspectives. it also promotes educational accessibility and equality, bridging gaps between remote and urban areas. however, challenges arise with the internet’s impact on higher education. information overload poses difficulties in filtering reliable resources, and online learning lacks face-to-face interaction and practical experiences. the digital divide hinders some regions and groups from fully benefiting from educational informatization. to address these challenges, appropriate measures must be taken. in conclusion, the internet has significantly impacted higher education, advancing educational informatization, innovating models, and facilitating global resource sharing. it offers diverse and personalized learning methods, fostering self-learning and cross-cultural communication skills. nevertheless, challenges exist, requiring solutions to unlock the full potential of internet education. 2.4 changes in students’ learning habits the internet has profoundly impacted students’ learning habits, with a shift towards online searches and video tutorials for obtaining information and knowledge. this promotes self-directed learning abilities and social collaboration. however, challenges like information overload and attention fragmentation require students to develop information filtering and time management skills. the internet provides students with diversified and convenient access to knowledge, including research findings and academic lectures worldwide (peng & zhang, 2023). online education platforms offer personalized learning, enhancing flexibility and autonomy. communication and collaboration have also changed with the internet. online tools enable easy remote collaboration, transcending geographical limitations and fostering communication and cross-cultural collaboration skills. however, challenges arise, such as information overload and reduced learning depth due to dispersed attention. students must learn to manage online resources effectively and cultivate focus and critical thinking skills. the internet enriches learning methods and resources but requires students to adapt and develop effective learning strategies. universities and educators play a crucial role in guiding students to fully utilize internet learning opportunities. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 4 published by scholink inc. 3. the connotation and characteristics of the collaborative education model 3.1 the connotation of the collaborative education model the collaborative education model represents a shift from traditional education, where schools are the sole educational entities, to a more inclusive and participatory system. this model involves schools, families, and society in the educational process, aiming to create a comprehensive growth environment for students. schools in this model focus on imparting specialized knowledge and fostering academic abilities, while teachers act as both knowledge transmitters and guides in the learning process. families play a crucial role in providing emotional support and initial socialization, essential for developing self-confidence, responsibility, and social skills in children. society offers practical experiences through social practices, voluntary services, and corporate internships, enabling students to apply classroom knowledge in real-life scenarios. this model also emphasizes personalized education, catering to the unique interests, abilities, and needs of each student. it requires educators to closely observe and understand students to tailor education programs accordingly. overall, the collaborative education model integrates various educational resources and entities, enhancing students’ knowledge, skills, individuality, emotions, and social abilities, thereby preparing them for future challenges and societal engagement. 3.2 new characteristics in the context of the internet in the era of the internet, the collaborative education model has evolved to exhibit new characteristics that enrich and expand the scope of education. the rapid advancement of information technology has made the sharing of educational resources more convenient. online platforms like educational websites, digital libraries, and apps enable efficient distribution and access to educational resources, enhancing their utilization and making high-quality education more accessible and equitable. additionally, the internet has diversified the participants in education. beyond traditional schools, families, and social organizations, new players such as online education platforms, enterprises, and ngos have emerged, offering varied learning options like online courses, virtual labs, and industry training. for instance, university-enterprise collaborations provide internships and training, helping students understand industry needs and career paths. the internet also introduces flexibility and diversity in educational methods. online platforms and digital tools allow students to tailor their learning, accommodating their schedules, habits, and interests for personalized education. for teachers, the internet offers diverse teaching methods and tools, improving teaching efficiency and the student learning experience. overall, the collaborative education model, underpinned by the internet, integrates various educational resources and participants, offering flexible and diverse educational approaches. this model significantly impacts the education sector and shapes future educational development trends, supporting the comprehensive growth of students. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 5 published by scholink inc. 3.3 analysis of the advantages of the collaborative education model the collaborative education model offers significant advantages in modern education, effectively utilizing resources and fostering students’ comprehensive development while promoting educational equity. this model integrates resources from schools, families, society, and enterprises, enriching educational content and broadening learning opportunities. it excels in developing students’ abilities beyond academic knowledge, emphasizing social practical skills, innovative thinking, and emotional growth. real-world interactions enable students to apply theory to practice and enhance problem-solving skills. crucially, this model advances educational equity by making high-quality resources accessible across geographical and economic barriers through online platforms, narrowing the educational gap between different regions and backgrounds (cao, 2023). it also fosters active participation from all stakeholders, creating a supportive learning environment that benefits overall student development. moreover, the model prepares students for future challenges by equipping them with essential skills like critical thinking and adaptability, integrating practical experiences into learning. by combining the strengths of various educational entities and focusing on personalized learning and practical application, the collaborative education model is aptly suited for the 21st century, preparing students for a successful future in a rapidly evolving society. 4. strategies and methods for implementing the collaborative education model 4.1 establishing a diverse collaborative education platform in the “internet+” era, creating a diverse collaborative education platform is crucial for implementing the collaborative education model. this platform integrates resources from schools, families, society, and businesses, fostering a shared, interactive educational environment. it could feature a comprehensive online platform encompassing course materials, internship opportunities, social service projects, and online lectures, enabling students to access a variety of learning and development resources. the platform should support robust online communication and collaboration, allowing teachers, students, parents, and business and social partners to interact effectively. tools like forums, chat rooms, and video conferences can facilitate real-time communication, knowledge sharing, and active involvement in the educational process, strengthening community ties. technologically, the platform should leverage advanced technologies like cloud computing and big data analytics for large-scale data processing and personalized services, such as tailored learning recommendations based on student data analysis. effective operation and sustainability of the platform require a solid management mechanism, including regular content updates, user experience optimization, and data security. overall, establishing this platform is key to the collaborative education model, enabling resource integration and participant collaboration, and offering a multifaceted and interactive learning environment for students. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 6 published by scholink inc. 4.2 optimizing the allocation of educational resources optimizing resource allocation is vital in implementing the collaborative education model, involving not just the richness and diversity of content but also the effective use and accessibility of resources. universities should employ varied strategies for integrating and utilizing educational resources. firstly, combining internal resources like libraries and labs with external ones such as online courses and industry projects creates a comprehensive resource system. this not only broadens students’ learning scope but also enhances resource efficiency. secondly, leveraging technologies like big data analytics and ai helps understand students’ learning needs. analyzing their data allows for more precise resource allocation and personalized learning recommendations, enhancing the effectiveness of resource distribution. additionally, encouraging teachers and students to contribute to resource creation and sharing is crucial. teachers uploading materials and students sharing notes and experiences enrich the educational resource pool. these steps enable universities to optimize resource allocation in collaborative education, offering students varied and personalized resources, thus significantly improving education quality and learning experiences (rebecca, 2005). 4.3 strengthening school-enterprise cooperation in the collaborative education model, school-enterprise cooperation plays a crucial role. this cooperation model not only provides valuable internship and practical training opportunities for students but also bridges the gap between theory and practice. through close collaboration with enterprises, universities can provide students with diverse internship positions that cover various professional fields and different skill levels, greatly enriching students’ practical experiences. furthermore, school-enterprise cooperation can promote the practicality and forward-looking nature of the curriculum. universities can invite industry experts to participate in curriculum development and teaching processes. with their rich industry experience and practical case studies, these experts can make the curriculum content more aligned with market demands and the latest industry trends. this real-time updating of teaching content not only enhances students’ interest in learning but also enhances their employability. additionally, school-enterprise cooperation provides valuable industry information and feedback to universities, helping them adjust educational strategies and program offerings to adapt to the rapidly changing job market. furthermore, enterprises can directly participate in the talent development process through this cooperation, preparing for their future talent needs. strengthening school-enterprise cooperation not only provides students with practical opportunities but also makes educational content and teaching methods more aligned with actual work requirements, laying a solid foundation for students’ comprehensive development and future careers. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 7 published by scholink inc. 5. challenges and strategies for implementing the collaborative education model in universities 5.1 analysis of challenges universities face various challenges when implementing the collaborative education model. firstly, resource integration is a major issue. universities need to effectively integrate educational resources from schools, families, society, and businesses. this involves not only the physical integration of resources but also balancing the expectations and needs of different stakeholders. challenges in this process may include uneven resource distribution and unclear cooperation mechanisms. ensuring educational quality is particularly complex in an open and diverse educational environment. universities need to ensure the consistency and reliability of educational outcomes, which requires standardization and quality control of educational content and teaching methods, while also considering the learning needs and backgrounds of different students. adaptability and flexibility are also important challenges when implementing the collaborative education model. with the rapid changes in the external environment, existing educational systems and methods may struggle to adapt in a timely manner. this requires universities to maintain flexibility and innovation in curriculum design, teaching methods, and educational technologies (rebecca, 2005). meeting personalized student needs is another significant challenge. in a situation of limited resources, universities need to address how to provide personalized education and meet the specific needs of different students. this involves not only the allocation of educational resources but also the diversification of educational content and methods. 5.2 recommendations to address the challenges encountered in implementing the collaborative education model, universities can adopt the following comprehensive strategies to ensure the effective operation and sustainable development of the model: 1). establish an effective resource integration mechanism: universities should promote the effective integration of internal and external resources by establishing cross-departmental collaboration groups or platforms. this includes building networks of cooperation with enterprises, social organizations, and other educational institutions, as well as developing sharing platforms to facilitate resource sharing and information exchange. by formulating cooperative agreements and mechanisms, the balance of interests among all parties and the continuity of cooperation can be ensured. 2). ensure educational quality: to guarantee educational quality, universities need to establish and improve an educational quality monitoring system. this involves regularly assessing the effectiveness of educational activities, monitoring teaching progress and quality, and making adjustments based on feedback. encouraging teachers to engage in teaching innovation, such as adopting new teaching methods and technologies, can enhance teaching effectiveness and students’ learning experience. 3). enhance adaptability and flexibility: universities should strengthen teacher training, particularly in the application of new technologies and teaching methods. this not only helps teachers enhance their own skills but also enables educational content and methods to adapt to changes in the external environment in a timely manner. additionally, universities should regularly update educational www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 8 published by scholink inc. strategies and course content to adapt to the rapidly changing educational environment and student needs. 4). meet personalized student needs: utilizing big data and artificial intelligence technologies for student needs analysis can provide more personalized learning recommendations and resources. furthermore, universities should increase the diversity of elective courses and activities to provide students with a wider range of choices and meet their personalized needs and interests. by implementing these strategies, universities can effectively address the challenges of the collaborative education model and promote innovation and development in the educational model, providing students with a comprehensive and high-quality educational experience. 6. future development trends and prospects of the collaborative education model 6.1 education innovation driven by technology in today’s era, education innovation is increasingly reliant on the rapid development of information technology, especially the widespread application of cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data, and cloud computing. the integration of these technologies not only greatly improves the efficiency of accessing educational resources and teaching quality but also promotes the transformation of educational models towards personalization and intelligence. for example, big data analysis can delve into students’ learning habits and performance, providing customized learning plans to more accurately meet students’ personalized learning needs. the application of artificial intelligence in intelligent tutoring and learning assessment not only improves learning efficiency but also provides powerful teaching support for educators. additionally, the introduction of virtual reality (vr) and augmented reality (ar) technologies brings more vivid and interactive learning experiences to students, greatly enhancing their interest and engagement in learning. these technology-driven educational innovations are gradually changing the face of traditional education and opening up new paths for the future development of education (rebecca, 2005). 6.2 development trends of the collaborative education model the future development of the collaborative education model indicates deeper and broader collaboration among diverse stakeholders and resource sharing. with the acceleration of educational globalization, international educational cooperation is becoming increasingly common. this not only promotes the sharing and exchange of international educational resources but also provides students with a broader perspective and learning opportunities. at the same time, the relationship between enterprises and universities is expected to become closer, achieving a deep integration of industry and education. this collaboration not only provides students with rich practical and employment opportunities but also helps align educational content with market demands, enhancing students’ competitiveness in the job market (zhu, 2019). furthermore, the involvement of various sectors of society in education will become more active. community organizations, non-governmental organizations, industry associations, and other social forces will become important participants in the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 9 published by scholink inc. education process, providing students with diverse learning resources and development platforms. the involvement of these organizations not only enriches educational resources but also provides students with more opportunities for practical experience and social engagement, contributing to their comprehensive development and enhancement of social adaptability. overall, the future development of the collaborative education model will emphasize cross-sector collaboration and resource integration, providing students with a comprehensive, diverse, and interconnected learning environment. 6.3 impacts and insights on higher education the collaborative education model has far-reaching impacts on higher education. firstly, it requires universities to innovate in educational concepts, content, and methods to adapt to the new educational model. universities need to focus more on cultivating students’ comprehensive qualities and innovative abilities, rather than just imparting disciplinary knowledge. secondly, educational management and services in universities also need to be reformed to better accommodate collaborative efforts and resource sharing among diverse stakeholders. for example, establishing a more flexible and open educational management system and providing more diverse and personalized student services. lastly, the collaborative education model presents new requirements for the international development of universities. universities need to strengthen international exchanges and cooperation to enhance their international competitiveness. through the analysis of the future development trends and prospects of the collaborative education model, it can be seen that this model will have a profound impact on and transformation of higher education. universities need to actively adapt to this trend, continuously innovate and improve, in order to cultivate more high-quality talents that meet the needs of future social development. 7. case analysis 7.1 successful cases of collaborative education models at home and abroad international case: massachusetts institute of technology (mit) the collaborative education model at the massachusetts institute of technology (mit) has received high praise worldwide. through close collaboration with industry enterprises, mit provides students with rich internship and practical opportunities, effectively integrating academic theory with practical work experience. an outstanding example is the mit media lab, which collaborates with multiple technology companies, allowing students to solve real-world problems in a genuine work environment and gain valuable practical experience. additionally, mit promotes the sharing of global educational resources through open course resources such as mit opencourseware. this not only enhances mit’s educational influence but also provides high-quality resources to learners worldwide, promoting equitable distribution of global educational resources and the free flow of knowledge. domestic case: zhejiang university zhejiang university has also achieved significant results in collaborative education. the university has established a platform for cooperation between universities and enterprises, establishing close www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 10 published by scholink inc. partnerships with renowned companies such as alibaba and huawei, providing students with internship and employment opportunities. this collaboration not only offers students practical work experience but also helps them better understand industry demands and future career directions. moreover, zhejiang university places emphasis on social practice and voluntary service activities, encouraging students to participate in community service and public welfare projects. these activities not only cultivate students’ sense of social responsibility but also enhance their practical abilities and teamwork skills. through these diverse educational activities, zhejiang university effectively achieves comprehensive development of students’ abilities. 7.2 insights and lessons learned from case analysis from the successful cases of mit and zhejiang university, several key insights and lessons can be extracted, which are of significant reference value for implementing the collaborative education model in other universities: 1). the importance of university-enterprise collaboration: close collaboration with enterprises not only provides students with valuable practical work experience but also significantly enhances their employability. such collaboration allows students to apply the knowledge learned in the classroom to real work scenarios, deepening their understanding and cultivating practical skills. therefore, universities should actively seek opportunities for collaboration with enterprises and establish stable and long-term partnerships. 2). open sharing of educational resources: open educational resources not only enhance the influence of educational institutions but also promote equitable distribution of global educational resources. this resource sharing helps overcome geographical and economic barriers, enabling more students to access high-quality educational content. therefore, universities should consider how to effectively utilize and share educational resources to promote the widespread dissemination of knowledge. 3). the importance of social practice: through participation in social practice and public welfare activities, students not only develop a sense of social responsibility but also enhance their teamwork and problem-solving abilities. these experiences are crucial for students’ comprehensive development. therefore, universities should encourage and organize student participation in various social practice activities to enrich their learning experiences (xu & li, 2021). 4). advancement of personalized education: paying attention to students’ personalized needs and providing customized educational services is another key aspect of the collaborative education model. universities should offer personalized guidance and support based on students’ interests, abilities, and career plans to promote their comprehensive development. in conclusion, through the analysis of successful cases at home and abroad, universities can draw inspiration from these experiences, innovate, and optimize their own collaborative education models based on their specific circumstances. this will better cultivate talents that meet the needs of future society. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 11 published by scholink inc. 8. evaluation of implementation effectiveness and feedback 8.1 evaluation methods for implementation effectiveness in order to comprehensively and accurately evaluate the implementation effect of the collaborative education model, this study employed a diverse range of evaluation methods. firstly, detailed surveys were designed to collect direct feedback from students, teachers, and collaborating companies. additionally, this study utilized a case study approach to conduct in-depth analysis of several specific implementation cases, aiming to obtain a more comprehensive and profound understanding and evaluation. 8.2 discussion of research results the research results indicate that the collaborative education model has achieved significant results in enhancing students’ practical abilities and employability. the majority of students and teachers expressed high satisfaction with the model, believing that it greatly promotes the comprehensive development of students’ abilities. feedback from collaborating enterprises also demonstrates that students involved in the collaborative education model exhibit outstanding performance in practical experience and innovation capabilities. however, the study also identified some existing issues, such as imbalances in resource integration and adaptability issues for individual students. these feedback provide valuable references for further optimizing the collaborative education model and indicating directions for future improvements. overall, through comprehensive evaluation of the implementation effectiveness and in-depth analysis of feedback, we are able to more accurately grasp the strengths and potential shortcomings of the collaborative education model, providing important guidance and references for future educational reforms and development. 9. conclusion this study has delved into the implementation strategies, challenges, and countermeasures of the collaborative education model in the context of “internet+”. through analyzing successful cases both domestically and internationally, we have found that the collaborative education model significantly enhances educational quality and students’ comprehensive abilities by integrating diverse educational resources, strengthening school-enterprise cooperation, improving teacher quality, and emphasizing personalized student development. despite challenges such as resource integration and quality assurance, these challenges can be overcome through effective strategies and innovative approaches. in summary, the collaborative education model provides a new perspective and practical path for the development of higher education in the “internet+” era, holding significant importance in cultivating well-rounded talents capable of adapting to the future society. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 12 published by scholink inc. acknowledgements shanxi province’s “the thirteenth five-year plan” plan for education science “practical and exploratory research on the ‘u-g-s collaborative co-education’ training mechanism for primary education majors in local undergraduate colleges” (no. gh-19107). references cao, x. q. (2023). ability requirements of financial personnel in universities under the background of “internet + artificial intelligence”. finance and accounting learning, 32, 50-52. li, z., li, m. z., & liu, x. (2023). research on micro-carrier of ideological and political education of college students in the context of “internet plus”. university of china, 30, 31-34. peng, c. j., & zhang, h. h. (2023). research on the transformation path of scientific and technological achievements in universities under the background of internet. industrial innovation research, 22, 53-55. rebecca, e. (2005). the use of the internet in higher education: academics’ experiences of using icts for teaching and learning. aslib proceedings, 57(2), 168-180. https://doi.org/10.1108/00012530510589137 shi, x. j., & yang, x. y. (2018). feasibility of university collaborative education model under the background of “internet +”. educational materials, 26, 101-102. xu, b. l., & li, c. f. (2021). influencing factors of college students’ entrepreneurial ecosystem based on the internet of things and embedded systems. microprocessors and microsystems, 81(mara), 103694.1-103694.6 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.micpro.2020.103694 zhu, n. (2019). an empirical study of the new mode of educating people through the school-enterprise cooperation in private universities based on ‘intemet+’. 000(3), 73-76. https://doi.org/10.1108/00012530510589137 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.micpro.2020.103694 frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no.4, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) original paper a qualitative exploration of connectedness during covid-19: faculty perceptions toward communication, collaboration, and a sense of community while teleworking cammy d. romanuck murphy1,2* 1 department of education, trident at american intercontinental university, chandler, az, usa 2 department of communication disorders, university of nebraska, kearney, ne, usa * cammy d. romanuck murphy, e-mail: cdromanuck@gmail.com received: september 30, 2020 accepted: october 24, 2020 online published: november 5, 2020 doi:10.22158/fet.v3n4p83 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v3n4p83 abstract the transition from face-to-face education to a primarily teleworking atmosphere following the spring 2020 onset of covid-19 left many faculty members floundering, struggling to effectively utilize online learning and communication platforms; to feel connected; and to continue accessing collaboration and professional development opportunities. this qualitative phenomenology study is one of the first in-depth qualitative reviews to explore faculty’s perceptions toward connectedness since teleworking as a result of the covid-19 pandemic. this study was conducted during the spring and summer semesters of 2020, when the initial spread of covid-19 occurred, forcing professionals and students alike to stay home to learn and work. the participants in this study included 11 full-time faculty from two universities in the united states who taught primarily face-to-face classes prior to covid-19 and began teleworking as a result of the pandemic. the findings suggested faculty faced a slew of challenges related to communication, collaboration, and a sense of community while teleworking as a result of covid-19, including ineffective communication, technology and access challenges, a lack of time and training, and feelings of disconnect. participants also outlined strategies they believed to be effective to support connectedness while teleworking, such as video conferencing, regular communication, and enhanced collaboration opportunities. given the volatile nature of covid-19 and its implications for higher education institutions, it is highly likely that issues relating to connectedness while teleworking will remain relevant for the foreseeable future. faculty and postsecondary administrators may use the findings from this study to guide discussions about whether their efforts to enhance overall perceptions of 83 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 connectedness and faculty satisfaction have been successful, or whether efforts need to be revisited, revised, or enhanced. keywords higher education, distance education, faculty satisfaction, covid-19, connectedness, telework 1. introduction recent global events triggered postsecondary educational institutions around the world to cease in-person classes and to hastily implement online learning tools and programs, whether prepared or not. this study was conducted during the spring and summer semesters of 2020, when the initial spread of covid-19 occurred, forcing professionals and students alike to stay home to learn and work (burgess & sievertsen, 2020). the transition from face-to-face education to a primarily teleworking atmosphere left many faculty members floundering, struggling to effectively utilize online learning and communication platforms; to feel connected; and to continue accessing collaboration and professional development opportunities (flaherty, 2020). even prior to covid-19, there were very few studies that explored teleworking conditions and perceptions toward connectedness for remote faculty. no studies have been conducted to explore the ways in which faculty suggest enhancing these factors following the spread of covid-19. this study is one of the first in-depth qualitative reviews of faculty’s perceptions toward connectedness since teleworking as a result of the covid-19 pandemic. until this time, the studies that have been conducted related to covid-19 and faculty perceptions overall have utilized primarily survey designs and have not yet utilized interviews to explore how faculty describe experiences in their own words. the participants in this study included 11 full-time faculty members in the united states who taught primarily face-to-face classes prior to covid-19 and began teleworking as a result of the pandemic. for the purpose of this study, “connectedness” refers to perceived communication efforts, collaboration opportunities, and a sense of community. a brief literature review discusses previous literature related to remote faculty’s perceptions toward engagement and connectedness prior to covid-19, followed by a detailed description of the methodology utilized for this study. to follow, the findings, supported by rich, narrative data and participant quotes, are shared. lastly, implications for research and practice are provided. 2. review of relevant literature following the rapid spread of covid-19, the vast majority of postsecondary students and faculty began to work and learn away from campus. according to the united nations educational, scientific, and cultural organization (unesco) (2020), 91% of the world’s student population was impacted as a result of school closures. within the u.s., the national center for education statistics (2018) reported there were 19.6 million students enrolled in degree-granting postsecondary education institutions in fall 2018 in the united states. the u.s. bureau of labor statistics (2019) reported there were 84 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 1,350,700 postsecondary teachers employed in 2018. the majority of these students and faculty learned together in traditional in-person classes. following covid-19, however, their correspondence and learning moved to online learning platforms. consequently, millions of students and faculty members were required to rapidly learn to navigate the online learning arena, often with little prior experience. 2.1 meeting the needs of faculty while teleworking although navigating online technologies and learning platforms is essential to provide a quality education to students, addressing the social-emotional needs of students and faculty learning and working remotely is of the utmost importance. the world health organization (2020) suggested that many individuals are dealing with social-emotional issues as a result of the extreme changes necessary to prevent the spread of covid-19; particularly feelings of grief, overwhelm, anxiety, disconnectedness, and isolation. although very little literature has been published specifically related to working conditions for faculty between the onset of covid-19 in march 2020 and the submission of this article (october, 2020), a myriad of online articles and statements have been shared via blog posts, youtube videos, professional networking groups, and online newspapers (e.g., baker, 2020; kim, 2020; reed, 2020). the content has primarily focused on supporting students, effective instruction and learning tools, and supporting faculty who are teaching online for the first time (baker, 2020; pietro, 2020; grajeck, 2020). at the time this article’s publication, there are virtually no resources discussing how to support the social-emotional well-being of faculty. there is no current peer-reviewed literature that specifically examines faculty’s perceptions toward connectedness since being required to telework as a result of covid-19. despite the lack of literature specifically related to faculty’s experiences post covid-19, a variety of recent articles have discussed the perceptions of remote faculty members related to communication, collaboration, and a sense of community, which may be applicable when considering the current circumstances and the new teleworking requirements for millions of faculty members nation-wide. given the unique circumstances and a lack of peer-reviewed literature specifically related to faculty’s experiences since covid-19, a discussion regarding previous literature related to connectedness and faculty satisfaction is provided. 2.2 faculty perceptions toward teleworking a variety of studies have examined the factors which contribute to an enhanced or decreased sense of faculty satisfaction. a sense of belonging, collaboration and professional growth opportunities, a sense of community, and collegiality have been documented as important factors influencing faculty’s decision to continue or leave in their current position (betts, 2009; dolan, 2011; golden, 2016; lee, 2001; munene, 2014; ng, 2006). a sense of belonging and a strong community have been linked to faculty members’ loyalty, motivation, and desire to remain with an institution (betts, 2009; dolan, 2011). 85 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 while some research has described faculty’s perceptions toward the benefits of teleworking (e.g., flexibility, opportunity to gain teaching experience, use of technology) (green et al., 2009; luongo, 2018; wu, 2014), other studies have identified remote faculty’s perceptions toward the challenges associated with teleworking and remote work (smith et al., 2018; walters et al., 2017). the challenges frequently discussed by faculty were a lack of interpersonal relationships, no face-to-face communication, feelings of isolation, a lack of professional development, and feeling disconnected (betts, 2009; golden, 2016; smith et al., 2018; walters et al., 2017). 2.3 connectedness and faculty satisfaction ample research supports that instructor effectiveness and longevity are among the strongest predictors of student satisfaction and academic excellence (bolliger & wasilik, 2009; kane et al., 2015). the online learning consortium (n.d.) has suggested that there are five pillars essential for ensuring quality online education programs. among these five pillars is “faculty satisfaction”, which suggests faculty satisfaction is a critical pillar to address in order to ensure successful online learning. since the majority of postsecondary faculty are currently teleworking for a portion or the entirety of their workdays, away from their students and colleagues, one might assume there has been an enhanced sense of isolation, disconnectedness, and a lack of community in faculty, which are all factors which impact faculty’s overall satisfaction (betts, 2009; dolan, 2011; golden, 2016; lee, 2001; munene, 2014; ng, 2006). however, there is no literature which has explored these factors after the onset of covid-19. as suggested by kim (2020), covid-19 may change the landscape of how education is provided to students, predicting that educational institutions will be investing time, energy, and resources into developing and offering more online education classes than ever before. this will potentially change the instructional landscape of postsecondary institutions, with a more diverse offering of online, teleworking, and learning opportunities. postsecondary institutions must understand the needs of their faculty in order to foster environments that are collaborative and connected, whether staff are working at the institutions or from home. moreover, postsecondary institutions must continue to hire and retain high quality faculty despite the model of instructional delivery. to do this, they must be proactive in understanding the needs of faculty who are navigating the landscape of providing online education courses while physically removed from their colleagues, as faculty satisfaction is strongly correlated with faculty retention, student satisfaction, and student success (betts, 2009; dolan, 2011; golden, 2016; lee, 2001; munene, 2014; ng, 2006). 3. statement of problem with u.s. institutions announcing their plans for the fall 2020 and winter 2021 semesters, the majority of which include partial or full distance education, it is imperative that educational institutions are equipped with the knowledge, skills, and tools to meet the needs of their faculty, especially to support teleworking conditions. although ample research has established remote faculty’s perceptions toward 86 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 the challenges associated with remote work, very little research has sought to examine factors which impede or enhance feelings of connectedness while teleworking: specifically, communication efforts, collaboration opportunities, and a sense of community, for faculty who have traditionally taught face-to-face classes. at the time of this study, no qualitative studies have been published which seek to understand the thoughts, perceptions, and attitudes of faculty since teleworking as a result of covid-19. it is imperative to hear from faculty to gain insight into their needs related to staying connected, as their insights can help to evaluate, establish, and foster a collaborative culture, even while teleworking. 4. purpose of study the purpose of this qualitative phenomenology study was to explore postsecondary faculty’s perceptions toward connectedness while teleworking following the global spread of covid-19. e-mail interviews were used to gain an understanding of faculty’s perceptions toward a sense of community, connectedness, and collaboration efforts during and following the covid-19 pandemic. faculty are intimately familiar with the challenges and benefits associated with teleworking, as they were recently required to shift from working on campus to working from home. consequently, they have relevant, contemporary insights related to the sense of connectedness in their institutions. the findings from this study may be utilized to analyze current strengths and potential needs for refinement of practices, policies, and procedures moving forward. ultimately, faculty and postsecondary administrators may use the findings from this study to consider whether their efforts to enhance overall perceptions of connectedness and faculty satisfaction have been successful, or whether efforts need to be revisited, revised, or enhanced. 5. research questions the purpose of this research was to explore faculty’s perceptions toward connectedness since teleworking as a result of covid-19. the research questions in this study explored faculty perceptions toward communication, collaboration, and a sense of community. specifically, the research questions that guided this study were: 1) how do faculty describe effective communication while teleworking? 2) what are faculty’s perceptions toward collaboration efforts while teleworking? 3) how do faculty perceive the workplace community while teleworking? 6. methodology and study design this study used a qualitative phenomenology design. e-mail interviews were used to explore the perspectives of faculty members, and the interview protocol was synthesized from previous published research interview and survey protocols which focused on teleworking conditions in other professional 87 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 fields; faculty satisfaction; and the overall perceptions of remote faculty toward their professional experiences (back, 2016; bolliger & wasilik, 2009; carpenter, 1998). 6.1 participants, sample, and setting a combination of snowball sampling and nonprobability purposive sampling approaches were utilized to select participants. nonprobability purposive sampling allows researchers to use their judgement to select their sample based off of established inclusion or exclusion criteria (given, 2008). for the purpose of this study, participants must have taught primarily face-to-face classes prior to covid-19, and they must have made the transition to telework, delivering 100% of classes in an online format as a result of covid-19 during the spring and/or summer semesters of 2020. alase (2017) suggested between 2-25 participants should be included in phenomenological research, and creswell (2014) expressed the importance of all participants having had experienced the same lived experiences. this study included 11 full-time faculty members from two different universities in the united states. all participants taught primarily face-to-face classes prior to covid-19 and were transitioned to exclusively online instruction as a result of covid-19. of the 11 full-time faculty members, three served as department heads in addition to their teaching responsibilities. 7. procedures since this study utilized a phenomenological design, an emphasis was placed on developing high quality research questions, as guided by previous research (back, 2016; bolliger & wasilik, 2009; carpenter, 1998). as outlined below, trustworthiness and credibility were considered throughout the entire research process, and rich descriptions of each phase of this study are detailed in the following sections. 7.1 recruiting participants the initial goal of this study was to recruit participants from one university. before recruiting participants from the initial university, the researcher first obtained irb approval to conduct research. invitations to participate in the research were sent directly from the researcher to faculty members using publicly available data (i.e., professional e-mail addresses shared online). the initial invitations yielded a low response rate of six participants. therefore, the researcher asked willing participants if they had other colleagues or connections whom might be interested in participating in the study. this resulted in five more participants who elected to participate in the study, all of whom worked at one of the two other universities included in this research. participation in this study was voluntary. the faculty members who agreed to participate in this study were sent an electronic informed consent form. the e-mail interview questions were then sent to all faculty members who gave consent to participate in the study by stating “i agree to consent” via e-mail. the e-mail interviews took approximately 30-45 minutes to complete. 88 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 7.2 protection of participant identity a variety of measures were taken to protect the participants’ identity. the information faculty shared in this study may be perceived as critical, and their views may contradict the current practices, policies, and efforts put in place to address collaboration and connectedness between faculty at their institutions. therefore, anonymity for all faculty members was kept. to ensure anonymity, all participants were given pseudonyms. additionally, if the demographic information provided by the faculty members made them or their university easy to identify, these identifiers were masked to ensure anonymity (clark & creswell, 2015). lastly, additional considerations related to electronic communication were addressed. meho (2006) explained, emphasizing to participants that certain measures will be adopted to maximize confidentiality is necessary. “examples of these measures include the use of pseudonyms and hiding the user names, domain names, and any other personal identifiers when publishing or storing interview data” (meho, 2006, p. 1289). all of these actions were taken to protect participant identity. 7.3 data collection and storage after participants agreed to the informed consent, they were sent the interview protocol and instructions for how to complete and return their responses. the interview questions were attached to the e-mail as a word document. a reminder to submit responses was sent one week prior to the submission due date. 7.3.1 email interviews this qualitative study sought to answer broad questions and to explore the perceptions of remote faculty, and therefore open-ended interview questions were utilized to collect data (creswell, 2014). the participants in this study resided in different regions of the united states and worked remotely, using their computers. e-mail interviews eliminated the boundaries of time and space, reduced research costs, prioritized participants’ comfortability, encouraged reflection before responding, and streamlined interview data (bowden & galindo-gonzalez, 2015). given their diverse locations and familiarity with electronic communication, e-mail interviews were selected as the most appropriate data collection method. additionally, it is important to note that, according to james (2007), e-mail interviews are an effective way to gather rich, descriptive data for qualitative research. multiple studies have found that the quality of data obtained from e-mail interviews is comparable to face-to-face interviews (abrams et al., 2014; denscombe, 2003; meho & tibbo, 2003; murray, 2004). for these reasons and the “stay-at-home” orders enacted by the researcher’s and participants’ respective locations, e-mail interviews were the most appropriate data collection method for this study. 7.3.2 storage all data was stored on an off-sight computer and password protected. all data will be destroyed after three years. with the exception of the approving irb chair, no one was privy to the name of the universities being studied, and no one had access to participants’ names or identifying information. 89 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 7.4 data analysis since the interviews were conducted via e-mail, participants’ responses served as transcripts. the e-mail interview responses yielded rich, descriptive data that effectively addressed the research questions (creswell, 2014). the data was reviewed and coded manually, then coded electronically using the nvivo software. after all coding was completed, the findings were presented via narrative data that provided rich descriptions of themes, supported by participant quotes and a synthesis of common attitudes, beliefs, and experiences toward teleworking. 7.5 trustworthiness and credibility rather than generalizability, the focus of this study was on trustworthiness and particularity, given its qualitative and explorative nature (creswell, 2014; given & saumure, 2008). since all interview responses were provided via e-mail, and participants had ample time to consider the research questions and ponder their responses prior to submitting their final answers, this acted as a means of member checking. e-mail follow up questions were sent if any responses were unclear or could potentially have been misinterpreted. as noted, the nvivo computer software program was used to identify themes in addition to manual coding of themes. the researcher was involved in all phases of this study, and any clarifications of personal biases or other relevant limitations are presented in the “limitations” section. in the findings section, each theme is discussed and supported with specific participants’ quotes. rich descriptions of each stage of the study have been outlined in this article, so future researchers may implement a similar methodology with future participant groups, enhancing comparison and transferability (given & saumure, 2008). 7.6 limitations and delimitations a variety of limitations were applicable to this study. first, researcher and sample bias were possible limitations to this study (ogden, 2012). the researcher worked as a remote faculty member at the time of this study. it is possible that past experience working in a remote setting may have influenced the conclusions drawn from participant responses. however, a double-coding process, combined with participant quotes, and rich descriptions of all stages of this research were provided to alleviate the potential for researcher bias. a sample bias may have also been present, since some of the participants had previous experience with providing distance education courses, and they regularly used technology to support instruction and to engage with their colleagues. others had never facilitated online courses, nor had they worked remotely. given their past experience, there may have been an inherent bias toward the preference or disfavor of utilizing technology to interact with colleagues and students. secondly, the data was self-reported, and an assumption was that all participants’ responses were honest and expressed their perceptions accurately. third, although appropriate for an exploratory study of this nature, the sample was not particularly diverse, and sample size was relatively low. finally, there may have been logistical issues with the data collection. for example, the participants may have had multiple distractions while completing the interview, or they may have been multitasking while completing their answers (bowden & galindo-gonzalez, 2015). this may have led to vague or 90 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 unfocused answers, as a participant’s train of thought may have been continuously interrupted throughout the process. 8. findings this study sought to explore faculty’s perceptions toward connectedness since teleworking as a result of covid-19. eleven full-time faculty members participated in the interview process. the research questions that guided this study were: 1) how do faculty describe effective communication while teleworking?; 2) what are faculty’s perceptions toward collaboration efforts while teleworking?; 3) how do faculty perceive the workplace community while teleworking? 8.1 demographics this study included 11 full-time faculty members from two different postsecondary institutions in the united states. of the 11 participants, three served as department heads in addition to their teaching duties. all participants taught primarily face-to-face classes prior to covid-19 and were transitioned to 100% online instruction as a result of covid-19. of the faculty members who participated in the study, nine were female and two were male. nine participants identified as white/caucasian, while two participants identified as asian. four faculty members taught at a post-secondary level between 1-5 years; two faculty members taught between 5-10 years; three faculty members taught between 10-15 years; and two faculty members indicated they had taught for over 15 years. prior to the shift to distance learning as a result of covid-19, nine faculty members indicated they taught 100% of their classes in a face-to-face format, while two faculty members had taught at least one online class in the past. six of the participants held doctoral degrees, and five participants held master’s degrees. the faculty members in this study served in six different college departments. however, to protect participant identity, the specific colleges for which faculty taught have not been included in this section. 8.2 themes e-mail interviews were used to gain insight into faculty’s perspectives toward connectedness while teleworking as a result of covid-19. the data were coded and organized into themes. themes were organized according to the prevalence of themes by number of references (see table 1) and by prevalence of themes by the number of faculty who mentioned each theme (see table 2). an analysis of the data revealed the following primary common themes: effective communication strategies; challenges to community; multiple communication platforms; relationships; strategies to support community; challenges to collaboration; effective collaboration efforts; opportunities for growth; and technology. 91 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 table 1. top themes in order of prevalence by number of references theme # of references # of faculty effective communication strategies 36 11 challenges to community 32 11 multiple communication platforms 31 11 relationships 29 11 strategies to support community 29 11 challenges to collaboration 25 11 effective collaboration efforts 24 10 opportunities for growth 24 10 technology/access 23 8 lack of communication/disconnect 15 4 feeling supported and connected 14 5 table 2. top themes in order of number of prevalence by faculty theme # of faculty # of references effective communication strategies 11 36 challenges to community 11 32 multiple communication platforms 11 31 relationships 11 29 strategies to support community 11 29 challenges to collaboration 11 25 effective collaboration efforts 10 24 opportunities for growth 10 24 communication challenges 10 22 technology/access 8 23 time and boundaries 6 11 training 6 9 all themes were supported with the faculty members’ responses which were aligned with the research questions. rich, descriptive data from the e-mail interview transcripts allowed for a thorough analysis of the data. 92 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 8.2.1 effective communication strategies a variety of effective communication strategies were identified through the faculty members’ responses. overall, faculty described effective communication while teleworking as timely and regular, supported by a variety of technology platforms, and by feeling supported by their administration. 8.2.1.1 timely and regular when asked to discuss their impressions of communication while teleworking, six faculty members described effective communication as timely and regular, and suggested that communication is most effective when colleagues respond back to one another promptly. for instance, ryan stated, “[effective communication is when] answers to questions are responded to promptly, depending on whether they need to confirm info before responding.” rylee highlighted the importance of timely communication by stating, “i would define effective communication with colleagues as timely, back and forth responses to answer questions, obtain new information, etc.” wally, rachael, sarah, and rebecca all also suggested effective communication involved timely and back-and-forth communication. 8.2.1.2 platforms to support communication through their responses, many faculty members commented on effective communication channels to support communication while teleworking. these modalities ranged, but included online video platforms, telephone, text, and e-mail. six faculty members specifically identified video conferencing as the most effective method to support communication. karen remarked that, “seeing faces was most helpful, not unlike face-to-face communication.” sarah shared a similar perspective by stating, “i think zoom has been most effective because then you still have the visual and verbal information being exchanged.” deb agreed with the use of video conferencing tools by explaining: blackboard collaborate and microsoft teams work great for group meetings and visuals of seeing each other and effectively communicating. facetime is much better than a phone conversation one on one as again—the visual is extremely important. all of these platforms have worked well to enhance our communication with each other. while there seemed to be a preference for video conferencing on platforms such as zoom, faculty also stated that e-mail, phone calls, text messaging, and a combination of all of these modalities was helpful. 8.2.1.3 frequency of communication along with a focus on timely, back-and-forth communication and using multiple platforms to support communication, all faculty members discussed the frequency with which they were in contact with their colleagues. the frequency of communication seemed to differ from individual to individual and was dependent on the intent and purpose of the communication (e.g., meetings vs. social). diane, who serves as a professor and department chair, stated she had meetings with her colleagues “weekly at the very least, sometimes daily… via zoom or some other platform,” but also noted she was “available via telephone, text, e-mail, or private teleconference when needed” she also explained, “i occasionally e-mailed colleagues with a ‘check-in’ e-mail to see how they were personally doing.” 93 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 deb, who is also professor and department chair noted the importance of frequent communication, at least weekly, by explaining: i communicate with various colleagues on a daily basis through e-mail, text, and phone calls by answering questions, concerns, or assisting with various issues. i continue to send out group information to department faculty/staff as needed and have incorporated a purposeful weekly group communication which i had not done prior to teleworking. this includes weekly updates and forward actions needing to be accomplished. i found this weekly communication to be beneficial for faculty/staff in our department. rebecca, rachael, and rylee all suggested they communicated regularly with their colleagues for a variety of purposes, and the frequency ranged from multiple times per day, to monthly, depending on the purpose. monthly communications were more typical for department meetings, while most all faculty indicated they communicated at least daily with their colleagues. it is important to note that nine of the eleven participants suggested they communicated with their colleagues less frequently than they did while on campus, with decreasing interactions as teleworking became more familiar. nine faculty members expressed they missed seeing and interacting with their colleagues. 8.2.1.4 feeling supported it is important to note that some faculty expressed feelings of disconnect from their administration, while others expressed feeling well-supported. feeling supported seemed to influence faculty’s perspectives toward effective communication while teleworking. for instance, rachael stated, “our department’s educators do a great job of collaborating with any questions or concerns we have about [educational] services or our graduate [students].” rylee described a strength of her university to be “that our university really pulled together, during this time of need, to be there for our students. i felt supported by our department chair, building administration and university administration”; krystie noted, “we have always had a pretty cohesive department that communicated well… we text, e-mail and share resources that we think will help each other out.” rebecca said, “colleagues are open-minded and supportive. we solve problems together as a team.” she also noted that her colleagues communicated effectively, describing a strength as “effective communication and flexibility.” generally, those faculty members who felt supported perceived communication to be more effective overall than those who felt disconnected from their department and university administrators. 8.2.2 challenges to community through the participants’ interview responses, there were many concerns listed with maintaining a sense of community since teleworking. for the purpose of this study, “community” was defined by social workplace relationships, opportunities for social and professional networking, and social engagement overall. the main concerns seemed to be with a preference for face-to-face interactions (versus online platforms), an “all business” mindset, a lack of communication, and feelings of disconnect. 94 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 8.2.2.1 online platforms and community seven participants commented on a diminished sense of community, specifically referring to challenges with teleworking and using online platforms. for example, ryan noted a disfavor for the online community by sharing: i find the “online community” to be a creature which i can’t help but associate w/facebook, instagram, snapchat, twitter, et al., -platforms w/ many personalities whom i readily dismiss-so viewing online engagement through solely the lms lens is a paradigm which i have to keep reminding myself of. “having to use platforms to communicate w/others is a strain on my sensibilities of ‘genuine contact’ per se” deb also noted that online platforms had a “lack of personal touch—visiting prior to or after the meeting—when ‘other connections’ are made [do not happen over video conferences],” which suggested technology impeded the maintenance of a positive sense of community. she also noted that a challenge to maintaining a sense of community was when “people [are] working independently and not engaging with others.” she went on to say, “long-term, this could have very negative effects.” 8.2.2.2 all business mindset four faculty members specifically described interactions with colleagues as “all-business” since teleworking. jelisa explained her perspective toward community via online platforms by stating, “the overall sense of community is gone. you can’t bring donuts to the zoom meeting. you can’t have an office potluck. it’s all business now.” she also noted that her “university has not focused on social or professional networking…i think if the technology actually worked, everything we have at our disposal would be helpful to create community.” echoing the “all business” perspective, sarah expressed a need for efficient communication, outlining challenges balancing work/life responsibilities. she stated: when i have time to work (when not caring for my children), i have to maximize my time completely. therefore, socially, i am not having much interaction. when i do interact with a colleague, it is all business—short and sweet, again, in order to make the most of what little time everyone has available. wally built upon this concern by stating: you really lose that personal connection. when you communicate while teleworking, it’s different and mainly gets to the point. what we lose is the other aspects of communication, the nonverbals, the personal stories, which can add a lot to communication. those things get cut, and we go directly to the main point and in a way, a variety of views may get lost since we don’t have that time to discuss every point of view… it’s mainly business while working on zoom, but on campus, it adds a personal dynamic to the equation. 95 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 8.2.2.3 lack of communication and disconnect through their responses, it was clear that a lack of communication and feelings of disconnect impacted faculty’s perceptions toward a sense of community. some faculty indicated that communication efforts were abysmal, and others expressed a noticeable disconnect with their colleagues and administration. for instance, diane commented on a lack of participation by stating, “i do think teleworking did damper social relationships with students, colleagues, and supervisors. at some tele-meetings; no one seemed willing to talk.” karen expressed, “[the] main communication from [our] department was limited and only provided as the chair felt necessary. this was not unlike when we were all on campus. there was obvious disconnect in who knew what information.” she went on to say, “even in faculty meetings, certain faculty members did not share nor turn on their cameras. the disconnect was very prevalent. the chair was obviously sharing with certain faculty members and not others. again, this is not unlike face to face meetings but did contribute to the cohesiveness felt or not felt.” deb shared a similar perspective related to strained relationships by stating, “i also feel communication with administration is currently strained. i understand they have a lot happening during these difficult times, but they do need to increase communication now more than ever.” wally had a comparable experience and noted, “i feel the faculty is somewhat separated from the administration. the union has done a good job trying to get the administration to hear what faculty has to say. i think constant updates from the administration and provide more concrete answers as to what is expected in the summer and fall semester would be helpful.” 8.2.3 multiple communication platforms multiple technology platforms were utilized by faculty while teleworking, some of which were to be perceived as more effective than others. different platforms were typically used for different purposes. faculty described which platforms they used and which they thought were the most effective. examples of platform being utilized since teleworking included: text, e-mail, teleconference, zoom, blackboard collaborate, video messaging, box, microsoft teams, pexip, yuja, adobe meetings, facetime, and doodle poll. the most commonly listed platforms to support communication, collaboration, and a sense of community were zoom, phone, and e-mail. generally, faculty expressed a preference for video conference platforms (e.g., zoom, microsoft teams, blackboard collaborate) to interact with their colleagues, although e-mail and phone were often expressed as effective tools as well. 8.2.4 relationships an overarching theme of this research was relationships, which were mentioned through all questions and sections of the interviews. many participants expressed dampened social relationships with their colleagues, department heads, and students as a result of teleworking. others expressed feeling supported by their colleagues and administration while teleworking. 96 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 8.2.4.1 relationships with colleagues relationships with colleagues were discussed at various times through the interviews. a variety of barriers to maintaining relationships were discussed. these mainly consisted of missing daily interactions with colleagues, and diminished relationships as a result of covid-19. 8.2.4.1.1 missing colleagues nine faculty members indicated they missed social interactions with their colleagues. deb commented on the impact of social relationships on personal and professional development by explaining, “i miss the social relationships. i think those relationships develop people, help you think differently, and assist in moving an organization forward as well as professional development.” krystie also expressed missing her colleagues and shared, “it is tough not seeing everyone, faculty and students alike.” however, she did elaborate by stating, “that said, i think all have developed a greater appreciation for what we took for granted in the pre-covid environment.” wally acknowledged the difficulty in not seeing his colleagues, but like krystie, expressed a sense of optimism. he said, “we miss our colleagues, but with the current situation, it is expected that until things get better, we will have to put our social relationships aside. the new normal is isolation and once things are better, we can go back to these prior social relationships. in the meantime, it’s zoom and e-mails. with zoom, we can at least see each other, without seeing each other, i believe social relationships would be more effected.” rylee also commented on the challenge of missing her colleagues, although focusing on her department’s efforts to pull together. she wrote: i am a very social person, so [teleworking] was difficult for me. while we were e-mailing, texting, calling each day, there was not that socialization that takes place in the workplace, which was difficult for me. i missed seeing my colleagues and continuing to build those important relationships… [however], i found the greatest strength to be that our university really pulled together, during this time of need, to be there for our students. i felt supported by our department chair, building administration and university administration. 8.2.4.1.2 negative impact on workplace relationships four faculty members indicated that teleworking resulted in strained workplace relationships. for instance, diane who serves as a department head in addition to her teaching responsibilities, noted: i do think teleworking did damper social relationships with students, colleagues, and supervisors… i also seemed to lose my sense of how some of my faculty were doing. i like to check in everyday with all faculty—this was not possible via tele-work and when we were able to connect it was not quite the same---especially with those faculty i am less familiar with. sarah also explained that teleworking negatively impacted her social workplace relationships. she expressed: my relationships are not as strong with my colleagues and supervisor. since we do not have daily ‘water cooler’ or professional interactions, relationships suffer. i feel disconnected to many of my 97 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 colleagues, specifically, as i have not had as regular interactions with them. my supervisor and i still have frequent interactions, but it is just not the same. 8.2.4.2 relationships with students although the focus of this research was on faculty relationships, seven faculty members described their perceptions toward relationships with students as a result of teleworking through their responses. a variety of challenges were presented. rylee noted that “student ‘buy-in’ was difficult.” she explained, “i had several students that stayed engaged during this time, but i had a few that kind of just ‘gave up’ on their classes or did the bare minimum to get by. it took a lot of effort to reach out to students to continue to build that sense of community so they would keep working hard and do their best work.” krystie agreed that student engagement and buy-in was a challenge. she wrote, “remaining connected to the work with a schedule has been hard for students. some checked out, but with coaxing have come back. the sense of community and some structure have been maintained in the courses that i met online with the students.” wally described a specific impact on student engagement and interaction, explaining that “seeing students and working on research projects have been a challenge. i even had a research trip to chicago with four students (2 undergrads and 2 graduate students) cancelled at a national conference due to covid-19. sense of community has also suffered since many students have left the college town to go back to their hometown, so there aren’t many college students around.” lastly, sarah described her perspective toward student relationships while teleworking, although her experience seemed to be more positive. she also described strategies which were helpful in maintaining relationships with students by writing: i do think i have been successful in staying connected to my students since transferring to teleworking. having weekly zoom meetings was especially helpful and beneficial (and well-received) by my graduate students. our discussions were mostly related to class content, but we also allowed time for just casual conversation each week and it was good for all of us. 8.2.5 strategies to support community as previously noted, a variety of faculty expressed they felt supported and connected to their colleagues, supervisors, and the university while navigating the transition to telework. through their responses, faculty outlined a variety of actions, activities, and tools used to support a sense of community while teleworking. 8.2.5.1 activities and actions to enhance community diane described the format of her department’s meetings, explaining they made time for social engagement to support a sense of community. she said, “we spent the first bit of time at our faculty meetings just visiting. we also started a group text on which we connected with important social and personal issues.” diane also expressed an interest in exploring more social opportunities for faculty and students and provided an example of how zoom was used to foster social relationships at her university. she stated, “i am interested in the ‘parties’ people had during social isolation—i would like to know 98 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 more about this. we did have small graduation parties for our seniors and second year grads. they were fun and not difficult to put together. these were done on zoom.” six participants described specific activities used to maintain a sense of community while teleworking. for instance, rachael said, “our department chair scheduled a few social activities (movie nights) as a way for us to keep in touch and connected.” deb, who is a department head, provided a specific suggestion to enhance community. she stated: administrative weekly webinar or presentations [would support community]—[it] does not need to be interactive but a short 15-minute video presentation to faculty/staff would be helpful—where are we going and how are we getting there organizationally… two administrators could present each week and just give a brief overview. each would only present about once a month but i think it would be extremely helpful to all and assist in the sense of community and relationships in the workplace while teleworking. 8.2.5.2 tools and platforms to support community the tools and platforms generally suggested to support, maintain, and enhance a sense of community while teleworking were videoconferencing platforms (e.g., zoom, blackboard collaborate), phone, and e-mail. the faculty were also asked to discuss which types of activities or strategies would help to support their social workplace relationships. faculty were also asked to discuss specific types of activities they would like to be made available to support community in case of continued teleworking conditions in the future. the participants recommended think tanks, video cats, webinars, canned how-to modules, support groups, and chat boards to enhance a sense of community while teleworking. 8.2.6 challenges to collaboration the faculty expressed a variety of challenges impeding successful collaboration while teleworking. the most common challenges discussed were a lack of time, technology and access issues, ineffective or absent training, and scheduling. many faculty members reported collaboration to be a challenge, since their universities were in “survival mode”. 8.2.6.1 lack of time six faculty members listed “time” as a barrier to effective collaboration. when asked to discuss the greatest barrier to collaboration, rylee indicated: time! again, with all the information and updates that were being provided hourly, it was difficult to keep up with everything. between online instruction, supervision of graduate clinicians, taking care of my family, etc, somedays felt unmanageable… it also felt that there were very little boundaries for work, meaning that it felt like i was working 24 hours a day to stay afloat… i think the number of e-mails, meetings, etc., is so different when working from home. it takes much longer to draft an e-mail vs. walking to a colleague’s office to discuss something. 99 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 jelisa, a department head, also referenced “time” as a barrier to collaboration for her faculty, stating, “i believe my faculty with children and another parent working from home also have time constraints. i do not know if meetings focused on collaboration or socialization would be welcome right now.” karen expressed the same concern when asked to describe barriers to collaboration, exclaiming, “time… time to learn more, time to develop appropriate assignments, time to create a true online course, time to adjust.” sarah expressed difficulty with time constraints and balancing work and life responsibilities. she noted: it is challenging to balance everything in a healthy manner—shifting to remote work and having my children at home full-time is making my “workday” never-ending. i am checking e-mail, grading, doing whatever i can in the short windows of opportunity i have during the day. then, when i would typically have some down time after my kids are in bed, i am now going to ‘work.’ it is exhausting. 8.2.6.2 scheduling scheduling challenges were also frequently referenced as a barrier to effective collaboration while teleworking. rachael found that “sometimes scheduling a time for collaboration can be difficult, but this is also true when we aren’t teleworking.” sarah agreed, suggesting: we are all working on different schedules so it is hard to incorporate “live” communication (i.e., i have two young children at home, so i tend to get most of my work done when they are napping and late at night, while others are maintaining a typical 9-5 schedule)… maybe having a better sense of everyone’s availability would help identify clear “windows” of opportunity for “live” communication… differing schedules has been the biggest hurdle for me in engaging in collaborations with colleagues while teleworking. 8.2.6.3 survival mode the term “survival mode” was referenced by four of the participants in a variety of contexts. for instance, when asked to describe collaboration efforts set forth by the university, deb replied, “[the university] has not worked towards this goal. it’s just been survival mode.” karen echoed this perception by stating, “survival teaching has necessity of this format but hasn’t really allowed for time to develop a creative environment.” jelisa also referenced “survival mode”, stating, “i would say my program is in survival mode. we have not been focused on anything new in terms of innovation or socialization. we have been focused on getting our work done and only having meetings when absolutely necessary. i do not know if anyone would want to go beyond survival mode.” rylee felt the same way. she wrote: from march until now, it has really been about “survival” and helping the students to feel comfortable in this new type of instruction… i think that as we were all in “survival mode” and changing classes from face-to-face to online it was helpful to get to reach out to colleagues as 100 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 needed but it wasn’t required. there were so many things going on at one time that if more collaboration were required, it really would have felt like a burden. 8.2.6.4 technology and access although an overarching theme of “technology and access” will be discussed in a following section, it is important to make note that there was a large focus on technology and access needs, specifically related to supporting collaboration efforts. for example, when asked to describe the greatest challenges associated with collaboration, ryan noted “connectivity variances” as a struggle. when conducting video conference meetings, jelisa found the greatest challenge to be “technical difficulties.” she elaborated by saying, “there seem to be many issues to work out just to get the meetings off the ground. someone does not have sound, someone does not have video, etc.” wally had a similar experience, suggesting, “bandwidth may be an issue since we have had to turn off cameras since speakers sometime have drop calls on zoom (or their voice breaks-up).” 8.2.7 effective collaboration efforts throughout their responses, faculty described what effective collaboration looked like from their perspectives, and efforts that were made to support collaboration while teleworking. many faculty members defined effective collaboration as setting tasks and coming together to complete a project or task. role clarity and responsibility seemed to be important concepts related to effective collaboration. 8.2.7.1 factors that define effective collaboration while teleworking as noted, many faculty members defined effective collaboration as setting tasks and coming together to complete a task. for example, diane stated that “effective collaboration involves meeting, setting tasks, sometimes smaller sub-meetings, and then coming back together with the group for finalization of a project with input at all stages.” rylee echoed the importance of coming together to complete a task, indicating, “to me, effective collaboration would be when we can all come together to complete a task. everyone has a piece of this task to complete and gets their work completed in a timely manner.” wally built on the definition of effective collaboration, emphasizing the importance of effective communication to support collaboration while teleworking. he wrote: effective collaboration is getting the message through loud and clear. because we don’t have all the nonverbal channels of communication when teleworking, it is very important to get the correct message across through zoom. effective collaboration includes follow-ups as well, mainly through e-mail. krystie described her experience with collaboration since teleworking and suggested futuristic thinking was necessary to effectively collaborate while teleworking. she shared an experience in which her department was resourceful and effective by describing “[our department] sticks together and have looked at some important facets of our curriculum, visioning what might make it the best post-covid environment with the immersion in the technology.” 101 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 8.2.7.2 strategies to support collaboration while teleworking faculty expressed a variety of suggestions to support and enhance collaboration efforts while teleworking, which included sharing resources, using a variety of platforms, and having support (communication and technology) in times of need. ryan noted that his university “invited us to share best practices and to seek help when needed.” rylee remarked that her university was effective in using technology and providing resources to support collaboration by stating, “we have had a variety of zoom meetings within our department and university to share ideas with each other. our university also has an ecampus that has greatly assisted in online teaching, especially for those that have never instructed in this manner before.” krystie felt that the sharing of resources between faculty helped to support collaboration. she said, “the sharing of resources and methods has been beneficial for our faculty”. even the casual, “hey, have you seen this facebook page on [instruction]. that might help for us to stay connected. to have shared ideas and information that has come to light via e-mail, with later discussions on teams.” she also felt that having it support was helpful to support effective collaboration, sharing that “[we] had the full support of our online facilitators. the e-mail responses were phenomenal with replies within minutes.” lastly, while specific platforms are discussed in more detail in the “technology” theme of this paper, it is notable that all faculty members stressed the importance of online platforms to support collaboration. zoom was the platform most frequently referenced. microsoft teams, doodle poll, and e-mail were also mentioned as effective collaboration tools. 8.2.8 opportunities for growth faculty were asked to describe their perceptions toward connectedness while teleworking. through their responses, faculty expressed a variety of suggestions which would enhance overall feelings of connectedness. the most notable suggestions were for institutions to provide training, professional development, and collaboration opportunities for faculty. the participants also made a variety of suggestions which focused on technology and telework implications for the future. 8.2.8.1 training and professional development four of the faculty members indicated a desire for more professional development opportunities online. it is important to note that while four of the faculty members expressed an interest in more professional development opportunities in general, seven faculty members focused on the need for immediate need for training to support online instruction and engagement with colleagues. diane felt training is instrumental to facilitate effective collaboration and communication, explaining, “i think familiarizing people with what is available is a great first start. then providing training for how to use as well as possibilities for use would be the next logical step.” jelisa concurred, expressing the importance of technology-specific training. she suggested that universities “choose a platform and make sure everyone has the technical capability to run it.” 102 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 wally noted his university provided, “lots of e-mails from faculty on using free online resources related to innovative thinking and sharing of ideas. this was true as we transitioned from face-to-face to online teaching. many universities and nonprofits provided lots of free materials for faculty to use as well.” he recommended that an opportunity for growth would be to “have step-by-step guides ready for anyone who wants to read or brush-up on the latest technology for teleworking. also, provide resources to faculty or students, where they can access for free, online materials that can help them through their academic journey. the more choice for students and faculty, the better.” 8.2.8.2 collaboration opportunities through their responses, faculty expressed interest in collaborative research opportunities, sharing modalities to collaborate with colleagues, and teamwork options for students. diane expressed an interest in collaborative research online. she stated: it would be interesting to engage in collaborative research. professional conferences on-line are also interesting to me. they would be much more cost effective; although i am not sure everyone would love them as it would eliminate travel to “fun” places. i am interested also in developing student projects for my coursework that can be completed online. i also think we should explore more on-line clinical and other educational simulation experiences for our students. wally noted an interest in collaboration but suggested that for effective collaboration to occur “[the university must] setup a platform for people to add-in their ideas (like a discussion board on canvas).” krystie described her perspective about collaboration opportunities she would like to see for students, by explaining she would like to see “a more robust tracking of teamwork commitment for students.” she noted that since covid-19, “mostly mine have worked individually, rather than in group.” 8.2.8.3 telework and technology implications five faculty members discussed their impressions of the potential for telework and distance learning moving forward. most perceptions were optimistic, although not without perceived obstacles to overcome. diane shared her experience with the transition to telework, describing how her and her colleagues overcame many challenges, and suggesting how the covid-19 pandemic may have changed her department permanently, explaining: within our department we solved many problems and were able to quickly move to on-line instruction, meetings, thesis defenses, oral comprehensive exams, and the like. having this experience allowed those who were reluctant to teach online to realize that they could do it. two of our department faculty were even voted by students to have provided the best instruction. it also forced us to learn to provide therapy through tele-practice; something that is up and coming in our field. we also realized this was not as difficult as some thought it might be as long as we were patient and could work through issues that arose both technologically and client-related. i think the experience has changed our department for the good---we will move forward again as a result of the required tele-work. 103 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 despite the overall sense of optimism about teleworking implications moving forward, diane expressed the concern about the university’s plan to adapt to changed working and learning conditions. she noted, “in terms of the university—i am not sure [about how they will facilitate collaboration]. it seems as though we would like to move back to old ways as quickly as possible.” she went to explain, “our institution seems particularly resistant to change. practices that had moved online are being walked back and faculty seem reluctant to stay online. they seem to fear cheating most and lack of student collaboration and engagement secondly.” deb also suggested opportunities for growth related to telework in the future by saying, “i feel we could do more via online platforms in the future, especially when faculty/staff/members are out of the office/town/state. typically, they just miss the meetings or have someone else attend. i think we could use some of these resources for the future.” rylee made a prediction about collaboration efforts moving forward. she predicted “the longer this continues we will begin to get into more collaboration on other ‘things’ including program changes, research, future instruction, clinic needs, etc.” lastly, when considering opportunities for growth, krystie recommend that universities need “better ways to collaborate in real time and asynchronously, and the programs that would facilitate it, along with support and time bought out to learn and develop these collaborative actions. some things cannot be done online.” 8.2.9 technology and access the majority of faculty members noted concerns with access and technology. of their concerns, the most notable issues related to technology and access were a lack of familiarity with technology, bandwidth and access concerns, and a need for training. 8.2.9.1 familiarity with technology eight faculty members discussed an unfamiliarity with using technology to communicate with colleagues and to support instruction. as an example, krystie stated, “i can tell that teaching online has been a struggle for my colleagues, as well as myself” and suggested she would like to see “some way for us to quickly become more familiar and at ease with virtual meetings, better internet capabilities for all and the time and resources to practice these things.” specifically related to conducting meetings with her colleagues, krystie felt that if these issues were addressed, “[she and her department] could do quite well with virtual meetings.” wally expressed a similar experience for some of his colleagues by suggesting, “there are people who are more old-school and only teach face-to-face so being on an online platform has been hard for them.” however, while acknowledging these difficulties, wally indicated a general familiarity and level of competence from he and his colleagues when using technology. wally commented on his institution’s general familiarity with technology, explaining, “since [my university] is fairly strong online, and in the past we have had faculty zoom into face-to-face meetings (i.e., monthly faculty meetings), so it’s not too strange for all of us to work online. most of the time, we all bring our computers to faculty meetings so teleworking did not catch us off guard and out of the blue.” 104 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 8.2.9.2 bandwidth and access issues six faculty members referenced bandwidth and access issues to be barriers to remaining connected since teleworking. for instance, sarah noted, “technological difficulties also poses problems occasionally (losing internet during a zoom meeting, for example),” and suggested, “secure, reliable internet for all [is necessary]. making sure that all parties have access to stable internet in their location is important.” similarly, diane explained that, “sometimes technology ‘fails’ occurred, but most everyone was patient and innovative when this occurred.” related to student access, she also noted, “[a] lack of adequate infrastructure may also be a problem as some students had internet issues and the internet was down in [our state] fairly often this spring and summer.” ryan agreed, stating that “connectivity variances” were a challenge when communicating with colleagues. jelisa also touched on access issues, indicating, “not being able to call some members of campus because they did not have phone connections at home” was a challenge to communicating with colleagues. she went on to say, “technical difficulties [made it difficult to communicate with colleagues]. there seem to be many issues to work out just to get the meetings off the ground. someone does not have sound, someone does not have video, etc.” lastly, wally described technological difficulties which impeded communicating with colleagues by explaining, “bandwidth may be an issue since we have had to turn off cameras since speakers sometime have drop calls on zoom (or their voice breaks-up). this plays a big role in larger projects and meetings.” he provided a suggestion to provide a way “for multiple people to edit a document online and others can see what is being edited. this helps with teamwork and allows others to see groupwork done at the same time.” he also suggested, “internet speed, especially rural connections may not be the most robust/reliable” as a barrier to collaborating with colleagues, indicating a potential access issue for faculty. as a result, he suggested for institutions to “provide a place where [people without the means] can go (social-distance in mind, of course) so they can access a room with a computer to connect with others”. 8.2.9.3 training to support technology training and it support to help faculty with technical issues was a suggestion made by the majority of faculty members. ryan discussed the importance of high-quality technology supporting by saying, “the tech staff who are conduits being responsive is the most important thing. if tech support staff are n/a, then all is for naught.” jelisa shared similar advice by stating, “the university should have said—we are all using microsoft teams or zoom versus everyone doing their own thing. getting the tech to work and trying to figure it out has been challenging. no one sends instructions and sometimes i don’t even know how to get into the meetings!” jelisa suggested, “[universities should] choose a platform and make sure everyone has the technical capability to run it. mass training will be required. faculty/staff computers will need to be able to support the platform.” 105 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 karen expressed difficulty with navigating some online platforms, stating, “novice learners meant there were lots of etiquette issues and technical problems.” she went on to express gratitude for training and support from her university’s it department. she said, “the center for engaged teaching and learning/it were very helpful in getting us up and running as well as troubleshooting. they provided numerous workshops online during our spring break to help us prepare.” wally offered a technology training suggestion by stating: for newcomers, [universities should] have a zoom learning session, so they aren’t intimidated with the technology. [universities should] have step-by-step guides ready for anyone who wants to read or brush-up on the latest technology for teleworking. also, [universities should] provide resources to faculty or students, where they can access for free, online materials that can help them through their academic journey. the more choice for students and faculty, the better. 9. discussion and implications this research provided a snapshot in time of faculty’s perceptions toward connectedness while teleworking amidst the covid-19 crises. this study explored how faculty described their perceptions toward communication, collaboration, and a sense of community while teleworking during the covid-19 pandemic. this section includes an overview of participants’ key perceptions and provides recommendations for practice and future research. 9.1 effective communication while teleworking overall, faculty defined effective communication while teleworking as timely and regular and supported by a variety of technology platforms. the majority of faculty also felt communication was effective when they felt supported by their administration. the primary communication challenges expressed by faculty were when their department heads or university administration was not communicative, when technology “failed”, and when communications were not acknowledged or reciprocated. the faculty expressed a preference for video conferencing (e.g., zoom), phone, and e-mail to support communication, and suggested that frequent communication for a variety of purposes (e.g., social vs. department meeting) was important. this finding was similar to research conducted by smith et al. (2018), who found teleworkers had a strong preference for video technologies, email, and phone, and consistent use of these platforms positively impacted overall job satisfaction. as guided by the in-depth responses from the participants in this study, it is clear that there are obstacles to overcome in terms of providing effective communication to faculty while teleworking. however, the faculty in this study also provided a variety of suggestions for practice. generally, as guided by the overarching themes and recommendations in this study, effective communication requires frequent, timely, and back-and-forth communication between colleagues, departments, and the university as a whole. it seems that communication was lacking in some departments. faculty in previous studies, which have focused on communication between faculty and administration in higher 106 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 education, have shared the same communication struggles (cummings & finklestein, 2009; hill et al., 2014; kdouh, 2014; smart, 2010). as individuals and institutions continue to navigate how to effectively communicate with each other, it is imperative that institutions place a focus on enhancing communication overall. some considerations, as guided by the suggestions from the participants in this study, may be to provide adequate training to all faculty in how to utilize a variety of technological platforms to support communication; having adequate technology support for faculty members; scheduling frequent meetings using a pre-established agenda and platforms; and providing culture training to leaders which focuses on helping faculty to feel supported and connected. the faculty in this study also indicated multiple platforms were utilized to communicate with colleagues and department heads for a variety of purposes. perhaps it may also benefit institutions to explore consistent platforms to be utilized institution-wide rather than utilizing a “piece-meal” approach to communication. along with the adoption of consistent platforms would be the need to provide adequate training and support to all faculty, as they navigate how to effectively utilize technology to communicate with their colleagues. this study explored the perspectives of full-time faculty in traditional four-year institutions who primarily had provided face-to-face classes prior to covid-19. it would be beneficial to develop research with a larger pool of participants, and to focus specifically on pillars of communication as it relates to teleworking in academia. more research needs to be done to explore qualitative and quantitative aspects of communication efficacy, and perceptions of communication overall. moreover, effective systems and policies which may help to establish communication need to be explored further. 9.2 collaboration efforts and suggestions for practice throughout their responses, faculty described effective collaboration while teleworking as setting tasks and coming together to complete tasks. suggestions to enhance collaboration included establishing role clarity, effective communication, sharing resources, using a variety of platforms, and having support (communication and technology) in times of need. a variety of challenges associated with collaboration while teleworking were noted throughout this study. the most common challenges discussed were a lack of time, technology and access issues, ineffective or absent training, and scheduling, which were similar to findings in previous research (bolliger et al., 2009; golden, 2016; green et al., 2009; walters et al., 2017). institutions will need to remain flexible with their faculty and with their students during times of uncertainty. however, given the likely shift to more distance and hybrid courses in the future, it is also important institutions have focused conversations to establish policies and systems to aid faculty in manageable workloads, specifically when teleworking, which will likely occur intermittently until a permanent solution to covid-19 has been found. the participants in this study also indicated an interest in future collaborative opportunities, such as collaborative research, professional development, resource sharing modalities to collaborate with 107 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 colleagues, and teamwork options for students. a variety of faculty explained that virtually no collaboration opportunities were provided to faculty while teleworking, as their institutions were in “survival mode”. given the interest in pursuing more online collaboration opportunities, institutions may collaborate to create a more diverse offering of online trainings, seminars, and professional development opportunities; to establish set policies and procedures for conducting collaborative research between colleagues and students; and to provide recommendations to departments in terms of scheduling and maintaining contact, even while teleworking. more research to explore the efficacy of professional development, training, and collaborative research remotely versus in-person should be conducted. five of the faculty members in this study specifically stated they did not want to continue teaching, engaging with their colleagues, or collaborating via online platforms. therefore, faculty’s perceptions and openness toward adopting online collaborative modalities should be explored in future research. 9.3 developing a sense of community while teleworking as suggested in this study and in other published literature (johnson et al., 2020), there was a drastic shift in community and culture as a result of the hastily implemented teleworking conditions as a result of covid-19. faculty frequently discussed missing their colleagues and the social interactions that occurred when working at the university. they described telework as isolating and challenging, which was a challenge shared by remote faculty who participated in previous research related to inclusion and remote faculty (golden, 2016; munene, 2014). however, faculty also noted that they remained in contact with their colleagues through e-mail, phone, and video messaging. suggestions for maintaining a sense of community while teleworking included holding social events via video messaging; scheduling regular meetings; using a variety of platforms to communication; and providing options for think tanks, video chats, conferences, webinars, and chat boards to faculty. although many universities offer a variety of online courses and programs, the vast majority of faculty across the united states work at traditional universities who offer primarily on-campus face-to-face classes. this also means that faculty are accustomed to interacting with their colleagues face-to-face, and usually on a daily basis. certainly, the shift from on-campus to telework conditions is met with a slew of challenges related to maintaining a sense of community. very little research exists that explores perceptions, strategies, or feelings toward a sense of community in teleworking situations, even prior to covid-19. consequently, more research should be conducted to explore effective strategies which enhance faculty’s perceptions of belonging, community, and healthy workplace relationships. 108 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 10. conclusion the purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore postsecondary faculty’s perspectives toward connectedness at their postsecondary educational institutions following the global spread of covid-19. as noted throughout this paper, a slew of challenges related to communication, collaboration, and a sense of community while teleworking as a result of covid-19 were noted by participants. based on the unpredictability of covid-19, it is likely that the most feasible option for providing post-secondary learning options will be some combination of distance and hybrid learning options, at least for the foreseeable future. as previously noted, of the 19.6 million students enrolled in post-secondary courses, over 16.5 million students were taking some or all of their classes on campus prior to the covid-19 outbreak (national center for education statistics, 2018). approximately 1,350,700 faculty members taught these students, the majority of whom taught exclusively face-to-face courses (u.s. bureau of labor statistics, 2019). following covid-19, however, their correspondence and learning moved to online learning platforms. given the volatile nature of covid-19 and its implications for all public and private institutions, including universities and colleges, it is highly likely that issues relating to connectedness while teleworking will remain relevant for the foreseeable future. as noted in previous research, faculty satisfaction has a strong influence on hiring and retaining high quality educators (betts, 2009; dolan, 2011; golden, 2016; lee, 2001; munene, 2014; ng, 2006). as discussed in previous research, and now as noted in this study following covid-19, there are many challenges to feeling connected which seemed to impact faculty’s overall job satisfaction. it is of the utmost importance that educational institutions support their faculty through these difficult and uncertain times. many faculty across the nation felt unprepared to implement online programs and to telework (johnson et al., 2020). therefore, the findings from this study may be utilized to analyze current strengths and potential needs for refinement of practices, policies, and procedures moving forward. ultimately, faculty and postsecondary administrators may use the findings from this study to consider whether their efforts to enhance overall feels of connectedness and faculty satisfaction have been successful, or whether efforts need to be revisited, revised, or enhanced. these discussions will remain paramount for the foreseeable future, as universities globally must remain ready to respond to future closures and distance learning opportunities until a permanent solution to combat covid-19 has been found. 109 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 references abrams, k., wang, z., song, w. j., & galindo-gonzalez, s. 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(2018, january 1). new study: distance education up, overall enrollments down. babson college. retrieved from https://www.babson.edu/about/news-events/babson-announcements/babson-survey-research-group -tracking-distance-education-report/ reed, m. (2020, april 29). looking ahead, faculty edition: how are people preparing for fall classes? inside higher ed. retrieved from https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/confessionscommunity-college-dean/looking-ahead-faculty -edition smart, c. j. (2010). higher education: handbook of theory and research (vol. 25). springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-8598-6 112 published by scholink inc. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8535.00186 https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.20416 https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.10244 https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v7i2.300 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-8598-6 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 smith, s. a., patmos, a., & pitts, m. j. (2018). communication and teleworking: a study of communication channel satisfaction, personality, and job satisfaction for teleworking employees. international journal of business communication, 55(1), 44-68. https://doi.org/10.1177/2329488415589101 the national center for education statistics. (2018). characteristics of postsecondary students. retrieved from https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_csb.asp?fbclid=iwar2fxdil0llgvwfy5_vb3pq-0ui i-byapq6vflixuzxh98vvye9uljjxj8w unesco. (2020, march 19). half of world’s student population not attending school: unesco launches global coalition to accelerate deployment of remote learning solutions. retrieved from https://en.unesco.org/news/half-worlds-student-population-not-attending-school-unescolaunches-g lobal-coalition-accelerate united nationals educational, scientific and cultural organization. (2020). covid-19 educational disruption and response. retrieved from https://en.unesco.org/covid-19/educationresponse u.s. bureau of labor statistics. (2019, september). occupational outlook handbook: postsecondary teachers. retrieved from https://www.bls.gov/ooh/education-training-and-library/postsecondary-teachers.htm walters, s., grover, k. s., turner, r. c., & alexander, j. c. (2017). faculty perceptions related to teaching online: a starting point for designing faculty development initiatives. turkish online journal of distance education, 18(4), 4-19. https://doi.org/10.17718/tojde.340365 wang, c., cheng, z., yue, x.g., & mcaleer, m. (2020, february 18). risk management of covid-19 by universities in china. journal of risk and financial management, 13(2), 36. https://doi.org/10.3390/jrfm13020036 world health organization. (2020, march, 18). mental health and psychosocial considerations during the covid-19 outbreak. reference number: who/2019-ncov/mental health/2020.1 wu, j. (2014). faculty perceptions of instructional satisfaction and support when teaching distance education (order no. 3631875). available from proquest one academic (1566477384). 113 published by scholink inc. https://doi.org/10.1177/2329488415589101 https://doi.org/10.17718/tojde.340365 https://doi.org/10.3390/jrfm13020036 original paper a qualitative exploration of connectedness during covid-19: faculty perceptions toward communication, collaboration, and a sense of community while teleworking cammy d. romanuck murphy1,2* 1 department of education, trident at american intercontinental university, chandler, az, usa abstract keywords frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no.2, 2022 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 36 original paper robotics learning at elementary school: constructing abstractions using multiple instruments sandra nogry1 & michel spach2 1 paragraphe lab, cergy-paris university, site universitaire de gennevilliers, gennevilliers, france 2 laboratoire eda, université de paris, paris, france received: february 11, 2022 accepted: march 23, 2022 online published: april 22, 2022 doi:10.22158/fet.v5n2p36 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v5n2p36 abstract this paper explores the robotics learning process at elementary school using a sociocultural approach. its focus is on the activity of students aged 6-8 years during robotics learning sessions designed and implemented by two teachers. drawing on two case studies, this research examines the functions of artefacts and semiotic representations during the learning process. while numerous artefacts are used, this question, well documented in the field of mathematics, is still little studied in the field of educational robotics. microgenetic analyses highlight the multiple conversions triggered by the artefacts used in constructing the symbolic representations that make up the formal language to be acquired by students when learning how to program a sequence of instruction. the study highlights the embeddedness of the process of abstraction in this field. keywords learning process, instruments, robotics, programming, elementary education 1. introduction computational thinking and programming skills have become critical for understanding the world around us, and there is clear evidence that developing these skills from the earliest age has significant benefits. as a result, computer science and programming have come to form an integral part of elementary school curricula in many countries. in this context, research on teaching and learning practices related to the development of programming skills at elementary school is crucial for understanding the specific features of these conversions and for designing appropriate scenarios. robotics is one of the most common tools used to introduce students to computer science, especially at elementary level (for a review, see jung & won, 2018). popularized by seymour papert (1980) and his www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 37 published by scholink inc. logo turtle, educational robots with which learners are able to interact are known to be of particular value in capturing children’s interest and curiosity. using these robots, learners can observe the results of their actions and engage in creative activity, thereby promoting the development of a wide spectrum of skills (benitti, 2012; tho et al., 2016). the range of programmable toys and educational robots available in the market has developed considerably in recent years. with the widespread availability of robots specifically designed for children comes a need for a specifically tailored pedagogy (alimisis, 2012; fluckiger, 2019). many different pedagogical scenarios and teaching resources have been proposed in this area. more recently, there has been growing interest in integrating robots into elementary school curricula (sullivan & bers, 2016; elkin, sullivan, & bers, 2018; see jung & won, 2018 for a review). in the different scenarios proposed by researchers or designed by teachers themselves, a wide range of artefacts and inscriptions are often used to help students learn how to program robots. current studies often consider the robot as a source of feedback, and other artefacts as information to process (chevalier et al., 2022). in most studies, the role played by the bodily interactions with artifacts in the learning process is often neglected. if their role is well documented in the field of mathematics (e.g., lave, 1988; hershkowitz, schwarz, & dreyfus, 2001; noss, hoyles, & pozzi, 2002; radford, 2009, 2014), it is still little studied in educational robotics. sociocultural approaches and embodied cognition offer theorical and methodological framework to study this question in this field (jung & won, 2018; kopcha, ocak, & qian, 2021). kopcha, et al. (2021) studied the embodiment of computational thinking analyzing educational robotics activities. however, few studies have examined the functions of the artefacts used during educational robotic learning process. these roles remain to be investigated. this research project aims to examine the introduction and use of educational robots in class by teachers using resources made available to them (textbooks, scenarios published online, etc.). the purpose of this study is to analyze the instruments that contribute to conceptual development: how are these instruments formed and appropriated by students? what roles do they perform? how do they contribute to the process of conceptualization? to investigate these questions, two case studies conducted in elementary schools (first and second grades) are presented. in each scenario, a simple programmable robot and other artefacts were used to introduce the same computational concept. the analysis highlights the roles played by these artefacts in the robotic learning process. 1.1 educational robotics at elementary school programming was first introduced at elementary level in the 1980s following research by papert (1980) that led to the introduction of logo language (for example, michayluk, 1986; hoc, green, samurçay & geelmore, 1990), a project that was subsequently abandoned. having been recognized as key requirements of modern society, computer science and programming have been reintroduced into elementary curricula in the last decade, the aim being to provide children with the necessary tools for www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 38 published by scholink inc. understanding the processing operations performed by the systems they use (for an overview, see baron & drot-delange, 2016). the point is to introduce children to basic computational concepts while also promoting the development of computational thinking (wing, 2006). brennan and resnick (2012) distinguished three aspects of computational thinking: computational concepts (sequences, loops, parallelism, conditional structures, operators, data, etc.), computational practices (incremental and iterative, testing and debugging, reusing and remixing, and abstracting and modularizing, etc.), and the way in which programmers describe themselves and how they perceive their relationship to others and to the technological world around them. in this perspective, robotics requires students to decompose a larger task, develop potential solutions, apply mathematical concepts as they program the robot, and debug problems as they negotiate the challenge at hand (bers et al., 2014; chen et al., 2017; kopcha et al., 2017). bers (2019) proposed another approach of robot programming learning, viewed not simply as a means of developing problem-solving skills but also as a way of learning a new language—in other words, a system of symbolic representations with its own grammar and syntax capable of being used to express ideas. the evolution of languages and the development of programming environments tailored to children (scratch, scratchjr, programming kits, robots, etc.) promote such learning from the youngest age. even at preschool level, teachers can resort to pedagogical scenarios involving the use of simple programmable toys, allowing students to learn how to control their actions using a specific language (bers et al., 2014; komis & misirli, 2015; komis, romero, & misirli, 2017) and to develop their own projects (bers et al., 2014). through this learning process, students develop a basic understanding of the concept of sequence and learn how to plan, to manage several programming commands, to perform an algorithm, and to debug. scenarios such as these also help to promote the development of social skills necessary for peer collaboration. beyond research conducted at preschool level, studies have also shown that educational robotics supports the development of cognitive skills, including spatial skills, and promotes greater flexibility in applying abstract rules. a degree of abstraction is needed to program a robot, requiring abstract representations, temporal references, and an understanding of causal mechanisms—all of which young children are in the process of developing (crahay, 1987; gaudiello & zibetti, 2013). educational robotics also contributes to the development of a wide range of concepts (benitti, 2012; strawhacker & bers, 2019) and language and social skills (tho et al., 2016). studies in this area have also emphasized the crucial role of support from teachers and parents, which is known to be a key factor in learning (tho et al., 2016; benitti, 2012). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 39 published by scholink inc. 1.2 the learning processes involved in programming using robots how do children develop from first handling programmable toys—i.e. devices with which they are not familiar—to mastering the principles of programming? what are the processes at work in such learning? a small number of studies have focused specifically on robotics learning processes (for a summary, see jung & won, 2018) and have demonstrated that early conceptions of it tend to be anthropomorphic (duboulay, 1986, cited by rogalski, 2015; levy & mioduser, 2008). in other words, from a young observer’s point of view, a machine considers intentions, semantically processes the operations at work, and appears to be endowed with human skills and capabilities. understanding how a robot actually works is, therefore, a gradual incremental process. for example, mioduser et al. (2009) examined the processes involved in abstracting the rules underlying a robot’s emergent behaviors among young children. their study found that children initially focus on the robot’s action sequences before becoming aware of repeated sequences triggered by occasional events (script). once the robot’s actions and the environmental conditions are viewed as being of similar importance, the children are then able to observe their covariations, a process necessary for abstracting temporal rules. the embeddedness of abstract rules in concrete objects and events (“concrete abstraction”), mediated by the teacher, supports children’s reasoning. during this learning process, their representations become increasingly more general and complex, moving from temporal to atemporal descriptions, with their attentional focus on the robot gradually expanding to include the immediate environment. beginners also experience difficulties with the deferred nature of program execution (rogalski, 2015). it is difficult for them to make the transition from “doing” to “getting to do”, in other words to adopt the point of view of the robot, which is required to follow the program’s instructions. a strategy typically used by children involves manipulating robots directly. in doing so, children are able to imagine how the robot will move before anticipating the control commands (mioduser & levy, 2010). kalas, blaho and moravcik (2018) identified different levels of control: direct manipulation, which involves moving the robot manually, indirect manipulation, characterized by the identification of the goal to be achieved, direct control, in which each movement is programmed and immediately executed (‘one button-one step’), and computational control, in which all the steps of the itinerary are programmed before executing the program. the authors proposed a learning environment designed to enable students to progress from one level of control to another by gradually increasing the distance between the object to be controlled and the person controlling it (whether physically or symbolically). other strategies have been observed in the implementation of a pedagogical scenario among children aged 4-6 years (komis & misirli, 2015). in this case, the students used different strategies to program the bee-bot’s movements, including a “step-by-step” strategy (direct control) and a “total” strategy (implementation of the complete sequence, i.e., computational control), but also a “subprogram” strategy (segmentation of the itinerary into program sub-sets) and mixed strategies, observed mainly www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 40 published by scholink inc. during debugging sessions. it should be noted that in this pedagogical scenario, the ‘total’ strategy was the most commonly used approach. its implementation was supported by the teachers’ interventions and by coding command cards used to represent the programmable instructions. through these cards, different symbolic representations are introduced to represent the instructions, enabling learners to develop a new language. what role do these cards play in the learning process during programming? more broadly, what roles play artefacts and inscriptions used by children during the programming learning process? 1.3 learning and abstraction based on sociocultural approaches recent trends in the computational thinking literature suggest that computational thinking consist in a complex, dynamic interaction among person, technology and environment (berland & wilensky, 2015; yasar, 2018). in this field, as in others fields of sciences learning, an embodied perspective has been viewed as a way to improve teaching and learning because it engages all aspects of the learner when understanding abstract concepts (abrahamson & lindgren, 2014; black et al., 2012; hall & nemirovsky, 2012; sung et al., 2017; wu & cheng, 2021). designing learning environments that effectively create the conditions for embodied learning has become an area of research and design (lindgren et al., 2016; marougkas et al., 2021; li & zhang, 2021). in school context, there has been an increasing interest in exploring how children might embody computational thinking (brennan & resnick, 2012; grover & pea, 2013; kopcha et al., 2021; odgaard, 2022). some of these studies analyse the way that children coordinate their physical activity with the robot and structures in the environment during educational robotics learning process. for instance, in kopcha et al. (2021) study, the participants anticipated robot movement by acting as if they, themselves, were the robot when interacting with each other, the map, and the computer program. in this context, “the robot became an object that helped ground and align the participant’s knowledge and thinking with their own bodily experience” (kopcha et al., 2021, p. 1996) in these studies, in-depth analyses of the functions of gestures and body movements have been realised. however, the functions ensured by the manipulated artefacts, whether semiotic or material, have been poorly investigated. considering computational thinking as an embodied and embedded phenomenon, our question is: what functions perform these artefacts during the learning process? as noted by jung and won (2018), sociocultural approaches offer useful theoretical and methodological frameworks for examining the embeddedness of robotics learning process. most of the researches on embeddedness and learning have been conducted in the area of mathematics (e.g., lave, 1988; noss, hoyles, & pozzi, 2002; radford, 2009, 2014). as pointed out by radford, “concepts are continuously transformed by the activity through which they appear in their sensuous and material form (…) they are mediated entities and their mediation is concrete human practice” (2014, p. 353). in this perspective, artefacts used as mediation during activity are constitutive of conceptual development. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/s0360131520303201?casa_token=7xfx9r3y1qeaaaaa:asfygblbrdupzrr43ztxakbsxqntwwuwkknnt9jbb_naaw1l-wby7oertp9cjzsoyepplba74li#bib44 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 41 published by scholink inc. the mediation functions provided by the artefacts (whether semiotic or material) have been well studied by cultural and historical activity theories (kaptelinin & nardi, 2006). their shape, matter and structure reflect the experience of people who produced and used them; created and transformed during activity, they are an accumulation and a transmission of social knowledge. associated with gestures they become instruments, mediators of purposeful human actions. the instrumental approach (rabardel, 1995; rabardel, 2001; rabardel & bourmaud, 2003) aims to examine the process of instrumental genesis, in other words, how, during activity, an artefact becomes an instrument. the instrument consists of an artefact component (an artefact, a fraction of an artefact or a group of artefacts) and a scheme component (defined as an unvarying structure of the action performed to achieve a specific objective). activity is mediated by a set of instruments that gradually form a system comprising a structure, redundancies, etc. (rabardel & bourmaud, 2003). this approach has been adopted to study the children activity in school context in order to design environments supporting child development (decortis, 2015; gourlet & decortis, 2018; forcisi & decortis, 2018). in this perspective, better understanding the functions of artefacts during the learning process requires an instrumental genesis analysis; it consists in highlighting the schemes associated to the artefacts used during the activity, their change, and then analyzing the relationships between the multiple instruments organized in system during the activity. besides, semiotic perspective has highlighted the role of the transformations operated on the multiple semiotic representations used as mediations during the learning process (saenz-ludlow & presmeg, 20106). in this view, mathematical objects can only be accessed through these semiotic representations (equation systems, graphic representations, etc.). learning new mathematical concepts involves the coordination of different semiotic registers. they constitute a set of resources, constraints, and indications for performing the required task. the conceptualization process is underpinned by conversions from one register to another that enable the construction of new meanings (duval, 2017). the body, physical gestures, and material artefacts contribute to this process; they play a key role in the development of abstract representations when learning arithmetic (radford, 2009). to summarize, in this view, studying the embeddedness of programming learning process involves understanding the mechanisms through which learners use, (re)-create and appropriate artefacts (whether semiotic or material) during the learning process, by analysing the instrumental genesis, role they play as mediation, and the multiples transformations performed with/on them by students to construct abstract representations of the concepts required for programming. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 42 published by scholink inc. 2. presentation of the studies the two studies were carried out as part of an anr project devoted to understanding the design and implementation of pedagogical scenarios by teachers in france. several teachers volunteered to take part in the project having opted to use robots with the aim of introducing their students to programming. this paper presents two case studies focusing on the analysis of two pedagogical scenarios designed by teachers using the same programmable toys (bee-bots) in their cp and ce1 classes (years 1 and 2 of elementary school). the aim was to examine the activity of students in specific situations proposed by their teachers with a view to analyzing the learning processes involved in developing the concept of sequence of instruction in a socio-cultural perspective. in other words, the question raised was: what roles do the artefacts and semiotic representations given to students play during this learning process? in both case studies, students’ activity was analyzed through observation, recordings and interviews based on the principles of the instrumental approach (rabardel, 1995; rabardel, 2001; rabardel & bourmaud, 2003). in this approach, the unit of analysis is the situation of instrumented activity. the activity involves three elements: the acting subject, the object toward which the activity is directed, and the instrument, composed by an artefact associated with a scheme (defined as an invariant organization of action). the aim is to document the objectives of the activities undertaken by students, the sequence and development of their activity, and the mediating roles played by the instruments involved in achieving the objective as well as their genesis. since children interact with their environment through movements, gestures and drawings, and insofar as the robotics learning process is based on tangible interaction with technological environments, different types of data need to be collected during the robotics learning process (jung & won, 2018). therefore, a decision was made to combine the analysis of student activity with a microgenetic analysis of conceptual development (ackermann, 2013; parnafes, 2013; di sessa, 2014). the microgenetic approach is a clinical approach designed to reveal knowledge as it develops at different temporal scales. the aim is to understand how children engaged in an activity explore a phenomenon, become aware of changes, think, move, “stumble”, and come to revise their conceptions (ackermann, 2013). parnafes and di sessa used this approach to examine conceptual development in physics. according to them, the approach involves several key principles: (1) selection of episodes of activity leading to substantial changes in the subjects. (2) fine-grained observation of each episode. (3) intensive and opportunistic use of all available data to make detailed inferences about the changes performed and their mechanisms. the microgenetic approach can be applied in ecological situations, thereby incorporating the inherent embeddedness of knowledge development. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 43 published by scholink inc. 2.1 in combining the two approaches, the aim is to show how the instrumental geneses associated with the artefacts used contribute to the conceptual geneses that occur during the learning situation. method the two case studies focused on two pedagogical scenarios designed and implemented by two teachers in their respective classes (cp and ce1) located in the paris region (france). the programmable toys chosen by the teachers were bee-bots. in their scenarios, they opted for a method of investigation based on an inductive approach, which involved discovery of the robot by the students followed by a gradual structuring of the activity. the objective was for the students to learn how to program the robot to travel along a predefined route. to do so, the students had to develop a range of skills, including being able to use the controls of the programmable device, understanding what an instruction sequence is, designing and building an increasingly complex instruction sequence, and debugging. during the implementation of the scenario, the students’ activity was observed and filmed following the protocol presented below. 2.1.1 the programmable toys used the devices used, known as bee-bots, are small robots whose behavior can be programmed using a tangible interface located on top of the device. figure 1 shows the console with the four buttons used to guide and direct the robot’s movements, while three other buttons are used to control the execution of the program (“go”: execution of programmed instructions, “pause”: momentary interruption of the execution of the program, “clear”: deletion of the commands recorded in the memory). figure 1. bee-bot: a programmable device 2.1.2 observation protocol the two case studies focused on two pedagogical scenarios designed and implemented by two teachers in their respective classes (cp and ce1), in urban schools, located in the suburb of paris (france). the teachers were highly experienced (having been in the profession for more than 10 years) and both were teacher trainers. the first case study focused on a scenario implemented in a cp class with 18 students (10 girls, 8 boys) aged 6 to 7 years who were using educational robots for the first time. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 44 published by scholink inc. the scenario involved six sessions, all of which were observed and filmed. video recording was performed using a fixed camera (showing a wide shot of the room) and a mobile camera focused on the work of each group in turn. in total, four hours of activity were recorded and analyzed. the second case study focused on a scenario implemented in a ce1 class with 23 students (12 girls, 11 boys) aged 7 to 8 years who were using educational robots for the first time. in this case, the scenario involved fifteen sessions, eleven of which were observed and filmed using a protocol similar to the protocol applied in the first case study. in total, eight hours of activity were recorded and analyzed. 2.1.3 analysis of student activity the analysis of classroom activity was performed using video recordings based on the instrumental approach (rabardel, 1995). the point was to document the object of the activity undertaken by the students being filmed, the sequence and development of the activity, and the instruments used by students. the analysis aims to highlight the process of instrumental genesis—in other words, how the artefact becomes an instrument—by documenting the changes made to the artefact (instrumentalization) and the formation of schemes associated with the artefact (instrumentation) (rabardel, 1995). alongside this, a microgenetic analysis of the development of knowledge was also performed (parnafes, 2013; di sessa, 2014). the microgenetic approach involves examining episodes during which skills, changes in knowledge or conceptual developments are identified and highlighted. thus, for each phase of the pedagogical scenario, a three-step analysis of student activity was carried out. the three stages were: selection of episodes involving changes. analysis of the student instrumented activity during the selected episodes to highlight instrumental mediations. characterization of changes during these episodes (changes in semiotic representations, instrumental and genetic geneses). in particular, the aim was to document the range of semiotic representations and artefacts used during the activity, to identify their roles, to describe the formation of new schemes associated with these artefacts (instrumental genesis), and to identify indicators of change and development. for each of the two case studies, we selected episodes during which artefacts are used, analyzing their functions, the schemes associated, and their role during the learning process. 3. findings 3.1 case study 1: programming movements in space in a cp class the focus of the sequence observed in cp was to program movements in space (note 1). the 18 students were split into groups of three to use the six available bee-bots. the sequence involved two phases: www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 45 published by scholink inc. (1) the first phase involved getting the robot to travel along an itinerary traced by students on the floor (sessions 1 to 4): the aim was to introduce the bee-bot’s control commands. each group of students was required to “trace an itinerary” on the floor before learning how to use the robot by themselves by getting it to travel along the planned route. (2) the second phase required the students to work in groups to trace an itinerary to be programmed (sessions 5 and 6): the aim was for the students to program a sequence of instructions. each group was required to trace an itinerary on paper and then to program the robot to complete the group’s itinerary and then the itinerary programmed by another group. 3.1.1 phase 1. learning about the control commands—construction and deconstruction of an initial scheme an analysis of the students’ activity during the first phase (i.e., getting the robot to complete an itinerary) shows that an initial instrumental genesis soon developed, with the association of a particular scheme (unchanging structure of action) with the robot: press go and then the forward arrow (which we will refer to as the “go-arrow” scheme) (figure 2). the student presses go the student presses the arrow the robot completes a longer than expected itinerary, causing surprise and emotion figure 2. illustration of the “go-arrow” scheme: action sequence frequently performed to program the robot’s movements all the students adopted this scheme—a scheme shared collectively in class during a group session and reflecting an attempt at direct control. in doing so, the students appeared to adopt an anthropomorphic conception of the robot whereby the machine semantically processes the operations at work (rogalski, 2015). the underlying scheme may be interpreted as a “go—forward/back/etc.” instruction. this may be viewed as a failure to understand the control commands and the deferred nature of the execution of the program instructions. the go command executes the instruction sequence previously implemented. during the first phase, the teacher’s questions gradually resulted in the students deconstructing this scheme by questioning the cause-and-effect relationships between the selected buttons and the robot’s www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 46 published by scholink inc. behaviour and by ascribing a particular meaning to the different control commands (nogry, 2019) (note 2). following session 4 (out of 6), the teachers introduced a new action sequence to the group as a whole: “reset by using the “clear” button, press the arrows, press go”. this then becomes a substitute for the initial scheme. 3.1.2 phase 2. deferring the programming of the robot by drawing a plan in the next phase, the teacher set two separate tasks: draw a simple itinerary followed by program the robot. the programming of the robot was thus deferred to a second phase. the steps proposed in the second task resembled the approach taken by computer science engineers—i.e., planning, implementation of the algorithm, assessment, and debugging. a) from drawing to schematizing the itinerary the first phase involved drawing the robot’s itinerary on paper. an examination of the drawings produced shows that some of the initial drawings were not on task. in other words, some of them did not include the information needed to direct the programming, and their shape (curves, acute angles) was not compatible with the robot’s range of movements since the robot was only able to perform right-angle turns. the teacher then provided more specific instructions by asking the students to draw “a simple itinerary composed of at least 6 steps” and to represent the robot’s steps as arrows (nogry, 2019). the teacher’s instructions resulted in a conversion of the groups’ representations, with conventions developed collectively in class being gradually incorporated (e.g., right-angle turns, arrow representing a step, etc). the degree to which the students were able to appropriate these conventions varied (figure 3). figure 3. drawings incorporating the conventions introduced by the teacher b) multiple instruments used in programming in carrying out the second task (i.e. programming the robot to perform the planned itinerary), the initial drawing was used as a programming instrument. it was found to perform a range of mediations during activity and to be the subject of successive conversions, understood as constituent elements of the development of the sequence of instructions. these roles are presented below. the drawing and the body: instruments for planning the robot’s actions www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 47 published by scholink inc. in each group, the scheme, associated with an action sequence that consisted in counting the number of steps and identifying the rotations to be performed (figure 4), served as a tool for planning the process of programming the robot. an initial conversion process occurred at this point, with the move from a graphic representation to a synthetic verbal description of the itinerary. the student refers to the planned (drawn) itinerary the student then counts the number of arrows and ticks them off the student then picks up the robot to program it and considers the direction of rotation the student represents the robot’s rotation by moving her body, with accompanying commentary. s1: turn right or left? s2: right s1: left, if you go like that it’s left figure 4. planning of the program to be carried out by a student: an action sequence performed interestingly, in planning the rotation, some students felt the need to resort to a bodily representation: in other words, by embodying the rotation in order to mimic the movements to be performed by the robot, the students engaged in another conversion process, moving from an allocentric representation of space (the scheme) to an egocentric representation. during planning, the students encountered difficulties due to the discrepancy between the schematic representation (with the curved arrows representing corners) and the bee-bot’s control commands (forward/back arrows controlling one-step movements, the right and left arrows controlling rotation on the robot’s axis). the discrepancy between the codes associated with the plan and the robot initially caused many counting mistakes and errors in selecting the correct direction. the plan as an artefact for implementing the program the plan was then used to implement the program (selection of buttons). using the plan, a member of the group would indicate to the student tasked with programming the robot which button to press and how many times. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 48 published by scholink inc. because of the difficulty of anticipating the arrow to choose for performing rotations, some of the students adopted a subprogram-type strategy (komis & misirli, 2015): in other words, the complete itinerary was split into subprograms, with the first subprogram corresponding to a straight line, followed by another subprogram controlling the rotation step by step (with a single instruction between the clear and go commands), followed by another sub-program. in this case, the planning phase alternated with the implementation phase. the students gradually incorporated rotations, thus tending toward a “total strategy” (komis & misirli, 2015) geared toward executing a single program for the entire itinerary. the plan and the robot as artefacts for assessing the program the plan played a role, lastly, in the assessment phase of the program following implementation. this phase, initially carried out under the teacher’s guidance, involved measuring the discrepancy between the route travelled by the bee-bot and the planned itinerary. combined with deictic gestures and comments, the plan served as an instrument for matching the planned route with the robot’s actual movements (figure 5). (a) the teacher and the student count the steps by matching the plan against the robot’s actual movements (b) discrepancy observed between the planned and actual itinerary (different direction) (c) analysis of the problem (d) analysis of the problem and search for a solution teacher & student: one (.) two (.) three (.) four (.) five *the teacher points to the corresponding arrow* teacher: what went wrong? student: it went that way *pointing to the left* teacher: what happened? was it here that it went wrong? *points to the corresponding arrow* student: it should do this and then this *moves the robot along the route shown on the plan* teacher: what instructions do you need to give it to make it do that? figure 5. assessment of the program by a group of students: matching of the planned itinerary against the robot’s actual movements under the teacher’s guidance www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 49 published by scholink inc. in this phase, the teacher’s interventions played a key role in helping the students to work out the causes of the discrepancy (figure 5, picture (b)) and encouraging them to modify the program or the representation of the itinerary in cases where it lacked precision. by the end of the session, all the students were able to program a simple (triangular) route by programming a complete sequence or two subprograms (forward motion until rotation, forward motion following rotation). c) geneses during the process during the learning situation, the students shifted from a focus on the outcome of the process (i.e., the robot’s targeted destination) to a focus on the process implemented to achieve the outcome through the introduction of an intermediate phase: schematization. in the second phase (sessions 5 and 6), the structure of the task and the proposed mediations resulted in the students resorting systematically to an approach that involved planning the robot’s movements, thinking about the instruction sequence to be coded, implementing the program, and observing the discrepancy between the planned itinerary and the actual route performed. in doing so, the students gained an insight into the deferred nature of the execution of the program. by performing conversions between different representations of the itinerary (sketched plan, verbalization and bodily representation, or enactment, of the rotations, selection of instructions on the control console), the students also developed the ability to anticipate the sequence to be programmed and to implement increasingly elaborate action sequences. these conversions were governed by conventions proposed by the teacher. the concept of sequence or program was never verbalized by the teacher but emerged during the activity as a concept in action. 3.2 case study 2: a multiplicity of artefacts contributing to the construction of the concept of sequence in ce1, the teacher initially introduced the bee-bots with the simple aim of getting the students to program movements on a grid. having realized that the students felt the need to materialize the robot’s itinerary in order to picture it “in their mind”, the teacher introduced several artefacts in the following sessions, including a large board, a deck of cards, a small board, and a strip of paper representing the algorithm. drawing on the observations performed, this section describes the various instrumental geneses associated with the artefacts gradually introduced during the sessions in the different phases of the programming activity, together with their roles. the aim is to highlight the different conversions and transformations that they allow for and to determine how they contribute to conceptual development. 3.2.1 large board: an artefact proposed by the teacher to regulate the robot’s movements the students were given a large grid-patterned board consisting of squares corresponding to the length of the robot’s unit of movement (i.e., one step). the aim was to facilitate the process of breaking the robot’s movements down into steps. the teacher asked the students to observe the bee-bot’s www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 50 published by scholink inc. movements and encouraged them to plan its movements on the board. to facilitate the planning process, the start and finish squares were materialized using color cards positioned on the board (figure 6). figure 6. large board used to regulate the robot’s movements having initially been encouraged to imagine the bee-bot’s itinerary in their mind on the grid pattern, the students soon came to materialize the robot’s movements by moving the bee-bot manually from square to square (control by direct manipulation). in the following sessions, the teacher gradually introduced other artefacts to help the students anticipate the bee-bot’s movements. 3.2.2 coding cards as a mediating tool for designing an algorithm having observed that some of the students had struggled to memorize and communicate about the itinerary during the second session, the teacher suggested using cards (note 3) to help them map an itinerary from start to finish without having to manipulate it ( table 1). table 1. correspondence between buttons and cards r o b o t’ s ke ys c ar d s fr en touches du pupitre console buttons cartes de déplacement movement cards avancer forward reculer back gauche left www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 51 published by scholink inc. droite right commencer start vider clear guided by the teacher’s instructions, the students used the tool in two separate phases of the activity: the design of the itinerary (during which the students placed the cards on the large board in order to model the planned itinerary; figure 7), following by the implementation of the program (during which the students read the graphic instructions shown on the cards and pressed the relevant command on the robot’s console). in doing so, the students were able to convert the itinerary planned using the grid into instructions represented by the cards and, at a later stage, with the symbols represented on the robot’s tangible interface. the students encountered various difficulties in both phases of the activity. in the first phase (the design of the itinerary), the students struggled with the direction of the cards since they tended to rotate them, assigning meaning to both the cards and the rotation movements (figure 7). the symbolic representations shown on the cards gave the students the illusion of being able to perform the planned itinerary by carefully positioning the cards in such a way that they were adjacent to each other, even enabling connections. figure 7. planning of the itinerary with rotation of the “go” card by a quarter rotation to the right in the second phase (in other words, the phase corresponding to the implementation of the program), the students encountered difficulties by incorrectly representing the meaning of the cards, assigning to the “turn left” and “turn right” cards, in addition to rotation, a single-square forward movement action. their incorrect representation was compounded by the fact that the dimensions of each card were identical to the dimensions of each square, causing the students to place only one card on each square. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 52 published by scholink inc. having noted that the students were employing a “step-by-step” strategy, the teacher designed two new tools intended for different phases of the activity: a small board designed to facilitate the design of the planned itinerary and a strip of paper designed to support the programming of the robot. 3.2.3 the small board as an artefact for representing the itinerary based on shared norms in the third session, the students were given a grid-patterned paper board of smaller dimensions resembling the large board placed on their desk (“you’ve got your little plan now. you’re going to use it to trace the itinerary; it’s a miniature version of the itinerary”). during the session, the teacher emphasized two main functions of the artefact: memorization of the itinerary and communication within the group. by using this tool, the students were able to agree within their group on the planned itinerary by representing it using an erasable marker. the students took ownership of the tool by representing the itinerary in different ways (figure 8). (a) succession of straight segments (b) continuous curved line (c) succession of arrows figure 8. itineraries traced on the small board having been the initial focus of group activity, the itinerary traced on the small board then served as a tool for guiding the process of programming the robot (figure 8, picture (a); a conversion is performed, and the itinerary drawn is verbalized). the students struggled with spatial positioning and the direction of the small board relative to the large board, a problem which the teacher was able to solve by getting the students to project themselves onto the robot, saying: “the robot’s your eyes” (figure 9, pictures (b) and (c)). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 53 published by scholink inc. figure 9. programming using the small board and looking for errors with the teacher by using these artefacts, the students learned to embed an itinerary in both a delimited physical space (the large board) and a figurative space (the small board). as a result, they gradually came to understand the connection between an actual step and a grid-pattern step by using the squared surface to standardize the robot’s movement in terms of distance (number of squares) and direction. in doing so, the students were able to see that the itinerary was relative to initial conditions (square one). 3.2.4 the algorithmic strip as an artefact for supporting the design of the algorithm a) a guided instrumental genesis the students encountered difficulties in developing their program caused by the fact that the programming content entered into the robot’s console was not visible. to overcome these difficulties, the teacher introduced a new artefact in the next session: a strip of paper showing the algorithm. the tool was presented as a support for memorizing the implemented program and correcting errors: “to check things, you need to be able to see them. if there’s a mistake, the strip will help you to see it. that’s how you’ll realize there’s a mistake.” the students were therefore given a laminated strip designed to make the program visible and presentable. the strip also helped to structure the process of writing and reading the algorithm. the use of squares helped to improve the granularity of the algorithm, with the grid pattern suggesting that the instructions were sequential. since the strip was laminated, the routes drawn could be partially or fully erased using the marker. to help students take ownership of the artefact, the teacher then specified the sequence of actions to be performed with the various artefacts: “trace the itinerary on the small grid-patterned board, then note it www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 54 published by scholink inc. on the algorithmic strip to keep a trace of it, then program the robot using the strip”. the use made of the various tools was also discussed at the end of the session (“what difficulties did you encounter?”). figure 10. coding of the itinerary using the digital strip b) writing of the instruction sequence the digital strip was first used in a group setting with one student using the “small board” to control the direction of the robot (“turn, go forward”) and another student coding the robot’s movements using a symbolic representation similar to the representation found on the robot’s console (figure 10). the students were able to change the direction of the “small board” in such a way that the itinerary and the student’s body pointed in the same direction when designing the instruction sequence. in doing so, the students moved from an allocentric representation of the itinerary to an egocentric representation consisting of an ordered sequence of steps represented graphically on the algorithmic strip. figure 11. verbalizing the instruction sequence www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 55 published by scholink inc. second, the small board and the large board were used to check that the itinerary on the small board and the digital strip matched (figure 10, picture (b)). the digital strip was then used to program the robot by verbalizing the instruction sequence written on it prior to implementing it (figure 11). the first strategy involved verbalizing the program step by step (i.e., “go, go, go, turn right, go, go”). the second strategy involved breaking the itinerary down into several sections and then counting the squares to be traversed in each section before verbalizing them (“go forward three squares, turn right, go forward two”). this last strategy is similar to procedural programming in which program blocks are identified to form procedures. through the instructions and tools provided, a “total” programming strategy gradually came to replace a “step-by-step” strategy. in other words, the program corresponded to a sequence consisting of an ordered series of steps represented graphically on the algorithmic strip. by erasing its content partially or totally, the strip was used to develop the algorithm. c) an artefact for testing the algorithm combined with deictic gestures, the algorithmic strip became an instrument for testing the validity of the algorithm. students had to determine the degree of consistency between the number of squares traversed on the small board and the number of program steps on the strip. this process led to a number of difficulties. the first difficulty involved the notion of interval, with the students counting the squares forming the itinerary rather than the squares through which the itinerary passed. the second difficulty related to the instrumentation of the algorithmic strip: when the same square contained two instructions, only one instruction was counted. the teacher provided support during this matching process (figure 12). figure 12. combined reading of the itinerary and the program d) debugging in the event of an error being identified during movement, all or part of the instructions shown on the digital strip were erased or modified. three different procedures were used to develop the algorithm. in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 56 published by scholink inc. the first case, the algorithm written on the strip was completely erased (complete erasure) and then corrected and rewritten. in the second case, the algorithm was partly erased, starting from the square containing the error right up until the last square (partial erasure). in the third case, only the command or commands that were assumed to be incorrect were erased (targeted erasure) and corrected by leaving some of the squares empty or even by writing two steps in the same square. 3.2.5 introducing a new task and a second algorithmic strip to learn how to use the “pause” button reflecting on the value of using the pause button, the teacher opted to turn the matter into a problem for the students by introducing a second bee-bot. the aim was to encourage the students to design two programs and to use a pause instruction to avoid a collision between the two robots. the students were given a second algorithmic strip to help them synchronize the movements of the two bee-bots (figure 13). figure 13. the two algorithmic strips a) description of the activity in the first phase, the students were encouraged to use the pause button and found that pressing it when the robot was in motion had no effect. within each group, discussions among the students, supported by directly manipulating the robots, helped them to reconsider their use of the pause button. during these exchanges, the pause function acquired the status of an instruction—a status further reinforced by the introduction of a symbol used to represent it on the algorithmic strip alongside the movement instructions. the students were also encouraged to materialize the square on which the instruction had to be executed (figure 14). numerous conversion processes were found to be at work: the symbol on the control interface, likened, through the button’s color, to a control command for the execution of the program, was converted into different kinds of graphic representations capable of being inserted into the instruction sequence, thereby becoming just one instruction among others. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 57 published by scholink inc. figure 14. positioning of the “pause” instruction in the second phase, the students were required to program the robots to perform two movement sequences that crossed paths by using the pause instruction to avoid collisions. in this phase, the students made use of all the instruments (small board, digital strips and associated gestures) previously involved in forming a system of instruments performing complementary roles in order to design the robots’ itinerary, define each robot’s instruction sequence, implement the sequence, and debug the program if necessary. the difficulty lay in synchronizing the two robots. in the event that the two robots collided, the students returned to using the direct manipulation strategy employed in the first sessions. by manually simulating each robot’s movements, the students were able to reflect further on the potential uses of the pause instruction. b) error management the learners realized that an error had occurred if the robots collided. various strategies were used to avoid collisions, including modifying both programs, adjusting the execution time by incorporating pauses, or delaying one of the robots by holding it back. by using specific strategies to optimize their algorithm, the students learned that a movement instruction involves both a spatial and a temporal dimension. the simultaneous execution of two programs also served to introduce the students to the concept of event—in particular, the event of triggering movement. c) instrumental and conceptual geneses in this learning situation, following an introduction to the robots involving direct manipulation and then direct control, different artefacts were introduced in succession to help the students graphically represent the itinerary to be executed and the instruction sequence to be implemented and thereby support group discussion, the implementation of the program, and debugging. through their properties (size, shape, etc.), each artefact was designed to generate specific representations of the itinerary and of the instruction sequence. analysis shows that the students converted the artefacts into instruments within their groups by incorporating them into action sequences gradually forming schemes (i.e. unchanging structures of action), with the teacher providing guidance in specifying their roles and, in the event of difficulty, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 58 published by scholink inc. supporting the students by demonstrating how to use them. the instruments were organized into an instrumental system (rabardel & bourmaud, 2003), with each instrument performing a role complementing that of the others. the resulting instruments enabled numerous conversions, including: matching of the space within which the robot moves (large board) with a standardized figurative space (small board). conversion of an allocentric representation of the itinerary into an egocentric representation by manipulating the direction of the small board and by projecting oneself “into the eyes” of the bee-bot. conversion of a continuous representation of the itinerary into a representation using symbols similar to those found on the robot’s control pad. conversion of a two-dimensional representation of the itinerary into a linear representation, imposed by the characteristics of the algorithmic strip materializing the sequential nature of the instructions. verbalization of the itinerary in a more or less condensed form and subsequently implemented on the bee-bot. matching of the bee-bots’ movements with the various intermediate representations constructed to test the validity of the program. it should be noted, however, that this process was not supported by all the artefacts. for example, while the symbols shown on the deck of cards had a similar shape to those found on the robot’s control pad, the partial consistency of the action that they allowed for in each of the registers caused confusion. the numerous abstractions required to construct the concept of sequence are thus embedded and materialized by the artefacts and the associated action sequences, thereby forming a concrete abstraction of the concept of sequence. 4. discussion the focus of this paper was the activity of students aged 6 to 8 years old during robotics learning sessions designed and implemented by two elementary school teachers (with the objective being to program a bee-bot’s movements along a route mapped by the students). the aim was to examine the role of semiotic and material artefacts during the learning process. the findings highlight their importance in the construction of the symbolic representations making up the formal language to be acquired by students when learning how to program (bers, 2019) and of the concept of instruction sequence. in both case studies, the learners initially encountered difficulties often faced by programming beginners, including difficulties in interpreting the robot’s behavior (duboulay, 1986; levy & mioduser, 2008) and in taking into account the deferred nature of the execution of the program (rogalski, 2015). like other learning situations (for example, kalas et al., 2018), to overcome these difficulties, the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 59 published by scholink inc. students initially resorted to manipulating the robot directly. they then went on to develop more sophisticated strategies involving direct control, associated with a step-by-step strategy (in which the instruction given is immediately executed) and, at a later stage, computational control. the latter strategy involves programming the instruction sequence to be executed by the robot. in the first case study, the shift from direct control to computational control achieved by all the students involved producing a plan of the itinerary. the task forced the students to defer the actual programming work in order to focus on planning. producted by incorporating collectively designed conventions, their graphic representations used as a structuring instrument for programming the robot, supporting conversions from one semiotic register to another (duval, 2006, 2017) and serving to anticipate the program to be implemented. by way of complementing the graphic representation, the students showed initiative by using their body as an instrument for supporting the conversion from an allocentric representation to an egocentric representation to handle changes in direction. in doing so, the students were forced to consider the deferred nature of the execution of a program, to appropriate the symbolic representations used to code, and to adopt an investigative and exploratory approach. by the end of the session, all the students were able to program a simple itinerary consisting of several steps and one or two rotations. in the second case study, the transition from direct control to computational control was made possible by the teacher introducing several artefacts (large board, small board, algorithmic strip), choices prompted by the specific difficulties encountered by the students. the properties of the artefacts (shape, size, pre-existing inscriptions) restricted the representations which the students could construct of the planned itinerary. by being gradually associated with collectively constructed, socially shared schemes organized into systems (rabardel & bourmaud, 2003), the artefacts-turned-instruments helped to direct the students’ attention to the properties relevant to programming (standardized length of the robot’s step, sequentiality of the program): representing traces of programming based on a process of collective co-construction, these instruments supported numerous conversions between different semiotic registers. these caused the students to move from a continuous, allocentric and two-dimensional representation to a discontinuous, sequential and standardized representation focused on the robot’s axis of rotation. once the instrumental system was in place, all the students were able to program complex itineraries (consisting of a significant number of steps and multiple rotations), to debug them, and to plan the itinerary of several robots within the same space. however, the study found that the various artefacts were not equally effective in supporting the construction of symbolic representations necessary for programming. in the second case study, while the teacher opted to use a deck of coding cards with symbols similar to those found on the robot’s control pad, as in other scenarios designed by researchers (komis & misirli, 2015, 2017), the effect was different. the schemes associated with the cards (note 4)—i.e., placing cards on the board—were not effective in enabling the learners to become sufficiently detached from “doing” to anticipate the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 60 published by scholink inc. robot’s movements. in the scenario proposed by komis and misirli (2015; 2017), another scheme was associated with the cards: students were required to place the cards sequentially on a small ruler, enabling them to move from a two-dimensional representation of the itinerary to a linear sequential representation before programming. in both case studies, the students experienced difficulties in representing changes in direction. these difficulties may be interpreted as a lack of congruence between the symbols used by the learners, the symbols shown on the bee-bot’s tangible interface to represent rotations, and the action performed. as noted by duval (2006; 2017), the conversion from one representation to another occurs spontaneously when they are congruent, i.e. when there is a semantic correspondence between the signifying units, the same mode of understanding these units in the two representations, and the possibility of converting an initial signifying unit into a single signifying unit in the final representation. when programming a change in direction, these are only partially consistent. on the control interface, the “right arrow/left arrow” buttons suggest movement directed to the right or the left, yet they activate a rotation movement. in the representations initially used in class (on the plans, the cards, and the algorithmic strip), the representation of a change in direction corresponded not to one but to two instructions (go, turn/turn, go), thereby causing confusion. several limitations are worth noting. first, video data is dense, including interactions between students and teacher. the role played by these social mediations have been analyzed in another paper (nogry, 2019). in these case studies, several groups were filmed during each session. similar schemes and conversions were observed between them. however, such a study would benefit from being supplemented by a more systematic analysis of one group activity, session after session. this would enable a more systematic analysis of micro-geneses mediated by artefact during the learning process for each group member, in order to document the collective and individual learning processes. an intrinsic analysis of the activity could complement these video data, highlighting the concerns of each learner, what s/he pays attention to, or the meaning s/he constructs during the activity (dieumegard et al., 2019). 5. conclusion following mioduser et al. (2009), this study highlights the embeddedness of the process of abstraction in teaching and learning. more specifically, by articulating semiotic perspective and instrumental approach, it identifies the different functions ensured by semiotic and material artefacts during the programming learning process. in our view, these results support the hypothesis that the ability to understand what an action sequence is and to implement it requires students to be able to perform multiple conversions from one semiotic register to another, to the point of being able to use symbolic representations corresponding to programming language. these conversions are not simply the result of individual mental activity. https://www.linguee.fr/anglais-francais/traduction/more+specifically.html www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 61 published by scholink inc. rather, in becoming instruments, they support both individual and collective activity, shaping and constraining the construction of these semiotic representations. the semiotic representations developed and inscribed on these artefacts are also governed by conventions developed collectively in class. they serve to keep a trace of the group’s activity, support each individual’s reasoning, and promote coordination within the group. the move from one representation to another is managed collectively during this process. this study highlights the need for a more systematic analysis of the roles performed by the artefacts used and inscriptions produced in studies devoted to the learning process. to complement this study, conducted among children aged 6-8 years discovering it for the first time, further research is needed to improve our understanding of the role of semiotic and material artefacts in the robotics learning process from a developmental perspective by combining microgenetic and ontogenetic approaches. at a methodological level, the analysis of student activity based on video recordings of sessions could be extended by taking into account students’ perspective on their own activity with a view to understanding their experience during the learning process and the meanings constructed by students in these situations (decortis, 2015; dieumegard et al., 2019; jung & won, 2018). this study also has implications for teaching, highlighting the need to design a range of artefacts capable of supporting the production of semiotic and material artefacts consistent with computational language and the concepts that need to be developed in designing pedagogical scenarios. with the design process continuing through usage and practice (folcher & rabardel, 2004), the instrumental geneses that students associate with these artefacts in specific situations deserve particular attention. acknowledgments this study was funded by the french national research agency (anr dalie & ie-care projects). we are especially grateful to the teachers who participated in the study, as well as the participating students and their families. we also wish to thank georges-louis baron for reviewing our manuscript so carefully. this work is dedicated to the memory of françois villemonteix, who launched the ie-care project and was an ardent supporter of it teaching. references abrahamson, d., & lindgren, r. 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(2016). a review on the use of robots in education and young children. journal of educational technology & society, 19(2), 148-163. yasar, o. (2018). computational thinking, redefined. in society for information technology & teacher education international conference (pp. 72-80). association for the advancement of computing in education. wing, j. m. (2006). computational thinking. communications of the acm, 49(3), 33-35. https://doi.org/10.1145/1118178.1118215 wu, t. t., & chen, j. m. (2021). combining webduino programming with situated learning to promote computational thinking, motivation, and satisfaction among high school students. journal of educational computing research. https://doi.org/10.1177/07356331211039961 notes note 1. this case study was also described in another paper examining the different forms of supporting explanations provided by the teacher in a given learning situation (nogry, 2019). note 2. this paper presents an analysis of the social mediations provided by the teacher during the sessions. note 3. the deck of cards consisted of six different cards of similar dimensions to those of a single square on the large board. each card showed an icon resembling the icon on the bee-bot’s buttons and captioned with a word describing the corresponding action. a small dot located in the lower righthand corner of each card was used to facilitate the process. note 4. this scheme consisted in placing them on the board by way of representing the itinerary in the form of instructions and in inscribing a rotation movement on the cards to simulate the bee-bot’s movements https://doi.org/10.1145/1118178.1118215 https://doi.org/10.1177/07356331211039961 microsoft word fet-v3n2-p37.doc frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 37 original paper effectiveness of the modified “alpabasa”: a game-based program in teaching reading among the grades 3 and 4 non-readers john kit s. masigan, phd1* 1 st. paul university philippines, tuguegarao city, cagayan, philippines * john kit s. masigan, phd, t. paul university philippines, tuguegarao city, cagayan, philippines received: may 9, 2020 accepted: june 8, 2020 online published: june 11, 2020 doi:10.22158/fet.v3n2p37 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v3n2p37 abstract the national association of educational progress (naep) report shows that 39 percent of fourth graders fall below a basic reading level; by twelfth grade that figure is still 23 percent. accordingly, early intervention initiatives should impact those figures in the future to eliminate the segment of students who have significant difficulty acquiring basic reading skills, generally estimated at 20 percent. in response, filipino innovators founded “alpabasa”, a game-based program in teaching reading that aims to effectively teach kinder and elementary school children how to read in 18 days. the study made use of the quasi-experimental method, specifically, the pre-post test design to investigate the effectiveness of the modified “alpabasa”: a game-based program in teaching reading among 60 grade 3 and 4 non-readers of st. paul university philippines by incorporating costumes, music, movement, games, theatrical presentations and supplemental activities in learning. findings show that the exposure of non-readers to the modified alpabasa reading program resulted in better performance of the students in reading. through action songs and movement-based activities, pupils are geared to play with language as learning situations are made concrete and realistic; thus, making reading more meaningful, interesting and engaging. keywords modified alpabasa, reading program, non-readers, game-based program, quasi-experimental research design www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 38 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction “the more that you read, the more things you will know. the more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” dr. seuss, a prominent author, puts it that way. through ages, the world economy has always considered education as a defining conduit for progress. across cultures, it has always been a catalyst to propagate and to perpetuate. more than a privilege, it is a needa need to learn life from the grassroots and a need to survive on the arising complexity. the primordial intent of such pedagogical concept is to equip a learner with appropriate literacy and skills which are deemed valuable in response to the needs of the changing society. relatively, literacy is identified as the ability to read and write a simple message in any language or dialect with precise comprehension. be it known that it is a prerequisite for several means of discourse, learning reading and writing allows people to participate meaningfully in life situations that require a reasonable capacity to communicate in written and oral language. be it survival or functional, it is essential reading—practical reading—a kind of reading a person must use in a daily basis to become receptive on information designed to make life’s decisions. its value can be traced from the most practical way of understanding print materials of all sorts, recognizing sign boards and public statements, following instructions and warnings, keeping abreast with current events, and enjoying one’s rights and privileges. the simplest, most direct measure of functional literacy then is the ability to recognize, comprehend and utilize written chain of thought for even the most basic tasks. in an adverse circumstance, filipino sociolinguists claim that the philippines is not a nation of readers; it is a nation of storytellers. their oral culture was passed on by word of mouth, and not through written words. based on the record of the functional literacy, education and mass media survey (flemms) 2003, philippines’s functional literacy rate was determined to be 84.1 percent of the population aged 10-64 years old. it was further discussed by juan miguel luz (2007) in his writing “a nation of non-readers”, that this relatively lower figure reflects the high dropout rates of children before the start of grade 4 (or by age 10). department of education (deped) data show that for every 100 children who enter grade 1, close to 15 do not make it into grade 2, and roughly one-quarter (24 percent) have dropped out before grade 4. grade 3 (10 years old) is a critical year in terms of formal schooling. since preschooling is neither compulsory nor part of the package of free public education guaranteed by the constitution, grade 3 marks the third full year of basic education for children who attend public elementary school and the year when the facility to read, write, and do the four operations of arithmetic with competence is expected. (less than 20 percent of those who go to public elementary school actually attend a full year of preschool education.) dropping out before this grade level thus becomes a major contributor to the lack of functional literacy, which in turn has a negative impact on adults and their eventual work productivity. this is assuming, of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 39 published by scholink inc. course, that by the end of grade 3 (or the third year of formal full-time schooling), our children’s competence in the three rs are being honed fully. but as we are seeing, that may not be happening in far too many schools. the latest national association of educational progress (naep) report shows that 39 percent of fourth graders fall below a basic reading level; by twelfth grade that figure is still 23 percent. according to them, early intervention initiatives should impact those figures in the future to eliminate the segment of students who have significant difficulty acquiring basic reading skills, generally estimated at 20 percent. with low level literacy comes poor reading skill. in elementary schools in the division of manila, reading test scores reveal that only one-sixth to one-third of pupils can read independently at the desired grade level. by the end of the elementary cycle (grade 6), over one-third of elementary graduates were identified as “frustrated” readers; another one-third were “instructional” readers. both levels are below the desired reading level at the end of the elementary cycle. with all the aforementioned claims of luz (2007), it’s logically perceived that if metro manila achieves low level reading competence, how much more in the other regions with less budget allocations and scarce educational facilities than the national capital region? will poor reading competence result to poor learning? what interventions have schools and agencies done to cater this long overdue plight of filipino learners? in fairness to all educational initiatives, reading programs, in fact, have been set up in all school divisions by both public and private groups. the deped actually embarked on a program to build reading hubs in each of the 186 school divisions. however, as to the optimum success of this program, it would not only rely on the provision of libraries, but more so to its strategic system of implementation. thus, there is a high demand for an innovative approach to learning reading so that we can truly achieve high literacy and transform to be a nation of readers. on july 21, 2015, the pharmaton company awarded the winners in the pharmaton’s “life changers challenge: success in numbers” competition—an online, video-driven nationwide search for filipinos who carry life changing ideas that can positively impact the lives of other filipinos. among all contenders, the project that clinched the grand prize was the “alpabasa”, a game-based program in teaching reading which consists of series of flash cards of the most common filipino objects a child would encounter along with the letters of the filipino alphabet and the common syllables. the instructional materials were created by learning lion publishing house, inc. through the initiative of the founders, tisha gonzales-cruz, noelle pabiton and sholeh villoria, who embarked on a life-changing project to effectively teach kinder and elementary school children how to read in 18 days. according to the online news written by bing parel (2015), teacher tisha started developing reading materials on her own, and pretty soon, she met more and more people who shared the same passion—burden in fact—for teaching filipino children how to read. as everyone knows, education is the great equalizer but it starts with knowing how to make heads or tails about the letters of the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 40 published by scholink inc. alphabet, figuring out the relationship between one letter with another for comprehension and understanding to occur. more than the lack of materials in the classroom, or the dearth of effective filipino reading programs and the poor reading skills among public school students and children in underserved communities, what really resonated was also the need for more systematic teacher training. ms. tisha further asserted, “many of the students had poor foundations in literacy and numeracy. watching my students struggle to read, and struggle to learn, led me to realize that the key to solving educational problems is going back to the beginning—preparing the students rather than remediating.” when asked what significant results they have witnessed as a consequence of their reading program, the young educators readily answered: “a teacher who piloted alpabasa last may shared with us that one of her students (a grade 1 repeater) is now topping the class, despite underperforming during the summer reading program. even this student who had a difficult time during the program still ended up performing better than his peers who did not learn through alpabasa.” (parel, 2015) the researcher, having attended the dream expo of the tosp 2015 national week where ms. tisha presented the renowned innovative project, was deeply inspired to introduce such reading program in his own locality. relatively, the philippine accrediting association of schools, colleges and universities (paascu) laid a general recommendation, particularly in the area of instruction, to conduct remedial classes or learning assistance program (lap) for st. paul university philippines—basic education unit, having being granted a level 3 status. in timely response to the plight of the increasing number of non-readers in the elementary level of st. paul university philippines—basic education unit, particularly grades 1-4, the alpabasa program is deemed to be modified and tested while integrating creative innovations that would suit the learners needs and contextualize learning situations. the modifications from the original alpabasa include wearing of costumes during reading sessions; theatrical presentations as supplement to story books; readers’ and chambers’ theater as means of story-telling; literary texts taken from literatures of cagayan valley; and utilization of the high-technology equipment in the spup speech laboratory. it is with this passionate zeal that the researcher thought of coming up with the study that would investigate the effectiveness of the modified “alpabasa”: a game-based program in teaching reading among grade 3 and 4 non-readers of st. paul university philippines by incorporating costumes, music, movement, games, theatrical presentations and supplemental activities in learning, with the goal to make fluent readers out of every filipino child. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 41 published by scholink inc. conceptual framework figure 1. paradigm showing the relationship among the input, process and output figure 1 shows the interplay of the concepts under study. the input includes the purchased original alpabasa instructional cards and learning sets from the learning lion publishing company. these materials were carefully considered as a basis to modify the existing game-based program by integrating more multi-sensory learning approaches in reading. the standard pre-post tests were taken from the learning sets containing the skill-based assessment checklist. in the process of testing the effectiveness of the modified alpabasa, a pretest was administered to assess the entry level skills of the two groups of subjects. the control group was taught using the lecture-discussion method of teaching while the experimental group was exposed to the modified alpabasa program. after all sessions have been covered, the post test was administered to both the control and the experimental groups. after which, analysis of the pretest and posttest scores of the two groups was carefully done to ascertain the effectiveness of the modified alpabasa as a game-based program in teaching reading among grades 3 and 4 non-readers. the output therefore of the study is the modified alpabasa which integrated the use of costumes by the teacher; theatrical performances as supplement to story books; contextualized literary pieces taken from the literatures of cagayan; and the use of high-technology equipment in the spup speech laboratory. 1.1 statement of the problem this study attempts to investigate the effectiveness of the modified alpabasa: a game-based program in teaching reading among the grades 3 and 4 non-readers of st. paul university philippines. specifically, it sought to find answers to the following questions: 1) what are the pre-test and post-test mean scores of the control and the experimental groups in reading? 2) is there a significant difference in the pretest mean scores of the control and experimental groups? 3) is there a significant difference in the posttest mean scores of the control and experimental groups? 4) is there a significant difference in the pretest and posttest mean scores of the subjects in the experimental groups? www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 42 published by scholink inc. 1.2 hypotheses relative to the aforementioned questions, the following null hypotheses will be tested at the 0.01 level of significance: 1) there is no significant difference in the pretest mean scores of the control and the experimental groups. 2) there is no significant difference in the posttest mean scores of the control and experimental groups. 3) there is no significant difference in the pretest and posttest mean scores of the subjects in the experimental group.   2. method 2.1 research design the study made use of the quasi-experimental method, specifically, the pre-post test design. the following shows the design of the experiment. group pretest teaching method post test c o1 x1 o2 e o3 x2 o4 where: c = control group e = experimental group o1 = pretest scores of the control group o2 = posttest scores of the control group o3 = pretest scores of the experimental group o4 = posttest scores of the experimental group x1 = traditional method of teaching x2 = alpabasa reading program the design involved two groups, the control and experimental groups. a pretest was administered to both groups to ensure equality of their entry requirements before the experimental stage. the lecture-discussion method was employed for the control group while the alpabasa reading program was utilized for the experimental group. the researcher himself, having undergone the alpabasa training served as the teacher who facilitated teaching reading for both the control and experimental groups. 2.2 participants of the study the study involved the grades 3 and 4 pupils who were enrolled in spup-beu. using the skill-based assessment checklist provided in the alpabasa learning package, the researcher, who is at the same time the english subject teacher of grade 4, conducted a diagnostic observation on the recognizable skills displayed by the grade 4 pupils in their english classes. also, the english subject teacher of grade 3 recommended 50 students who were subjected to pre-assessment by the researcher. 39 out of 50 grade www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 43 published by scholink inc. 3 pupils, and 24 out of 110 grade 4 pupils were identified to be in the “non-reader” level after obtaining a score of 20 and below in the 40-item standard assessment checklist. they were arranged in order from highest to lowest, and the bottom 60 was taken. all odd numbers were taken as one group, and all even numbers as the other group. hence, 30 students in each class were assigned at the start of the reading session. one class, assigned as the control group was taught using lecture-discussion while the other class, assigned as the experimental group was taught using the modified alpabasa reading program. 2.3 research instruments alpabasa learning sets. these were purchased from the learning lion publishing house inc. which was carefully planned and validated by the project founders. there are 8 learning sets (steps 1-8), having specific target skills in each step/stage. these were innovatively modified by the researcher and used with the experimental group. these were presented to the research adviser, vice-president for academics and the principal of the basic education unit for validity. a standard pre-post test was administered to both control and experimental groups which was taken from the alpabasa learning package. this skill-based assessment checklist contains 40 essential reading skills which are deemed to be mastered by pupils. these are classified into 10 components, namely, action, sound, action-sound correspondence, print, action-print correspondence, sound-print correspondence, word building, decoding, listening comprehension, and vocabulary. 2.4 data gathering procedure the researcher employed the following procedures in the conduct of the experiment. 2.4.1 pre-treatment phase a week after winning in the pharmaton life changers contest, ms. tisha, a founder of the alpabasa project, presented the program in the tosp 2015 dream expo. then on, the researcher made a constant communication with her in order to introduce alpabasa in the cagayan province. alongside the purchasing of the learning sets which include the instructional cards, flashcards, charts, and music files, specialized training was also set as part of the whole package. the researcher added modifications in the originial alpabasa, which includes the use of costumes by the teacher; theatrical performances as supplement to story books; contextualized literary pieces taken from the literatures of northern philippines; and the use of high-technology equipment in the spup speech laboratory to strengthen its multi-sensory approach. the literary pieces included in the modification were subjected to content validation by the language subject team leader of the basic education unit and were presented to the research adviser. the scores obtained by the 60 respondents in their diagnostic observation were taken as their pre-test scores prior to their exposure to the teaching methods. the results of the pretest were recorded and later compared with the results of the post-test. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 44 published by scholink inc. 2.4.2 treatment phase the researcher sought permission and approval from the vice president for academics, and the principal of the basic education unit. certain modifications on the program and specifications on the experimental design were also presented to the graduate school office through writing. the treatment was conducted during the second week of march 2016. the class session for both groups strictly followed 6 wednesday and saturday mornings of 3 hours per day and the only difference was the approach employed. the researcher facilitated the classes with the two groups employing the lecture-discussion method and the modified alpabasa program for the control group and the experimental group respectively. both classes were conducted at the same time schedule (9:00-12:00) under the same learning environment. the schedule was followed as shown on the table below. 1st week wednesday (9:00-12:00) control group saturday (9:00-12:00) experimental group 2nd week wednesday (9:00-12:00) experimental group saturday (9:00-12:00) control group 3rd week wednesday (9:00-12:00) control group saturday (9:00-12:00) experimental group 4th week wednesday (9:00-12:00) experimental group saturday (9:00-12:00) control group 5th week wednesday (9:00-12:00) control group saturday (9:00-12:00) experimental group 6th week wednesday (9:00-12:00) experimental group saturday (9:00-12:00) control group 2.4.3 post-treatment phase after exposure to the reading method, the researcher administered the posttest to both the control and the experimental groups, still using the skill-based assessment checklist. the results of the post-test were recorded and were compared with the results of the pre-test scores in order to determine whether a significant difference exists in the performance of the two groups, and to ascertain which method of teaching is effective. 2.5 data analysis the data obtained were classified, analyzed and interpreted making use of the following statistical tools such as frequency count, mean, percentages, and t-test for independent means and paired samples. frequency count, mean, and percentages were used to interpret the pre-post test performance scores of the two groups. to interpret further the raw scores of both groups in the pre/post test, the following arbitrary scale was used: www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 45 published by scholink inc. score descriptive interpretation 31-40 independent reader (ir) 21-30 beginning reader (br) 20-0 non-reader (nr) the t-test for independent means and paired samples was used to determine the significant difference in the following: pretest mean performance scores of the control and experimental groups. pretest and posttest mean performance scores of the subjects in the experimental groups. posttest mean performance scores of the control and experimental groups. 3. result table 1. frequency and percentage distribution of the pre and post test scores for both the control and experimental groups based on the alpabasa skill-based checklist assessment scores control group ( n=30) experimental group ( n=30) descriptive interpretation (d.i.) pretest posttest pretest posttest f % f % f % f % 31-40 13 43.33 23 76.67 independent reader (ir) 21-30 17 56.67 7 23.33 beginning reader (br) 0-20 30 100 30 100 non-reader (nr) mean 16.67 28.63 16.77 34.87 d.i. non-reader beginning reader non-reader independent reader table 1 shows that with respect to the pretest scores, both control and experimental groups have the same pre-test performances which are qualified under “non-reader” level, as shown by the frequencies in the interval 0-20, and the mean scores which vary only by 0.10. the means indicate that both groups are identified as non-readers before exposure to the treatment. this further implies that the two groups are comparable with respect to their baseline levels in the skills targeted by the alpabasa reading program. considering the post-test scores, majority or 56.67% of the pupils in the control group scored within the range 21-30, while majority or 76.67% of the students in the experimental group scored within the range of 31-40. only seven (7) or 23.33% of the pupils in the experimental group got scores within the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 46 published by scholink inc. range 21-30 while thirteen among the pupils in the control group scored 31-40. this means that the students in both groups had improved performance after the conduct of the intervention. the mean score of 28.63 of the control group indicates a “beginning reader” level, while the mean score of 34.87 of the experimental group indicates an “independent reader” level. the difference in the post test mean scores implies that the experimental group performed better than the control group. table 2. t-test for significant difference in the pretest mean scores of the control and experimental groups in reading test group mean sd df t-value p-valu e remarks pre-test control (n=30) 16.67 2.617 58 0.149 .882 not significant experimental (n=30) 16.77 2.596 as shown in table 2, the mean pretest scores of the control and experimental groups are 16.67 and 16.77 respectively. the computed t-value of 0.149 and the probability value of 0.882, indicate that the difference between the means of the two groups is not significant at 0.01 level. this implies that the two groups are comparable with respect to their baseline level on the skills targeted by alpabasa before they were exposed to the treatments. table 3. t-test for significant difference in the posttest mean scores of the control and experimental groups in reading test group mean sd df t-valu e p-valu e remarks post-test control (n=30) 28.63 4.156 58 5.641 0.00 significant experimental (n=30) 34.87 4.400 as reflected in table 3, the posttest mean scores of the control and experimental groups are 28.63 and 34.87 respectively. the mean performance score of the experimental group is higher as compared to the control group which means that the experimental grouped performed better in the posttest. the computed t-value of 5.641 and the probability value of 0.00 with 58 degrees of freedom, indicate that the difference between the means of the two groups is significant at 0.01 level. this implies that the performance of the students who were exposed to the modified alpabasa reading program was www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 47 published by scholink inc. significantly better than the performance of those who were exposed to the lecture-discussion method. hence, the use of the modified alpabasa is effective in enhancing mastery of reading skills. this result is consistent with abeberese, kumler (2009) who pointed out in their study, “enabling young readers: a primary school reading program in the philippines” that implementing short-term programs which promote readingsuch as storytelling sessions and reading gamescan be an effective way to cultivate good habits in children and improve their reading ability. however, the modified alpabasa contradicts the findings of shippen, houchins et al. (2004) which confirmed the effectiveness of teacher-directed instruction for struggling readers in attaining word reading efficiency, reading rate, reading accuracy, and reading fluency. table 4. t-test for significant difference between pre-test and post-test mean scores of the experimental group in reading variables mean mean difference df t-value p-value remarks pre-test 16.67 -18.100 29 -34.129 0.00 significant post-test 34.87 table 4 shows that the pretest mean score of the subjects in the experimental group is 16.67, while their post-test mean score is 34.87. the computed t-value of -34.129 and the probability value of 0.00 which is less than the 0.01 level of significance indicate that the mean difference is statistically significant. this means that the post-test mean score of the experimental group is significantly higher than that of the pre-test mean score. this implies further that the use of the modified alpabasa as a game-based reading program is effective in enhancing mastery of reading skills essential to becoming an independent reader. this finding supports the claim of majeda al sayyed obaid, ph.d. (2013) who found out that elementary school children learn best in a tactile/kinesthetic style. when students can manipulate and experience conceptual information through activities, only then, will they learn and retain information more readily. also, dima hijazi and amal al-natourr (2012) stressed that music can actively process new stimuli and infer the rules of language. it may code words with heavy emotional and contextual flags, evoke a realistic and cogent environment, and enable students to have positive attitudes, self-perceptions, and cultural appreciation. likewise, hubbal, lambert et al. (2007) on their study, claimed that game-based approaches have made significant contributions to developing students as stakeholders in the learning process; and enhances the development of positive learning outcomes. moreover, the results affirms stager (2010) who asserted that his current study has demonstrated support for the establishment of automaticity via flashcards as an effective instructional approach for increasing reading fluency and comprehension skills in spanish. yasin aslan (2011) further emphasized www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 48 published by scholink inc. that with an appropriate english course, they are extremely good at helping students build a large vocabulary. children generally find it easier to associate images with words and this is why many of the flashcards feature word related pictures. 4. discussion 4.1 conclusion the exposure of non-readers to the modified alpabasa reading program resulted in better performance of the students in reading. this then implies that through the modified alpabasa, learning is facilitated as the students break down reading into games, songs, sounds, actions, and visual integrations. through action songs and movement-based activities, pupils are geared to play with language as learning situations are made concrete and realistic, thus making reading more meaningful, interesting and engaging. a skill-based assessment for reading also facilitates pupils to unlearn previous inaccurate reading processes; and build new schema which ensures mastery of essential competencies through fluency-based exercises. effective reading development takes place when there is a good blend of games, costumes, theatrical presentations, contextualized reading texts, musical-kinesthetic activities, and advanced technology speech equipment, all integrated to real life situations as these develop meaningful understanding of reading concepts and processes. the modified alpabasa therefore enhances children’s motivation and skills in reading. it encourages pupils to actively engage themselves in interactive discussions, manifest enthusiasm, learn from each other and make connections. 4.2 recommendations on the basis of the findings and conclusions derived from the study, the following recommendations were made: 1) teachers are encouraged to employ the alpabasa reading program and other innovative teaching-learning approaches in order to enhance students’ reading skills and facilitate conceptual understanding of reading concepts and processes. this can be done through the conduct of more meaningful and engaging activities in the classroom, thereby improving their reading performance or achievement. 2) language teachers are encouraged to prepare/develop personalized visual materials, songs and games for their reading classes as these will facilitate the teaching and learning of reading. 3) the administration may continuously support the use of alpabasa learning sets and other innovative teaching-learning models/approaches/strategies in the teaching-learning of reading in order to achieve the goals of the k-12 performance-based learning. 4) future researchers may conduct parallel studies to verify the results of this investigation not only in the field of reading but also among other macro-skills. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 49 published by scholink inc. references 12 components of research-based reading programs. 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(304895503). retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/304895503?accountid=33657 microsoft word fet-v2n2-p108 frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 108 original paper appropriate technology in knowledge management for public university lecturers cruthaka c.1* 1 faculty of human resource development, ramkhamhaeng university, bangkok, thailand * cruthaka c., e-mail: cchomsupak@yahoo.com received: april 30, 2019 accepted: may 6, 2019 online published: may 7, 2019 doi:10.22158/fet.v2n2p108 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v2n2p108 abstract in this research objective was to studies appropriate technology for knowledge management in the case of public university lecturers. using the delphi technique, the researcher conducted interviews with twenty experts involved in education administration, academic affairs, and knowledge management at institutes, faculties, offices, and educational institutions. data were collected from the experts three times. the first round involved structured interviews. the second and third rounds involved the use of a five-rating scale questionnaire. computing the median for the data collected from the experts. thence the median was determined for the lower and upper quartiles. the values for the criteria used by the researcher were a median at the high level upwards greater than 3.50 (md>3.50) with a concomitant interquartile range of less than 1.50 (>1.50). findings show that appropriate technology in knowledge management for public university lecturers as agreed by experts consists of five aspects: (1) knowledge acquisition; (2) knowledge creation; (3) knowledge storage and access; (4) knowledge sharing; (5) learning. of the 37 items appropriate technology found at the highest level pertains to 15 items. at a high level 22 items are found. the median ranged from 3.72 to 4.95 and the interquartile range was from 0.25 to 1.19. keywords technology, knowledge management, public university lecturers, delphi technique 1. introduction at present, public and private universities are expanding educational opportunities by developing a large number of curriculums in order to fully respond to the needs of students. this results in an increase in the quantity of new lecturers each year. new lecturers’ knowledge and capabilities are at a certain level. therefore, the lecturers must be supported and encouraged by universities to the end of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 109 published by scholink inc. enhancing their knowledge such that they will have the capabilities required for efficiently carrying out their duties. changes in thai society and political policies have involved paying heed to the creation of innovation in work performance requiring technology for making changes in work performance (the ministry of education, 2017). therefore, it is necessary to develop the capabilities of lecturers in performing work in respect to instruction, research, and providing academic services to society (cruthaka & pinngern, 2016). in this connection, one method is to use a concept of knowledge management as an instrument for developing formal and informal knowledge on the part of university lecturers. this goes to ensure knowledge sharing apropos both tacit (implicit) and explicit (manifest) knowledge which can in turn be used to create new bodies of knowledge through study, research and analysis and synthesis involving research and providing academic services to society and the community (cruthaka, 2019). knowledge management in various forms should be carried out such that knowledge is stored and affords opportunities for easily and quickly accessing knowledge in a thorough manner. technology can be used as a tool in knowledge management to foster knowledge storage, knowledge accessibility, and knowledge usability. technology can be used in knowledge sharing and knowledge transfer. a system can be constructed to retrieve knowledge. a network can be created to transfer knowledge. agencies should support and assist in transferring knowledge. knowledge management should also be able to develop knowledge continuously (cruthaka, 2017). awad and ghaziri (2004) explain the life cycle of knowledge management applied to organizations as follows: (1) capture: knowledge is searched for and absorbed using e-mail, audio files and digital files in which appropriate sources of knowledge are engaged. (2) organizing: knowledge is organized and filtered for easy use by means of the methods of indexing, cataloging, coding, thereby providing easy and quick access to knowledge. (3) refining: knowledge is systematized and extracted as explicit (manifest) knowledge, viz., in the forms of concepts, performance, projects, all of which are stored in an organizational knowledge trove. and (4) transfer: organizations must organize activities so that personnel in the organization can exchange knowledge in an efficient manner by making work flow charts, through knowledge sharing, and pushing by means of promoting knowledge for their personnel. these ideas can be developed through retrieving knowledge from knowledge troves in order to use the knowledge and to develop new knowledge. this leads to decision making and planning for the development of work performance engaging the work capabilities of lecturers as providing a source of intra-organizational knowledge. most important is the fostering of trust and good relations which will result in willingness to share and exchange knowledge among themselves. an information technology (it) system will lend convenient and quick support to the management of knowledge while keeping pace with the need to use knowledge. the role of it is to serve as a source of knowledge that stores knowledge systematically, is easy to access, and has the capabilities required in knowledge exchange in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 110 published by scholink inc. order to search for knowledge thoroughly and widely on the part of the members of a community employing knowledge networking (cruthaka, 2017). the researcher is therefore interested in using technology in knowledge management for university lecturers in order to facilitate knowledge acquisition, knowledge creation, knowledge storing and retrieving, knowledge sharing, and learning from utilizing knowledge. the researcher studies and pays heed to technology in various forms appropriate to the roles of public university lecturers in thailand in order to design a knowledge management system for university lecturers in the future. 2. method 2.1 study group experts in this descriptive research inquiry, the researcher studied technology appropriate for knowledge management by public university lecturers. the delphi method was used to collect coherent opinions expressed by experts. the research population consisted of experts in education administration, academic affairs, and knowledge management at institutes, faculties, offices, and educational institutions. the members of the sample population were selected in accordance with research objectives. the sample population consisted of those having qualifications as based on the following criteria: group 1: in this context, experience in the field of education determines those who are qualified by virtue of being or having been administrators of institutes, faculties, offices, and educational institutions. educational qualifications are at least a master’s degree or higher with work experience in education administration of not less than two years. group 2: lecturers holding a position as a specialist in a technical area at institutes, faculties, offices, and educational institutions. educational qualifications are at least a master’s degree or higher with work experience in academic affairs at faculties or universities of not less than two years. group 3: lecturers responsible for knowledge management at institutes, faculties, offices, and educational institutes. educational qualifications are at least a master’s degree or higher with experience in knowledge management of not less than two years. 2.2 instruments and delphi technique the research instrument used to collect data were questionnaires constructed by the researcher. the data were collected by means of the delphi method for three rounds. the first-round questionnaire was a structured interview form consisting of six items presented as interview questions. three experts tested the instrument for clarity, accuracy, and appropriateness prior to the interviews. the second round questionnaire was constructed on the basis of analyses of the contents of answers collected through the questionnaire employed in the first round. the contents were constructed in the form of a five-rating scale questionnaire pertaining to technology appropriate to knowledge management for public university lecturers in five aspects composed of 40 items. experts next www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 111 published by scholink inc. expressed opinions apropos the levels of technology appropriate to knowledge management pursued by public university lecturers on the basis of the contents of the interviews conducted with experts. opinions were solicited as well as recommendations for adjusting expressions and the language used. next, the instrument was analyzed in terms of median (mdn) and interquartile range (iqr). the language and contents were then adjusted once more as based on recommendations made by the experts. the third-round questionnaire was then used with the same information as contained in the second round with information having been adjusted for certain items so as to be clearer in meaning than the original. the mdn and the iqr were accordingly increased on the basis of the analysis of the answers by all nineteen experts. this confirmed the answers taken from the opinions given as answers to repeated questions. experts could then consider their own responses through multiple rounds. the validity of the opinions of experts was then established. the third-round questionnaire concerned appropriate technology for knowledge management by public university lecturers in five aspects with 37 items. the results from the third round questionnaire were analyzed so as to establish the mdn and the iqr. the considerations concerning the technology appropriate for knowledge management showed that the experts expressed concurrent opinions whose mdn was not less than 3.50 and whose iqr was not more than 1.50. the results were summarized in which the summary detailed the establishing of the technology which would be appropriate for knowledge management at public universities (sisathitnarakun, 2008). statistical techniques utilized in data analysis were mdn, quartile deviation (qd) and iqr. 3. result 3.1 the technology appropriate for knowledge acquisition the technology appropriate for knowledge management by public university lecturers in the aspect of knowledge acquisition were nine items whose mdns ranged from 3.72 to 4.67 and whose iqr ranged from 0.25 to 1.19. the experts exhibited concurrent opinions vis-à-vis six items as being appropriate at the highest level. the three items at a high level. as shown in the table 1. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 112 published by scholink inc. table 1. median and interquartile range of the opinion regarding the level of technology appropriate for knowledge management by public university lecturers in the aspect of knowledge acquisition knowledge acquisition mdn iqr opinion level 1. seeking tools for retrieving a worldwide database 4.67 0.25 highest 2. technology used in retrieving information, viz., computers and the internet network or 3g and 4g mobile technology 4.67 1.19 highest 3. internet tools, such as google scholar, e-data derived from websites 4.62 0.25 highest 4. papers found through employing the internet, e-books media 4.54 0.30 highest 5. social network online 4.50 0.25 highest 6. electronic online media 4.50 0.25 highest 7. faculty and university websites 4.49 0.25 high 8. free ware open courseware 4.00 0.65 high 9. wikipedia resources 3.72 0.61 high 3.2 the technology appropriate for knowledge creation the technology appropriate for knowledge management by public university lecturers in the aspect of knowledge creation involved four items exhibiting a mdn ranging from 4.00 to 4.95 and an iqr ranging from 0.26 to 1.08. one item for which the experts exhibited concurrent opinions was deemed appropriate at the highest level. three items were taken to be appropriate at a high level. as shown in the table 2. table 2. median and interquartile range of the opinion regarding the level of technology appropriate for knowledge management by public university lecturers in the aspect of knowledge creation knowledge creation mdn iqr opinion level 1. technology used in the creation of work such as document typing and making presentation slides 4.95 0.26 highest 2. youtube 4.35 1.08 high 3. word; the use of excellent atlas programs 4.09 0.89 high 4. infographic clip video 4.00 0.75 high www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 113 published by scholink inc. 3.3 the technology appropriate for knowledge storage and access the technology appropriate for knowledge management by public university lecturers in the aspect of knowledge storage and access pertained to ten items with mdns ranging from 3.78 to 4.65 and iqrs ranging from 0.25 to 0.81. the experts evinced concurrent opinions for four items as being appropriate at the highest level. six items were appropriate at a high level. as shown in the table 3. table 3. median and interquartile range of the opinion regarding the level of technology appropriate for knowledge management by public university lecturers in the aspect of knowledge storage and access knowledge storage and access mdn iqr opinion level 1. technology used for collecting and storing knowledge in a systematic manner; easy and rapid retrieval employing computers; internet networking or mobile technology 4.65 0.25 highest 2. cloud computing 4.62 0.25 highest 3. database multimedia 4.57 0.25 highest 4. website databases 4.54 0.30 highest 5. electronic media 4.49 0.42 high 6. drop box 4.40 0.65 high 7. blog gotoknow 4.09 0.81 high 8. electronic files or template 4.08 0.75 high 9. google application 3.96 0.69 high 10. outlook 3.78 0.61 high 3.4 the technology appropriate for knowledge sharing the technology appropriate for knowledge management by public university lecturers in the aspect of knowledge sharing with ten items displayed mdns ranging from 3.80 to 4.95 and iqrs ranging from 0.25 to 0.75. experts showed concurrent opinions for three items as being appropriate at the highest level. seven items found to be appropriate at a high level. as shown in the table 4. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 114 published by scholink inc. table 4. median and interquartile range of the opinion regarding the level of technology appropriate for knowledge management by public university lecturers in the aspect of knowledge sharing knowledge sharing mdn iqr opinion level 1. email 4.95 0.26 highest 2. technology as a resource for knowledge dissemination; tools for exchanging results and responses; inquiring; discussions and summarizing of knowledge 4.62 0.25 highest 3. facebook 4.50 0.25 highest 4. group line official 4.08 0.75 high 5. management learning systems involving networks 3.96 0.69 high 6. community of practice (cop); professional learning community (plc) 3.96 0.69 high 7. chat room 3.93 0.65 high 8. youtube 3.92 0.74 high 9. weblog 3.85 0.75 high 10. could computing conference 3.80 0.65 high 3.5 the technology appropriate for learning the technology appropriate for knowledge management by public university lecturers in the aspect of learning encompassed four items with mdns ranging from 4.00 to 4.62 and iqrs ranging from 0.25 to 0.81. experts concurred in respect to one item as being appropriate at a high level. three items considered appropriate at a high level. as shown in the table 5. table 5. median and interquartile range of the opinion regarding the level of technology appropriate for knowledge management by public university lecturers in the aspect of learning learning mdn iqr opinion level 1. technology assisting in the dissemination and utilization of knowledge in the forms of distributed documents, websites, books, textbooks, sheets, lecture slides, academic articles, and research papers 4.62 0.25 highest 2. youtube 4.11 0.70 high 3. open courseware 4.09 0.81 high 4. digital device knowledge 4.00 0.65 high www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 115 published by scholink inc. 4. discussion the technology appropriate for knowledge management by public university lecturers for which the experts showed concurrent opinions were five aspects with 37 items governing necessary competencies at the highest level with 15 items. necessary competencies at a high level were 22 items. the researcher explains each aspect as follows: 1) the aspect of knowledge acquisition. findings showed that the technology appropriate for knowledge management by public university lecturers in the aspect of knowledge acquisition with nine items showed concurrence by the experts in respect to six items deemed appropriate at the highest level. the experts concurred in finding three items to be appropriate at a high level, viz, seeking tools for retrieving worldwide databases; technology used in retrieving data such as computers and the internet networks or 3g and 4g mobile technology; and the internet tools of google scholar and e-data base websites. at present, university lecturers use technological capacities as a tool for knowledge management involving applications and internet networking with notebooks, desktop computers, and advanced mobile technology with high speed internet signals. those can be used for retrieving a body of knowledge systematically stored in databases from various worldwide resources. this finding is in accordance with the ideas of earmsiriwong (2014) who said that applications on the internet favored at a high level were search engines that helped users to access and search for knowledge given on webpages. this finding was also in consonance with namprasertchai (2015) who asserted that technology was a tool for supporting knowledge management at both the personal and the organizational level. communication technology helped personnel to access various fields of knowledge in an easier and more convenient manner. communication can be conducted with experts in various fields. information and knowledge needs can be searched on the internet and internet networks. this finding also accords with the research investigated by nisong and dajmanee (2015) entitled communication and the use of information technology in knowledge management at rajavithi hospital. findings showed that personnel used information technology in the type of websites. concerning opinions toward the use of it, it was found that personnel used it for additional study for themselves at the highest level. 2) the aspect of knowledge creation. findings showed that the technology appropriate for knowledge management by public university lecturers in the aspect of knowledge creation involved four items with one item exhibiting concurrent opinions as being appropriate at the highest level. three items which were deemed appropriate at a high level in descending order were technology used in creating work such as typing documents and making presentation slides with youtube and word; the use of excellent atlas programs; and infographic vdo clips. university lecturers applied word processing, microsoft office excel, database programs, presentation programs, graphics, and multimedia programs in order to collect a body of knowledge which was then analyzed and synthesized. the body of knowledge can be summarized in terms of various forms of presentation: textbooks, books, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 116 published by scholink inc. documents accompanying knowledge presentations, and electronics media. these can also be uploaded on youtube. this is in accordance with the ideas of namprasertchai (2015), who said that technology conducive to knowledge management was epitomized by youtube, a center for various kinds of video clips. they have good content and are entertaining. the contents contain both deep knowledge and simple knowledge. this is in accordance with the research investigation conducted by onkaeo and kotong (2012) entitled “the design and development of information systems for knowledge management by public organizations.” findings showed that the information system model for knowledge management for public organizations consisted of the following systems: articles; activity pictures/activity calendar; link; weblog; downloading; video; document management; frequently asked questions (faqs), social media; and webboard. this accords with the research investigation of cruthaka (2019) entitled “the development of appropriate knowledge management models for public university lecturers.” findings showed that the components of the knowledge management model appropriate for public university lecturers in the aspect of knowledge creation were synthesizing the knowledge collected and the integration of knowledge and experience which may be in the form of infographics to make it easy to understand. 3) regarding the aspect of knowledge storage and access, it was found that the technology appropriate for knowledge management by public university lecturers in the aspect of knowledge storage and access constituted ten items with the experts expressing concurrent opinions as being appropriate at the highest level for four items. six items were considered appropriate at a high level. the first three items were technology used in the systematic collection and storing of knowledge; speedy and easy retrieval using computers; and internet networking or mobile technology, cloud computing, and database multimedia. university lecturers conduct studies and research to enhance their academic position, for academic development, and for professional reasons. they need technology to collect information and knowledge. at present, computer networks and mobile technology are designed to accommodate the system of cloud computing so as to store a great deal of knowledge. knowledge can be accessed everywhere and at any time. this is in accordance with earmsiriwong (2014), who said that germane software programs had to be installed in computers and software programs worked on the web as well. many companies have prepared online applications such as google docs and office web apps from microsoft that help access and share work and documents on browsers so that documents can be accessed anywhere through computers or other mobile equipment with the ability to connect with the internet. knowledge can be collected on clouds such as through microsoft onedrive with space containing information on clouds so that said information can be accessed everywhere in the world. this is in accordance with the research investigation conducted by tunjaw (2012) on the information technology model and communication in knowledge management at higher education institutions in thailand. he found that research findings, theses and dissertations can be collected in automated systems. documents pertaining to subjects and instructional media can be produced in the form of digital courseware. tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge can be recorded in km websites. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 117 published by scholink inc. this is in accordance with the research conducted by cruthaka (2019) on the development of a knowledge management model appropriate for public university lecturers. findings showed that the components of an appropriate knowledge management model for public university lecturers in the aspect of knowledge storage and access were the making of files; knowledge databases being inspected and indexed for system access via dropbox, google drive, cloud computing, and outlook express for windows. knowledge can be stored as pertaining to research, instruction and study, and references. 4) the aspect of knowledge sharing found that an appropriate technology for knowledge management by public university lecturers consisted of ten items with three items deemed appropriate at the highest level by experts exhibiting concurrent opinions. seven items were considered appropriate at a high level. the first three items with which the experts were concerned showing concurrent opinions were e-mail; technology used to disseminate knowledge and tools for knowledge exchange, responses, discussions, and summaries of knowledge; facebook and line. lecturers use email, line, and facebook in their daily life to communicate and to exchange information and knowledge. this is in accordance with the ideas of namprasertchai (2015) concerning technology used in knowledge management, especially facebook which is a social network system with the highest number of members. this is a channel for disseminating interesting knowledge. qualifying for facebook enables users to access and obtain knowledge easily. this is in accordance with the research investigation conducted by cruthaka (2019) entitled the development of an appropriate knowledge management model for public university lecturers. findings showed that the components of an appropriate knowledge management model for public university lecturers in the aspect of knowledge sharing were sharing work on websites, by means of social media, line and microsoft office for windows, and web board questions and answers (q & a). 5) concerning the aspect of learning, it was found that the technology appropriate for knowledge management for pubic university lecturers broached in four items show one item which the experts concurred in the opinion that it was appropriate at the highest level with the other three items being appropriate at a high level. in descending order the items were that technology would help disseminate knowledge obtained and utilized in the form of website documents, books, textbooks, sheets, lecture slides, academic articles, and research investigations; youtube and open courseware; and digital device knowledge. university lecturers use technology as a resource for learning. the knowledge obtained is used in writing articles, textbooks, and research investigations so as to further knowledge in various forms. a new body of knowledge came into view in consonance with the research investigation conducted by junwong et al. (2013) entitled an application of quality information technology for knowledge management using webblog. findings showed that the model of an application of quality information technology for knowledge management using weblogs is conducive to implementing knowledge ensuring in turn that users find it convenient to use the knowledge thereby collected. the goal is for users to have the tools for retrieval, printing, or sharing on social network. they can check the statistics governing the implementation of knowledge on weblogs. the tools used include the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 118 published by scholink inc. installation of tools for typing email and sharing on social networks; the installation of tools to send articles by e-mail; the tools to check urls introduced on weblogs; the tools to inspect websites introduced on weblogs; the tools use in inspecting keywords for the sake of retrievals; tools for examining broken links; the quantity of social network shares; and the quantity of weblog followers. this finding is in consonance with tunjaw (2012), who conducted research under the title of the information technology model and communication on knowledge management at higher education institutions in thailand. it was found that the characteristics of information and communication technology (ict) in knowledge management at higher education institutions in thailand consisted of a system of e-books used to provide access to textbooks. subject documents and instructional media can be made into digital lessons in the form of courseware. references awad, e. m., & ghaziri, h. m. (2004). knowledge management. new jersey: pearson education inc. cruthaka, c., & pinngern, o. (2016). the development of a training program for the enhancement of the technology competencies of university lecturers. international journal of educational administration and policy studies, 8(6), 57-65. cruthaka, c. (2017). principles of knowledge management. bangkok: ramkhamhaeng university public company. cruthaka, c. (2019). the development of an appropriate knowledge management model for public university lecturers. asian journal of education and training, 5(1), 236-242. https://doi.org/10.20448/journal.522.2019.51.236.242 earmsiriwong, o. (2014). computer science and information technology. bangkok: se-education public company limited. junwong, s., yuapanee, w., sirinawakun, b., & donjoho, w. (2013). the application of quality information technology for knowledge management with weblog usage. journal of western rajabhat university, 8(1), 71-86. namprasertchai, s. (2015). knowledge management. bangkok: se-education public company. nisong, w., & dajmanee, o. (2015). communication and use of information technology in knowledge management. journal of the graduate school, 3(1), 1155-1166. onkaeo, s., & kotong, s. (2012). the design and development of information system for knowledge management of thai public organizations. granted by phranakhon rajabhat university. sisathitnarakun, b. (2004). the methodology in nursing research (3rd ed.). bangkok: u&i intermedia limited. the ministry of education. (2017). the national education plan 2017-2026. bangkok: prigwhan graphic. tunjaw, s. (2012). an information and communication technology model for knowledge management in institution of higher education in thailand. a dissertation presentated to ramkhamhaeng www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 119 published by scholink inc. university in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of doctor of philosophy (human resources development), copyrighted ramkhamhaeng university. frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no.3, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 147 original paper the innovation and practice of synergistic cultivation model of integrating the spirit of volunteer teaching in western china into the moral education of college english huijun fu1 & feipeng li1 1 college of foreign language education and international business, baoding university, baoding, china received: august 10, 2023 accepted: september 3, 2023 online published: september 15, 2023 doi:10.22158/fet.v6n3p147 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v6n3p147 abstract volunteer teaching in western china is an important initiative to serve the development of the western region of the country and contribute to the talent and science education of the west region. as a distinctive culture of baoding university, volunteer teaching in western china is rich in educational values. based on college english course, this paper mainly discusses the current dilemmas of the moral education of this course, puts forward synergistic cultivation strategies of integrating the spirit of volunteer teaching in western china into the moral education of college english, and presents some preliminary achievements of the synergistic cultivation model. it is expected that this research will promote the combination of college english teaching and patriotic education, realize the fundamental task of fostering virtue through education, and increase the output of volunteer teaching talents. keywords volunteer teaching, moral education, college english, synergistic cultivation 1. introduction education is of critical importance to the future of china. what kind of people we should cultivate, how, and for whom—these are the fundamental issues that education must address. the most fundamental object of education is to foster virtue. in december 2016, the national conference on ideological and political work in colleges and universities (ministry of education, 2016) instructed that “we should use classroom teaching as the main channel, so that all kinds of courses and ideological and political theory courses go in the same direction and form a synergistic effect”. the symposium for teachers of ideological and political theory courses in schools (2019) emphasized again that “we www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 148 published by scholink inc. should improve the curriculum system and address the interplay between various types of courses and the ideological and political courses”. in may 2020, the ministry of education issued the guideline for the construction of curriculum-based ideological and political education in higher education institutions (2020), which provides detailed instructions on how to promote and implement the construction of curriculum-based ideological and political education in all kinds of courses. the guideline also stresses public fundamental courses should focus on strengthening students’ ideals and beliefs, fostering patriotism, enhancing moral cultivation, increasing knowledge and insight, fostering a striving spirit, and upgrading students’ comprehensive qualities in an imperceptible manner. all of these above have pointed out the direction for the moral education of the college english curriculum in the new era. since 2003, the central committee of the communist youth league and the ministry of education decided to jointly implement china’s “go west” program, which is an important strategic initiative in serving the strategy of large-scale development of the western region, the strategy for invigorating china through science and education and the strategy of workforce development. volunteer teaching in western china is a manifestation of china’s “go west” program. baoding university, a local application-oriented university in china’s hebei province，has responded to the call of the country by sending a batch of graduates to teach in the west since 2000. in 2014, on the eve of china’s youth day, general secretary xi replied to representatives of baoding university’s graduates teaching in rural areas of western china, highly praising their excellent deeds and noble spirit. xi (2014) said, “striving together with the people, advancing together with the motherland, serving the people and dedicating yourself to the motherland are the right direction for contemporary chinese youth.” today, volunteer teaching in western china has become a shining symbol of baoding university, which is also in line with the report to the 20th national congress of the communist party of china (2022), which addresses that “we will accelerate high-quality, balanced development and urban-rural integration in compulsory education.” in the future, baoding university will cultivate more students to serve the west. in the context of the teaching reform of college english, volunteer teaching in western china, as a distinctive culture of baoding university, can provide a wide range of teaching materials for the moral education of college english course. to integrate the spirit of volunteer teaching in western china into the moral education of college english can realize a synergistic cultivation effect, thus cultivating more qualified talents who can contribute to the national rejuvenation. 2. the dilemmas of the moral education of college english at baoding university in order to investigate the current state of the moral education in college english at baoding university, a questionnaire was designed and conducted among the teachers undertaking the teaching task of college english course. a total of 28 respondents took part in the survey, including 4 male teachers and 24 female teachers. the respondents have a reasonable age distribution with young and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 149 published by scholink inc. middle-aged teachers taking the majority (32.14% of teachers aged 30-40 and 39.29% of teachers aged 40-50). teachers over 50 and under 30 account for 14.29% respectively. the overall age distribution shows three generations, old, middle-aged and young. at the same time, there are 2 professors, 6 associate professors, 14 lecturers, and 6 teaching assistants, thus forming a good pattern of guidance and assistance. all of the 28 copies of the questionnaire are valid. however, the results of the questionnaire are not satisfactory in view of the teaching objectives of the college english course. judging from the current state of moral education in college english at baoding university, the researcher concludes that the dilemmas mainly come from the following three aspects: (1) little connection between campus culture and the content of the college english course. most of the respondents have involved moral education in the teaching of the college english course, but they haven’t paid enough attention to campus culture, such as volunteer teaching in western china. as it is one of the campus-based moral education resources, it has the unique advantage of being understood and accepted by students. if the teaching materials for volunteer teaching in western china were fully explored, it would be a useful addition to the moral education content of college english. in addition, there is a lack of english-language materials related to volunteer teaching in western china. (2) single teaching mode and students’ weak moral and political literacy. some teachers are too blunt in the integration of moral education into college english teaching, thus making the moral education too obvious and unnatural. in this way, students may feel that the teacher is lecturing and they have little interest in learning. moreover, online and offline blended teaching has not been sufficiently developed. teaching methods are not diverse. students have not been given enough realistic communication scenarios of volunteer teaching. the curriculum evaluation is not comprehensive. all of the above problems are not helpful in shaping the values of students, or in cultivating their moral and political literacy. (3) limited teaching and research ability in moral education of college english. although all the teachers teaching college english at baoding university have received relevant training in moral education, they still lack the practical skills and research foundation for moral education. some teachers have not learned enough about the theoretical knowledge of moral education. they find it difficult to establish a moral education matrix of knowledge points and elicit empathy in students. at the same time, the enthusiasm of teachers to study the moral education of college english needs to be promoted. 3. synergistic cultivation strategies of integrating the spirit of volunteer teaching in western china into the moral education of college english college english is a course full of cultural exchanges between the east and the west. to meet the standard of golden course, college english teachers should integrate effective moral education to shape students’ right worldview, outlook on life, and values while teaching english knowledge and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 150 published by scholink inc. developing english skills. the previous study has shown the deficiencies existed in the present moral education of college english and the value of teaching the spirit of volunteer teaching in western china. in view of the fact that baoding university holds the excellent tradition of volunteer teaching in western china, it is convenient to select relevant materials for moral education in college english. therefore, it is feasible to explore the synergistic cultivation strategies of integrating the spirit of volunteer teaching in western china into the moral education of college english. the specific strategies adopted are as follows: 3.1 incorporate volunteer teaching spirit into course syllabuses of college english course syllabuses are revised in accordance with the philosophy of obe (outcome-based education). at the same time, benjamin bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives, university orientation and characteristics of different majors are considered in the revision process. according to bloom, the learning process can be divided into six stages, namely, remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating and creating. therefore, the revised course syllabuses should follow the cognitive process of the learners. besides, the orientation of baoding university is to cultivate applied talents so as to meet the needs of society. since baoding university has a long tradition of teacher education and volunteer teaching in western china is part of the campus culture, it has already become one of the university’s responsibilities to train a group of teachers to pursue volunteer teaching or talents with the spirit of volunteer teaching. in view of the above, it is quite necessary to incorporate the spirit of volunteer teaching into the course syllabuses of college english, which not only reflects the moral education of this course, but also contributes to the development of qualified teachers or other competent talents from cognitive, emotional and skill perspectives. first, researchers have conducted an in-depth study of the spirit of volunteer teaching in western china, which includes dedication, kindness, friendship, perseverance and many other valuable qualities. second, researchers have optimized the course syllabuses of college english after several rounds of discussions. some improvements have been made to highlight knowledge imparting, competence cultivation and value leading. third, the spirit of volunteer teaching in western china has been incorporated into the overall teaching objectives of college english, specific unit objectives and even the lesson objectives. at the same time, other improvements including the improvements in teaching contents, teaching methods, teaching evaluation, etc. will be discussed in the following sections. it is hoped that the revised course syllabuses of college english will fully display the instrumental and humanistic features of college english, and further strengthen the inheritance of the spirit of volunteer teaching in western china. 3.2 dig deeper into teaching materials on volunteer teaching in western china teaching materials is an important part for moral education of college english course. in order to collect more teaching materials on volunteer teaching in western china, researchers have made full use of various information resources, such as news reports, documentaries, movies, and dramas. relevant materials can be classified into the following categories: (1) national theoretical documents and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 151 published by scholink inc. president xi’s important speeches and replies on volunteer teaching in western china; (2) current news on volunteer teaching in western china; (3) history of volunteer teaching in western china by baoding university; (4) typical volunteer teaching stories of graduates of baoding university; (5) volunteer teaching activities in western china for students at baoding university. these materials are precious teaching materials. here, taking typical volunteer teaching stories of graduates of baoding university as an example, the stories are collected as shown in the following table (part of the content): table 1. typical volunteer teaching stories of graduates of baoding university character story hou chaoru ms. hou conducts psychological training before exams to guard students’ mental health. li guizhi ms. li tells students about the world outside the desert and encourages them to explore the value and meaning of life. xin zhongqi mr. xin is willing to spend his whole life fulfilling his promise “i won’t go away”. yue gang mr. yue tells the story of commuting by the iron rope bridge. the digging of those materials should reflect the emotional and moral values of the volunteer teaching group, as well as their professional orientations. the relevant teaching material database is under construction. meanwhile, the materials can be presented in different forms. for example, the translation of the documentary bloom, which was released by baoding university in 2020, has been incorporated into some translation exercises. in this way, materials on volunteer teaching in western china can truly serve as a useful addition to the moral education materials in college english. 3.3 innovate teaching methods and promote interactive teaching flexible and different teaching methods should be adopted in the synergistic cultivation of integrating the spirit of volunteer teaching in western china into the moral education of college english course. based on specific teaching content, teachers may adopt heuristic teaching method, task-based teaching method, project-based learning, flipped classroom, production-oriented approach, and so on. in the process of teaching, teachers should utilize the online and offline resources to conduct blended teaching. they also need to pay attention to the implicit integration of moral education to avoid direct lecturing. interactive teaching is quite necessary. the spirit of volunteer teaching in western china may appear in the training of a variety of language skills, such as listening, speaking, talking, writing and translation. teachers should play the leading role and activate students’ critical thinking. let’s take the warm-up part of iexplore 1 of unit 4 on the road in ienglish 2 (an integrated course) as an example. after leading students to listen to a video clip about the changes travel has brought to different individuals, the teacher leads students to finish listening exercises. then students have a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 152 published by scholink inc. discussion about the opinion “travel makes people more of what they are not”. the discussion is learning-centered. students work in groups and share their different opinions. the teacher gives effective feedback to each group and creates a scaffold at the right time, which is a video clip created by one student who has just finished the volunteer teaching internship in xinjiang province. then students have a further discussion about the meaning of travel. finally, the teacher leads the students to realize that compared to some daka trips, which mean some trips just for the sake of taking a few attractive photos to prove they’ve been there, the real value of travel is to pursue and realize one’s personal dreams. in this part, volunteer teaching material is integrated quite naturally, which will definitely influence students’ value options. in order to cultivate more volunteer teachers, college english teachers also need to focus on sharpening students’ basic teaching skills through some activities. besides, english second classroom activities related to volunteer teaching in western china should be encouraged, for example, drama performance, micro-lecture competitions, speech contests, etc. these activities may help students to strengthen their autonomous learning ability, intercultural communication skills, deeper learning ability as well as volunteer teaching awareness. 3.4 develop a comprehensive teaching evaluation system a comprehensive teaching evaluation system is critical to improve the teaching quality and enhance the educational effect of college english course. first, in the synergistic cultivation of integrating the spirit of volunteer teaching in western china into the moral education of college english, evaluation subjects should be diverse, including the steering groups of baoding university and college of foreign language education and international business, college english teachers undertaking this teaching reform, other college english teachers, students, etc. second, various forms of teaching evaluation need to be involved, such as teacher evaluation, student self-assessment, teacher-student cooperative evaluation, peer assessment, and machine evaluation. besides, teachers should pay attention to the combinations of instant evaluation and delayed evaluation, as well as quantitative evaluation and qualitative evaluation. third, it is necessary to reasonably set the ratio of process assessment and final assessment. so far, the process assessment has increased to 50%. finally, in terms of the evaluation of teaching contents, in addition to assessing students’ basic english knowledge, teachers need to integrate volunteer teaching content into the assessment content of the college english course, so as to provide positive guidance to students’ teaching practice skills, values, ideals, beliefs, moral characters, etc. therefore, through the adoption of the above measures, a comprehensive teaching evaluation system can be gradually established. 3.5 enhance teachers’ abilities in teaching and research of moral education college english teachers are the organizers and administrators of classroom activities of college english course, as well as monitors and guides for the healthy development of students. hence, enhancing teachers’ abilities in teaching and research of moral education is quite necessary. first, college english teachers need to improve their moral and political awareness. they need to seriously www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 153 published by scholink inc. study president xi’s thought on socialism with chinese characteristics for a new era, fully implement the guiding principles of the 20th cpc national congress, adhere to the party’s education policy and nurture more talents for the party and the country. during the implementation of this project, college english teachers have carefully studied the relevant documents of volunteer teaching in western china, grasped the local education situations, and deeply comprehended the connotation and characteristics of the volunteer teaching spirit. second, a specialized teaching and scientific research team on volunteer teaching in western china has been developed. the team organizes regular seminars, explores relevant teaching materials, invites outstanding teachers to present domos, and conducts research activities on practical teaching of the moral education of college english course. third, baoding university organizes various activities related to moral education of different courses each year, such as teaching competition, teaching case contest, teaching reform project, etc. college english teachers are encouraged to participate in these activities, and attempt to integrate volunteer teaching spirit in western china into these activities, which provide precious opportunity for college english teachers’ personal development and will also improve their educational and research performances. 4. preliminary achievements of the synergistic cultivation model through the adoption of the synergistic cultivation model of integrating the spirit of volunteer teaching in western china into the moral education of college english, preliminary achievements can be seen from the following aspects: first, students can tell good stories about volunteer teaching in western china, and their awareness of volunteer teaching is rising. up to now, students have participated in the translation task of volunteer teaching in western china. through reading relevant materials, students can feel the hardship of volunteer teaching in western china, and the volunteer teachers’ noble state of mind. they delve into those materials for deeper reflection. after that, they try to translate the materials, discuss the translation scripts cooperatively, and revise their translations. in this process, students also obtain a deeper understanding of the spirit of volunteer teaching in western china. besides, based on the translation scripts, students exert their imagination to direct and perform plays in front of the class, which not only improves their oral expression and cross-cultural communication skills, but inspires their passions for volunteer teaching in western china. they are willing to overcome all kinds of difficulties and dedicate themselves to the cause of education in western china. second, concerning volunteer teaching in western china, college english teachers have made some related progress in teaching and scientific research fields. in the teaching field, the synergistic cultivation program of integrating the spirit of volunteer teaching in western china into the moral education of college english has been formulated and implemented. based on production-oriented approach (poa), typical cases of integrating volunteer teaching in western china into the writing teaching of college english have been collected. meanwhile, volunteer teaching elements have been reflected in competitions like english micro-lecture competition, english golden course competition, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 154 published by scholink inc. etc. in scientific research field, relevant papers have been published, for example, strategies of native culture integration in college english teaching based on “education of chinese ethics and culture in all courses”, study on college english teaching based on the concept of ideological and political education in all courses, the integration of socialist core values with college english teaching under the concept of “ideological and political theory teaching in all courses”, etc. besides, relevant scientific research projects are underway including research on the construction of deep learning-oriented college english blended golden course in the context of new liberal arts, research on the practical path of integrating university-based distinctive culture into blended teaching of college english under teachers’ profession accreditation, etc. all these scientific researches contribute to the improvement of college english teaching. 5. conclusion as a compulsory course, college english lasts for two years and involves a wide range of students, which makes this course become a good carrier of moral education. the spirit of volunteer teaching is quite beneficial to the cultivation of students’ patriotic feelings, social responsibilities, ideal pursuit, and attitudes toward life. integrating the spirit of volunteer teaching in western china into the moral education of college english to explore the synergistic cultivation model is an innovation of college english reform. the study of this project mainly focuses on the dilemmas of the moral education of college english at baoding university, the corresponding strategies for synergistic cultivation, and preliminary achievements of the synergistic cultivation model. the practice proves that this study not only promotes teachers’ teaching skills, but also contributes to the output of talents for teaching in western china. the research results of this project can also serve as a reference for related projects on curricular moral education. funding this research is under the projects: 2021-2022 teaching reform research and practice project of baoding university (no. jg202108), and 2022 english teaching reform research and practice project of hebei colleges and universities (no. 2022yyjg062). conflicts of interest the authors declare no conflicts of interest regarding the publication of this paper. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 155 published by scholink inc. references hold high the great banner of socialism with chinese characteristics and strive in unity to build a modern socialist country in all respects—report to the 20th national congress of the communist party of china. (2022). xinhuanet, 2022-10-25. retrieved from https://language.chinadaily.com. cn/a/ 202210/25/ws635a3223a310fd2b29e7edc8.html ministry of education of the people’s republic of china. (2016). national conference on ideological and political work in colleges and universities. retrieved from http://www.moe.gov.cn /jyb_xwfb/s6052/ moe_838/201612/t20161208_291306.html ministry of education of the people’s republic of china. (2020). the guideline for the construction of curriculum-based ideological and political education in higher education institutions. retrieved from http://www.moe.gov.cn/srcsite/a08/s7056/202006/t20200603_462437.html symposium for teachers of ideological and political theory courses in schools. (2019). people’s daily, 2019-03-19(01). xi, j. p. (2014). replies to representatives of graduates from the west china teaching program at hebei baoding university. retrieved from http://politics.people.com.cn/n/2014/0504/c1024 -24968468.html https://v.qq.com/x/page/h08517i174x.html frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no.4, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 1 original paper effects of motivational interviewing and mindfulness-based cognitive therapies on academic burnout among extra-mural students in ekiti state dr. bamidele joke fowowe-ogunmilugba1 & prof. rotimi adebayo animasahun1 1 department of counselling & human development studies, university of ibadan, ibadan, nigeria received: june 17, 2023 accepted: july 24, 2023 online published: august 9, 2023 doi:10.22158/fet.v6n4p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v6n4p1 abstract academic burnout is a mental and emotional fatigue state caused by continuous stress among extra-mural students. this syndrome is usually caused by repeated failure and overload of work in the school, which eventually leads to high dropout rate, truancy and failure. academic burnout hinders academic success of students, as it truncates their advancement in moving to the next academic stage. previous studies focused largely on predictors of academic burnout of in-school adolescents, while little attention was paid to extra-mural students. this study, therefore, was designed to determine the effects of motivational interviewing therapy (mit) and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (m-bct) on academic burnout among extra-mural students in ekiti state, nigeria. moderating effects of academic self-efficacy and goal setting were also examined. pretest-posttest control group quasi experimental design with 3x3x3 factorial matrix was adopted. three extra-mural centres were randomly selected in ekiti state, while the simple random sampling technique was used to select participants from each of the remedial study centres. the remedial centres were randomly assigned to mit (29), m-bct (51) and control (25) groups, making a total of 105 participants. the instruments used were academic burnout indicator inventory (for screening – α=0.92), maslash academic burnout (α=0.70), academic self-efficacy (α=0.86) and goal setting (α=0.80) scales and instructional guides. data were subjected to descriptive statistics, analysis of covariance and scheffe post-hoc test at 0.05 level of significance. participants’ age was 22.14±3.15years. the majority of the participants were female (61.5%). there was a significant main effect of treatment on academic burnout of the participants (f(2;84)=140.13. partial ƞ2=0.77). the participants in the control group (111.04) had the highest mean scores on academic burnout, followed by the m-bct (88.20) and the mit (61.59) groups. there was no significant main effect of academic www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 2 published by scholink inc. self-efficacy and goal setting on academic burnout. there was a significant interaction effect of treatment and goal setting on academic burnout (f(2;84) =3.93, partial ƞ2=.16), in favour of the participants with high goal setting from the mit group. motivational interviewing and mindfulness-based cognitive therapies reduced academic burnout among extra-mural students in ekiti state, nigeria. counselling psychologists and other help professionals should adopt these therapies. keywords academic burnout, extra-mural students, ekiti state, motivational interviewing, mindfulness-based, cognitive therapies 1. introduction in every nation of the world education could be considered as the springboard of societal development. united nations educational scientific and cultural organization (unesco) noted that twenty-six per cent of a country’s annual budget should be allocated to the educational sector. however, the situation in nigeria is different. a poorly managed system of education portends negative results to the developmental struggles of any nation (famade, 2012). this seems to be the case in nigeria. academic burnout is a state of mental and emotional fatigue caused by continuous stress in academics. this syndrome is usually caused by repeated failure and overload of work in school. it is a problem that affects young adults, in which secondary students who do not make ordinary level results at once are distressed, traumatized, stigmatized and somehow hopeless. some of these students become burden to themselves, parents, teachers, society and government. some of the students may opt for something else, like yahoo-yahoo, first class prostitution, cultism, armed robbery and suicide by ideation. many researchers have attributed the decline in the quality of education to government inability to take appropriate action on education. some also argue that teachers are not doing enough work. teachers also are blaming parents and the children (arong & ogbadu, 2010; famade, 2012). different kinds of intervention strategies have been put in place to salvage the situation, particularly with respect to formulating and implementing appropriate policies. however, not much has been achieved because the number of students coming for enrolment in these centres yearly is increasing. for instance, data from the ekiti state ministry of education stated that, in 2014, 408 students registered for west african school certificate examination, and only 48 students passed with credits in five subjects, including english and mathematics; likewise, 475 candidates registered in 2015 of which 45 students passed english language and mathematics at credit level that qualify the students to gain admission into university. again, 502 candidates registered for the same examination in 2016 of which 46 students passed. the 2017 enrolment was high and the performance was very bad; out of the 525 students that sat for the examination, only 40 students scale through (ekiti state ministry of education, 2017). this suggests that the problem in the nigerian educational sector might not be totally due to administrative or structural imbalance. this is because even when the government takes positive steps www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 3 published by scholink inc. in lifting the standard of education, for example through creation of extramural centres in all the local government headquarters in the state, the results achieved may not be commensurate with the effort put to it. this is why considered it important to examine whether the students are overstretched based on the kind of workload they are exposed to or they are not motivated to benefit from education outcomes. furthermore, students have a lot of responsibilities in dealing with the enormous challenges in their educational pursuit (donley, 2013). it has been observed that students in extramural classes are more prone to developing stress than other students in regular classes (aiken & poghosyan, 2010). academic burnout is a challenge that many students face today (poghosyan, clarke, finlayson, & aiken, 2010). extramural classes are non-formal school establishments for learners who are unable to meet up with the criteria for moving to the next level of formal schooling (anyanwu & oyedeji, 2012). these centres are organized for students to enhance their capacity in performing excellently and meet-up with the academic requirements for progression to the next academic level. this group of students is of different categories. for instance, some are receiving lecture for west africa examination council waec/ssce, national examination council (neco), some others are being coached for joint admission and matriculation board (jamb), national board of technical examination (nabtech), and general certificate examination (gce). all of them have the same goal, just to sit for examination and come out in flying colours. in nigeria, even though there are no formal records of these centres, observations showed that these centres are all over major cities and towns in the country. while most of the extramural centres are privately organised, some states of the federation make provision for this set of people. one of such is ekiti state. remedial centres are drawn out for these categories of students for which government normally posts secondary school teachers from the teaching service commission (tescom) to teach them at the speculated area, even during the school hours. the majority of the students attending these centres have not been able to improve on the results. this may be because the students are faced with different challenges, including psychological, social and health-related issues, such as being depressed, being academically exhausted, stress, and all manners of intimidations from parents and peers. the continuous poor academic performance has resulted into many students being academically frustrated, having low academic motivation, being academically dejected and becoming emotionally exhausted, all leading to academic burnout. academic burnout is an outcome of frustration resulting from prolonged tension after not performing to an expectation in academic pursuit. those students who failed wasce in their first attempt often reregister in the so-called miracle centres and extra-mural classes, hoping that solutions will come after two or three attempts. balogun and oyedeji (2008) opined that academic burnout is an important problem that has association with poor academic performance. it is perceived as an emotional exhaustion syndrome, depersonalization and a reduction in personal achievement (maslach & jackson, 2012). when students are exhausted academically, the motivation to try more might not be there. pines and aronson (2014) view academic burnout as an encounter that is categorized by physical exhaustion and emotional exhaustion, as well as production of low energy and chronic fatigue of extramural www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 4 published by scholink inc. students. academic burnout refers to a sense of fatigue owing to study requirements, cynical approach to school work and a feeling of inability for students (zhang, 2007). students attending extramural lessons may be involved in structured, tough activities. numerous studies on educational lifestyle stress also consider learners as a type of employee (chambel & curral, 2005), counsellors, educators and undergraduate students are grouped at secondary and higher education levels of combustion scale. cordes and dougherty (2013) argue that the students’ exhaustion syndrome also related to those of employees in service. academic burnout of students can also lead to a greater rate of absence in school, less motivation, lower commitment, reduced productivity and low morale. akindele (2012) states that academic burnout rises from the nervousness of rebuke from parents and teachers, psychological depersonalization and peer influence concerning the disappointment of not performing up to the tasks of the proper academics. although, a moderate level of feeling exhausted is essential for academics to be successful, such as taking note, involving in group discussion, doing assignment both curricular and extra-curricular activities however, manifestation of academic burnout proves to be destructive for students, because it is negatively correlated with the future of the students (kumar, 2015). the consequences of academic burnout are quite enormous. according to akindele (2012), academic burnout may significantly impede a person’s ability to function well and adversely have emotional impact on their social and behavioural domains. it ranges from psychological, emotional to psychological social well-being. in addition, academic burnout can also cause cerebral agony like frustration, anxiety, fear, hostility, or depression, less commitment, absenteeism, higher turnover and reduction in output, low morale, and reduction in human believed (maslach & pines, 2012; maslach, 2014). akanbi (2013) opines that school exhaustion is a common experience among students and has a devastating effect on performances in education and overall well-being. to mitigate the issue of academic burnout and its consequences on students, parents, teachers, counselling psychologists, government and other stakeholders, there is need for psychological interventions. therefore, this study employed motivational interviewing strategy and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy to reduce academic burnout among the students attending extramural classes in ekiti state, nigeria. motivational interviewing therapy (mit) was first described by miller (1983), elaborated and developed later by miller and rollnick (1991). it is a patient-centred, directive counselling style which focuses on intrinsic motivation. when applying mis, the therapist creates a rapport with the client in order to explore and resolve ambivalence about the behavioural change. it is a non-judgemental, non-confrontational and non-adversarial therapeutic approach for eliciting behavioural change by assisting the students to explore and resolve ambivalence. the approach attempts to create awareness for students on the potential problem caused and risks of the behaviour in question. the expert practising mis helps the client to achieve a targeted goal for better future. this strategy tries to help clients to think about their behaviour and consider what might be gained through the expected change attitudes. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 5 published by scholink inc. subsequently, in a perfect world, motivational interviewing therapy could be used viably with any group populace that has missed inclination (inner conflict) towards change. motivational interviewing strategy (mis), as a proof construct rehearse that focuses in light of expanding group’ inspiration for change, which has indicated guarantee with a wide assortment of group populaces and exhibiting issues that has been demonstrated in numerous investigations (bennett, roberts, vaughan, gibbins, & rouse, 2007; hokanson, anderson, hennrick, lando, kendall, pollak, bastian, & brouwer, 2007; slagal & gray, 2007). however, the researcher opined that if the components of mis that is; collaboration, evocation and autonomy can be introduce to the extra-mural students, it can assist in managing academic burnout. motivational interviewing strategy has not been tested with extra mural students, across all behavioural domains, and in different setting. since this study is measuring the use of motivational interviewing strategy and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy with clients in extra mural studies has not yet been done, this investigation will add to the collection of research identified with mit use with different populaces. it is on this note that the researcher is combining the mindfulness-based cognitive therapy. another psychological intervention that can be used is mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (m-bct). it provides opportunities of insight into the nature of thoughts and feelings asking events in the mind rather than integral aspects of the self or valid thoughts on reality (teasdale, segal, williams, & mark, 2005; teasdale, 2009, 2009b; segal, williams, & teasdale, 2009). it combines meditation and breathing exercises, and other mindfulness techniques, with cognitive therapy. this technique could help people avoid repeated bouts of depression (nice, 2013). mindfulness is viewed as a capacity that is available to everyone, although there could be differences with respect to how individuals differ in their propensity to exhibit it (walsh, 2000; brown & ryan, 2003; kabat-zinn, 2003). the literature suggests that mindfulness practice increases attentive presence, empathy, acceptance and self-awareness, besides reducing stress (baer, 2003; bishop, 2004; brown & ryan, 2004; fulton, 2005; lazar, 2005). as insight is achieved, mindfulness exposes habits of the mind that propagate suffering and unhappiness and unstable mind, such as greed, anger, or various detrimental behaviours (seigel, 2009). this range is also reflected in the ongoing debate within the psychological literature as to what exactly constitutes the construct of mindfulness (carmody, 2009). this debate is centres around whether or not mindfulness is equal to mental skill utilized as a part of practising mindfulness, a state or trait which emerges as a result of mindfulness practice (brown, ryan, & creswell, 2007). therefore, this finally continues to be difficult to generalize and compare research findings when differing definitions of mindfulness have been used and this should be considered while comparing and contrasting the research conclusion contained within this dissertation (bishop, 2004; chiesa & malinowski, 2011). although cognitive behaviour therapy (cbt) has been proven in treating generalized anxiety disorder (gad), a great percentage of the patients have remaining symptoms of the problem. the development of mindfulness can be useful to people with gad. likewise, a group treatment derived from mindfulness-based stress reduction (mbsr), called mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (m-bct), was www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 6 published by scholink inc. propounded by jon kabat-zinn et al. mindfulness-based stress reduction utilizes preparing in care contemplation (mindfulness meditation). mindfulness-based cognitive therapy fuses cognitive strategies and has been successful in decreasing relapse in many patients. it has also been found to be effective in the prevention of relapse and recurrence in major depression (teasdale, segal, williams, ridgeway, soulsby, & lau, 2000). mindfulness-based cognitive therapy may be an agreeable and effective management for decreasing academic burnout with increase in awareness of everyday experiences in students who feel empty and hopeless. there are several factors that have been identified by researchers as capable of influencing academic burnout of extra-mural students. this study will consider academic self-efficacy and goal setting. academic self-efficacy is regarded as judgements of capabilities to attain academic goals successfully (bandura, 1997; adeyemo, 2001; marat, 2004). a student who can boost his or her academic self-efficacy tends to be capable of facing any challenges met in his/her study. heman and gunjan (2014) submit that students with different self-belief demonstrate different levels of cognitive, social and emotional engagement in school. consequently, when students have low self-efficacy expectations regarding their behaviour, academic burnout could surface, which would even lead to further failure. another moderating variable required for experiencing less academic burnout in this study is goal setting. goleman, (2006) describes academic goal setting as the ability to make plans and set achievable goals that lead to good academic performance which prevent dropping out of school and major determinant of human success. goal setting measures good academic performance. this is because it includes an increased usage of effective study system. clear behavioural goals, clear outcomes and measurable ways to monitor set goals are required to achieve improvement in any area. academic burnout is a problem to youth and young adults nowadays. it has led many students to early grave; some of these students commit suicide because of their inability to make wasce or utme. some of these students become rogues, vagabonds, criminals, touts and even political thugs. at the end some of them might found themselves holding political offices in which they will be making laws for the citizenry. and of course; this aspect of education all over the country needs serious attention before it’s too late without repairs. the future of a nation with such leaders is very bleak. 2. statement of the problem academic burnout is a common educational problem among millions of students in extramural classes all over the world. governments and parents have invested so much on education to ensure that students have quality education. unfortunately, the performance of these students in external examinations has not been impressive. academic burnout is a major factor that leads to poor academic performance among extramural students. most students experience academic burnout as a result of unrealistic expectations, repeated failure, works at home, peer pressures, career indecision, and lack of interest in teacher’s lesson, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 7 published by scholink inc. lack of confidence, low self-efficacy, unfavourable learning environment, chronic fatigue, unrealistic academic goals, health worries, boredom, and loneliness, among others. extramural students are confronted with numerous problems while attempting to gain admission to higher institutions of learning. many of these problems are seriously affecting the emotions and overall well-being of these students. they are often neglected; owing to the fact that lesser attention is paid to this group of students by governments, parents, researchers, psychologists and society, in general. because to this neglect, the students are being stigmatized, traumatized, vilified, and assigned all sorts of opprobrious labels, such as repeaters and retakers. this has deleterious effects on their psychological and mental health. high incidence of psychopathology, such as depression, loneliness, terrorism, social withdrawal, trauma-related shame, dropping out of school, certificate forgery, kidnapping, suicidal ideation, mental derail, academic burnout and death by suicide exist among the extramural students in different centres in the country. this menace of academic burnout has become worrisome and calls for concern of students, parents, teachers, school counsellors, school administrators, governments and international organizations. also, the performance of students in external examinations which leads to academic burnout has a lot of consequences. the situation has led to many students outright abandoning schooling, emotional exhaustion, depersonalization of personalities, internet fraud, high-rank prostitution among females, suicide ideation, political thuggery, armed robbery and many others. it makes the students unable to accomplish academic goals and show physical characteristics of academic burnout, such as absenteeism, lack of interest in teacher lesson, truancy, bullying, and gambling. all these need to be looked at because of the future of the country. although, there are several studies on academic stress, academic burnout and academic exhaustion, there has not been any, to the best of the knowledge of the researcher, on post-secondary school students attending extramural classes. furthermore, the parents of academically burnout students are not left out, as the parents often have to contend with hopelessness, shame and frustration in the family and among friends. many students in the extra-mural centres behave strangely in the aftermath of these experiences, many have significant distress and develop psychological problems that can be serious or long-lasting, which may eventually lead to low academic self-efficacy and affect their psychological well-being. past studies have used descriptive studies of correlational type and expo-facto type. some even carried out experimental studies on students’ academic burnout using different psychological interventions. however, none has combined motivational interviewing therapy and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy on academic burnout among students attending extramural class, especially in ekiti state, nigeria. therefore, this study investigated the effectiveness of the two therapeutic interventions on academic burnout among students attending extramural class in ekiti state, nigeria. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 8 published by scholink inc. 3. purpose of the study the main purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of motivational interviewing strategy and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy on academic burnout among extramural students in ekiti state, nigeria. in addition, the study examined the interaction effect of the intervention strategies with the moderating variables (academic self-efficacy and goal setting) on academic burnout of the participants. the specific objectives were to:  examine the main effect of treatments on academic burnout among extra-mural students;  investigate the extent to which academic self-efficacy influences the reduction of academic burnout among extramural students;  ascertain the moderating influence of goal setting on academic burnout among extra-mural students; 4. hypotheses the following null hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance: 1) there is no significant main effect of treatments on academic burnout among extramural students. 2) there is no significant main effect of academic self-efficacy on academic burnout among extramural students. 3) there is no significant main effect of goal setting on academic burnout among extramural students. 5. methodology this study employed a pretest-posttest quasi experimental design with a 3 x 3 x 3 factorial matrix. the experimental group (motivational interviewing strategy (mit) and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (m-bct) were the intervention groups). there two moderating variables. academic self-efficacy varied at three levels of high, moderate and low; and goal setting also varied at three levels of high, moderate and low. 6. population the population consisted of all the extramural students across the local government areas in ekiti state. ekiti state, one of the six states in south-west nigeria, has 3 senatorial districts, with a total number of 16 local government areas. 7. sample and sampling technique the multistage sampling technique was used in selecting the participants of the study. the participants were extramural students, receiving lectures to write wassce examination, ssce and utme in the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 9 published by scholink inc. three chosen areas. at the first stage, the state was divided into 3 senatorial districts, as recognized by the national constitution: ekiti central senatorial district, ado ekiti; ekiti north senatorial district, ido ekiti; and ekiti south west senatorial district, ilawe ekiti. at the second stage, from each of these senatorial districts, 1 local government each was selected. at the third stage, 1 extramural centre was selected in each of the local governments selected through balloting. in the last stage, from each of the 3 centres, 30 of these students were selected based on the screening test score and eligibility criteria. after the screening, mis centre was randomized to 30 participants, in which 29 participants completed the treatment session. group 2 at ado ekiti was also screened and it was discovered that burnout students were about 95. the school management pleaded for increase in the number of the participants; the researcher then randomized to 53 but only 51 completed the treatment session. the control group at ilawe ekiti had 25 participants. a total of 105 participants were used for the study. 8. instrumentation this study utilized four instruments for collection of data. the first instrument academic burnout indicator inventory was used to screen the participants. the other three scales (maslach burnout inventory-student survey (mbi-ss), academic self-efficacy scale and goal setting scales) were utilized for collecting data from the participants. 9. academic burnout indicator inventory this indicator inventory was adapted from school-burnout inventory developed by salmela-aro, kiuru, leskinen, and nurmi (2009). it was used to screen the students. it contains 9 items, for “i feel tired when teacher is teaching in the class”, and “i always feel bored before i get to school”. the responses are in the form of yes (1) or no (0). students that chose at least 5 yes-answers were considered to be having academic burnout. the instrument has a reliability coefficient of .92 cronbach’s alpha reliability (α), which is considerably high. the instrument was subjected to revalidation procedure. the scale was administered to extramural students in another area entirely. the result showed cronbach α of .632. this is an indication that the scale is valid and reliable for the use among the participants. 10. maslach burnout inventory–student survey (mbi-ss) this inventory was adopted from schaufeli, martínez, marqués-pinto, salanova, and bakker (2002), who proposed the use of the mbi–student survey to assess academic burnout in students. it has 15 items in all. this inventory includes three subscales: exhaustion was measured with five items (for instance, “i feel emotionally drained by my studies”); cynicism was measured with four items (such as, “i have become more cynical about the potential usefulness of my studies”). for this study, all items were scored on a 4-point frequency rating scale, ranging from 1: strongly disagree to 4: strongly agree. high scores on emotional exhaustion and cynicism, and low scores on efficacy are indicative of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 10 published by scholink inc. burnout (efficacy items are reverse-scored). for its reliability, schaufeli (2002) reported that a cronbach α for the full scale was above .70. this indicates that the inventory is very valid and reliable to measure academic burnout among students. however, the scale was subjected to revalidation procedure and the result of the test established cronbach α equal to .606. this implies that the scale is valid and reliable for use among these participants. 11. academic self-efficacy scale the academic self-efficacy scale was adapted from self-efficacy for learning (sel) developed by klobas, renzi and nigrelli (2007). the scale has two broad sub-sections. the first is information processing, which covers knowledge, synthesis, analysis, understanding, evaluation. the second sub-section is finding, which covers aspects such as library, distinguishing sources, web and writing. the scale contains 10 items. it is a four-point likert scale, ranging from strongly agreed to strongly disagree. sample items include “soon after the end of a lesson, i am able to remember all of the key concepts”, and “i am able to find materials in the library a subjects that interests me”. strongly agreed received 4 points, while strongly disagreed received 1 point. for the information processing subscale, the reliability cronbach alpha was .83, while the reliability coefficient for the finding subscale was .810. the whole scale was found to be valid and reliable, as the reported cronbach α for the full scale was .860. the scale was revalidated by the researcher through the process of administering the scale to extramural students in another area. the result established cronbach α of .753. this implies that the scale was valid and reliable for use among extramural students in ekiti state. 12. goal setting scale the goal setting scale was developed and validated by midgley (1998) to specifically assess the goals of students. the scale assessing a task-goal orientation has six items (α=.83), including “an important reason i do my work in school is because i want to get better at it” and “an important reason i do my work in school is because i like to learn new things.” the scale assessing an ability-approach goal orientation has six items (α=.86), including “i want to do better than other students in my classes” and “i’d like to show my teachers i’m smarter than the other students in my classes.” the scale assessing an ability-avoid goal orientation has 6 items (α=.74), including “one of my main goals is to avoid looking like i can’t do my work” and “the reason i do my schoolwork is so my teachers don’t think i know less than others.” the cronbach’s alpha (α) for the scale assessing a goal orientation was .80. this indicates a reliable co-efficient and suitability for this study. however, the scale was subjected to revalidation procedure through pilot-testing by the researcher. the result of the test proved the cronbach α equal to .794. this implies that the scale was valid and reliable for use among the participants. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 11 published by scholink inc. 13. procedure for data administration and collection the researchers screened the respondents with academic burnout indicator inventory scale in order to assess the level of academic burnout among them. those respondents who scored 5 and above were used for this study. a student was expected to choose at least 5 yes-answers before he/she could be considered to be having academic burnout. the research covered a period of eight weeks of eight sessions of training for the participants. the study was carried out in four phases: pre-session activities, pre-test, treatment and post-test. the pre-session activities included the screening, recruitment and assignment of the participants to the two experimental groups and control group. eligible participants in the two groups were exposed to an eight-week experimental sessions, while the control group received no treatment. a preliminary meeting was organized to get familiar with the interested participants and to solicit their support and will ingness to participate in the study. at the pre-test stage, academic self-efficacy scale (ses), goal setting scale (gss) and maslach burnout inventory-student survey (mbi-ss) were administered to the participants. those in the two experimental groups were exposed to eight weeks of treatment. the control group was not treated; the participants in this group were exposed to a lecture titled “career development”. the post-test was administered following the conclusion of the programme. proper arrangement was made in organizing a suitable venue for the training sessions. the provision for remuneration was made by the researcher throughout the sessions to encourage the participants for their consistency and cooperation. data were collected before and after the experimental sessions. the participants for the treatment group received training on motivational interviewing strategy and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy as summarized below. the data collected from these participants were then analysed. the analysis is presented in chapter four of this thesis. 14. method of data analysis analysis of covariance (ancova) was used to analyse the data. ancova showed the significant difference between the participants in the treatment groups and the control group, while a scheffe-hoc revealed the mean differences among the treatment groups and the control group. 15. results the results were presented hypothesis by hypothesis and this is done based on the analysis of the three hypotheses formulated for the study. hypothesis one: there is no significant main effect of treatments in reduction of academic burnout among extra mural students. to test this hypothesis, analysis of covariance (ancova) was adopted to analyse the post-test scores of the participants on their level of academic burnout using the pre-test scores as covariate to ascertain www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 12 published by scholink inc. if the post-experimental differences are statistically significant. the summary of the analysis is presented in table 1 below. table 1. summary of 3x3x3 analysis of covariance (ancova) post-test in reduction of academic burnout among the extramural students source type iii sum of squares df mean square f sig. partial eta squared corrected model 38758.165a 20 1937.908 32.303 .000 .885 intercept 1269.241 1 1269.241 21.157 .000 .201 preacabu 575.760 1 575.760 9.597 .003 .103 treatment 16813.676 2 8406.838 140.134 .000 .769 acaselfeff 205.203 2 102.602 1.710 .187 .039 goalsetting 35.894 2 17.947 .299 .742 .007 treatment * acaselfeff 290.513 4 72.628 1.211 .312 .055 treatment * goalsetting 942.010 4 235.503 3.926 .006 .157 acaselfeff * goalsetting 680.267 3 226.756 3.780 .013 .119 treatment * acaselfeff * goalsetting 252.268 2 126.134 2.103 .129 .048 error 5039.264 84 59.991 total 825546.000 105 corrected total 43797.429 104 a. r squared = .885 (adjusted r squared=.858) the results from table 1 showed that there was significant main effect of treatments in reduction of academic burnout among the participants (f2, 84 =140.134, p<0.05, η2=0.769). this means there was significant difference in the mean scores of the academic burnout reduction of the extramural students exposed to motivational interview strategy (mit) and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (m-bct) when compared with the control group. hence, hypothesis one was not accepted. it was, therefore, concluded that there is significant main effect of treatments in reduction of academic burnout of extramural students. this implies that mit and m-bct are effective in reducing academic burnout of extramural students. to further provide information on the reduction of the severity of academic burnout of the participants among the three groups (mit, m-bct and control), it is good to ascertain the direction of the differences and determine the magnitude of the mean scores of the participants in each of the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 13 published by scholink inc. treatments and the control group). thus, the scheffe post-hoc analysis was calculated. the result is presented in table 2. table 2. significant differences in the treatment groups treatment n subset for alpha = 0.05 1 2 3 motivational interview therapy 29 61.5862 mindfulness-based cognitive therapy 51 88.1961 control 25 111.0400 sig. 1.000 1.000 1.000 the following observations were made from table 2: (i) there was statistically significant difference between the post-hoc test mean scores in reducing the academic burnout of the extra mural students in the mit and m-bct groups. however, the participants in the mit (mean=61.5862) benefited more than those in the m-bct (mean=88.1961) (ii) there was significant difference in the post-hoc test mean scores in reducing the academic burnout of the extramural students in the mit and control groups. the participants in mit (mean=61.5862) reduced the academic burnout significantly higher than those in the control group (mean=111.04). (iii) there was significant difference in the post-hoc test mean scores in reducing the academic burnout of the extramural students in the m-bct and control groups. the participants in m-bct (mean=88.1961) reduced the academic burnout significantly higher than those in the control group (mean=111.04). in other words, there was significant difference between the mean score of the participants in mit and m-bct and those in the control group. conversely, mit and m-bct were more effective than the control group; mit had the greatest potency of reducing academic burnout of the extramural students than m-bct. hypothesis two: there is no significant main effect of academic self-efficacy in reduction of academic burnout of the extra mural students. the results from table 2 showed that there was no significant main effect of academic burnout of the extramural students (f2, 84 =1.710, p>0.05, η2=0.039). this means that there is no significant difference in the mean scores of the academic burnout of the extra mural students in the low, moderate and high academic self-efficacy levels when compared with each other. hence, hypothesis two was accepted. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 14 published by scholink inc. hypothesis three: there is no significant main effect of goal setting in reduction of academic burnout of the extramural students. the results from table 1 indicated that there was no significant main effect of goal setting in reduction of academic burnout of the extramural students (f2, 84 = 0.299, p > 0.05, η2 = 0.007). this means that there was no significant difference in the mean scores of the academic burnout reduction of the extra mural students in the low, moderate and high goal-setting levels when compared with each other. hence, hypothesis three was accepted. 16. discussion of findings hypothesis one states that there is no significant main effect of treatment on the students’ academic burnout. the result of the study showed a significant main effect of treatment on academic burnout among the participants. the implication is that motivational interviewing therapy and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy were effective in reducing academic burnout of the participants. therefore, the null hypothesis was rejected, as the result in table 1 indicated that, despite the fact that both treatments were effective the result clearly indicated the marginal difference between the treatment programmes. the results revealed that the extramural students in the motivational interviewing therapy group displayed lower academic burnout than those in mindfulness-based cognitive therapy. this is to say that motivational interviewing therapy was more potent in reducing academic burnout of extramural students in ekiti state. the result attested to the fact that academic burnout could be reduced with the effective use of motivational interviewing therapy and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy training. this finding correlated with the work of previous researchers (feldstein & ginsburg, 2006; nage, 2010), which established a significant effect of motivational interviewing therapy on student’s academic burnout levels. motivational interviewing therapy has been used to address school problems, dropouts and many others. it was also used for time management, improving school adolescents and promoting the status of school adolescents that are suffering from depression (brody, 2009). nage (2010) reported that motivational interviewing strategy enhanced better classroom management, increased student’s motivation, and most especially students’ ability. mojataba, parvin, mohammad, saber and ali (2015) found that motivational interviewing therapy is very effective in enhancing academic self-efficacy and improving self-concept in underdeveloped students; extramural students could be viewed as underdeveloped because of their inability to make their results at once and the syndrome of repeated failure. the result showed that the scores of self-efficacy and self-concept of subject had a significant increase after motivational interviewing therapy. hypothesis two: this hypothesis asserts that there is no significant main effect of academic self-efficacy in reduction of academic burnout of extramural students. the hypothesis was accepted since the result revealed that there was no significant main effect of academic self-efficacy on the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 15 published by scholink inc. academic burnout of the participants. this connotes that academic self-efficacy did not moderate the influence of treatment on burnout students. this result supported uchenna (2015), who found that academic self-efficacy had negative relationship with school burnout, as school burnout decreased with higher academic self-efficacy. a probable explanation for this finding is the assumption that academic self-efficacy is a psychological concept which refers to how strongly people believe they can boost their self-efficacy in preparing for west africa examination council examinations. the way the participants ascribed responsibility and blame for not having self-efficacy affected their academic burnout. however, the result substantiates the study of charkhabi (2013), who examined the relationship between academic burnout, quality of learning experience and academic self-efficacy. the investigation indicated that all relationships between academic burnout and its components with academic self-efficacy were significant. the students with high academic burnout had higher scores in academic self-efficacy than students with low academic burnout. this indicates that one can have high academic self-efficacy and still be burning out academically. this result might be attributed to the fact that the students had zeroed their minds on the notion that one cannot sit for waec examinations once and pass. the negative thoughts and feelings about these external examinations could cause the students to be burnt out academically. hypothesis three: hypothesis three states that there is no significant main effect of goal setting on the academic burnout of the participants. the hypothesis was accepted since the result revealed that there was no significant main effect of goal setting on the academic burnout of the participants. this implies that there is no significant different among student’s academic burnout irrespective of the level of their goal setting level. this study corroborates the study of otanga and ogembo (2014), which investigated demographic variables, school time, future goals and predicators of school burnout, which was measured by exhaustion, cynicism and inadequacy. it was hypothesized that student’s perception of the content of the future goals (whether intrinsic/extrinsic) motivates the performance of current class work and therefore negatively predicts school burnout. similarly, the study of tabachinick, miller and relyea (2008) also proved that personally valued intrinsic future goals predicted task instrumentality, whereas personally valued extrinsic future goals failed to produce significant relationship. essentially, the findings of many studies revealed that setting future goals might not reduce academic burnout of students. 17. conclusion the study investigated the application of motivational interviewing strategy and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy on academic burnout among extramural students in ekiti state, nigeria. the study made use of academic self-efficacy and goal setting as moderating variables. training programme was www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 16 published by scholink inc. conducted for the participants, who were extramural students. relevant data were collected and analysed using appropriate statistical tools. motivational interviewing therapy and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy were very effective in reducing academic burnout among the extramural students. by implication, if the principles are adequately applied to extramural students in ekiti state, there will be reduction in academic burnout, which will enhance good performance of students in external examinations. motivational interviewing strategy was found to be more effective in treating the academic burnout of extramural students. academic self-efficacy played a mediating role on the causal effect of treatment on the academic burnout of the students, while goal setting had significant influence on academic burnout. 18. recommendations based on the findings of this study, the following recommendations are essential:  student should be screened for academic burnout so as to determine their status. the government should make provision for this group of students in order to enhance their performance in external examination.  the students should develop self-efficacy, which will assist them to do the right things at the right time.  students’ counsellors should be well equipped with skills in mit and m-bct and should be compelled to utilize these interventions to reduce academic burnout among extramural students.  school counsellors and counselling psychologists should make use of psychological interventions, such as motivational interviewing strategy and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, for students receiving in extramural classes.  counselling psychologists should be allowed at the extramural centres to give career talk and moral talk, and also counsel the students on the causes, effects and how to reduce academic burnout.  parents should create time to monitor their children both at home and school and cater for their needs.  the government should provide favourable environment for the students to facilitate teaching and learning.  focus group discussion should be organized at intervals to know the students better. reference aiken, & poghosyan, e. 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(2002). the measurement of scholastic achievement. quarterly journal of economics, 114(2), 533. uchenna, c. o. (2015). evidence of academic self-efficacy, perceived teacher support, age and gender as predictors of school burnout. global journal of human-social science: (a) arts & humanities – psychology, 15(2), 10-17. zhang, y., gan, y., & cham, h. (2007). perfectionism, academic burnout and engagement among chinese college students: a structural equation modeling analysis. personal individs differ. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2007.04.010 https://doi.org/10.1002/nur.20383 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2007.04.010 frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no.2, 2021 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) original paper hybrid learning here to stay! maurice e. abi raad1 & hamad. odhabi2 1 rabdan academy (vocational affairs division), abu dhabi, united arab emirates 2 abu dhabi university, al ain campus, united arab emirates received: april 15, 2021 accepted: may 1, 2021 online published: may 17, 2021 doi:10.22158/fet.v4n2p121 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v4n2p121 abstract the pursuit of knowledge is a defining factor for the current civilization. hybrid learning represents an evolution of this pursuit since it involves delivering learning through in-person and remote instruction simultaneously. hybrid learning is here to stay due to its benefits that facilitate education delivery in modern contexts while focusing on meeting learning objectives. however, it suffers from some drawbacks and shortcomings that impact its adoption. however, through a variety of viable approaches, it is possible to address the said drawbacks and shortcomings and increase the adoption of hybrid learning in the future. consequently, hybrid learning holds great promise for the future of education as it exploits advancements made in the recent past to meet the needs of learners in a variety of contexts without compromising the attainment of desired objectives. keywords hybrid learning, online learning, digital education, distance learning 1. introduction humankind has always endeavored to gain knowledge and skills since civilization. learning is one of the ways that humankind has adopted to attain the stated objective. it essentially comprises studying and being taught by qualified individuals. currently, learning is mostly conducted through in-person instruction, where teachers provide instruction to learners in a physical classroom. this teaching method has also been used extensively for the past decades. nevertheless, in recent years, instruction delivery began shifting from a purely face-to-face classroom method to a combination of in-person instruction and distance learning. distance learning refers to a teaching method where the teacher and learner are physically apart during course delivery (kentnor, 2015). the introduction of distance learning resulted from the need to ensure students’ participation and enable learners to acquire education from anywhere by eliminating geographical boundaries, thereby leading to increased flexibility. distance learning has grown globally since learners from different nations can study in 121 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 educational institutions located outside their countries. the growth of distance learning has further benefitted from the advancement of digital technologies. there are several tools that learners and educators can use to facilitate course delivery. the combination of distance learning and in-person instruction is often referred to as hybrid learning. essentially, instructors utilize a combination of both face-to-face and online instruction to facilitate course delivery. hybrid learning is here to stay since it holds a promising future for institutions, including schools, universities, and training institutes, learners, educators, and other relevant stakeholders due to its several benefits that outweigh its drawbacks and critiques, the recent experiences witnessed in the wake of the coronavirus (covid-19) pandemic, and the rapid advancement of technology, including artificial intelligence (ai): therefore, all stakeholders should adapt to promote the effectiveness of hybrid learning in course delivery and improving student outcomes. 2. the evolution of distance learning comprehending the evolution of distance education is key to understanding hybrid learning. distance learning is not a new trend. instead, it has evolved over the past years to its current state. distance education dates back to the early 18th century, when correspondence education emerged (kentnor, 2015). on march 20, 1778, caleb phillips advertised his shorthand lessons in the boston gazette (kentnor, 2015). in his advertisement, he offered to teach interested applicants the art of shorthand. interestingly, he sought to teach them this art by sending them weekly lessons through postal service as long the applicants were within boston (kentnor, 2015). the intent to use postal service marked the early traces of correspondence education. however, critics have argued that caleb philips intent to teach shorthand through postal service was not an accurate reflection of correspondence education since there was no evidence of two-way communication (kentnor, 2015). nevertheless, correspondence education took root in the 1800s. in 1840, isaac pitman started teaching shorthand in england by mailing postcards containing instructions to his students and instructing them to return the postcards through the post for assessment and correction (kentnor, 2015). this teaching method established the advent of distance learning since the instructor, isaac pitman, and his students were physically apart during course delivery. as the years progressed, correspondence education became more pronounced. for instance, the phonographic correspondence society and the society to encourage studies at home in boston were established in the years 1843 and 1873, respectively (kentnor, 2015). in the late 1800s, correspondence courses also began to emerge at institutions of higher learning. in 1892, for instance, the university of chicago, through william harper rainey, introduced correspondence courses at the college-level (kentnor, 2015). therefore, the evolution of distance learning began in the early 18th century through the advent of correspondence education that was characterized by the physical separation of the teacher and learner. technological advancement further altered distance learning methods in the late 1800s and throughout the 1900s. the advent of the radio resulted in educational broadcasting. for instance, professors at the 122 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 university of wisconsin began to broadcast educational materials through their wireless station in 1919 (kentnor, 2015). more academic institutions also procured broadcast licenses in the 1920s to deliver their courses through radio stations. other than the introduction of the radio, the advent of the television in the public domain facilitated visual educational broadcasting. the university of michigan, kansas state university, and american university are some of the institutions that adopted television broadcasting in course delivery (kentnor, 2015). despite these advancements, the delivery of course instruction through radio and television faced some major challenges. firstly, the radio and television courses were poorly structured. they did not encourage student participation. instead, educators merely read notes to their learners. therefore, students found it difficult to be attentive and make significant contributions. as a result, distance education through radio and television transmission began dwindling. therefore, in the late 1800s and throughout the 1900s, distance education took the form of radio and television transmission to facilitate course delivery. the advent of computers and the internet in the late 1900s marked a significant shift in distance learning since they drastically improved distance education and led to its remarkable growth that is currently evident. in 1989, the university of phoenix introduced its online educational program using compuserve (kentnor, 2015). other education and training institutions followed suit in the late 1990s and 2000s. they began introducing online classes for students who were unable to attend in-person classes. however, the introduction of online classes faced various challenges. educators did not understand that online learning requires a different pedagogy (kentnor, 2015). they were also not conversant with online teaching methods. nevertheless, online course delivery has constantly evolved to overcome these hurdles. today, many educational and training institutions, especially colleges, universities, and tertiary institutions, have incorporated distance learning into their course delivery methods. for instance, massive open online courses have become more common and popular in delivering college instruction (kurzman, 2013). however, distance learning is more pronounced among institutions of higher education rather than schools. nevertheless, these higher education institutions still maintain in-person instruction. this combined approach has led to the development of hybrid learning. therefore, technological advancement facilitated the growth of distance learning and the subsequent development of hybrid learning. 3. what does hybrid learning entail exactly? various definitions and descriptions have been coined to define hybrid learning. as a result, there is varying information about what hybrid learning entails exactly. therefore, it is imperative to adopt a specific description. as stated, hybrid learning combines both in-person instruction and distance learning. distance learning involves educators teaching learners through remote-instruction since both parties are physically apart. however, the issue is whether both in-person and remote instruction are applied simultaneously, or they are asynchronous. the simultaneous application of both in-person and remote instruction means that an educator teaches learners through in-person and remote instruction at 123 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 the same time. thus, some learners are physically present in the classroom, while others join the classroom virtually through various means, such as conferencing platforms. on the contrary, the asynchronous application of both in-person and remote instruction means that educators principally teach students in a physical classroom by way of face-to-face instruction, and then they supplement in-person instruction through online learning activities. for instance, an instructor may first teach students about a given concept before sending them a recorded instruction through the web for further clarification. an educator may also give learners online activities, such as quizzes or assignments, to submit online. accordingly, the educator may also use online channels to provide feedback and correction. indeed, the asynchronous application of both in-person and remote instruction is very common today in higher education institutions. many colleges and universities, for instance, have virtual environments that supplement face-to-face instruction. blackboard, edmodo, and moodle are common virtual learning management systems that institutions have adopted (alokluk, 2018). these platforms facilitate collaboration between instructors and students, and even among learners. apart from such virtual environments, other single-purpose tools, such as googledocs, facilitate online instruction in the asynchronous context (alokluk, 2018). given these illustrations, it is essential to note that hybrid learning is the simultaneous application of in-person and remote instruction to teach learners. therefore, the asynchronous integration of in-person and remote instruction that many institutions have been practicing does not signify the presence of hybrid learning. to this end, hybrid learning entails the application of in-person and remote instruction simultaneously. 4. distinction between hybrid learning and blended learning hybrid learning and blended learning are often used interchangeably to mean the same thing. for instance, boora et al. (2010) use hybrid and blended learning simultaneously since both methods involve a combination of in-person instruction and online activities. however, this position is not entirely accurate. hybrid learning involves the simultaneous application of in-person and remote instruction, while blended learning is the asynchronous application of both. indeed, what most educational institutions have been practicing is blended learning. therefore, hybrid and blended learning are distinct. 5. discussion hybrid learning has several benefits over the traditional teaching method that involves only in-person instruction. firstly, hybrid learning leads to increased student participation in the learning process. this benefit emerges from the fact that hybrid learning integrates innovative approaches into the learning process. these approaches subsequently promote a learner’s engagement with course content, thereby enabling them to become active participants. some of the innovative approaches include the efficient and more appropriate use of audiovisual material. as opposed to educators simply asking students to write notes or watch a certain video, hybrid learning requires instructors to share information in a 124 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 compelling and informative manner. another innovative approach is that hybrid learning allows students to benefit from the best practices of both in-person and remote instruction (ilgu & jahren, 2015). therefore, hybrid learning promotes student participation since it integrates innovative approaches into the learning process. another benefit of hybrid learning is that it provides learners and educators with flexibility. according to ilgu and jahren (2015), hybrid learning allows students to have fewer contact hours with their instructors. therefore, they can engage in other activities without undermining their education schedule. hybrid learning is particularly beneficial to part-time learners engaged in other activities, such as employment, or those who commute. it allows them to attend classes virtually from anywhere. hybrid learning also allows international students to study in institutions beyond their nation’s borders without having to travel. educators further benefit from the flexibility associated with hybrid learning. they can easily balance their duties through this teaching method (ilgu & jahren, 2015). therefore, hybrid learning gives both educators and students flexibility. hybrid learning also increases access to education for most learners. besides eliminating geographical boundaries, hybrid learning facilitates education since it reduces educational costs and associated inconveniences. hybrid learning is more cost-effective than the traditional learning approach (ilgu & jahren, 2015). for instance, institutions can accommodate more learners in smaller classrooms since some students will virtually join the class. therefore, educational and training institutions can make their hybrid courses or programs more affordable. subsequently, more students can enroll in these courses. additionally, hybrid learning eliminates the inconvenience associated with student accommodation. under this model, learners are not necessarily under pressure to search for accommodation close to their institution due to reduced contact hours between them and their instructors. they can indeed minimize their accommodation costs by looking for relatively affordable places to live, notwithstanding how far they are located from school. therefore, hybrid learning increases access to education by eliminating geographical boundaries, reducing educational costs, and mitigating associated inconveniences. hybrid learning also leads to improved pedagogy. it does so in various ways. firstly, it allows educators to easily balance their duties, thereby preventing them from compromising the quality of instruction they deliver to students (ilgu & jahren, 2015). secondly, hybrid learning improves learning outcomes among students due to the incorporation of innovative approaches, as noted. for instance, educators in elementary, primary, and secondary schools can increase their use of video tutorials to help learners at different levels (shand & farrelly, 2018). thirdly, hybrid learning facilitates peer engagement among students. therefore, students can learn from each other. they can also empower one another. these interactive efforts facilitate their comprehension of course concepts. lastly, hybrid learning improves learners’ focus and reduces student absenteeism. therefore, students can benefit the most from the course. to this end, hybrid learning improves pedagogy through several ways, such as preventing educators from compromising their quality of instruction, incorporating innovative 125 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 approaches that will enhance student outcomes in the learning process, facilitating peer engagement, improving learners’ focus, and reducing student absenteeism. 6. the drawbacks and critiques against hybrid learning there are various drawbacks and critiques against hybrid learning, and they particularly relate to the distance learning aspect. concerning drawbacks, hybrid learning may result in the loss of interaction between educators and students (ilgu & jahren, 2015). since distance learning does not require the student and instructor to be at the same place, both parties, especially learners, may feel out of touch and isolated. additionally, online communication is less efficient in comprehending verbal and bodily cues, which educators often use during in-person instruction. another drawback is that distance learning is vulnerable to technical issues. these issues take various forms, such as downtimes and network errors. technical issues can easily disrupt the learning process and undermine the quality of instruction delivered. the other major challenge is that hybrid learning is susceptible to a disastrous element of managed education that involves adhering to business logic rather than sound pedagogy (snart, 2010). in essence, institutions may place too much emphasis on making the hybrid model profitable instead of making it efficient and capable of meeting student outcomes and improving the learning process. therefore, hybrid learning is vulnerable to various drawbacks. various critiques have been leveled against distance education and, subsequently, hybrid learning. one of the most prominent is that hybrid learning impedes students pursuing more practical academic education. in some disciplines, such as sciences, learning involves a combination of oral instruction and hands-on activities meant to instill practical knowledge and skills. hybrid learning presents significant challenges in meeting such a requirement fully due to both time and logistical constraints (raes et al., 2020). another critique is that hybrid learning may fail to equip students with the necessary social skills to navigate life. hybrid learning limits physical interactions between learners, and these interactions are necessary for students’ social development (raes et al., 2020). a wholesome education should instill cognitive and social skills in learners since they are both needed to address life’s challenges and exploit its opportunities. therefore, the stated critiques question the effectiveness of hybrid learning in achieving learning outcomes. 7. addressing the drawbacks and critiques of hybrid learning stakeholders can address the drawbacks of hybrid learning through the following approaches. firstly, educators should principally adopt active learning methods, such as group discussions, instead of simply dictating course material and asking learners to take notes. this approach will promote interaction and collaboration between the instructor and learners. secondly, educational and training institutions should use the most practical and efficient hardware and software to implement hybrid learning. these hardware and software should also align with the students’ level and needs. for instance, in their study, apergi et al. (2015) discovered that the web 2.0 google drive tool was 126 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 efficient in delivering instruction to 6th graders from different elementary schools in germany. thirdly, stakeholders should adopt the right pedagogies to implement hybrid learning. therefore, there are potential solutions to address the drawbacks of hybrid learning. there are also viable approaches to addressing the critiques leveled against hybrid learning. the first approach is to allocate sufficient time to in-person interactions to allow for practical and hands-on sessions that are essential in technical and scientific disciplines. appropriate time allocation will enable learners to participate satisfactorily in practical sessions and meet learning outcomes despite receiving some of their instruction online. time allocation should also consider a student’s need for social development. learning institutions should schedule a time for social activities to compensate for the lack of physical interaction in distance learning (hwang, 2018). the second approach is to provide additional learning centers for distance learners to address the logistical challenge of conducting practical sessions. when students are close to a facility where they can engage in practical lessons, it is possible to meet the desired objectives even for distance learners. therefore, the stated approaches address the critiques against distance learning. 8. the impact of covid-19 on learning covid-19 has had a significant effect on society. it has impacted almost all dimensions of people’s lives, including the education sector. many learning institutions across the world had to halt in-person instruction. for instance, in the united arab emirates (uae), the government directed all schools, including elementary, primary, and secondary schools and universities, to close their operations and facilities from march 2020 (erfurth & ridge, 2020). at the time, there was much uncertainty, and thereby it was best to protect both students and educators from contracting covid-19. indeed, around 191 national governments had halted their schools’ operations by mid-april 2020 (erfurth & ridge, 2020). the closure of schools initiated the need to search for alternatives to ensure that learners do not lose the whole of 2020. accordingly, many educational institutions and academic professionals worldwide have adopted distance learning to facilitate course delivery. higher learning institutions have had an easier time transitioning to distance learning than elementary, primary, and secondary schools since many of them already had the basic infrastructure to support distance education in place. nevertheless, elementary, primary, and secondary schools have undertaken various initiatives to implement distance education. for instance, public schools in the uae are now using a smart learning platform, while private schools have adopted existing elearning tools, such as zoom and microsoft teams (erfurth & ridge, 2020). therefore, covid-19 has led to a significant shift from in-person instruction to distance learning. the increased use of distance learning has generated positive experiences despite the associated challenges. through distance learning, educational institutions and academic professions have minimized the risk of covid-19 transmission significantly. learners have also benefitted since they are now able to continue with their education. however, distance learning has had various challenges. 127 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 teachers have had a difficult time transitioning into the virtual environment. they have also found it challenging to tailor distance learning to suit learners’ needs. this difficulty is particularly evident in science and technical courses (al darayseh, 2020). nevertheless, these challenges primarily emerge from the fact that many educators are yet to understand that distance learning requires a different pedagogy from the traditional approach. accordingly, they should adopt the most practical, relevant, and useful online teaching practices. nevertheless, many educational institutions and academic professionals are working toward improving the efficiency and outcomes of distance learning. thus, distance learning will improve in the recent future. to this end, it is evident that distance learning has largely generated positive experiences, and there is still room for growth and improvement. given the preceding illustrations, educational institutions and academic professionals need to adopt hybrid learning. covid-19 has illustrated firsthand the need for distance education. therefore, adopting distance learning will mitigate the negative effects of such events in the education sector. at the same time, there is also a need to preserve in-person instruction in the future to facilitate course delivery in science and technical courses. thus, a combination of in-person and remote instruction holds a promising future for the education sector. to this end, hybrid learning should be adopted since it has the potential to improve learning outcomes while minimizing the negative impacts of unfortunate occurrences, such as covid-19. 9. introducing hybrid learning in future education due to its benefits, hybrid learning holds great potential for the future of education. in this regard, it is prudent to consider some of the possible approaches for its introduction into educational initiatives of the future. one such approach is to adopt appropriate pedagogies for hybrid learning to maximize its strengths while minimizing its shortcomings (o’byrne & pytash, 2015). appropriate pedagogies include promoting active learning through good instructional design, maximizing personal interactions through in-class time design, and augmenting learning activities with technology to provide timely feedback. the goal can be achieved by training teachers to tailor education to students’ needs and exploit the unique opportunities offered by hybrid learning (linder, 2017). for instance, instructors in schools and universities can undergo training on how to exploit existing technologies, such as online testing platforms and virtual labs, to enhance the learning experience. in the specific case of lower learning institutions, such as elementary schools, where social interactions form a crucial part of the learning process, instructors can learn how to schedule appropriate activities to maximize learning through social interactions. they can also learn how to utilize virtual technologies to simulate social environments with great success. thus, it is possible to introduce hybrid learning into educational endeavors of the future by adopting appropriate pedagogies for the medium and training instructors on how to get the most out of existing resources. another approach is to prepare institutions to cope with hybrid learning requirements, thereby increasing their suitability in providing education through the medium and maximizing positive 128 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 outcomes. institutions can improve their preparation in two major ways. firstly, they can adopt technologies and acquire resources necessary for delivering hybrid learning in various contexts (nguyen, 2015). this requirement is especially important in elementary, primary, and high schools where distance learning has not been a focus in the past years. the success of exploiting the medium in the future rests on the ability of learning institutions to supply necessary resources for optimal delivery of education. secondly, stakeholders have to consider curriculum changes that focus on meeting the desired learning objectives in a different context (linder, 2017). for instance, student assessment approaches should be modified to include online participation as a significant contributor to learners’ overall outcomes. existing assessment methodologies may fail to provide an objective evaluation of students’ progress, thereby hindering the attainment of desired learning objectives. thirdly, educational institutions should play a more active role in evaluating and refining instructional strategies in hybrid learning to guarantee their continuous improvement. since hybrid learning has technology as one of its key components, institutions can collect data on its implementation and evaluate progress to make necessary and regular improvements. thus, stakeholders can introduce hybrid learning for future educational endeavors by preparing institutions to meet the essential requirements. 10. why hybrid learning will improve in the future hybrid learning is set to improve in the future due to several factors. firstly, the current experience has proved successful in delivering instruction under challenging environments. distance education has particularly facilitated the progress of learning activities in the current covid-19 context. secondly, there have been significant improvements in technologies devised to deliver hybrid learning. these technologies include video conferencing platforms, virtual labs, and platforms to access materials and deliver assignments online. besides, the increased competition among companies producing these technologies indicates that there will be a variety of affordable tools to support hybrid learning. thirdly, hybrid learning has found favor with the current generation. thus, learners will be more willing and prepared to adopt it in the future. additionally, guardians and parents have become more welcoming toward distance learning. they have also gained various skills from their interaction with distance learning. thereby, they will be more accepting and supportive of distance learning. scholars and stakeholders in the sector have also shown interest in investigating hybrid learning as a reliable medium for delivering education in the future. as a result, there is a wealth of scientific material and information to support implementation in the future. furthermore, educational content will become more interactive to enable learners to conduct practical experiments individually and collectively while delivering instant results. lastly, advancements made in ai will be beneficial to hybrid learning. ai will help meet individual student needs through machine learning that tracks students’ activities and progress to yield valuable insights into their learning outcomes. thus, hybrid learning has a promising future as a medium for delivering education. 129 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 11. conclusion hybrid learning represents a modern way of delivering education through both in-person and online instruction simultaneously. its inception and evolution result from technological improvements. these technologies allow learning to occur both physically and virtually. hybrid learning has several benefits. they include increased student participation, enhanced learning flexibility, increased access to education, and improved pedagogy. however, hybrid learning suffers from various drawbacks, such as loss of interaction between students and the educator, vulnerability to technical issues, lack of efficiency in the comprehension of bodily and verbal cues, and potential bias toward business profitability rather than sound pedagogy. it is also associated with various criticisms, including reduced practical learning capabilities and poor social skills development due to reduced interactions. nevertheless, it is possible to address the said drawbacks and shortcomings, thereby maximizing positive benefits. additionally, the benefits of hybrid learning outweigh the drawbacks and critiques. thus, hybrid learning has a place in future education. nonetheless, introducing hybrid learning in future education will not decrease the importance of schools and teachers. instead, it will shift their roles from that of being the source of learning material to being the facilitators and motivators. time spent at school will still be crucial since it will allow students to gain practical skills and participate on-the-ground to gain social skills that will contribute to a holistic hybrid learning experience. references al darayseh, a. s. 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(2020). the impact of covid-19 on education in the uae (strategic report no. 01). sheikh saud bin saqr al qasimi foundation for policy research. retrieved from https://f.hubspotusercontent10.net/hubfs/5081768/report%2001%20-%20en.pdf?__hstc=789530 35.dafff03804716e97eb90de10230cd4ab.1605133731535.1605133731535.1605133731535.1&__ hssc=78953035.1.1605133731535&__hsfp=3117873686&hsctatracking=9771e5e5-7950-449f-b e04-42d4de0529a6%7c24d634be-aa28-4957-88e5-cdf3b84c3962 130 published by scholink inc. https://doi.org/10.4236/iim.2018.106012 https://doi.org/10.5430/wje.v5n3p1 https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-60566-380-7.ch025 https://f.hubspotusercontent10.net/hubfs/5081768/report%2001%20-%20en.pdf?__hstc=78953035.dafff03804716e97eb90de10230cd4ab.1605133731535.1605133731535.1605133731535.1&__hssc=78953035.1.1605133731535&__hsfp=3117873686&hsctatracking=9771e5e5-7950-449f-be04-42d4de0529a6%7c24d634be-aa28-4957-88e5-cdf3b84c3962 https://f.hubspotusercontent10.net/hubfs/5081768/report%2001%20-%20en.pdf?__hstc=78953035.dafff03804716e97eb90de10230cd4ab.1605133731535.1605133731535.1605133731535.1&__hssc=78953035.1.1605133731535&__hsfp=3117873686&hsctatracking=9771e5e5-7950-449f-be04-42d4de0529a6%7c24d634be-aa28-4957-88e5-cdf3b84c3962 https://f.hubspotusercontent10.net/hubfs/5081768/report%2001%20-%20en.pdf?__hstc=78953035.dafff03804716e97eb90de10230cd4ab.1605133731535.1605133731535.1605133731535.1&__hssc=78953035.1.1605133731535&__hsfp=3117873686&hsctatracking=9771e5e5-7950-449f-be04-42d4de0529a6%7c24d634be-aa28-4957-88e5-cdf3b84c3962 https://f.hubspotusercontent10.net/hubfs/5081768/report%2001%20-%20en.pdf?__hstc=78953035.dafff03804716e97eb90de10230cd4ab.1605133731535.1605133731535.1605133731535.1&__hssc=78953035.1.1605133731535&__hsfp=3117873686&hsctatracking=9771e5e5-7950-449f-be04-42d4de0529a6%7c24d634be-aa28-4957-88e5-cdf3b84c3962 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 hwang, a. (2018). online and hybrid learning. journal of management education, 42(4), 557-563. https://doi.org/10.1177/1052562918777550 ilgu, a. k., & jahren, c. t. (2015, june 14-17). faculty perspectives on benefits and challenges of hybrid learning [paper presentation]. 122nd asee annual conference & exposition, seattle, washington. retrieved from https://www.asee.org/public/conferences/56/papers/11902/download kentnor, h. e. (2015). distance education and the evolution of online learning in the united states. in d. j. flinders, & c. m. moroye (eds.), curriculum and teaching dialogue (vol. 17, pp. 21-34). information age publishing, inc. kurzman, p. a. (2013). the evolution of distance learning and online education. journal of teaching in social work, 33, 331-338. https://doi.org/10.1080/08841233.2013.843346 linder, k. e. (2017). fundamentals of hybrid teaching and learning. new directions for teaching and learning, 2017(149), 11-18. https://doi.org/10.1002/tl.20222 nguyen, t. (2015). the effectiveness of online learning: beyond no significant difference and future horizons. journal of online learning and teaching, 11(2), 309-319. o’byrne, w. i., & pytash, k. e. (2015). hybrid and blended learning: modifying pedagogy across path, pace, time, and place. journal of adolescent & adult literacy, 59(2), 137-140. https://doi.org/10.1002/jaal.463 raes, a., detienne, l., windey, i., & depaepe, f. (2020). a systematic literature review on synchronous hybrid learning: gaps identified. learning environments research, 23(3), 269-290. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10984-019-09303-z shand, k., & glassett, s. (2018). the art of blending: benefits and challenges of a blended course for preservice teachers. journal of educators online, 15(1). https://doi.org/10.9743/jeo2018.15.1.10 snart, j. a. (2010). the perils and promise of blending online and face-to-face instruction in higher education. praeger. 131 published by scholink inc. https://doi.org/10.1177/1052562918777550 https://www.asee.org/public/conferences/56/papers/11902/download https://doi.org/10.1080/08841233.2013.843346 https://doi.org/10.1002/tl.20222 https://doi.org/10.1002/jaal.463 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10984-019-09303-z https://doi.org/10.9743/jeo2018.15.1.10 original paper hybrid learning here to stay! maurice e. abi raad1 & hamad. odhabi2 1 rabdan academy (vocational affairs division), abu dhabi, united arab emirates abstract keywords references frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 41 original paper management of innovative education for the achievement of sustainable development goals (sdgs) in universities in delta state ossai, a.g.1 1 faculty of education, university of delta, agbor, nigeria received: january 5, 2024 accepted: january 26, 2024 online published: february 18, 2024 doi:10.22158/fet.v7n1p41 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v7n1p41 abstract the study examined how public universities in delta state, nigeria, managed innovative education to meet sustainable development goals. a descriptive survey design was chosen. the employees of delta state’s five public universities made up the study’s population. using stratified random selection procedures, a sample of 120 respondents from federal universities and 240 respondents from state universities were chosen. two research questions and two hypotheses were developed. the data was collected using an instrument called “management of innovative education in universities for achievement of sustainable development goals questionnaire” (meuasdgq). experts validated the instrument, and a cronbach alpha was used to calculate the reliability coefficient of 0.74. the z-test statistics was employed to evaluate the hypotheses at0.05 alpha level of significance, while the mean and standard deviation were utilized to address the study issues. the results showed, among others, that innovative education in universities is essential to meeting nigeria’s sustainable development goals and innovative education in universities can be managed by taking a more humanistic approach. the report suggested, among other things, that ict centers be created in universities, faculty members receive frequent training via seminars and workshops, and that both digital and non-digital teaching techniques in learning should be adopted. keywords innovative, education, sustainable, development, goals, universities, management www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 42 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction the ability of a person or group of people to persuade and direct subordinates toward the accomplishment of the university’s defined goals and objectives is known as university management. this calls for making wise and occasionally challenging decisions, developing and communicating a clear vision, setting realistic goals, and arming followers with the information and resources they need to meet those objectives (chukwurah, 2011). being an administrator at a university requires having sufficient knowledge of curriculum and instruction in addition to being able to advise staff members when they need it (baholola, 2011). in order to engage students, staff members must conduct research on best practices and implement creative approaches. it also implies that university managers ought to have more time to interact with staff and get to know students. at both community colleges and universities, university officials focus on preparing students for a range of professional opportunities. the administrators of the institution must ensure academic quality in order to accomplish these admirable goals (ajayi & haastrap, 2011). academic excellence includes creative and innovative teaching and learning methods, developmental research, high-impact community initiatives, and the development of graduates’ own independent economic abilities (akpan, 2011). it also shows that both staff and students have acquired great moral discipline and scientific and technological competence. without a doubt, a university education is essential to the socioeconomic, political, environmental, and cultural development of a country. empirical evidence and widespread consensus have demonstrated that rapid economic and social development cannot be ensured in a nation unless its citizens receive a good education and the necessary training (ahmed, 2013). according to oguzor (2011), the relevance, utility, and uniqueness of an educational system are directly correlated with a country’s current state of national development. universities should emphasize, exalt, and embody the fundamentally good human qualities and virtues—such as intellectual meritocracy, academic discipline, creativity, patriotism, academic excellence, self-reliance, and a strong sense of responsibility—and innovate in education to support sustainable development. the 2030 agenda for sustainable development, also referred to as the sustainable development goals (sdgs) or “transforming our world,” is a meticulously crafted list of seventeen “global goals” that have been meticulously mapped out to cover 169 target areas with 244 indicators. these are broad objectives that address pressing global environmental, political, and socioeconomic issues. the millennium development goals (mdgs) were superseded by the sustainable development goals (sdgs). the mdgs were an international initiative to combat extreme poverty, hunger, and other diseases while also promoting gender equality, reducing child mortality, combating hiv/aids, malaria, and other diseases, and creating global partnerships for development (unesco, 2017). the agreement among developed, developing, and international agencies to work toward a world where development and poverty eradication would have the highest priority gave rise to the 21 targets that make up the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 43 published by scholink inc. millennium development goals. nonetheless, this study’s primary focus is on topics that overlap with creative teaching for sustainable development objectives. innovation is the part of educational change that entails modifying certain elements of curricula and methods. according to osim (2012), educational innovations are comprehensive adjustments made to the educational system and management that lead to the use of systems for the quicker and simpler resolution of problems and concerns. according to akimolafe (2011), educational innovation affects teaching and learning methods, strategies, and techniques by fostering a sustainable innovative environment. it also calls for the development of individual creativity. the main goals of innovations are the renewal of inputs, processes, and outputs, even though they are not as comprehensive as reforms. it brings about change by kicking off new initiatives within an establishment or organization. living in such a dynamic environment has made innovation a necessity for human development and advancement in institutions. because innovation is so dynamic, education as a human institution must adapt to the many issues that it faces on a daily basis in order to satisfy these demands (mgbekem, 2004). universities need to provide creative project-based learning and entrepreneurship instruction. the project’s goals are to engage staff and students in a practical manner with some of society’s problems and work toward finding solutions, as well as to instill and develop in both a sense of responsibility for society and the fulfillment that comes from helping others. practical projects typically involve manual labor and call for the application of skills learned in degree programs to benefit the community. conversely, the goal of entrepreneurship education is to give students the information, abilities, and drive needed to support successful entrepreneurship. in a variety of contexts, entrepreneurship education also emphasizes the growth of abilities and qualities that facilitate opportunity realization through efficient use of the educational system and other available platforms. the foundational idea of entrepreneurship education calls for the deft arrangement of information in a given field in a way that highlights the latent potential in the fields of self-employment and job creation, along with a set of moral principles that aren’t typically covered in a university curriculum (uche, 2020). according to ojiako (2014), there are various ways that learning happens, so it is necessary to use a variety of teaching techniques, approaches, and guidelines. graduates from universities need to be equipped to handle the ongoing, drastically changing changes in the educational system. learning for life and through life is ensured through innovative education. it enhances the ability of recent graduates from universities to offer pertinent, expanded opportunities for the development of a stronger society. according to achuonye (2002), problem-based learning (pbl), action learning (al), contextual learning (cl), and work-based learning (wbl) are among the tactics for managing innovative education. according to fadipo and adepoye (2009), retraining lecturers, case studies, role-playing, and organizational leadership training are a few strategies that can encourage creative changes in the abilities of academic staff. these approaches typically stress active and in-depth learning and are learner-centered, problem-based, and group-based. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 44 published by scholink inc. 2. conceptual framework the foundation of this work is edwin locke’s (1986) goal theory, which kpee (2015) cites. according to the theory, in order to reach the highest levels of innovation, objectives should be clear and there should be a clear path for individuals or groups to follow in order to become focused and realize their goals. when objectives are established, people are also pushed to consider alternative paths to reaching those objectives. the goal theory is based on the idea that conscious concepts control an individual’s behavior. goals serve two primary purposes, according to locke: they guide behavior and serve as the foundation for motivation. the primary source of motivation to work is the intention to work toward a goal, since goals have an impact on performance when such goals are accepted by the individuals to be worth working for. additionally, kaegon and nwaeke (2021) claimed that in order for goals to be accomplished, they must be s.m.a.r.t. . . smart means s – specific m – measurable a – attainable r – relevant t – time-bound therefore, it is generally expected that goals will satisfy the smart requirements. in addition, the theory suggested that objectives should be measurable, challenging but not insurmountable, and have a deadline for completion. similarly, the 169 target areas help to clarify the broad sustainable development goals. since achieving the 17 goals is challenging, countries, organizations, and non-governmental organizations have had to create action plans and blueprints in order to do so. making an action plan guarantees that efforts are directed toward goal achievement rather than being squandered. in addition, the theory gives people a way to contribute to the creation of goals and gives them motivation to stick with it in order to reach those goals. the sustainable development goals (sdgs) are time-bound, relevant to current global conditions, quantifiable, and specific. since the sdgs have specific targets indicated, this theory is relevant to the study. it makes it possible for a country, groups, and individuals to understand expectations. it is extremely difficult since it addresses a wide range of international concerns, forcing countries to concentrate and direct their efforts in the proper ways in order to address them. 2.1 management every organization needs a person or group of people to manage its operations by organizing, directing and directing human activities towards the achievement of its objectives. these persons are referred to as supervisors, managers, administrators or leaders. thus, management plays a major role in the effectiveness of the organization. according to okwori (2011), management is the process of coordinating all activities of planning, organizing, directing and controlling in order to achieve the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 45 published by scholink inc. objectives of the organization. according to igbinedion (2016), management is a dynamic process that mobilizes human and non-human resources to achieve the goals and objectives of the institution. the university administrator oversees decisions regarding the implementation of policies and programs within the university and is responsible for managing the affairs of the university system. therefore, to achieve innovative university education in nigerian universities, administrators must successfully plan and implement innovative policies and programs that would help students develop their minds and skills, which will ultimately help nigeria to achieve its sustainable development goals. in fact, management is the effective arrangement and application of material and human resources within a specific system to achieve predetermined goals (ofor-douglas, 2020). 2.2 university education a university education is a higher education obtained after an individual completes primary and secondary school. it not only provides high-level skills for the labor market, but also the training necessary for teachers, doctors, civil servants, engineers, entrepreneurs and countless other workers. these individuals develop the capabilities and analytical skills that drive local economies, support civil societies, teach children, lead effective government, and make important decisions that affect entire societies. a university is a community of scholars and students engaged in the complex task of learning to which humanity looks toward overall human progress (ofor-douglas, 2020). the goal of higher education is to optimally contribute to national development by intensifying and diversifying its programs for the development of a high workforce in the context of the country’s needs (frn, 2014). for university administrators in nigerian universities to achieve such laudable goals and objectives, administrators need some strategies to face and solve challenges within the organization. 2.3 sustainable development goals (sdgs) the sustainable development goals are frameworks for globally organized development that aim to create new projects focused on people’s needs. it is a set of goals that address the world’s most pressing political, socio-economic and environmental issues. the millennium development goals (mdgs) have been replaced by the sustainable development goals (sdgs). the mdgs were originally intended as an international initiative to combat extreme poverty, hunger and other diseases while promoting gender equality, reducing child mortality, combating hiv/aids, malaria and other diseases and creating global partnerships for development (unesco, 2017). there were twenty one goals in the millennium development goals. according to uche (2020), the sustainable development goals, on the other hand, are a set of 17 global goals created by the united nations assembly that prioritize a comprehensive strategy to achieve sustainable development for all. these goals include: a. end poverty in all its forms everywhere b. end hunger, achieve food security and better nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture c. ensure healthy living and promote well-being for all at all ages d. ensure inclusive and equal education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 46 published by scholink inc. e. achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls f. ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all g. ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all h. promote sustainable, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full productive employment and decent work for all i. build reliable infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and promote innovation j. reduces inequality within and between countries. k. makes cities and human settlements inclusively safe, resilient and sustainable l. ensure sustainable patterns of consumption and production m. take urgent action to combat climate change n. protect and sustainably use oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development o. protect herd and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, halt and reserve land degradation and halt biodiversity loss p. promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provides access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels q. strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development (un, 2017). goals 1 to 12 of the above “global goals” are people-centered and aimed at understanding the meaning of development. goal 17 – focused on global partnership – reveals ways to achieve the other 16 goals, which are interdependent. goals 13-16 are about promoting courses that would sustain the environment. this study focuses on topics that overlap with creative learning for the sdgs. as a result, lecturers should incorporate the sdgs into their lesson plans, and universities should prioritize integrating the goals into all their programs to instill a sustainable mindset in their students. universities can play a special and vital role in providing solutions for the sdgs, and forming partnerships to develop research is one of the best ways to do this. universities can host stakeholder conferences where different collaborating organizations meet. this could be done with the intention of holding a student sustainability conference that would open dialogue on a variety of sustainable topics with stakeholders, including public art, activism, women’s health, youth development/empowerment, politics, and environmental issues. universities play a key role in achieving the sustainable development goals, which affect all aspects of higher education institutions, as well as their development partners and other stakeholders. more platforms must be developed and experts with experience in higher education must be available. 2.4 innovation it generally refers to the latest advances in processes, goods or services. it is the use of novel concepts to improve a product, process or service. the linked service refers to educational services offered by universities. using innovation in education means making decisions based on what is best for the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 47 published by scholink inc. curriculum, classrooms, students, and teaching methods. it is a broad concept that encompasses a range of pedagogical innovations, technologies and teaching and learning strategies, all aimed at improving the quality of education and its outcomes. it is often characterized as a departure from conventional teaching techniques and the adoption of cutting-edge strategies that encourage student engagement, critical thinking and creativity (bechard, 2007). it requires the use of knowledge, logic and creativity. according to apehende (2013), innovation is the introduction of new concepts or methods. akudo (2010) further stated that innovation is the application of new and improved ideas, knowledge, procedures, machines, tools, equipment and processes resulting in new and improved goods, services and procedures. teaching innovation is the process of turning an idea, technology, or technique into a successful product, process, or service that meets the needs of students. it is technology that improves learning outcomes, collaborative relationships or systemic practices in schools. because it seeks sustainability and improves student preparation through interaction and interactive learning, innovation in education is a purposeful effort to bring novelty to a specific context (bechard, 2007). it is a tool designed with the intention of bringing something new into the world and putting it into practice to improve performance and growth through increased efficiency and effectiveness. according to ogakwu and isefe (2012), innovation is the process through which a new product is released, disseminated in the system and integrated into other operational practices. according to olugboyega (2013), innovation can exist in various forms including: • process innovation, which includes changing and improving procedures; this leads to higher performance, lower costs and growth in demand. • product or service innovation opens up new markets and increases demand, which encourages investment and job opportunities. • innovation in the organization and management of work, as well as the use of human resources and the ability to anticipate strategies. innovative education is a dynamic field that offers promising methods for improving teaching and learning. it is the purposeful identification and application of concepts, knowledge, creativity and initiative to achieve better results. however, in order to be successfully implemented, careful planning, constant professional growth and consideration of the specific requirements and environment of the students are necessary. 2.5 methods for providing innovative education a variety of learning models and strategies are included in innovative education, such as blended learning, flipped learning, and technology integration. i. integrating technology: integrating technology into the teaching and learning process is a key component of innovative education. the way educators interact with students and deliver content has changed due to digital trolls, online resources and learning management systems (olugboyega, 2017). technology-enabled learning enables individualized instruction, active learning, and better student outcomes. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 48 published by scholink inc. ii. blended and flipped learning: in state-of-the-art education, blended and flipped learning models have gained acceptance. with the flipped classroom, students watch lectures or other materials on tape in advance and study the material on their own before engaging in discussions and activities in a live or virtual classroom. blended learning allows for greater flexibility and customization of learning experiences by combining face-to-face learning with virtual components (okoringa, 2016). iii. project-based and experiential learning: innovative education places a strong emphasis on these two approaches as useful tools to get students to solve real-world problems. these methods promote critical thinking, teamwork, and creativity by allowing students to apply theoretical knowledge to real-world situations (mansur, 2020). iv. personalized learning: this dynamic field of education offers promising approaches to improving teaching and learning, but its successful implementation requires careful planning, ongoing professional development, and consideration of the unique needs and context of the learner. personalized learning adapts instruction to the individual needs and preferences of students and often uses adaptive learning technologies (ogakwu & isele, 2012). 2.6 challenges to innovative university education in nigeria in order to achieve nigeria’s sustainable development goals, innovative university education must overcome a number of obstacles. including: energy-related issues: most ict and internet devices require energy to operate effectively. however, nigeria has failed to supply enough energy to its people. douglas (2022) concurred with this line of thinking when she argued that nigeria is struggling to meet the electricity needs of its citizens. therefore, without adequate power supply, e-learning in nigerian universities cannot function effectively. computer illiteracy: this is the inability of people to understand or use computer hardware and/or software appropriately. many educators and students lack basic knowledge of programming and functions. this suggests that it will be challenging for students to pay attention to their teachers. according to ogbundikpa (2015), if innovative education is to continue in nigerian universities, adequate infrastructure and facilities should be provided to support and enhance effective ict (e-learning) training for instructors and students. godwin in chigozie-okwum (2018) suggested that teachers who are trained in ict and have strong digital literacy can help students develop higher order thinking skills, which can have a significant positive impact on their education. low level of curriculum adaptation: the curriculum of most nigerian universities is outdated and still relies on outdated teaching techniques such as lecturing students with blackboards and markers, taking notes in notebooks, handing in assignments and more. as a result, they are unable to meet the demands of current, innovative teaching and learning standards. the reason is that some of the administrative directors of these educational institutions are not willing to adopt 21st century e-learning practices. an educational environment that is not welcoming, receptive to new ideas and adaptable will be limited in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 49 published by scholink inc. attempting to foster innovation. consequently, it is imperative that nigerian universities adopt innovative curricula. financial problem: inadequate funding of studies, initiatives or conferences focused on sustainable development goals would be detrimental to the governance of creative higher education in nigeria. the amount and size of resources available for community development, teaching, and research can be influenced by the financial resources available within the university system. according to chukwurah (2011), university funding in nigeria does not meet the united nations educational, scientific and cultural organization (unesco) minimum recommendation of 26%. in support of the above statement, khali (2013) argued that nigeria spends a significantly smaller percentage of its annual budget on education than other sectors compared to other countries at the same level of development. inadequate ict and internet facilities: according to okolocha and okolocha (2012), nigerian post-secondary institutions lack the tools and resources needed to equip their students with the skills and competencies they need. accordingly, nwana (2012) suggested that there is a serious lack of e-learning resources including digital libraries, e-mail services, multimedia computers, internet/internet connected computers and multimedia television. without sufficient ict resources and a reliable internet connection, innovative university education cannot function effectively. lack of maintenance and security of facilities: physical resources including computers, projectors and smart boards among others must be properly managed and maintained in nigerian universities. according to ofor-douglas (2022), this would only be possible if enough money was available to maintain these facilities. mismanagement of funds meant for the maintenance of facilities by some managers of universities in nigeria has become a common practice. another problem hindering the innovation of university education in nigeria is the lack of security of ict and e-learning facilities in the university environment. according to jian and reo (2011), security measures are in place to prevent theft and unauthorized entry into work areas. several instructors and students have developed a habit of looting ict resources. this immoral act has also led to a decline in e-learning resources, which hinders the development of excellence in teaching in nigerian universities. 2.7 problem statement innovative education in nigerian universities is essential for achieving the sustainable development goals (sdgs) due to factors such as technologies integration, information technology (it), flipped and blended learning, students’ digital literacy, large school enrollment, changes in curriculum content, new research findings, the recent global pandemic (covid 19), and government educational policies and directives. in this era of rapid technological advancement and information communication technology compliance, outdated skills and knowledge are not appropriate. education stakeholders are deeply concerned about the current state of nigerian university education, which is plagued by poor infrastructure, inadequate information technology facilities, a lack of professionally trained staff, poor research skills, poor communication skills, brain drain syndrome, ineffectiveness, and low staff www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 50 published by scholink inc. productivity. it is now necessary for the researcher to start this study, which focuses on managing creative education in universities to help public universities in delta state, nigeria, achieve sustainable development goals. 2.8 purpose of the study examining how universities in delta state, nigeria, manage creative education in support of sustainable development goals is the primary goal of this research. the study specifically aimed to: 1). determine how innovative education can be managed in universities to support delta state’s sustainable development goals. 2). determine the best management practices for innovative education in universities to help delta state meet its objectives for sustainable development. 2.9 research issues to direct the investigation, the following research questions were developed: 1). how can innovative education be managed in universities to help delta state, nigeria, achieve its goals for sustainable development? 2). what are the strategies for managing innovative education in universities for the achievement of sustainable development goals in delta state, nigeria. 2.10 hypotheses the research investigated the subsequent null hypotheses: 1). there is no significant difference between the mean rating of lecturers at federal and state universities on the ways of managing innovative education in universities to facilitate the achievement of sustainable development goals in delta state, nigeria. 2). there is no significant difference between the mean ratings of lecturers at federal and state universities regarding the strategies of managinginnovative education in universities for the achievement of sustainable development goals in delta state, nigeria. 2.11 methodology the survey design used in this study was descriptive. five public universities in delta state made up the study’s population (federal and state universities). they included the deans, provosts, directors, assistant bursars, lecturers, registrars, librarians, hods, vice chancellors, deputy vice chancellors, bursars and lecturers. 360 respondents made up the sample size, and they were chosen using a proportionate stratified random sampling technique. there were 240 respondents from state universities and 120 respondents from federal universities in this survey. data were gathered using a self-created tool called the “management of innovative education in universities for achievement of sustainable development goals questionnaire (mieuasdgq).” experts from the university of delta, agbor departments of measurement and educational administration validated the instrument. when the instrument’s reliability was assessed using the crunbach alpha, a reliability value of 0.74 was found, indicating that the instrument is extremely reliable. there were two sections on the instrument: a and b. the respondents’ personal information is covered in section a. items in section b were created to elicit www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 51 published by scholink inc. data related to addressing the research questions and validating the hypotheses. strongly agree (sa), agree (a), disagree (d), and strongly disagree (sd) was the format for the response options. the weights are 1, 3, 2, and 4, in that order. three research assistants and the researcher administered the instrument. with a criterion mean of 2.50, the research questions were addressed using the mean and standard deviation. the hypotheses were tested at the 0.05 level of significance using the z-test statistics. 3. presentation of results 3.1 research question 1: how can innovative education be managed in universities to help delta state, nigeria, achieve its goals for sustainable development? table 1. mean score and standard deviation on ways innovative education can be managed in universities to facilitate the achievement of sustainable development goals s/n items description federal universities no: 120 state universities no: 240 x std decision x std decision 1. raise skill level of teachers 3.29 0.30 agree 3.34 0.20 agree 2. build students capacity for job opportunities 3.23 0.28 agree 3.13 0.20 agree 3. improve teachers knowledge in delivering quality instruction 3.18 0.28 agree 3.26 0.20 agree 4. facilitate greater students participation in learning process 3.20 0.28 agree 3.18 0.20 agree 5. expose students to real-life situations 3.40 0.30 agree 3.19 0.20 agree 6. enhance the quality of students 3.33 0.30 agree 3.16 0.20 agree grand mean and std 3.27 0.29 3.21 0.20 table 1 demonstrates that every item on the list of strategies for managing innovative education in universities to help delta state meet its sustainable development goals was approved by the respondents. the mean ratings for state universities (3.21) and federal universities (3.27) were all higher than the 2.50 criteria mean. this suggests that the respondents agreed that innovative education can be managed in universities for the achievement of sustainable development goals in delta state, nigeria. they also agreed that increasing teacher skill levels, preparing students for career www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 52 published by scholink inc. opportunities, improving teachers’ knowledge in delivering quality instruction, facilitating greater student participation in the learning process, exposing students to real-life situations, and enhancing the quality of students are some of the ways. 3.2 research question 2: what are the strategies for managing innovative education in universities for the achievement of sustainable development goals in delta state, nigeria? table 2. mean and standard deviation on the strategies for managing innovative education in universities for the attainment of sustainable development goals s/n items description federal universities no: 120 state universities no: 240 x std decision x std decision 1. strategic fund raising programmes 2.99 0.26 agree 3.27 0.20 agree 2. university industry collaboration 3.19 0.28 agree 3.04 0.17 agree 3. technology integration 3.08 0.26 agree 3.19 0.20 agree 4. project-based and experimental learning 3.18 0.28 agree 2.91 0.17 agree 5. blended learning 3.34 0.30 agree 3.19 0.20 agree 6. flipped learning 3.39 0.30 agree 3.31 0.20 agree grand mean and std 3.19 0.28 3.15 0.19 according to table 2 above, all of the items are strategies for managing innovative education in universities for delta state’s sustainable development goals, as agreed upon by the respondents. this is due to the fact that the federal universities’ and state universities’ grand mean responses (3.19) and (3.15) exceeded the 2.50 criterion mean. this suggests that strategies for managing innovative education in universities for the accomplishment of sustainable development goals in delta state include fund-raising campaigns, university-industry collaboration, technology integration, project-based and experimental learning, blended learning, and flipped learning. 3.3 hypothesis 1: there is no significant difference between the mean ratings of lecturers in federal and state universities on the ways innovative education can be managed in universities to facilitate the achievement of sustainable development goals in delta state, nigeria. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 53 published by scholink inc. table 3. summary of z-test analysis on the mean ratings of federal and state universities lecturers on the ways innovative education can be managed in universities for sustainable development goals respondent no x std z-cal z-critical decision federal universities 120 3.27 0.29 0.42 1.96 accept state universities 240 3.21 0.20 significant at 0.05 table 3 presents an overview of the average evaluations, standard deviation, computed critical ratio test, and disparity between federal and state university lecturers regarding how to manage innovative education in universities to help delta state meet its sustainable development objectives. the null hypothesis, which states that there is no significant difference between the mean ratings of lecturers in federal and state universities on ways innovative education can be managed in universities to facilitate the attainment of sustainable development goals in delta state, nigeria, is hereby accepted. the data indicates that, at the 0.05 level of significance, the z-calculated value of 0.42 is less than the z-critical value of 1.96. 3.4 hypothesis 2: there is no significant difference between the mean ratings of lecturers in federal and state universities on the strategies for managing innovative education in universities for the achievement of sustainable development goals in delta state, nigeria. table 4. summary of the z-test analysis on the mean ratings of federal and state universities lecturers on the strategies for managing innovative education in universities for the achievement of sustainable development goals respondent no x std z-cal z-critical decision federal universities 120 3.19 0.28 0.29 1.96 accept state universities 240 3.15 0.19 significant at 0.05 in table 4, the methods for managing innovative education in universities for the accomplishment of sustainable development goals in delta state are summarized by mean ratings, standard deviation, calculated and critical ratio test of difference between lecturers in federal and state universities. at the 0.05 level of significance, the z-calculated value of 0.29 is less than the z-critical value of 1.96, according to the results. we accept the null hypothesis, based on the data, which states that there is no discernible difference between the mean ratings of lecturers in federal and state universities regarding www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 54 published by scholink inc. the methods used to manage innovative education in universities to help delta state achieve its sustainable development goals. 4. discussion of findings the results of research question one show that both federal and state universities concurred that some strategies for managing innovative education in universities to support the achievement of sustainable development goals in delta state, nigeria, include increasing teacher skill levels, preparing students for career opportunities, enhancing teachers’ knowledge in providing quality instruction, encouraging greater student participation in the learning process, exposing students to real-life situations, and improving student quality. when it comes to managing innovative education to help delta state, nigeria, achieve its sustainable development goals, federal and state lecturers’ mean ratings did not significantly differ, according to the results of the first hypothesis test. the results support the claim made by fadipo and adepoju (2009) that learner-centered, customized instruction is becoming more prevalent in teaching and learning activities. the ability of university lecturers to manage innovations will be greatly enhanced by exposing them to various techniques, mindsets, and understanding of innovations in education through training and retraining programs. this suggests that programs for capacity building and training are essential components of the university system that provide faculty members with cutting-edge training and help delta state, nigeria, fulfill its sustainable development objectives. the results of research question two also showed that lecturers at federal and state universities in delta state concurred that technology integration, project-based and experimental learning, blended learning, flipped learning, and strategic fund-raising programs are among the many tactics for managing innovative education in universities for the accomplishment of sustainable development goals. furthermore, hypothesis two shows that lecturers at federal and state universities have similar views about how to run innovative education in delta state universities. according to olugboyega (2017), mansur (2020), and okoringa (2016), the aforementioned strategies are essential for managing innovative education for sustainable development goals, and this finding is consistent with their findings. these fundamental techniques will encourage the use of creative teaching techniques and make it easier for academic staff to provide high-quality services. the strategies will also serve as guidelines for delta state, nigeria’s universities in achieving sustainable development goals. 5. in summary this paper highlights the significance of innovative university education for sustainable development goals in delta state, nigerian universities. it is imperative to acknowledge the dynamic nature of the world and adapt nigerian university education to emerging trends in educational innovation. a more humanistic approach combined with contemporary educational innovations and technologies can help www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 55 published by scholink inc. achieve sustainable development goals. in order to support sustainable development goals, university administrators must work to ensure that innovation is evident in their educational policies. 6. advice the following recommendations were made in light of the findings: 1). to meet the goals of sustainable development, staff members should receive regular training on how to use cutting-edge facilities to increase their productivity through seminars and workshops. 2). effective and adaptable leaders ought to hold a variety of positions in universities, starting an innovative trend within the educational system. universities in nigeria should also implement a new curriculum that complies with cutting-edge, 21st-century teaching techniques. 3). using a combination of digital and analog teaching techniques will enhance the learning environment. the implementation of e-learning in nigerian universities can help achieve this. 4). nigerian universities ought to increase their revenue sources internally rather than relying solely on government support. 5). ict centers ought to be available in universities as well, guaranteeing that information on sustainable development goals will be accessible to students who cannot afford their own gadgets. 6). ict and internet infrastructure needs to be properly and routinely maintained. 7). sufficient security ought to be offered to protect ict and internet resources so that e-learning can occur. acknowledgement i wish to acknowledge the following persons who helped in typing and editing the work: professor (mrs.) r. arisi, mr. s. nwabuwe and dr. jeff chisonum. also my regards to the teachers that helped me in gathering data for the research. references abali, s. o. (2013). the social demand of education and enrolment challenges of universities in rivers state, nigeria. journal of education in development areas (jeda), 21(1), 124-135. achuonye, k. a. (2008) trends in nigeria educational innovation. lagos: pearl. ahmed, s. (2013). availability of funds and utilization in federal universities of technology in north-east zone of nigeria. multi-disciplinary journal of science. technology and vocational education (mjosteue), 2(1), 80-90. akomolafe, c. o. (2011). managing innovation in education in education system in nigeria: a focus on creating. emerging trends in educational research and policy studies, 2(1), 47-52. akpan, b. b. (2011). innovations in science and technology education through science teachers association. science education international, 2(2), 67-69. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 56 published by scholink inc. ajayi, i. a., & haastrup, e. t. (2011). management of university in nigeria: problems and possible solutions. lagos: green line publisher. akpakwu, s. o. (2012). educational management: theory and practice. onitsha; destiny ventures. apehende, e. u. (2013). reforms and innovation of the primary education system in nigeria. reforms and innovation in nigeria education, 2(1), 177-179. bechard, j. p. (2002). higher education and pedagogical innovations: a literature review. new societies, xxvii(2), 120-132. chigozie-okwum, c. c. (2018). policies on information and communication technology education planning. in n. p. ololube (ed.), headbook of research on educational planning and policy analysis. portharcourt pearl publishers. chukwurah, c. c. (2011). access to higher education in nigeria: the university of calabar at a glance. canadian social science, 7(3), 108-113. doughlas, a. t. (2022). examination of legal pathways to a green economy for sustainable development in nigeria. l.l.b. project, college of law, afebabadola universities ado-ekiti. federal republic of nigeria. (2004). national policy on education. lagos: nerdc. jian, r. k., & rao, s. s. (2011). industrial safety health and environment systems. new delhi: khana publishers. kaegon, l. e. s., & nwaeke, p. f. (2021). managing innovative education in universities for the attainment of sustainable development goals in imo state. african journal of educational research and development (ajerd), 1(2), 125-135. kpee, g. g. (2013). theories and theoretical framework: the resources handbook. owerri: uzopietio publisher. mansur, x. (2020). improving the technical skills of modern teachers and increase their preparedness for teaching. european journal of research and reflection in education science (ejrres), 8(10), 30-33. mgbekem, s. j. a. (2004). management of university education in nigeria. calabar: university of calabar press. nwena, s. (2012). challenges in the publication of e-learning by secondary teachers in anambra state, nigeria. african journal of teacher education, 2(1), 60-70. ogakwu, v. n., & isele, c. t. (2012). the problems and innovation of education in nigeria: the state of education in nigeria. lagos: west and solomon. ogbudiakpa, s. c. (2015). educational accountability among low-income holds/families and completion ratio in secondary in anambra state, nigeria. journal of educational administration and planning, 15(1), 150-159. oguzor, n. s. (2004). managing higher education for sustainable development in nigeria. implications for policy challenges journal of economics and business research, 17(2), 25-35. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 57 published by scholink inc. ojiako, c. a. (2004). teacher effectiveness. in n. c. okorie, v. c. onyeike, l. e. b. igwe, r. o. anyaogu, & j. o. asodike (eds.), teachers’schools and society (pp.43-110). pearl publishers. okolocha, c. c., & okolocha, c. b. (2012). students entrepreneurial skill acquisition through siwes in nigeria: an analytical approach. international journal of independent research and studies,1(13), 97-105. okoringa, n. (2016). innovative practices of principals for effective administration of public secondary schools in bayelsa state. unpublished masters dissertation: department of educational management, university of port-harcourt. olugboyega a. d. (2019). the problems and innovation: a tool for solving economic crises in nigeria.covenant journal of entrepreneurship (cjoe), 2, 20-31. osim, u. (2012). management of innovative behaviours and task performance among secondary school teachers in cross rivers state nigeria. journal of emerging trends in educational research and policy studies, 3(5), 66-74. uche, c. m. (2020). concept of higher education: models practices and contemporary issues(pp. 494-497). onitsha: netcode publishing house. unesco. (2017). achieving the mdgs in nigeria. retrieved august 4, 2023, from https://www.unesco.org/wearo. frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no.3, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 1 original paper photograph 51, rosalind franklin and dna structure steven b. oppenheimer1 1 department of biology and center for cancer and developmental biology, california state university, northridge, northridge, ca usa received: april 17, 2023 accepted: may 3, 2023 online published: may 17, 2023 doi:10.22158/fet.v6n3p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v6n3p1 abstract the nobel prize in physiology/medicine was awarded in 1962 to watson, crick and wilkins, after the death of rosalind franklin who passed away in 1958. this mini-review focuses on franklin’s contributions to the double helix discovery. the title of this paper, photograph 51, describes a x-ray diffraction image of dna (b form) taken by franklin and her graduate student raymond gosling (note 1). its importance will be described, as well as franklin’s other contributions to the double helix discovery. of immense importance is what crick and watson themselves said: without franklin’s data, “the formulation of our structure would have been most unlikely, if not impossible” (note 2). this statement makes it clear that franklin rightly deserves to be the 4th partner in the discovery of the structure of dna, along with crick, watson and wilkins. 1. introduction matthew cobb’s and nathaniel comfort’s 2023 nature commentary, what watson and crick really took from franklin, nature 616: april 27, 2023, pages 657-660, is a major reference for this mini-review (note 3). it, like this paper, concludes that franklin is rightly a 4th partner in this great discovery (crick, watson, wilkins, franklin), one of the greatest of all time. the references in this paper are twofold: one: those based on the dna story (notes 1-4) and two: why am i telling this story (notes 5-97)? these latter references show my credibility in research science, some recognition: us presidential award, aaas fellow, csu system statewide trustees outstanding professor; and my personal friendship with the late dr. crick, who visited here for about 10 years in the 1990s. there are two dna forms. the a form—is crystalline and “dry.” the second is the b form, that is “wetter” and called the paracrystalline form. a form can be converted to b form by increasing humidity. b form can be converted to a by reducing humidity. cells contain lots of water and therefore the b form of dna is likely the biologically functional form. maurice wilkins who supervised crick, watson www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 2 published by scholink inc. and franklin obtained some very pure a form dna from swiss chemist rudolf signer and some less pure dna from the austrian biochemist erwin chargaff (notes 3). attention is often given to the purest form of a chemical, in this case the a form of dna. watson and crick had many interactions with colleagues. for example, erwin chargaff told them that there was rough equivalences of thymine (t)/adenine (a) and guanine (g)/cytosine (c). this helped them think that a binds with t and c binds with g (notes 4). at first crick and watson in building models thought the bases were in the aldose form that was wrong and their models did not work. watson and crick showed their models to jerry donohue, an american crystallographer who shared an office with watson. jerry said that the dna bases would most likely be in the ketose form in water, not the aldose from that they had been using. an aldose contains an aldehyde group (cho) consisting of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen while a ketose contains a ketone group (co) consisting of carbon and oxygen. when they switched their thinking that the bases were in the ketose form, the cardboard models “worked.” a paired with t and c paired with g. here again, interactions with colleague(s) helped watson and crick arrive at a correct piece of the puzzle. from ross hardison, the pennsylvania state university (denoted by “ ”): 2. b-form of dna  “b-dna is the watson–crick form of the double helix that most people are familiar with.  they proposed two strands of dna — each in a right-hand helix — wound around the same axis. the two strands are held together by h-bonding between the bases (in anti-conformation).  the two strands of the duplex are antiparallel and plectonemically coiled. the nucleotides arrayed in a 5′ to 3′ orientation on one strand align with complementary nucleotides in the 3′ to 5′ orientation of the opposite strand.  bases fit in the double helical model if pyrimidine on one strand is always paired with purine on the other. from chargaff’s rules, the two strands will pair a with t and g with c. this pairs a keto base with an amino base, a purine with a pyrimidine. two h-bonds can form between a and t, and three can form between g and c.  these are the complementary base pairs. the base-pairing scheme immediately suggests a way to replicate and copy the genetic information.  34 nm between bp, 3.4 nm per turn, about 10 bp per turn  9 nm (about 2.0 nm or 20 angstroms) in diameter.  34o helix pitch; -6o base-pair tilt; 36o twist angle” www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 3 published by scholink inc. 3. a-form dna  “the major difference between a-form and b-form nucleic acid is in the confirmation of the deoxyribose sugar ring. it is in the c2′ endoconformation for b-form, whereas it is in the c3′ endoconformation in a-form.  a second major difference between a-form and b-form nucleic acid is the placement of base-pairs within the duplex. in b-form, the base-pairs are almost centered over the helical axis but in a-form, they are displaced away from the central axis and closer to the major groove. the result is a ribbon-like helix with a more open cylindrical core in a-form.  right-handed helix  11 bp per turn; 0.26 nm axial rise; 28o helix pitch; 20o base-pair tilt  33o twist angle; 2.3nm helix diameter” rosalind franklin, a jewish woman scientist, was not allowed in the scientist lounge, as anti-female and anti-semitic culture prevailed at that time. so while crick and watson had the “luxury” of interacting with many other scientists, rosalind franklin did not. and it is often said that franklin’s science suffered for it (note 3). it is not likely that crick and watson would have achieved the correct model before others such as linus pauling, who was close on their tracks and had won two nobel prizes, had they not had extensive interaction with others. rosalind franklin should have shared in the glory of the discovery. she likely would have shared in the nobel prize had she not past away before it was awarded. her input included photograph 51. when wilkins showed this photo to watson, he quickly thought that it was probably a helix. franklin left for a position elsewhere and was instructed to leave her dna work with wilkins. franklin’s student ryan gosling, who together with franklin produced photo 51, gave it to wilkins when franklin left. wilkins showed it to watson, who after conversations with crick, thought it was a likely helix. the models built by crick and watson, by themselves, were not experimental evidence for a helix. but photo 51 was experimental evidence, helping to confirm the helix structure. one photo, photo 51, is just one piece of experimental evidence. but together with the modeling, a strong case was made for the helix structure of dna. it made sense. for photo 51 the b form of dna was exposed to x-rays for 62 hours to produce one of the finest and clearest x-ray photos ever taken. it was the 51st photo taken. the cartoon by emily willoughby shows some of the features of photo 51. franklin said that photo 51 suggests a helical structure, most likely a double helix with ten bases per turn with the bases on the inside and the phosphate groups on the outside. she suggested that the dna double helix had a diameter of 20 angstroms with 3.4 angstroms between base pairs and 10 base pairs per turn with 34 angstroms between repeated units. a missing layer line suggested a double helix not a single helix. this all is shown in the cartoon that helps in the understanding of what photo 51 shows. there is some controversy about what came first, crick and watson’s models or franklin and gosling’s experimental evidence, photo 51. the statement made by crick and watson regarding franklin’s data, “the formulation of our structure would have been most www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 4 published by scholink inc. unlikely, if not impossible,” (note 2) without franklin’s data, this statement suggests that crick and watson knew about franklin’s work before they completed their correct model of the structure of dna. they suggest that franklin’s work was instrumental in the development of the correct dna model (note 2) this conclusion was stated in cobb and comfort’s 2023 nature commentary (note 3) and represents a new twist to the dna story. also noted was a medical research council report in which franklin and wilkins independently suggest that the b form of dna is helical with two intertwined chains with a sugar-phosphate backbone on the outside of the helix and a 34 angstrom repeat (note 1). the correct model of the dna double helix was displayed at the royal society conversazione in june 1953 and signed by crick, watson, wilkins and franklin (note 3). 4. conclusions while the exact timeline of who did what first may be controversial, there is no doubt that rosalind franklin deserves to be a 4th partner in the dna structure discovery along with crick, watson and wilkins. this discovery is one of the most important of all time. franklin’s experimental evidence as well at watson and crick’s modeling were both essential in the dna structure discovery as stated by crick and watson. franklin’s contributions were instrumental. without them… “the formulation of our structure would have been most unlikely, if not impossible.” while the 2023 nature commentary is read by practicing scientists, this mini-review is primarily for educators and everyone, bringing a new understanding of one of the greatest discoveries of all time. while it is generally known that rosalind franklin had something to do with the discovery, what is presented here is not widely known. the discussion on photograph 51 is an especially relevant addition to frontiers in education technology. as a us presidential awardee, fellow aaas, csu system trustees outstanding professor, friend of dr. crick, and author with my students of many peer reviewed publications (notes 5-97), i am happy to present this paper to the public. acknowledgements thanks to carolyn oppenheimer for expert figure placements and formatting and to my colleagues and university leadership for outstanding support over a 50 plus year period. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 5 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 6 published by scholink inc. notes note 1. franklin, r.e., gosling, r.g., molecular configuration in sodium thymonucleate, nature171, 340-341 (1953). note 2. crick, f.h.c., watson, j.d., the complementary structure of deoxyribonucleic acid, proc. r. soc. lond., a223, 80-96 (1954). note 3. cobb, m., comfort, n., what watson and crick really took from franklin, nature 616, 657-660 (2023). note 4. zamenhof, s., brawerman, g., and chargaff, e. on the deoxypentose nucleic acids from several microorganisms, biochim et biophys. acta, 9, 402-405 (1952). note 5. s. oppenheimer, m. berman, h. chun, a. lundgren, s. tanaka, a antoniou, t. miller, g. zem, applied science research for all part 1 pre-college level, american journal of applied scientific research 6: 72-75 (2020). doi:10.11648/j.ajasr.20200606.11. note 6. s. oppenheimer, covid-19 pandemic, glycobiology, glycan shields, vaccine strategies, heparin sulfate: a mini review, american journal of applied scientific research 6(2): 46-48 (2020). note 7. s. oppenheimer, cell clusters in cancer metastasis: a mini review, american journal of applied scientific research 6(2): 43-45 (2020). doi: 10.11648//j.ajasr.20200602.13. note 8. smith, t., oppenheimer, s.b., involvement of l-rhamnose in sea urchin gastrulation: a live embryo assay, zygote, doi:10.1017/s0967199413000452 (2013) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 7 published by scholink inc. note 9. singh, s., karabidian, e., kandel, a., metzenberg, s., carroll, jr. e., oppenheimer, s.b., a role for polyglucans in a model sea urchin embryo cellular interaction, zygote doi:10.1017/s0967199413000038 (2013) note 10. ghazarian, h, b. idoni, s. oppenheimer. a glycobiology review: carbohydrates, lectins, and implications in cancer therapeutics. acta histochemica, vol. 113, pages 236-247 (2011) pmcid pmc3027850. on the order of 10,000 downloads. one of the most of all time. note 11. dreyfuss, j. and s. oppenheimer. cyclodextrins and cellular interactions in e. bilensoy, ed., cyclodextrins in pharmaceutics, cosmetics, and biomedicine, current and future industrial applications, john wiley and sons, hoboken, n.j., chapter 15, pp. 287-295. (2010) note 12. idoni, b. h. ghazarian, s. metzenberg, v. hutchins-carroll, s. oppenheimer, and e. carroll jr. use of specific glycosidases to probe cellular interactions in the sea urchin embryo. experimental cell research, vol. 316, pp. 2204-2211 (2010) pmcid pmc2921930 note 13. alvarez, m., nnoli, j., carroll, e.j., jr., hutchins-carroll, v., razinia, z., oppenheimer, s.b., exogenous hyalin and sea urchin gastrulation, part ii: hyalin, an interspecies cell adhesion molecule, zygote 16: 73-78 (2008). pmcid pmc2557437 note 14. carroll, e.j., jr., hutchins-carroll, v., coyle-thompson, c., oppenheimer, s. b., hyalin is a cell adhesion molecule involved in mediating archenteron-blastocoel roof attachment, acta histochemica 110: 265-275 (2008). pmid 18262230 note 15. contreras, a., vitale, j., hutchins-carroll, v., carroll, e.j., oppenheimer, s.b., exogenous hyalin and sea urchin gastrulation. part iii: biological activity of hyalin isolated from lytechinus pictus embryos, zygote 16: 355-361 (2008). pmcid pmc2586997 note 16. oppenheimer, s.b., alvarez, m., nnoli, j., carbohydrate-based experimental therapeutics for cancer, hiv/aids and other diseases, acta histochemica 110: 6-13 (2008). pmcid pmc2278011 note 17. oppenheimer, s.b., cellular basis of cancer metastasis: a review of fundamentals and new advances, acta histochemica, 108: 327-334 (2007). this paper garnered the most downloads of all papers in this elsevier journal, august 06-march 07 (813 downloads). pmid16730054 note 18. petrossian, k., banner, l., oppenheimer, s.b., lectin binding and lectin effects on human cancer and non-cancer cell lines: examination of issues of interest in drug design strategies, acta histochemica 109: 491-500 (2007). note 19. razinia, z., carroll, jr., e.j., oppenheimer, s.b., microplate assay for quantifying developmental morphologies: effects of exogenous hyalin on sea urchin gastrulation, zygote 15: 1-6 (2007). note 20. sajadi, s., rojas, p., oppenheimer, s.b., cyclodextrin, a probe for studying adhesive interactions, acta histochemica 109: 338-342 (2007). pmcid pmc 1988679 note 21. zem, g.c., badali, o., gaytan, m. hekmatjou, h., alvarez, m., nnoli, j., katus, e., oppenheimer, s.b., microbead analysis of cell binding to immobilized lectin: an alternative to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 8 published by scholink inc. microarrays in the development of carbohydrate drugs and diagnostic tests, acta histochemica 108: 311-317 (2006). note 22. ghazarian, h., coyle-thompson, c., dalrymple, w., hutchins-carroll, v., metzenberg, s., razinia, z., carroll, jr., e.j., oppenheimer, s.b., exogenous hyalin and sea urchin gastrulation, part iv: a direct adhesion assayprogress in identifying hyalin’s active sites, zygote 18: 17-26 (2010). pmcid pmc2817981 note 23. oppenheimer, s. & meyer, j. (1982). carbohydrate specificity of sea urchin blastula adhesion component, experimental cell research, 139, 451-456. note 24. idoni, b., ghazarian, h., metzenberg, s., hutchins-carroll, v, carroll, jr., e., & oppenheimer, s. (2010). use of specific glycosidases to probe cellular interactions in the sea urchin embryo. experimental cell research, 316, 2204-2211. note 25. liang, j., aleksanyan, h., metzenberg, s., & oppenheimer, s. (2016). involvement of l-rhamnose in sea urchin gastrulation. part ii: alpha rhamnosidase, zygote 24, 37-377. note 26. k. crocker, j. deleon, l. telliyan, k. aprelian, a. rosenberg, n. pouri, g. beltran, v. ramirez, d. kaufman, a. petrosyan, d. nazarian, m. magistrado, s. matinian, d. hanna, s. eskandari, f. atanante, a. nerses, g. zem, s. oppenheimer a kinetic assay for drug discovery: part 2, sodium sulfate american journal of applied scientific research 2020; 6(2): 39-42 http://www.sciencepublishinggroup.com/j/ajasr
doi: 10.11648/j.ajasr.20200602.12
issn: 2471-9722 (print); issn: 2471-9730 (online). note 27. v. nahapetyan, s. delos santos, k. crocker, d. tobar, d. nazarian, h. chirishyan, g. beltran, r. dubin, l. reque, p. singh, b. cardona, g. royce bachinela, l. sarkisyan, g. zem, s. oppenheimer, a manual kinetic assay in a fixed yeast model for drug discovery american journal of applied scientific research 5, no1: 28-35. doi 10.11648/j.ajasr.20190501.15 (2019). note 28. aleksanyan, h., liang, j., metzenberg, s., oppenheimer, s.b., terminal alpha-d-mannosides are critical during sea urchin gastrulation, zygote doi: 10.1017/so967199416000113 (2016). note 29. a. ghazarian, oppenheimer, s., microbead analysis of cell binding to immobilized lectin. part ii: quantitative kinetic profile assay for possible identification of anti-infectivity and anti-cancer reagents http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.acthis.2014.07.015, acta histochemica 116 (2014) 1514-1518. note 30. singh, e. karabidian, a. kandel, s. metzenberg, e. carroll, jr,. s. oppenheimer, a role for polyglucans in a model sea urchin embryo cellular interaction, zygote (cambridge university press), (2013), doi.10.1017/s096719943000038 (2013). note 31. h. ghazarian, c. coyle-thompson, dalrymple, v. hutchins-carroll, s. metzenberg, z. razinia, e. carroll, jr., s. oppenheimer, exogenous hyalin and sea urchin gastrulation, part iv: a direct adhesion assay – progress in identifying hyalin’s active sites zygote 18: 17-26 (2010). note 32. a. contreras, vitale, v. hutchins-carroll, e. carroll, jr, s. oppenheimer. exogenous hyalin and sea urchin gastrulation, part iii: biological activity of hyalin extracted from lytechinus pictus embryos zygote, vol. 16, pp. 355-361 (2008). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.acthis.2014.07.015 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 9 published by scholink inc. note 33. e. carroll, jr., v. hutchins-carroll, c. coyle thompson, s. oppenheimer, hyalin is a cell adhesion molecule involved in mediating archenteron blastocoel roof attachment, acta histochemica, vol. 110, pp. 265-275 (2008). note 34. m. alvarez, j. nnoli, e. carroll, jr., v. hutchins-carroll, z. razinia, s. oppenheimer, exogenous hyalin and sea urchin gastrulation, part ii: hyalin, an interspecies cell adhesion molecule, zygote, vol. 16, pp. 73-78 (2008). note 35. m. alvarez, j. nnoli, s. oppenheimer, carbohydrate-based experimental therapeutics for cancer, hiv/aids and other diseases, acta histochemica, vol. 110, pp. 6-13 (2008). note 36. k. petrossian, l. banner, s. oppenheimer, lectin binding and effects in culture on human cancer and non-cancer cell lines: examination of issues of interest in drug design strategies, acta histochemica, vol 109, pp. 491-500 (2007). note 37. z. razinia, e. carroll, jr, s. oppenheimer, microplate assay for quantifying developmental morphologies: effects of exogenous hyalin on sea urchin gastrulation, zygote, vol 15, pp. 1-6 (2007). note 38. s. sajadi, rojas, s. oppenheimer, cyclodextrin, a probe for studying adhesive interactions, acta histochemica, vol. 109, pp. 338-342 (2007). note 39. s. oppenheimer, cellular basis of cancer metastasis: a review of fundamentals and new advances acta histochemica, vol. 108, pp. 327-334 (2006). note 40. g. zem, o. badali, gaytan, hekmatjou, m. alvarez, j. nnoli, katus, s. oppenheimer, microbead analysis of cell binding to immobilized lectin: an alternative to microarrays in the development of carbohydrate drugs and diagnostic tests, acta histochemica, vol. 108, pp. 311-317 (2006). note 41. l. welty, e. heinrich, c. garcia, l. banner, m. summers, l. baresi, s. metzenberg, c coyle-thompson, s. oppenheimer, analysis of unconventional approaches for the rapid detection of surface lectin binding ligands on human cell lines acta histochemica, vol. 107, pp. 411-420 (2006). note 42. c. coyle-thompson, s. oppenheimer, a novel approach to study adhesion mechanisms by isolation of the interacting system, acta histochemica, vol. 107, pp. 243-251 (2005). note 43. e. heinrich, l. welty, l. banner, s. oppenheimer, direct targeting of cancer cells: a multiparameter approach, acta histochemica, vol. 107, pp. 335-344 (2005). note 44. m. khurrum, hernandez, eskalaei, o. badali, c. coyle-thompson, s. oppenheimer, carbohydrate involvement in sea urchin gastrula cellular interactions acta histochemica, vol. 106, pp. 97-106 (2004). note 45. m. maldonado, g. weerasinghe, f. ambroise, yamoah, m. londono, j. pelayo, grigorian, s. oppenheimer, the charged milieu: a major player in fertilization reactions, acta histochemica, vol. 106, pp. 3-10 (2004). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 10 published by scholink inc. note 46. l. ngo, m. barajas, g. weerasinghe, g. zem, s. oppenheimer, a new histochemical approach for studying sperm cell surfaces, acta histochemica, vol. 105, pp. 21-28 (2003). note 47. m. khurrum, g. weerasinghe, e. soriano, r. riman, o. badali, s. gipson, medina, alfaro, v. navarro, c. harieg, l. ngo, t. sakhakorn, l. kirszenbaum, khatibi, abedi, m. barajas, g. zem, a. kirszenbaum, razi, s. oppenheimer, analysis of surface properties of human cancer cells using derivatized beads, acta histochemica, vol. 104, pp. 217-223 (2002). note 48. v. navarro, s. walker, o. badali, abundis l. ngo, g. weerasinghe, m. barajas, g. zem, s. oppenheimer, analysis of surface properties of fixed and live cells using derivatized agarose beads, acta histochemica, vol. 104, pp. 99-106 (2002). note 49. b. salbilla, h. vaghefi, chhabra, hall, bworn, sadoughi, e. francisco, l. attas, s. walker, nguyen, s. oppenheimer, analysis of cell surface properties using derivatized agarose beads, acta histochemica, vol. 101, pp. 271-279 (1999). note 50. v. latham, s. oppenheimer, a simple image analysis method for evaluating cell binding to derivatized beads, acta histochemica, vol. 101, pp. 263-270 (1999). note 51. v. latham, m. tully, s. oppenheimer, a putative role for carbohydrates in sea urchin gastrulation, acta histochemica, vol. 101, pp. 293-303 (1999). note 52. v. latham, l. latham, s. oppenheimer, desktop computer-based image analysis of cell surface fluorescence patterning from a photographic source, acta histochemica, vol. 98, pp. 295-300 (1996). note 53. j. philip, rodriguez, r. bada, f. ambroise and hernandez, s. oppenheimer, charge interactions in sperm-egg recognition, acta histochemica, vol. 99, pp. 401-410 (1997). note 54. ghoneum, vojdani, a. banionis, lagos and gill, s. oppenheimer, the effects of carcinogenic methylcholanthrene on carbohydrate residues of nk cells, toxicology and industrial health, vol. 13, no. 6, pp. 727-741, 1997. note 55. v. latham, martinez, l. cazares, hamburger m. tully, s. oppenheimer, accessing the embryo interior without microinjection, acta histochemica, vol. 100, pp. 193-200 (1998). note 56. r. roque, s. herrera, yeh, j. philip, t. borisavljevic, l. brunick, miles, haritunians, c. addy, r. bada, h. vaghfi, s. matsumoto, g. picionelli and rodriquez, s. oppenheimer, cell adhesion mechanisms: modeling using derivatized beads and sea urchin cell systems, acta histochemica, vol. 98, pp. 441-451 (1996). note 57. m. daily, v. latham, c. garcia, c. hockman, h. chun, m. oppenheimer, s. west, k. rostamiani, r. chao, e. pollock, s. oppenheimer, producing exposed coat-free embryos, zygote, vol. 2, pp. 221-225 (1994). note 58. m. spiegler, s. oppenheimer, extending the viability of sea urchin gametes, cryobiology, vol. 32, pp. 168-174 (1995). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 11 published by scholink inc. note 59. v. latham, j. ducut, k. rostamiani, h. chun, lopez, s. herrera, s. oppenheimer, a rapid lectin receptor binding assay: comparative evaluation of sea urchin embryo cell surface lectin receptors, acta histochemica, vol. 97, p. 89-97 (1995). note 60. v. latham, s. herrera, k. rostamiani, h. chun, s. oppenheimer, rapid identification of lectin receptors and their possible function in sea urchin cell systems, acta histochemica, vol.97, pp. 373-382 (1995). note 61. m. ghoneum, a. banionis, gill and romero, s. oppenheimer, demonstration of involvement of mannose residues on nk cell cytotoxicity using lectin coupled beads, natural immunity and cell growth regulation 10:132 (1991). note 62. s. oppenheimer, biology and cultivation of teratoma cells, in tests of teratogenicity in vitro, north holland, amsterdam, pp. 261-274. note 63. s. oppenheimer, human made carcinogens vs. natural food carcinogens: which post the greatest cancer risk? american clinical products review, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 16-19, february 1985. note 64. s. oppenheimer, cancer and stress, longevity letter, 2(6): 3, 1984. note 65. s. oppenheimer, carcinogens in food and water, longevity letter, 2(9): 2-3, 1984. note 66. s. oppenheimer carcinogens in the home, longevity letter, 3(5): 2-4, may 1985. note 67. s. oppenheimer preventing cancer, american longevity 1 (no.1), pp. 1-5, 1983. note 68. meyer, p. thompson, r. behringer, r. steiner, saxton, s. oppenheimer, protease activity associated with loss of adhesiveness in mouse teratocarcinoma, exp. cell res., 143, pp. 63-70, 1983. note 69. meyer, s. oppenheimer, carbohydrate specificity of sea urchin blastula adhesion component, exp. cell. res., 139, pp. 451-456. 1982. note 70. s. oppenheimer causes of cancer: gene alteration versus gene activation, amer. lab., pp. 40-46, november 1982. note 71. j. meyer, s. oppenheimer isolation of species-specific and stage-specific adhesion promoting component by disaggregation of intact sea urchin embryo cells, exp. cell res., 137, pp. 471-476, 1982. note 72. c. capelle, j. meyer, s. sorensen, s. oppenheimer, isolation of aggregation inhibitory factor from non-adhesive mouse teratoma cells, exp. cell res., 131, pp. 470-476, 1981. note 73. w. childress, freedman, c. koprowski, doolittle and p. sheeler, s. oppenheiimer, surface characteristics of separated subpopulations of mouse teratocarcinoma cells, exp. cell res., 122, pp. 39-45, 1979. note 74. m. grodin, nystrom, j. scordato, m. cantor, s. oppenheimer, relationship of adhesiveness of cells in culture with specific enzyme activity, exp. cell res., 122, pp. 149-157, 1979. note 75. m. asao, s. oppenheimer, inhibitor of cell aggregation by specific carbohydrates, exp. cell. res., 120, pp. 149-157, 1979. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 12 published by scholink inc. note 76. s. oppenheimer introduction to the symposium and studies on the surfaces of separated and synchronized tumor and embryonic cell populations, american zoologist, 19, pp. 801-808, 1979. note 77. s. oppenheimer, cell surface carbohydrates in adhesion and migration, american zoologist, 18, pp. 12-23, 1978. note 78. b. bales, brenneman, l. knapp, lesin, a. neri, e. pollock, s. oppenheimer modulation of agglutinability by alteration of the surface topography in mouse ascites tumor cells, exp. cell res., 105, pp. 291-300, 1977. note 79. b. bales, lesin, s. oppenheimer on cell membrane lipid fluidity and plant lectin agglutinability: a spin label study of mouse ascites tumor cells, biochemica et biophysica acta, 465, pp. 400-407, 1977. note 80. j. meyer, s. oppenheimer the multicomponent nature of teratoma cell adhesion factor, exp. cell res., 102, pp. 359-364, 1976. note 81. a. neri, m. roberson, d. connolly, s. oppenheimer, quantitative evaluation of concanavalin a receptor site distributions on the surfaces of specific populations of embryonic cells, nature, 258, pp. 342-344, 1975. note 82. d. connolly, s. oppenheimer cell density-dependent stimulation of glutamine synthetase activity in cultured mouse teratoma cells, exp. cell res., 94, pp. 459-464, 1975. note 83. m. roberson, a. neri, s. oppenheimer, distribution of concanavalin a receptor sites on specific populations of embryonic cells, science, 189, pp. 639-640, 1975. note 84. s. oppenheimer, functional involvement of specific carbohydrates in teratoma cell adhesion factor, exp. cell res., 92, pp. 122-126, 1975. note 85. m. roberson, s. oppenheimer, quantitative agglutination of specific populations of sea urchin embryo cells with concanavalin a exp. cell res. 91, pp. 263-268, 1975. note 86. k. krach, a. green g. nicolson, s. oppenheimer cell surface changes occurring during sea urchin embryonic development monitored by quantitative agglutination with plant lectins, exp. cell res., 84, pp. 191-198, 1974. note 87. s. oppenheimer, utilization of l-glutamine in intercellular adhesion: ascites tumor and embryonic cells, exp. cell. res., 77, pp. 175-182, 1983. note 88. r. potter m. barber, s. oppenheimer, alteration of sea urchin embryo cell surface properties by mycostatin, a sterol binding antibiotic, developmental biology, 33, pp. 218-223. note 89. s. oppenheimer j. odencrantz, a quantitative assay for measuring cell agglutination: agglutination of sea urchin embryo and mouse teratoma cells by concanavalin a, exp. cell res., 73, pp. 475-480, 1972. note 90. s. oppenheimer, t. humphreys, isolation of specific macromolecules required for adhesion of mouse tumor cells, nature, 232, pp. 125-127, 1971. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 13 published by scholink inc. note 91. s. oppenheimer, m. edidin, c. orr and s. roseman, an l-glutamine requirement for intercellular adhesion, proceedings of the national academy of sciences usa, 63, pp. 1395-1402, 1969. note 92. s. oppenheimer, motivating college students: evidence from 20 years of anonymous student evaluations, higher education reseach, doi: 10.11648 (2019). please note: most of the co-authors on these papers are students. these are only the full length peer-reviewed papers from the oppenheimer lab. published abstracts and national presentations are not included. note 93. s. oppenheimer, lab training: undergraduate research in action, nature 519, 158 (2015). note 94. s. oppenheimer, include mentoring skills in hiring and promotion criteria, nature 554, 31 (2018). note 95. camacho, n.l., er doctor’s gift honors biology professor for changing the trajectory of her life, csun magazine, (may 30, 2018). note 96. oppenheimer, s., et al., applied science research for all part 2 college level, american journal of applied scientific research 7(1): 1-7 (2020). note 97. oppenheimer, s., university on the rise without ph.d. students, nature 538: 171 (2016). frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 33 original paper the legal protection path of intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minorities beyond the framework of intellectual property rights xueping wu1* 1 sichuan minzu college, kangding, sichuan, china * xueping wu, lecturer of law school of sichuan minzu college, kangding, sichuan, 626001, china received: december 31, 2023 accepted: january 20, 2024 online published: february 5, 2024 doi:10.22158/fet.v7n1p33 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v7n1p33 this paper is a phased research result of the research project of kangba cultural research center: research on the integration of intangible cultural heritage into local community governance in garze prefecture under the background of ‘community consciousness’ (project number: kbyj2021b017). abstract for the legal protection of intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minorities, china has basically formed a legal protection mode combining international legal protection with domestic legal protection, and combining public law protection with private law protection. however, the protection of intangible cultural heritage by the intellectual property system is concentrated in two aspects: creative products (works) based on traditional knowledge and traditional skills that have not yet been disclosed and can be applied in industry. the protection of intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minorities is facing the dilemma of limited compatibility of intellectual property rights. therefore, we should clarify the protection ideas of intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minorities, go beyond the framework of intellectual property rights, and form a diversified protection path of intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minorities. keywords intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minorities, intellectual property rights, legal protection www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 34 published by scholink inc. 1. problem posing: the status quo of legal protection of intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minorities since the beginning of this century, the protection and inheritance of intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minorities have gradually attracted the attention of various countries. so far, china has initially set up a legal protection framework for the intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minorities that combines international legal protection with domestic legal protection, and public law protection with private law protection. however, at present, there is no law specifically protecting the intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minorities in china. 1.1 public law protection with “intangible cultural heritage law” as the core the “intangible cultural heritage law of the people’s republic of china” implemented on june 1,2011 opened a new stage in the protection of intangible cultural heritage in china, making the protection of intangible cultural heritage in china more comprehensive, more standardized and more effective. this law takes inheriting and promoting the chinese traditional culture as the legislative purpose, establishes the basic principles of authenticity, integrity, inheritance and enhancing the cultural identity of the chinese nation, maintaining national unity, promoting social harmony and sustainable development, and formulates the investigation system, representative project list system and inheritance and dissemination system. the “intangible cultural heritage law” is an administrative law, which clarifies the role and responsibility of the government in the protection of intangible cultural heritage, implements top-down administrative protection, and provides protection for the protection of intangible cultural heritage with national force. the protection of intangible cultural heritage in china, including the protection of intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minorities, is facing severe challenges. the state-led administrative protection measures are simple smooth and effective. 1.2 private law protection with intellectual property rights as the core the protection of intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minorities through the intellectual property system is an indispensable private law protection method. for example, traditional oral literature can be included in the protection scope of “copyright law”, and traditional music, dance, opera and other performing arts can also be protected through the performer’s rights in the “copyright law”; traditional handicrafts can get patent protection; traditional medicine of ethnic minorities can also be protected by applying for patents and registering trade mark. through the protection of intellectual property rights of intangible cultural heritage rights holders, they enjoy spiritual rights and property rights, so that intangible cultural heritage is not improperly used, and intellectual property rights holders can benefit from intangible cultural heritage, and then enhance their endogenous motivation for the protection, inheritance and development of intangible cultural heritage. this bottom-up civil protection can arouse the enthusiasm of the rights holders from the root. it is true that not all intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minorities can be included in the scope of intellectual property protection, but this private law protection still has an irreplaceable advantage over public law protection. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 35 published by scholink inc. 2. reflection on the system: the inclusion-exclusion relationship between intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minorities and intellectual property rights intellectual property rights and intangible cultural heritage rights have non-materiality and property in the object. there is a certain degree of similarity between the two objects, which makes the view of using the intellectual property legal system to protect intangible cultural heritage recognized by many scholars. however, the differences between the two in the objects cannot be ignored. intangible cultural heritage is usually the crystallization of collective wisdom, with a long history, emphasis on inheritance, and relative stability. however, in the context of western industrial society, the object of intellectual property rights is usually created by specific individuals or organizations, with a clear protection period and emphasis on innovation. in addition, the generation of intangible cultural heritage is the result of joint development based on group interests, not to grant creators economic benefits. in terms of generation, acquisition and utilization, intangible cultural heritage and intellectual property rights are different. therefore, the existing intellectual property system shows limited compatibility with the protection of intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minorities. the reasons for this problem are as follows: first, the root cause. intangible cultural heritage has both cultural attribute and economic attribute, which indicates that intangible cultural heritage rights have both “public rights” and “private rights” attributes. this phenomenon is what german scholars call the “dual structure of public property” (liang, 2016). intellectual property is a typical private right. the difference in the attributes of rights determines the difference in the protection methods of the two, and the applicable legal system cannot be directly applied. second, the direct cause. first of all, most of the intangible cultural heritage has a long history, and the subject of rights is not clear. most of them are disclosed in the process of inheritance, which basically does not meet the prerequisite for protection stipulated by the modern intellectual property system, and it is difficult to be included in the scope of intellectual property protection. secondly, intangible cultural heritage has holistic characteristics. if the current intellectual property system is directly applied, it will be classified as copyright, patent, trademark and other rights, undermining its integrity. finally, idea-expression dichotomy is an important principle in the intellectual property system. its basic connotation is that the law only protects the expression of thought, but not the thought itself embodied in the expression, which means that the thought itself will be in the public domain. it is difficult for ethnic minority groups to achieve the purpose of protecting intangible cultural heritage by relying solely on the intellectual property system (yang, 2014). the limited compatibility of modern intellectual property system with intangible cultural heritage is mainly reflected in the following two aspects: creative products (works) based on traditional knowledge and undisclosed traditional skills that can be applied in industry. many intangible cultural heritages of ethnic minorities have been publicized in the inheritance, lack of novelty, and are difficult to be compatible with the modern intellectual property system. products created on the basis of traditional intangible cultural heritage need legal protection, but traditional intangible cultural heritage www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 36 published by scholink inc. itself also needs legal protection. for the former, the existing intellectual property system has played a positive role; for the latter, the existing intellectual property system is not compatible. in particular, it should be pointed out that not all the intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minorities need intellectual property protection. some intangible cultural heritages of ethnic minorities, such as kangding zhuanshanhui, are intangible cultural heritages with cultural significance, but they are not related to intellectual property systems such as copyrights, trademark rights or patents. they do not have intellectual property significance and should be included in the scope of administrative protection. 3. unity and diversity: the optimal path of legal protection of intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minorities the protection of the intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minorities includes the protection of the intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minorities themselves and the protection of creative products (works) based on the intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minorities. for the former, the intellectual property system is difficult to include it in the scope of protection due to the limitation of protection elements; for the latter, the relevant content of intangible cultural heritage protection in the intellectual property system can be applied. since the intellectual property system cannot fully meet the needs of the protection of intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minorities, in order to achieve the goal of the protection of intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minorities, we should follow a diversified approach, not only rely on the path of intellectual property rights, but also rely on other paths outside the framework of intellectual property rights, such as the “intangible cultural heritage law”, and improve the relevant system. it is of great significance to construct a protection system of pre-use license, in-use management and post-infringement relief for the intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minorities. 3.1 pre-use license the pre-use licensing system of intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minorities should include three systems: information disclosure, prior informed consent and license certificate. because it is the most urgent to license before use in the patent protection of intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minorities, this paper takes this as point of penetration. according to the provisions of article 26 (5) of the patent law, only inventions that rely on heritage resources need to specify the source when applying for a patent, and the scope of protection is relatively narrow. at the same time, if it is not stated whether the source will grant a patent, the article is not clear. it is recommended to establish an information disclosure system when applying for patents for intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minorities or its development achievements, with the above-mentioned law as a reference, requiring applicants to indicate the source of the heritage and use the information disclosure system as a mandatory norm. it is clearly stipulated that the source should be disclosed when submitting a patent application. if the source cannot be explained, it shall be supplemented within a certain period of time (such as 6 months). if it is still impossible to explain, the patent will not be granted (mubo xiang, 2016). at the same time, the prior informed consent system should be introduced when applying for patents on intangible cultural www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 37 published by scholink inc. heritage of ethnic minorities or its development achievements. the applicant should provide the license certificate of the origin group of intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minorities or inheritor, otherwise the patent application will be rejected. in the later stage, if the applicant wants to commercially develop and utilize the patented products, he or she needs to obtain a license when applying for a patent for the intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minorities or their development results. where no source disclosure or false disclosure is made when applying for a patent for the intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minorities or its development achievements, the patent shall not be granted; if the patent has been granted, the relevant right holders can apply for the patent to be invalid, and if there is evidence to prove it, they can support it. 3.2 in-use management 3.2.1 the exercise of property rights of intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minorities first of all, ethnic minority groups themselves can use a certain intangible cultural heritage they own, and can obtain benefits through commercial use. secondly, the right holder of the intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minorities can license others to use a certain intangible cultural heritage commercially and get paid. thirdly, the rights holders of intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minorities have the right to share the economic benefits obtained by others based on the achievements of innovation and development of their intangible cultural heritage, which is the use of benefit sharing theory in the protection of intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minorities (han, 2010). finally, for the intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minorities that have entered the public domain, when using this part of the intangible cultural heritage, there is no need to obtain the permission of the relevant obligee, but a certain royalty should be paid to it. through the orderly exercise of property rights, the development of intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minorities can be more standardized. at the same time, the property income is not only conducive to the inheritance and development of intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minorities, but also provides support for the economic, social and cultural development of the ethnic areas. 3.2.2 self-management of intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minorities through civil regulations and habits before the introduction of relevant laws on the protection of intangible cultural heritage, the intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minorities was protected through civil regulations and habits. they developed with the development of intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minorities, played an active role in history, and gained respect and recognition among the people. in the contemporary era, some of these civil regulations and habits are in line with the value goal of national law in protecting the intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minorities. therefore, the civil regulations and habits for the protection of intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minorities should pay attention to the adoption of the times, and the part that does not go against the law and public order and good customs should still play an active role in the self-management of intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minorities within the ethnic group. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 38 published by scholink inc. 3.2.3 the management of intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minorities by civil social associations and grassroots autonomous organizations the “intangible cultural heritage law” establishes a public participation mechanism for the protection of intangible cultural heritage, and realizes the combination of government protection and social protection, so as to protect the intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minorities more comprehensively and effectively. civil social associations and grassroots autonomous organizations are closest to the original environment of ethnic minorities’ intangible cultural heritage, and they are also the most understand of the protection and inheritance of a certain ethnic minority’s intangible cultural heritage. they are not only conducive to the formation of the protection atmosphere of ethnic minorities’ intangible cultural heritage, but also play a positive role in the propaganda, propagation and orderly development of ethnic minorities’ intangible cultural heritage, and lay a preliminary foundation for the government to investigate the intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minorities and determine the list of representative projects. 3.3 post-infringement relief 3.3.1 types of infringement whether the infringed intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minorities has entered the public domain can be divided into two categories. in view of the intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minorities that do not enter the public domain, it can be divided into two categories according to whether it is licensed by the right holder: first, any individual or organization commercializes the intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minorities that do not enter the public domain without permission, which constitutes a tort. in the second category, although any individual or organization is licensed to use the intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minorities that have not entered the public domain, it does not indicate the source of intangible cultural heritage, which constitutes a tort. for the intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minorities entering the public domain, because it has been made public, you don’t need permission to use them. according to whether it is commercialized or not, it can be divided into the following two categories: first, any individual or organization makes non-commercial use of the intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minorities entering the public domain, but does not specify the source, which constitutes a tort; second, any individual or organization’s commercial use of the intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minorities entering the public domain, but without payment or source, constitutes a tort. for example, the people’s government of sipai hezhe township in raohe county, heilongjiang province v. guo song and other cases of copyright infringement of folk literature and art works belong to this situation. 3.3.2 perfection of litigation system conciliation, intermediation and litigation are the most commonly used solutions to the infringement disputes of intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minorities. conciliation and intermediation have the advantages of simple operation and relatively low economic costs, and have played an active role in practice. in particular, court mediation should be paid more attention to, its procedures are more www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 39 published by scholink inc. standardized, and the results are more authoritative. it is an effective way to resolve disputes over intangible cultural heritage. “the first case of bobing dispute in xiamen history” is an example. however, conciliation and intermediation may also fail to reach an agreement, so it is particularly important to solve the infringement disputes of intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minorities through litigation. 3.3.2.1 clarify the subject of litigation “traditional knowledge is the intellectual achievement of traditional clan spiritual production and intellectual labor. in the definition of property rights, property should be defined as producer ownership (yan, 2006).” the intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minorities is the cultural wealth created and inherited by the common ancestors of a certain ethnic minority in a specific environment. it is the common property of the ethnic group, and the owner of this common property should be the ethnic group. however, in tort litigation, there are many difficulties in directly participating in litigation by ethnic groups as the subject of rights. at this time, it is obviously more feasible for representative institutions of ethnic groups to participate in litigation to protect their rights. the representative institutions of ethnic groups are usually the management institutions of intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minorities, which can include the following categories: (1) the regulatory agencies established by ethnic minority groups themselves. (2) the national township or autonomous county (banner) where the intangible cultural heritage of a certain ethnic minority is located is used as a representative institution to participate in rights protection litigation. the case of the people’s government of sipai hezhe township in raohe county, heilongjiang province v. guo song and other cases of infringement of the copyright of folk literature and art works is the judicial practice of this way. (3) government departments with the management function of intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minorities. in the absence of the first two subjects or the first two subjects do not exercise the right of action actively, the government agencies responsible for the management of the intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minorities in the place where the intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minorities is located should participate in the rights protection litigation as representative agencies. 3.3.2.2 give full play to the role of public interest litigation intangible cultural heritage not only reflects personal interests, but also has public interests, which determines that the protection of intangible cultural heritage has the basis of national or social public interests and meets the core conditions for filing public interest litigation. the plaintiffs who filed public interest litigation for the protection of intangible cultural heritage include three types: government agencies with management functions in the location of intangible cultural heritage, specific organizations with public welfare representativeness by law, and people’s procuratorates. the same infringement may not only infringe the personal interests of the rights holders of intangible cultural heritage, but also infringe the public interests of the state or society. at this time, the relevant rights holders can file private interest litigation, and the authorities can also file public interest litigation. the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 40 published by scholink inc. two can coexist and do not conflict. at the same time, the facts and evidence identified in public interest litigation can be used or recognized directly in private interest litigation (deng, 2020). references deng, l. l. (2020). legal protection of intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minorities in tourism development. beijing: minzu university of china. han, x. b. (2010). research on the basic issues of legal protection of intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minorities in china. beijing: minzu university of china. liang, j. y. (2016). reflection and remodeling of the nature of public property utilization-analysis of the nature of rights (forces) based on interest attributes. oriental jurisprudence, 2016(3), 38-45. mubo xiang. (2016). research on the intellectual property protection mode of intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minorities (pp. 126-134). beijing : intellectual property publishing house. yan, y. h. (2006). on intellectual property protection of traditional knowledge (pp. 195-197). beijing: law press. yang, c. h. (2014). rethinking intellectual property protection of intangible cultural heritage-taking tibetan traditional cultural expressions as an example. hebei jurisprudence, 32(12), 72-78. frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no.2, 2021 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) original paper equity in the academy? examining cyberbullying victimization and conflict resolution across sexual and gender identity during covid-19 courtney doxbeck1* & tiffany karalis noel2 1 department of counseling, school, and education psychology, university at buffalo, buffalo, usa 2 department of learning and instruction, university at buffalo, buffalo, usa * courtney doxbeck, department of counseling, school, and education psychology, university at buffalo, buffalo, usa received: february 11, 2021 accepted: february 28, 2021 online published: march 12, 2021 doi:10.22158/fet.v4n2p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v4n2p1 abstract decades of research have examined bullying victimization during the k-12 years of schooling; yet limited research has explored cyberbullying victimization at the university level, and even fewer studies have examined cyberbullying of sgm (sexual and/or gender minority) individuals in higher education. as reliance on technology has increased dramatically during the covid-19 pandemic, university members may have encountered increased victimization experiences. this report aims to expand the literature on sgm cyberbullying victimization and resource utilization in higher education. findings resulted from a mixed-methods survey of 231 respondents (185 students, 28 staff, 18 faculty) at a large, research-intensive university in the northeast united states. in general, cyberbullying victimization was not attributed to one’s sexual or gender identity, and occurred primarily through educational communication tools (e.g., email) and social media; a majority of cyberbullying instances went unacknowledged by supervisors or campus resources. though community members were aware of institutional conflict resolution resources, many of the reported instances were not resolved. future research should focus on how cyberbullying in higher education continues to change as reliance on information and communication technology increases. keywords cyberbullying victimization, higher education, mental health, sexual or gender identity, covid-19 1 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 1. introduction decades of research have examined the prevalence of secondary school cyberbullying (abreu & kenney, 2018; notar et al., 2013), but limited research has explored cyberbullying at the university level despite its continuation into higher education (minor et al., 2013; ramsey et al., 2016). even fewer studies focus on sexual and/or gender minoritized individuals (note 1) (budge et al., 2020; legg et al., 2020). sgm students, faculty, and staff may be more vulnerable to cyberbullying (note 2) victimization, especially during the covid-19 pandemic, where university members have depended on technology to maintain day-to-day operations. as perpetrators have the opportunity to maintain anonymity through electronic communication means, cyberbullying may emerge as a more appealing method of victimization (doxbeck, 2020). a review of the literature suggests that students tend to cyberbully their peers primarily through text messaging, email, and social media (macdonald & roberts-pittman, 2010; watts et al., 2017) and may take the consequences of cyberbullying more seriously as they mature and prepare to enter the workforce. students may also experience victimization by faculty or staff members in positions of greater institutional power (goodboy et al., 2015; misawa & rowland, 2014; twale & deluca, 2008), often resulting from course-related discrepancies. in turn, faculty tend to receive intentionally harmful course evaluations, emails, or other correspondence from students regarding their performance or other discrepancies (blizard, 2016; daniloff, 2009). students who utilize social media to discuss experiences with their instructor, such as rate my professor, facebook, or twitter may indirectly cause harm by posting negative comments online without the victim’s knowledge. further research suggests that faculty and staff experience cyberbullying victimization from their superior colleagues due to the hierarchical structure and power imbalances of academia (murphy, 2009), which typically occur via email (cassidy et al., 2014; cassidy et al., 2017). cyberbullying victimization is linked to negative mental and emotional consequences (mcconnell et al., 2017; phillips et al., 2017), which can exacerbate the impact of higher education stressors such as academic achievement, pressures to produce research, and high-stakes work environments. cyberbullying victimization in the academy may be especially prevalent for students, faculty, and staff who identify as sgm, who are often victims of stigma and discrimination by strangers, friends, family, and colleagues (alessi et al., 2017; salerno et al., 2020). research also suggests that sgm students are more likely to experience cyberbullying victimization than their heterosexual counterparts (doxbeck, 2020). universities may be unwelcoming to the sgm community which can result in sgm individuals feeling estranged from their institutions (pryor, 2018). because campus climate is “mediated by the extent individuals feel a sense of safety, belonging, engagement within the environment, and value as members of a community,” sgm students’ exclusionary experiences may pose implications for student success, persistence, and retention (renn & patton, 2010, p. 248). for faculty and staff, institutions as hiring bodies have non-discriminatory policies towards their employees; however, the potential for sgm faculty and staff to experience discrimination by their colleagues is plausible. experiences of 2 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 sgm identity victimization in the academy, which co-functions as a home, classroom, and/or workplace for many, can lead to potential negative outcomes regarding mental health and overall well-being (hatchel et al., 2018a; hatchel et al., 2018b). during the covid-19 pandemic, students, faculty, and staff were required to abruptly transition to fully online teaching and learning, where technology became the primary form of communication, education, and management of day-to-day operations. these immediate and significant shifts contributed to feelings of uncertainty, isolation, and worsened mental health among members of higher education environments, where competing responsibilities and stressors are already prevalent (aucejo et al., 2020; cohen et al., 2020; copeland et al., 2021; son et al., 2020). with unexpected increases in technology dependence, instances of cyberbullying victimization may have proliferated. recent research suggests that sgm students were especially vulnerable to covid-19-influenced challenges, where campus closures perpetuated minority stress by distancing students from mental health services, support systems/communities, and coping resources (salerno et al., 2020). in general, covid-19 has negatively impacted the mental health of university community members (chandra, n.d.; copeland et al., 2021; son et al., 2020; zimmerman et al., 2020). when coupled with targeted cyberbullying victimization of sgm individuals, negative health-related consequences may be exceedingly maladaptive towards student, faculty, and staff well-being. this study sought to identity the prevalence and mechanisms of personal and witnessed cyberbullying victimization in higher education, before and during the transition to remote learning resulting from covid-19, and determine the potential role of sgm discrimination. further, the researchers sought to examine the extent to which victimization experiences are addressed and resolved in academia. as such, this study was guided by the following research questions: (1) what personal and witnessed experiences of cyberbullying in higher education do students, faculty, and staff report, and what emotional and behavioral impacts do they report? (2) how do participants describe cyberbullying victimization in relation to sexual and/or gender identity? (3) in what ways, if any, are instances of cyberbullying in higher education addressed? 2. method data were collected via an online mixed-methods survey in july 2020, which asked participants to reflect on their personal and observed experiences of cyberbullying victimization and its consequences during the 2019-2020 academic year (exclusive of summer months). data resulted in an initial sample of 261 students, staff, and faculty from a research-intensive university in the northeast united states. participants were recruited from email listservs across 12 decanal units and agreed to consent prior to survey completion. descriptive statistics and frequencies were generated using ibm spss version 25, and written qualitative responses informed the open-ended survey questions. after removal of missing data due to nonresponse and outliers, the final sample included 231 participants (185 students, 28 staff, 18 faculty) whose average age was 29.29 (sd = 10.40). specifically, 60.3% were ciswomen, 34.2% 3 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 cismen, 3.0% nonbinary, and 1.7% transgender. further, 61.2% identified as heterosexual, 12.1% gay, 17.7% bisexual, and 9% other. a majority of the sample were white (75.7%), 17.8% were asian or asian american, 2.6% black, 2.2% hispanic, 0.9% other, 0.4% american indian or alaska native, and 0.4% native hawaiian or other pacific islander. qualitative analysis involved reviewing and coding participants’ short answer responses using a priori codes such as “personal” and “witnessed” experiences with cyberbullying, as well as “conflict resolution”. quantitative and qualitative findings are jointly reported in the results according to three themes: personal experiences, witnessed experiences, and conflict resolution. 3. result 3.1 personal experiences several participants provided quantitative (table 1) and narrative responses to offer insight into their experiences with cyberbullying victimization and its emotional and behavioral consequences (table 2). while one student who identified as gay was private messaged “rude words” about her sexuality, another student experienced racialized cyberbullying: “when looking for a roommate when starting college last year around march, i hit up some people via the facebook group and texted them on snapchat. one individual’s response was a bit unpleasant when he found out about my race.” a ciswoman was cyberbullied by a cisman because she refused to have sex with him, yet she had to continue working with him on a class project. table 1. cyberbullying victimization and conflict resolution type of witnessed cyberbullying victimization personal victimization faculty/staff lgbtq faculty/staff student lgbtq student n 16 31 8 19 5 m 9.63 3.94 2.25 2.58 1.20 sd 15.14 8.69 1.83 2.82 045 mode percentage email 43.8 32.3 50.0 26.3 0.00 course evaluations 0.00 22.6 0.00 0.00 0.00 messaging 31.3 12.9 12.5 42.1 20.0 virtual meetings 12.5 12.9 12.5 0.00 0.00 social media 25.0 29.0 50.0 36.8 80.0 course pages 0.00 3.22 12.5 0.00 0.00 conflict resolution not acknowledged 43.8 41.9 50.0 42.2 28.6 4 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 supervisor 0.00 12.9 0.00 10.5 0.00 victim 43.8 32.3 25.0 36.8 42.9 someone else 12.5 03.2 12.5 10.5 14.3 not applicable 0.00 09.7 12.5 0.00 14.2 note. percentages may not sum to 100 due to selection of multiple item responses or rounding. table 2. emotional and behavioral impact of cyberbullying victimization percentage never once twice a few times many times every day behavioral impact difficulty concentrating 14.3 0.0 7.1 35.7 35.7 7.1 performance suffered 28.6 7.1 0.0 35.7 14.3 14.3 missed class/work 71.4 7.1 0.0 14.3 7.1 0.0 emotional impact sad/hurt 21.4 0.0 0.0 21.4 50.0 7.1 angry 7.1 0.0 0.0 35.7 35.7 21.4 embarrassed 28.6 0.0 0.0 28.6 28.6 14.3 afraid 28.6 14.3 0.0 7.1 21.4 28.6 anxious 7.1 7.1 0.0 14.3 28.6 42.9 cried* 46.2 0.0 15.4 23.7 15.4 0.0 blamed myself 57.1 7.1 7.1 0.0 14.3 14.3 note. n = 14 * n = 13 percentages may not sum to 100 due to rounding. additional participants described personal cyberbullying experiences with students, staff, and faculty. one respondent regularly received emails where senior administrators were copied on the message: “it appears to be attempts at public shaming.” another student described issues with her staff supervisor, where she would receive “nasty, threatening emails about assignments and [the supervisor] would take out her frustration and anger on students.” one faculty member’s email inbox was repeatedly bombed with political content that the sender knew “would be abhorrent to [her].” she described receiving text messages and anonymous phone calls in the middle of the night, amid other aggressive tactics: “the harasser used an online intake form to request visitation from the jehovah’s witnesses to my home…an ad soliciting sex was posted to craigslist with my cell phone number listed as the contact.” only one respondent, a ciswoman, reported personal experiences of sgm cyberbullying victimization 5 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 by another student two times via email. she explained that while she was unsure about her sexual orientation, she was forcefully introduced to two men by a friend for dating purposes: “that experience is still my trauma.” 3.2 witnessed experiences one student described an instance where faculty members used expletives in an argument that took place over email. although a program director stepped in to help resolve the issue, the student explained that the harmful email exchanges perpetuated. further, a respondent reported cyberbullying victimization of a faculty member that took place via course evaluations. a student also described an issue with another student who continuously disparaged faculty members via messaging platforms: “the perpetrator was making comments about how one professor didn’t know what she was doing (the professor was fully capable and thorough with the course) and about how another professor was a ‘ditzy blond’ and how could she possibly have a ph.d.” other instances occurred via blackboard or zoom, where offensive comments were directed at faculty members. in one case, a meeting was “zoom-bombed”, where the perpetrator looped a derogatory audio recording and used disrespectful language in the chat. one student was pressured by a faculty member to share her written work: “she pressured me to email her with permission to use a literature review i had written.” another respondent reported that offensive comments directed at a student were made in facebook messenger and texting-based group chats by a peer: “many of the other students in the group chat, including myself, felt uncomfortable confronting it directly. but we reached out to support the victim privately, at which point [the victim] signaled they would handle the situation independently and ultimately did not confront the perpetrator.” 3.3 conflict resolution most frequently, instances of cyberbullying were unacknowledged and/or unaddressed (see table 1). although one student reached out to the campus police, because the cyberbully’s identity could not be confirmed, the cyberbullying went unaddressed. another student purposefully avoided addressing her victimization “because [she] did not want to make matters worse and more complicated.” another student in a working group felt it would “create a nightmarish work environment” if she acknowledged a group member’s cyberbullying. while several respondents explained that the cyberbullying victims chose to ignore the perpetrators because “[the victims know] the perpetrators are ignorant” and/or did not want to exacerbate the issues, another respondent chose to take action: “i witnessed people shit talking someone, so i told [them] off in the virtual space.” respondents also explained that victims of cyberbullying feared how the information would be received due to student-faculty power dynamics: “[the cyberbullying] was not handled. the professor assumed the student was wrong and did not look into the situation. [eventually], the professor determined the student was correct but never admitted fault or apologized.” 6 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 4. discussion supporting tenets of sgm victimization (pryor, 2018; ramsay et al., 2016) and higher education cyberbullying prevalence patterns (elci & seckin, 2019), although only 6.1% of participants personally experienced cyberbullying victimization, a majority were among those who identify as sgm. similar to prior research (blizard, 2016; cassidy et al., 2014; cassidy et al., 2017; macdonald & roberts-pittman, 2010; watts et al., 2017), reported instances occurred over email, messaging, meeting spaces, and social media apps. narrative responses suggest that many instances stemmed from beliefs about individual differences and negative sexual behaviors. aligned with recent research (aucejo et al., 2020; cohen et al., 2020; copeland et al., 2021; son et al., 2020), these reported instances pose negative implications for the victim’s health, as all but two cyberbullying victims experienced some degree of behavioral or emotional consequences. when victimization goes unacknowledged, community members may be increasingly less willing to come forward with their experiences, assuming that resolution will not be met. sgm cyberbullying was not widely reported in our sample, despite evidence that sgm persons tend to experience increased instances of cyberbullying victimization compared to their heterosexual counterparts (doxbeck, 2020; pryor, 2018; ramsay et al., 2016). although one respondent experienced situations where she was pressured about her sexual orientation, this prevalence was relatively low considering that 68% of victims self-identified as sgm. it is possible that university members may not be self-identified as sgm, resulting in cyberbullying victimization due to other factors. mirroring prior research (watts et al., 2017), respondents more frequently observed (rather than personally experienced) victimization which occurred over commonly utilized educational tools; it is plausible that cyberbullying victimization is becoming increasingly popular due to the ability of large audiences to witness or participate in attacks (macdonald & roberts-pittman, 2010). as reliance on tech-based modes of evaluation and communication grow, especially during the covid-19 pandemic (aucejo et al., 2020; chandra et al., 2020; masters et al., 2020), it is possible that the presence of witnessed cyberbullying victimization has since increased. among individuals who experienced victimization in this study, conflict resolution resources such as supervisors, human resources, university police, and the office of equity, diversity and inclusion were accessed. ultimately, few victimization experiences were handled successfully through institutional resources, and many were “swept under the rug”. if community members are aware of the limitations and ineffectiveness of institutional resources, lack of faith in these services could perpetuate deficiencies in conflict resolution and resource utilization, propelling instances of cyberbullying victimization. thus, universities must work to ensure that all reported victimization experiences are thoroughly addressed and may consider increased training in electronic communication and conflict resolution, which has proven beneficial in undergraduate and graduate education (brockman et al., 2010; watson et al., 2019). it is similarly plausible that physical distancing and heavy reliance on 7 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 tech-based communications during the covid-19 pandemic may have thwarted victims’ willingness or access to utilize campus resources for conflict resolution (wang & delaquil, 2020). the findings of this study are limited to data collected from one institution; further multi-institution research on cyberbullying victimization in academia is warranted to identify further successes and shortcomings of resource utilization and conflict resolution. yet, this study highlights the prevalence of cyberbullying victimization across the transition to remote learning -in general and for sgm persons and identifies opportunities for change in the ways institutions respond to instances of victimization in academia. references abreu, r. l., & kenny, m. c. (2018). cyberbullying and lgbtq youth: a systematic literature review and recommendations for prevention and intervention. journal of child & adolescent trauma, 11(1), 81-97. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40653-017-0175-7 alessi, e. j., sapiro, b., kahn, s., & craig, s. l. (2017). the first-year university experience for sexual minority students: a grounded theory exploration. journal of lgbt youth, 14(1), 71-92. https://doi.org/10.1080/19361653.2016.1256013 aucejo, e. m., french, j., ugalde araya, m. p., & zafar, b. (2020). the impact of covid-19 on student experiences and expectations: evidence from a survey. journal of public economics, 191, 104271. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2020.104271 blizard, l. m. (2016). faculty members’ perceived experiences of cyberbullying by students at one canadian university: impact and recommendations. international research in higher education, 1(1), 107-124. https://doi.org/10.5430/irhe.v1n1p107 brockman, j. l., nunez, a. a., & basu, a. 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(2017). cyberbullying in higher education: a literature review. computers in higher education, 69, 268-274. 10 published by scholink inc. https://doi.org/10.1177/1045159514558415 https://doi.org/10.1080/01425690903235169 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2017.05.040 https://doi.org/10.1080/19361653.2017.1395307 https://doi.org/10.1080/15388220.2015.1100116 https://doi.org/10.1177/0033354920954511 https://doi.org/10.2196/21279 https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2020.1823326 https://doi.org/10.1002/crq.21233 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2016.12.038 zimmermann, m., bledsoe, c., & papa, a. (2020). the impact of the covid-19 pandemic on college student mental health: a longitudinal examination of risk and protective factors. psyarxiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/2y7hu notes note 1. “sexual and/or gender minoritized (sgm)” refers to individuals who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, asexual, queer, and/or other (budge et al., 2020; legg et al., 2020). note 2. bullying through electronic communication technologies which can cause direct or indirect harm towards the victim (watts et al., 2017). 11 published by scholink inc. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2016.12.038 https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/2y7hu original paper frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no.1, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 85 original paper research on the innovation of english teaching mode based on artificial intelligence baohan sheng1 1 school of foreign languages, jiangsu university, zhenjiang, jiangsu, china received: october 30, 2023 accepted: november 22, 2023 online published: march 24, 2024 doi:10.22158/fet.v7n1p85 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v7n1p85 abstract this article presents a research on innovative approaches in english language teaching through the application of artificial intelligence (ai). the aim is to address the issues found in traditional english language teaching methods by utilizing ai technology. the article begins by identifying the problems in traditional english language teaching and exploring the current applications of ai in education. then, it specifically discusses the application of ai technology in english language teaching, such as interactive listening training, intelligent error correction and personalized post-class guidance, and cloud-based intelligent english translation teaching. subsequently, a proposal is put forward to construct a new english language teaching system based on ai technology, including modules for engaging explanations, interactive english assignments, and creating scenarios for cross-cultural communication oral training. lastly, an evaluation method for assessing the innovation of english language teaching models based on ai is introduced, which includes feedback and perceptions from both teachers and students, as well as an assessment of teaching outcomes. the research findings of this article can provide a more intelligent, personalized, and effective english language teaching approach, thus positively impacting the quality of english language teaching and enhancing students’ interest in learning. keywords artificial intelligence, english language teaching model, innovation 1. introduction in the era of rapid development of information technology, artificial intelligence is widely applied in various fields, including education. as english serves as an important international communication language, its teaching mode also needs to keep up with the times. however, traditional english teaching methods are faced with a series of problems, such as lack of personalized teaching and low student engagement. with the maturity of artificial intelligence technology, it brings new opportunities and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 86 published by scholink inc. challenges for english teaching. therefore, this study aims to explore the innovation of the english teaching mode based on artificial intelligence, providing more personalized, interactive and effective teaching methods for english teaching through the application of artificial intelligence technology. this article will introduce in detail the specific application modes of artificial intelligence in english teaching, and evaluate the innovation of the english teaching mode based on artificial intelligence. this will help to improve the quality of english teaching and stimulate students’ interest and enthusiasm for learning. 2. problems of traditional english teaching traditional english teaching methods face challenges and issues in the current educational environment. firstly, due to the diverse learning needs and backgrounds of students, traditional one-size-fits-all teaching approaches often fail to meet the needs of all students. each student has different learning abilities, styles, and interests, requiring personalized teaching methods to help them better understand and grasp english knowledge. secondly, traditional english teaching lacks real-time feedback and monitoring of students’ learning processes. teachers typically can only assess students’ learning progress through quizzes and assignments, failing to promptly understand their doubts and issues during the actual learning process. this lag in feedback not only affects students’ learning outcomes but also limits teachers’ ability to adjust and optimize teaching content and methods. additionally, students’ motivation in traditional english teaching is often not high. traditional teaching methods typically revolve around the teacher, with students passively receiving knowledge and lacking active participation and interaction. this teaching approach easily leads to a decrease in students’ interest and motivation in learning, affecting their initiative and persistence in english language learning. another issue is that traditional english teaching lacks contextual and practical teaching environments. the language knowledge students learn in the classroom often cannot be effectively applied in practical situations, lacking opportunities and environments for actual communication. this detachment from real-life language environments limits the development and improvement of students’ language abilities. therefore, we need to explore new english teaching models, leveraging artificial intelligence technology to address these issues and achieve more personalized, interactive, and practical english teaching methods. by applying artificial intelligence technology, we can provide students with personalized learning paths and real-time learning feedback, stimulating their interest and motivation in learning, and improving their english language skills and application abilities (jing et al., 2023). 3. state of the artificial intelligence in education with the continuous development of artificial intelligence (ai) technology, its applications in the field of education are becoming increasingly widespread. currently, ai is mainly applied in three areas: teaching support, teaching management, and educational assessment, of which teaching support is one of the most extensively used and promising areas. in terms of teaching support, ai applications can www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 87 published by scholink inc. help teachers provide more personalized and accurate teaching aids and resources to enhance teaching efficiency and effectiveness. for instance, ai technology can analyze students’ learning situations and habits to offer them customized learning plans and teaching resources, thereby stimulating their learning interests and motivation and ultimately improving learning outcomes. ai can also provide teachers with relevant teaching aids and resources, such as natural language processing, intelligent question banks, and virtual simulation platforms, to diversify and enhance teaching support. in terms of teaching management, ai technology can optimize teaching management mode and improve management efficiency by analyzing and mining large amounts of student learning data and information. based on students’ grades, learning behavior records, and other data, ai technology can offer comprehensive assessments and analyses of students’ learning situations, learning paths, and learning outcomes, helping teachers gain better insight into students’ learning situations and results and perform timely adjustments and improvements to teaching content and methods. furthermore, ai can also provide corresponding support and solutions for classroom management, student evaluation, student archives, and teacher teaching evaluations. regarding educational assessment, ai technology can provide more accurate and objective educational assessment results for students and teachers by analyzing and comparing student learning data and information. for instance, essay evaluation systems based on natural language processing technology can provide accurate evaluations of grammar, logic, and vocabulary usage by comparing students’ writing pieces with excellent examples using deep learning and machine learning techniques, thus providing more comprehensive evaluations of students’ writing abilities. moreover, ai can also be used for the evaluation of course quality, teacher teaching effectiveness, and student comprehensive qualities. in conclusion, the applications of ai technology in the field of education are extensive and diverse, with teaching support showing the most widespread and promising prospects. in english teaching, the application of ai technology can provide teachers with more personalized and accurate teaching support and resources to help students better master language knowledge and improve language abilities. 4. specific models for the application of artificial intelligence technology in english language teaching 4.1 interactive listening training model interactive listening training mode is a specific application of artificial intelligence technology in english language teaching. traditional listening training usually involves teachers playing recordings or combining them with questions, but due to the large number of students, it is difficult for teachers to provide personalized guidance and feedback to each student. in contrast, the interactive listening training mode utilizes artificial intelligence technology to provide students with personalized and autonomous listening training. in this mode, students can engage in listening exercises anytime and anywhere using devices equipped with ai-assisted systems, such as smartphones or tablets (chernysh et al., 2023). the system offers different levels and types of listening materials, such as news, dialogues, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 88 published by scholink inc. and speeches, based on the students’ proficiency and needs. students can autonomously choose the listening materials and practice their listening skills through the system at their own pace and according to their needs. during the listening practice, the ai-assisted system monitors and assesses the students’ listening performance in real-time. through speech recognition technology, it automatically recognizes the students’ listening answers and provides feedback. for example, in multiple-choice listening exercises, students can select the heard content or answer questions, and the system instantly judges the correctness of their answers, providing the correct answer and explanation. in fill-in-the-blank listening exercises, students can input their answers through speech, which the system will automatically recognize and evaluate. through this approach, students can promptly understand their listening scores and identify any issues, enabling targeted training and improvement. the interactive listening training mode not only provides personalized learning content and real-time feedback but also offers various auxiliary functions and learning resources. for instance, the system can provide subtitles, vocabulary explanations, and voice readings to help students better understand and master the listening materials. additionally, based on the students’ needs, the system can recommend relevant learning resources such as related reading materials, grammar explanations, and exercises to further reinforce and expand their listening skills. the application of interactive listening training mode can enhance students’ listening skills and their ability to cope with real-life language environments. through personalized training and real-time feedback, students can effectively improve their listening comprehension and dictation abilities, and confidently and fluently utilize their learned english knowledge in practical communication. furthermore, due to the flexibility of training anytime and anywhere, students can choose suitable listening exercises according to their own time and location, enhancing the convenience and efficiency of their learning. in summary, the application of interactive listening training mode provides a more personalized, flexible, and effective teaching approach in english language education. 4.2 intelligent correction and humanized after-school guidance model the application of artificial intelligence technology in english teaching also includes the intelligent error correction and personalized after-class guidance mode. traditional essay correction is usually done by teachers, but their time and energy are limited, and they cannot provide detailed correction and guidance for every student’s essay. however, the intelligent error correction and personalized after-class guidance mode, utilizing artificial intelligence technology, can offer students personalized essay correction and guidance, thereby improving their writing skills and language proficiency. in this mode, students can submit their essays through an intelligent writing platform, and the system will automatically check and correct aspects such as grammar, spelling, and punctuation. through natural language processing technology, the system can identify and correct errors in students’ essays and provide corresponding explanations and demonstrations. students can learn about their mistakes and make revisions based on the system’s feedback, thereby not only enhancing language accuracy but also deepening their understanding of grammar rules and writing techniques. unlike traditional essay correction, the intelligent error correction and personalized after-class guidance mode also provides www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 89 published by scholink inc. more personalized and humanized after-class guidance services. the system can provide targeted suggestions and guidance for essay improvement based on students’ essay characteristics and needs. it can analyze the problems and shortcomings in students’ essays and offer tailored writing techniques and suggestions. the system can also adjust the difficulty and content based on students’ levels and progress, providing them with stage-specific tasks and training. the intelligent error correction and personalized after-class guidance mode can not only enhance students’ essay writing skills but also stimulate their interest and enthusiasm for writing. through timely feedback and personalized guidance, students can better understand their writing problems and make improvements. additionally, the system can share excellent sample essays and writing techniques, inspiring students’ creativity and thinking abilities. furthermore, the intelligent error correction and personalized after-class guidance mode can provide online guidance and assistance from teachers (ren, 2022). teachers can track and analyze students’ essays through the system, understand their writing levels and progress, and provide personalized guidance and feedback. the system also offers evaluation tools for teachers to grade and evaluate students’ essays, helping them better understand students’ writing abilities and issues and develop corresponding teaching strategies and plans. in conclusion, the intelligent error correction and personalized after-class guidance mode provides a more personalized and effective approach to essay training and guidance in english teaching. through intelligent error correction and personalized writing guidance, students can enhance language accuracy and writing skills while also stimulating their interest and thinking abilities in writing. this mode not only offers convenience and flexibility for students’ learning but also provides better essay teaching management and guidance tools for teachers. 4.3 intelligent english translation teaching model based on cloud platform the cloud-based intelligent english translation teaching model is another significant application of artificial intelligence technology in english education. traditional english translation teaching often relies on paper dictionaries or translation software, requiring students to constantly search for words and phrases in dictionaries or on computers, wasting valuable study time. however, the cloud-based intelligent english translation teaching model utilizes cloud computing and artificial intelligence technology, providing more convenient, real-time, and accurate translation tools and aids. in this model, students can perform real-time english translation through translation applications or web interfaces on smart phones, tablets, and other devices connected to the cloud platform. they can not only input words, sentences, or paragraphs that need to be translated but also utilize speech recognition technology for oral translation. the ai translation system on the cloud platform can instantly translate the input english content into the target language and provide accurate translations along with contextual explanations. students can flexibly use this tool for translation practice and language application according to their own needs and progress. in addition to providing real-time translation tools, the cloud-based intelligent english translation teaching model can also offer personalized learning resources and auxiliary functions. based on the students’ learning needs and levels, the system can recommend relevant vocabulary, grammar explanations, as well as provide related examples and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 90 published by scholink inc. exercises. the system can also provide deeper word associations and explanations of word meanings to help students better understand and use the translated text. at the same time, the system can offer auxiliary functions such as voice reading and pronunciation correction to help students improve their speaking and listening skills. the cloud-based intelligent english translation teaching model not only provides students with convenient translation tools and personalized learning resources but also offers teachers better teaching management and assessment methods. through the system, teachers can track and analyze students’ translation content, understand their translation abilities and problems, and provide appropriate guidance and feedback. teachers can also utilize the evaluation tools provided by the system to score and assess students’ translation quality, helping them better understand students’ translation levels and issues and develop corresponding teaching strategies and plans. in conclusion, the cloud-based intelligent english translation teaching model provides english learners with more convenient, real-time, and personalized translation tools and learning resources. through the use of intelligent translation systems and auxiliary functions, students can improve translation accuracy and language application abilities. this model not only saves study time and effort but also provides teachers with better teaching management and guidance methods. 5. building a new english teaching system based on artificial intelligence technology 5.1 interesting explanation module for english vocabulary and grammar the innovative english language teaching system, founded on artificial intelligence technology, offers students a more enjoyable and interactive learning experience in the fascinating modules of vocabulary and grammar explanations. traditional methods of teaching vocabulary and grammar often emphasize rote memorization and mechanical exercises, leading to dull and tedious learning. in contrast, the ai-based teaching system, with its creative teaching methods and engaging learning content, stimulates students’ interest and motivation to learn. within these modules, the ai system utilizes multimedia technologies such as images, animations, audio, and videos to present english vocabulary and grammar concepts to the students. through immersive visual and auditory effects, the system captivates students’ attention and makes the learning content more vivid and interesting. for example, the system can animate vocabulary concepts, transforming abstract words into entertaining images or characters, aiding students in deeper memorization and comprehension. the system can also simulate real-life contexts and incorporate interactive games, enabling students to practice grammar rules and turning learning into an enjoyable experience. beyond its entertainment value, the ai-powered english teaching system can also provide personalized learning content and progress arrangements tailored to students’ needs and proficiency levels. by analyzing students’ learning history and performance, the system identifies their weaknesses in vocabulary and grammar and offers targeted explanations and exercises. through intelligent recommendations and adaptive learning features, the system provides students with appropriate learning resources and difficulty levels, enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of their studies. furthermore, the ai-based english teaching system offers instant www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 91 published by scholink inc. feedback and assessment. as students engage in the learning process, the system can evaluate their answers or oral expressions in real-time, providing corresponding feedback and suggestions. students can promptly adjust their learning strategies based on the system’s assessment results and further strengthen and improve their skills. in conclusion, the ai-based english teaching system, with its captivating and interactive modules for vocabulary and grammar explanations, offers a more charming and engaging learning experience. through its innovative teaching methods and captivating learning content presented through multimedia technologies, students can enhance their interest and learning outcomes. these modules not only ignite students’ passion for learning but also help them master english vocabulary and grammar knowledge, ultimately improving their language proficiency (belhassena, 2022). 5.2 designing english assignments with high interactivity designing highly interactive english assignments is one of the important modules in constructing a new ai-based english teaching system. traditional english assignments often focus on delivering knowledge points and mechanical exercises, lacking sufficient interactivity and practicality. however, with the application of ai technology, we can design english assignments that are more interactive and allow students to learn and apply the knowledge they have mastered through practical exercises. such interactive english assignments can leverage ai technologies such as speech recognition, natural language processing, and speech synthesis to provide oral and listening practice. for example, the assignment system can set oral questions, requiring students to answer questions or converse in english, and the system can convert the students’ answers into text through speech recognition technology and provide immediate feedback and evaluation. at the same time, the system can also use speech synthesis technology to play standard english pronunciation for students, helping them correct pronunciation errors and improve their oral expression skills. in addition, interactive english assignments can also incorporate the human-machine dialogue function in ai systems for conversational practice. the system can generate corresponding questions based on the students’ answers, provide multiple options or prompts, guide students to answer and communicate. through interaction with the system, students can practice language expression and comprehension skills. the system can analyze and evaluate the students’ answers based on natural language processing technology, provide appropriate encouragement and guidance, and help students further improve their language skills. in addition to oral and listening practice, interactive english assignments can also include writing and reading comprehension exercises. the system can check grammar and vocabulary based on the students’ writing, and provide correction and suggestions. in terms of reading comprehension, the system can provide relevant questions and answer analysis based on the students’ reading content, helping students better understand and apply the information they have read. by designing highly interactive english assignments, we can stimulate students’ learning interest and participation, making learning more interesting and practical. students can improve their language skills through interaction with ai systems and better apply the knowledge they have learned. this interactive assignment module not only helps students improve their english www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 92 published by scholink inc. proficiency but also provides timely feedback and personalized learning advice, promoting the realization of learning effectiveness. 5.3 creating oral training scenarios for intercultural communication creating cross-cultural communication training scenarios is one of the key elements in building a new english teaching system based on artificial intelligence technology. in the context of globalization, cross-cultural communication skills have become increasingly important for students. by creating cross-cultural communication training scenarios, students can practice their language expression and cross-cultural communication skills in simulated situations, enhancing their communication abilities and cultural adaptability. these scenarios can simulate real-life situations in different countries and regions, such as tourism, business, and social situations. through speech recognition and natural language processing in artificial intelligence technology, the system can interact with students in real-time, simulating authentic cross-cultural communication scenarios. for example, the system can act as a foreign tour guide, a business partner, or a friend in a social setting, engaging in spoken dialogue with the students. students can answer questions, offer suggestions, or engage in social activities based on the system’s dialogue or questions, simulating a genuine spoken exchange. in this training scenario, the artificial intelligence system can analyze the student’s spoken language expression such as syntax, vocabulary, and pronunciation through natural language processing technology and provide instant feedback and corrections. the system can point out inaccuracies and lack of fluency in spoken language, offer appropriate advice and improvement plans, and continually improve students’ spoken expression skills by interacting with the system. additionally, to better simulate authentic cross-cultural communication scenarios, the training scenario can be combined with real cultural backgrounds. the system can provide diverse cultural background elements such as festivals, cuisine culture, and etiquette customs to help students understand differences and characteristics between different cultures and to develop their cultural adaptability and cross-cultural communication skills. through creating cross-cultural communication training scenarios, students can exercise their language expression and cross-cultural communication skills in a virtual environment, enhancing their communication abilities and cultural adaptability. this training scenario not only provides students with the opportunity to practice oral language but also allows them to better understand and appreciate communication rules and etiquette in different cultural contexts, promoting effective cross-cultural communication. 6. evaluation of artificial intelligence-based english teaching model innovation the innovation of ai-based english teaching models holds great promise and potential. initially, it can provide personalized learning plans and resources tailored to students’ needs and proficiency levels. moreover, ai systems can promptly offer targeted feedback and suggestions to help students better understand and master english knowledge. furthermore, ai-based english teaching models can enhance students’ practical skills. by creating diverse learning scenarios, students can apply their www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 93 published by scholink inc. learned knowledge in practice, thereby improving their speaking, listening, and writing abilities. simultaneously, the intelligent functions of ai systems can promptly correct students’ language errors, aiding them in improving grammar and pronunciation accuracy, ultimately making the learning process more efficient and effective. lastly, ai-based english teaching models can promote the development and progress of global education, providing a stronger foundation for transcending linguistic and cultural barriers and facilitating wider communication and collaborative efforts. it contributes to cultivating english learners with intercultural communication abilities and enhancing their competitiveness, thereby driving global education forward. in conclusion, the application prospects of ai-based english teaching model innovation are vast and can bring new opportunities and challenges to english education. however, it is crucial to address potential issues such as the value orientation and privacy concerns related to ai systems. therefore, strict management and guidance are necessary during promotion and implementation to ensure the quality and effectiveness of teaching (wei, 2022). 7. conclusion the adoption of artificial intelligence technology in the field of english education is bringing about a series of exciting innovations and opportunities. through intelligent teaching systems, students can experience a more personalized, interactive, and practical learning environment. this innovative research not only stimulates students’ interest in learning but also enhances their language application skills. a.i. systems can provide customized learning resources and plans based on students’ learning needs and abilities, making learning more targeted and efficient. moreover, the system can provide targeted feedback and suggestions in real-time, helping students better understand and grasp english knowledge. moreover, innovation research based on the a.i. english teaching model can also enhance students’ practical language skills and strengthen their language application skills. by creating a rich and diverse learning environment, such as simulated dialogues in virtual situations, role-playing, and simulated real-life scenarios, students can apply what they have learned to practical situations, improving their oral expression, listening comprehension, and writing skills. the intelligent functions of a.i. systems can timely correct students’ language errors, helping them improve the accuracy of grammar and pronunciation, making the learning process more effective and efficient. overall, innovation research based on a.i. english teaching model has brought new development prospects to english education. with continuous innovation and improvement, we hope to build a more intelligent, personalized, and efficient english education system, cultivating english learners with a broad cross-cultural communication ability. this will promote the progress and development of global education, and create a more powerful foundation for crossing language and cultural barriers, achieving wider communication and cooperation. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 94 published by scholink inc. references belhassena, d. (2022). cbi in algeria’s higher education institutions: using the adjunct model to teach physics. international journal of applied linguistics and english literature, 11(4), 41-46. https://doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.11n.4p.41 chernysh, v. et al. (2023). rationale for a conceptual model of teaching english for special purposes. journal of language teaching and research, 14(4), 893-902. https://doi.org/10.17507/jltr.1404.05 jing, y. et al. (2023). educational metaverse: an exploration and practice of vr wisdom teaching model in chinese open university english course. interactive technology and smart education, 20(3), 403-421. https://doi.org/10.1108/itse-10-2022-0140 ren j. (2022). research on the application of tesol teaching model in english teaching. journal of educational research and policies, 4(9), 29-31. https://doi.org/10.53469/jerp.2022.04(09).25 wei, c. (2022). a study of college students’ foreign language anxiety in english learning based on the teaching model of sheltered instruction observation protocol. best evidence in chinese education, 10(1), 22. https://doi.org/10.15354/bece.22.or010 https://doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.11n.4p.41 https://doi.org/10.17507/jltr.1404.05 https://doi.org/10.1108/itse-10-2022-0140 https://doi.org/10.53469/jerp.2022.04(09).25 https://doi.org/10.15354/bece.22.or010 frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no.4, 2021 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 26 original paper secret of instructional design revisited zane l. berge, ph.d.1 1 department of education, university of maryland baltimore county, baltimore md, usa received: october 15, 2021 accepted: october 31, 2021 online published: november 10, 2021 doi:10.22158/fet.v4n4p26 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v4n4p26 abstract improvements in technology, especially automation, robotics, and artificial intelligence have dramatically changed what people do in the workplace and how they do it. technology advancements over the past 3 decades have reshaped demands in schooling and the workplace bringing on new challenges and opportunities. employers need employees who are critical thinkers, communicators, collaborators, and creators to remain competitive and innovative. educators recognize these abilities that learners must have to take advantage of the opportunities and face the challenges that are presented to them in the 21st century. as was the case 30 years ago, the same consistency is needed today among the four elements of instructional design: objectives, methods, content, and evaluation. there must also be integration of the instructional system with authentic, real-world performance. if these two critical aspects are not met the chances of obtaining the desired effectiveness of learning is not likely to be met. the internet and cloud computing allow more rapid development of instruction for more efficient and affective learning. the pace of change also requires a greater emphasis on the iterative nature of evaluating the instructional design system. keywords instructional design, 21st century skills, instructional content, instructional methods, instructional goals, evaluation of instruction 1. introduction over thirty years ago, stephen yelon and i wrote an article describing the secret of instructional design (yelon & berge, 1988). since then, this framework has helped many instructional designers, students, teachers, curriculum developers, and learning and development specialists. the purpose of this article is to reflect on the changes in technology and expand this still-useful instructional system model to the knowledge, skills and abilities needed in the 21st century. figure 1 indicates the four major elements in the instructional system. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 27 published by scholink inc. figure 1. secret of instructional design revisited a key to designing effective instruction is to assure consistency among four elements of instruction: 1) goals or objectives, 2) content, 3) the teaching methods and approaches used, and 4) the assessment and evaluation of the learning. another critical aspect of effective instruction is to integrate or align these elements with real-world performance. consistency and integration do not guarantee effective instruction because there are other factors that may interfere with learning, such as whether the conditions under which final performance is evaluated may not be the same as the authentic conditions, or the testing environment may be different than the real-world environment. however, without having consistency within the system and alignment of instruction with real-world performance it is unlikely outcomes will be as desired. instructional design (id) is the systematic process of designing and creating a learning experience, focusing on how content can be conveyed most effectively. instructional designers, teachers, and other learning and development professionals, whose job it is to develop learning experiences in schools or the workplace, work daily to design new instruction and revise instruction that does not meet the desired www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 28 published by scholink inc. results. such development and revision work often starts with a simple question: “what achievement is desired”, or questions that derive from this question. what student learning outcomes will the material serve? what should learners know, understand, and apply in real-life settings? what will inspire students or employees to learn and strive for excellence? 2. elements of instructional design revisited effectiveness has to do with how well the instruction enables learners to achieve stated goals or expected outcomes. it is the instructional design that primarily determines the effectiveness of instruction. technology has more to do with the efficiency and the affective aspects of learning. 2.1 instructional goals and objectives regardless of whether the job is to develop new instruction or revise existing instruction, the goals or behavioral objectives must match authentic, real-world performance which the learner is striving. depending upon the prior knowledge and skill level of the learner, the design may need to be broken down into goals or objectives needed to be mastered before the ultimate performance can be performed. these enabling goals or objectives often derive from the experience of the teacher or subject matter expert working with the instructional designer. 2.2 content content is basically the knowledge that the learner needs to perform the tasks to be learned. traditionally, when talking about school learning, content is often learned just-in-case. the idea being that a broad amount of information is taught so that some of it may be useful to the learner later in school or in the future. there are several conceptual problems with this. for instance, it is difficult to know what individuals may need to know as their learning path continues and especially what will be needed outside of schooling in the job situation. in addition, many students today are not sufficiently motivated to learn knowledge and skills in which they do not believe will be relevant to them later. in the workplace, much of the knowledge and skills learned are done to perform competently that which is needed for a specific job the employee is doing. learning often occurs just-in-time to solve the problem at hand. job related learning occurs for the most part through informal learning, rather than formal learning events. in the strictest sense, learning and development professionals cannot design informal learning. still, there is a need for supporting informal learning. it should be noted that the internet holds an immense store of information. videos, for instance, are available at the fingertips of learners that can be used to demonstrate much of the needed knowledge and skills when needed just-in-time to help solve the problem with which the learner is facing. one of the biggest changes due to technology over the last several decades regarding the development of instruction is the easy access to content, subject matter expertise and demonstration online by a more experienced practitioner. having said that, it is easier to take a subject matter expert and teach them the fundamentals of designing instruction compared to teaching an instructional designer the competencies of an expert in a field. there are many thousands of experts developing their own instructional videos www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 29 published by scholink inc. and putting on easy-to-use platforms such as youtube—currently with varying degrees of effective instructional design. often a lot of skills are learned through feedback from people who perform the skill better than the learner does. before the internet and cloud technologies, changes to instruction were costly, compared to today. the implementation of instruction needed to wait for each piece of the instruction to be analyzed, developed, and evaluated. otherwise, resources would need to be spent to fix the final instructional product. today, a designer or the subject matter expert can distribute what content is at hand, (e.g., a video, a pdf, a podcast), and add a quiz to evaluate the most important parts of the lesson to evaluate learning. if changes are needed, it is not nearly as costly as it was when developing a workbook or even a cd-rom for distribution. this is not to suggest that the design and consistency among instructional elements in the system should be careless or mindlessly done. what is meant is that it is much less costly to change that which needs changed and doing this assessment and evaluation at near real-time provides flexibility to the design that has not been available traditionally before the cloud and internet. another aspect of content development based primarily on the internet is curation. curation of digital content is a part of nearly all learning and learning support. it is the confluence of informal learning, and the costand time-savings of content curation that allows learning and development professionals to better meet individuals’ needs in their daily learning challenges. when learners curate their own information, the curation becomes just-for-me and is very useful to performance. 2.3 methods and approaches to instruction while one should not confuse the delivery system of instruction with the instructional methods and approaches being used, because of technological advances there are certain instructional methods that are easier to accomplish now than in the past. for example, with the seemingly infinite amount of information at an instructional designer’s fingertips, it is much easier now to find videos and other content. certainly, when viewing 21st century skills such as communication and collaboration, the internet promises activities, and approaches to learning regardless of geographic separation. these activities were too time consuming and much more difficult to accomplish in the past. of course, along with these opportunities comes the responsibility to instruct learners about the literacy skills that are needed when many of the quality control aspects previously supplied by publishers, librarians and other gatekeepers of information, media, and technology are absent. the methods and approaches to instruction that are taken by teachers, designers, or other specialists are generally dictated by the instructional theory being used. in the design and development of instruction. that and personal preferences learned through experience are usually found in the overall instructional system. it doesn’t matter how the designer choses the instructional approach taken as long as it aligns with the other elements of the instructional system. two critical functions of the methods selected for use are to motivate learners to engage with the content and to practice the enabling objectives and the overall performance being mastered. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 30 published by scholink inc. 2.3.1 engagement learning engagement is the ability for the learners to be both motived and show behavior that indicates they are engaged in the learning process. for learners to be motivated and engaged they must know what they are learning and why it is important to learn. therefore, the instructor must make sure the purpose of the learning is clear to the learner. the learning tasks must be challenging and connect to real-world performance. there are many strategies that teachers and designers use to create activities and approaches to keep students invested in their learning. authentic learning experiences are generally motivating, especially when designed for students to work together to complete a project or solve a problem, perhaps through inquiry-based activities and experimentation (arghode, brieger, & wang, 2018). essentially the course must be meaningful to the learners, and it must be clear to the learners what is in it for them. the methods and approaches designed in the instruction need to further the learners’ engagement with the course content as much as possible. one approach that often works to promote learner engagement, when possible, is to have the learners collaborate with others (ferlazzo, 2021). 2.3.2 practice the designer should be mindful of how much practice is needed for a learner to believe success will happen the next time performance is tried. too little practice and the learners will lack confidence in their abilities; too much is just boring and tedious. thus, an important goal for the designer of instruction is to request just-enough practice. the reason to practice the activities that are relevant to a job or solving a problem is to demonstrate the knowledge, skills and abilities needed to perform the task at hand. with sufficient motivation, the more practice increases the more competency develops. competencies are broader combinations of abilities that can often predict superior performance in an educational domain or on the job (maher, 2017). if proficiency at competencies is important to the person and the organization, more than knowledge is needed. while knowledge and skills are the foundation, proficiency also involves these being combined with the ability to apply the foundational activities correctly in the right situations (hartman, 2019). active practice of the knowledge, skills and abilities is needed for proficiency to know when and how to use a competency in a problem-solving or business situation (hartman, 2019). so, practice is needed to develop competencies that match real-world performance. 2.4 assessment and evaluation of learning one way to think about assessment is that it is feedback from the learner to the instructor about the student’s learning. evaluation can be thought of as feedback from the instructor to the student about the student’s learning. evaluation uses methods to judge how well the student learned the knowledge and skills needed for grading and reporting purposes. generally, the instructor and the designer want to gather feedback about the various elements of the instruction such as the affective components of the methods and approaches being used, the content, the pace, and what is still unclear to the learner. critical reflection papers on the course and the most www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 31 published by scholink inc. important content or activities (and least important aspects) are valuable to both the learners and the instructor for revisions of the instruction. evaluation can take the form of quizzes and examinations. evaluations could also be in other formats such as clinical evaluations, papers, group or individual projects, worksheets, practical exams of skills and competencies, or any other graded assignments. due to advances in technology, changing instruction is less costly and time consuming than before. this allows more rapid, near real-time implementation and evaluation making the revising and evaluation of the instructional system more continuous. 3. impact of technology improvements it is hard to overstate the impact that improvements in technologies have had over the past 30 years in reshaping how people work or how they manage their lives outside the workplace. the u.s. bureau of labor statistics has speculated that today’s individuals will have 8 to 10 jobs before they are 40 years of age. additionally, it has been estimated that “85% of the jobs that today’s learners will be doing in 2030 haven’t been invented yet” (iftf, 2018, p. 14). whether these estimates become true or not, there is immense changes to the workplace and that the pace of change is ever-increasing. an individual will have many jobs and the responsibilities of those jobs will no doubt be substantially different than what that person studied. workers will need to create, collaborate, and innovate as they continue to learn new things. new problems mean the need for new knowledge, skills, and abilities. technology has a major impact on at least two areas to our discussion here: 1) how learning takes place and 2) how instructional systems are developed. 4. 21st century skills employers want employees with abilities in communication, teamwork, critical thinking, and problem-solving (kussmaul, 2020). over the past 20 years or so, educational leaders have worked diligently to reform curriculum to emphasize what has widely been called 21st century skills. there is quite a bit of agreement regarding the needs of individuals to think critically about and solve complex problems, collaborate with others when finding innovative and creative solutions, and view learning as a lifelong process if they are to meet the challenges and opportunities in the workplace. the point in this paper is not to rehash these efforts or choose any one list of skills (note). sufficient for purposes here is to say there are commonalities in many of these frameworks. for instance, stauffer (2020) categorized 21st century skills that include learning skills, literacy skills, and life skills: learning skills are efforts to teach students about the mental processes required in a modern work environment including critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, and communication. literacy skills focus on how students can discern facts and the technology behind them. additionally, the focus is on determining trustworthy sources and truthful information to separate these sources and facts from misinformation. these skills include information literacy, media literacy, and technology literacy. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 32 published by scholink inc. life skills are those skills that are often intangible elements of a student’s everyday life. they focus on both personal and professional qualities and include flexibility, leadership, initiative, productivity, and social skills. school leaders and business leaders agree that 21st century skills are important for learners throughout school and going into the workplace to take advantage of the opportunities available to them and to overcome challenges faced by learners. the more learning and development professionals are mindful of these skills and embed them in curriculum and training the better prepared learners will be generally. there are a variety of reasons why schools are having a difficult time refocusing education systems to develop such skills as logical thinking, curiosity, leadership, creativity, and complex problem-solving. such skills are hard to define. additionally, they are difficult to operationalize so that they can be observed, measured, and evaluated. a large part of these abilities mentioned involve cognitive processes and thinking that goes on in the learner’s head. another factor is that many teachers believe they must “cover” many facts and details; not to mention that it is more difficult to move learning to higher order skills. as solutions to problems become more complex, the methods and approaches used for performance in higher-order skills and abilities often require a project-based, team approach, with research and writing integrated throughout and giving students more responsibility for what they learn and how quickly they learn it as problem-solving advances. it is a significant change for most teachers to facilitate learners group work where they analyze, discuss, plan, practice time management, and hold each other accountable for meeting performance goals (lombardi, 2021). 5. revising ineffective instruction over the past two decades, technology has changed the way much of instructional design implementation is done from large, “needs to be exact the first time the product is distributed” to an emphasizing the iterative design. because technology (e.g., the cloud) has made it possible to make lower-cost changes to instruction it is becoming more important to rapidly develop a prototype of the instruction and test it with some learners for their feedback and effectiveness than in the past. iterative instructional design is an approach of “incrementally developing and refining a design based on feedback and evaluation. iterative design can apply to a learning experience, the creation of media, or the development of learning systems” (culatta, 2021, para. 1). instruction is to revise instruction that is not as effective as desired. in figure 1, this is represented by the cycle around the four elements of instruction. the person who is revising existing instruction for whatever reason, starts by checking several aspects of the system.  is a major instructional element missing?  is a major instructional element inconsistent with the rest of the instruction?  are there constraints to the system that are causing ineffectiveness, and can they be eliminated or minimized? www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 33 published by scholink inc.  is the instruction integrated with real-world performance?  the person seeing to revise instruction could also check other variables such as environmental conditions (e.g., heat and noise), management of instruction (e.g., the speed of feedback), and learner variables (e.g., low motivation or inadequate knowledge and skills on entry into the instructional unit). 6. development can start from any instructional element instructional designers are usually taught to develop instruction in a rather stepwise manner that starts with analysis of the learners and the learning environment. for example, the experience level of the learners will affect the types of activities incorporated in the instruction being developed. next, what are the prerequisites, if any. that is followed by an analysis of the knowledge and skills needed to perform the task or solve the real-world problem. this is followed by writing behavioral objectives and then developing the content to enable the learner to obtain the knowledge and skills to reach the end goal and perform the task or solve the problem, and so forth. the teaching method or approach that is best suited to help the learner is designed and is developed to assure that the learner is competent and has mastered the content needed to perform the tasks. there is nothing wrong with this approach and it likely leads to an instructional system that promotes the learning of the end goal if the analyses and conditions faced by the learner in the real-world are completed effectively. experienced instructional designers know that development can begin from any element in the system and proceed to the other elements if the elements are consistent in the final instructional plan. this is especially important when revising instruction that is not as effective as desired. for instance, if there is a change in legal mandates or change to a certifying examination, it may be unnecessary to begin from a clean slate if former instruction was effective. in other words, if a sample examination is available, an instructional designer with some experience can use that exam to develop the content and instructional objectives needed to revise the instruction, often using the same effective teaching approaches that have been working. the same is true for a teaching approach that is known to produce results (e.g., flipping the classroom; demonstration; or viewing video performances by more skilled practitioners). the key is to make sure there is consistency throughout the four elements in the final instruction. 7. conclusions the world of information and communication has changed tremendously in the past 30 plus years and will continue to do so. automation and other technologies continue to improve the quality of work people do by allowing them to focus “on more strategic, value-creating, and personally rewarding tasks” (strack et al., 2021, “three components of workforce imbalances” para. 1). for these changes to occur, employers seek to employ critical thinkers, communicators, collaborators, and creators to maneuver through the oftentimes globally competitive environment (zain, muniandy, & hash, 2016). realizing this, school leaders recognize they must help students learn the 21st century skills necessary www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 34 published by scholink inc. to develop flexible, innovative, self-directed employees. both in school and in the workplace the instructor and the designer of instruction need to master what motivates learners to engage with the knowledge, skills, and abilities needed for developing competencies. while the major elements of an instructional system have not changed, instructional designers and other learning and development specialists must change the way they work when developing new instruction or when revising existing instruction. the cloud, internet, and other technologies allows rapid development of instruction with a greater emphasis on the iterative nature of revisions to the instructional system the added emphasis on the iterative nature of rapid development and revision of instruction makes assessment from learners more valuable than ever. these changes reduce instruction’s time-to-market and the cost of development compared with traditional instructional development product before these technologies came into widespread use. understanding the relationship among the basic elements of the instructional system and the ramifications of changes within that system lets the learning and development professional foresee the consequences of such changes. references arghode, v., brieger, e., & wang, j. (2018). engaging instructional design and instructor role in online learning environment. european journal of training and development, 42(7/8), 366-380. https://doi.org/10.1108/ejtd-12-2017-0110 berge, z. l. (2018). from content creator to content curator: a new role for corporate elearning designers. (yiwei peng & junhong xiao trans). distance education in china, 12, 15-22. culatta, r. (2021). iterative design. instructionaldesign.org. retrieved from https://www.instructionaldesign.org/models/iterative_design/ desimone, r. l., werner, j. m., & harris, d. m. (2002). human resource development. orlando, fl.: harcourt, inc. ferlazzo, l. (2021, february 7). nine strategies for promoting student engagement. education week. retrieved from https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/opinion-nine-strategies-for-promoting-student-engage ment/2021/02 hartman, p. g. (2019, january 23). practice makes proficient: developing your competencies. society for human resource management. retrieved from https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/behavioral-competencies/pages/practice-makesproficient-developing-your-competencies.aspx institute for the future (iftf). (2018). the next era of human-machine partnerships: emerging technologies’ impact on society & work in 2030. retrieved from https://www.delltechnologies.com/content/dam/delltechnologies/assets/perspectives/2030/pdf/sr1 940_iftffordelltechnologies_human-machine_070517_readerhigh-res.pdf about:blank about:blank about:blank about:blank about:blank about:blank about:blank about:blank about:blank about:blank about:blank about:blank www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 35 published by scholink inc. kussmaul, c. (2020). guiding students to develop essential skills. communications of the acm, 63(2), 35-37. https://doi.org/10.1145/3376893 lombardi, j. (2021, may 12). how to prepare students for jobs of the future. connections academy. retrieved from https://www.connectionsacademy.com/support/resources/article/how-to-prepare-students-for-jobsof-the-future maher, c. (2017, november 8). beyond skills: why competencies are important as your organization grows. the hr trove. retrieved from https://blog.hrtrove.com/beyond-skills-why-competencies-are-important-as-your-organization-gro ws oblinger, d. g., & oblinger, j. l. (2005). educating the net generation. retrieved from https://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/pub7101.pdf rowden, r. w. (2007, october). moving from training to workplace learning. in c. danielson, e. douglas, & m. summit (eds.), proceedings of the western region research conference on the education of adults (wrrcea) (pp. 140-150). western washington university, bellingham, wa. sahin, m. c. (2009). instructional design principles for 21st century learning skills. procedia-social and behavioral sciences, 1(1), 1464-1468. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2009.01.258 stauffer, b. (2020, march 19). what are 21st century skills? applied educational systems. retrieved from https://www.aeseducation.com/blog/what-are-21st-century-skills strack, r., carrasco, m., kolo, p., nouri, n., priddis, m., & george, r. (2021, march 18). the future of jobs in the era of ai. boston consulting group. retrieved from https://www.bcg.com/publications/2021/impact-of-new-technologies-on-jobs yelon, s., & berge, z. l. (1988, january). the secret of instructional design. performance and instruction (pp. 11-13). https://doi.org/10.1002/pfi.4170270105 zain, i. m., muniandy, b., & hash, w. (2016). an integral asie id model: the 21st century instructional design model for teachers. universal journal of educational research, 4(3), 547-554. https://doi.org/10.13189/ujer.2016.040311 note for some examples in the literature of 21st century skills see: entre assess. (2018). assessment and teaching of 21st century skills (atc21s). https://entreassess.com/2018/05/29/assessment-and-teaching-of-21st-century-skills-atc21s/ iowa department of education. (n.d.). iowa core 21st century skills. https://iowacore.gov/sites/default/files/k-12_21stcentskills.pdf ncrel/metri. (2003). engauge 21st century skills. https://www.cwasd.k12.wi.us/highschl/newsfile1062_1.pdf about:blank about:blank about:blank about:blank about:blank about:blank about:blank about:blank about:blank about:blank about:blank about:blank about:blank about:blank about:blank www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 36 published by scholink inc. wagner, t. (2020. october 18). seven survival skills for 21st century students. https://mylearningspringboard.com/7-survival-skills-for-21st-century-students/ about:blank about:blank frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 13 original paper intelligent english teaching based on the pedagogy of performing another culture and chatgpt technology yuhang li1 1 department of foreign languages, shanghai university of finance and economics zhejiang college, jinhua 321000, zhejiang, china received: november 09, 2023 accepted: december 22, 2023 online published: january 03, 2023 doi:10.22158/fet.v7n1p13 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v7n1p13 abstract in the background of digital education, the intelligent capabilities of chatgpt-based technology in teaching have emerged as a powerful tool for facilitating teachers’ preparation for lesson, improving students’ learning motivation and effectiveness, and promoting the development of intelligent curriculum. this study put forward a novel model of chatgpt-based english teaching grounded in the “pedagogy of performing another culture” proposed by galal walker. from the three aspects of teaching design, application scenarios, and learning effect evaluation, this model explores the application of chatgpt in the four fundamental language domains of listening, speaking, reading, and writing, with the objective of enhancing students’ language proficiency and cultural sensitivity, while also fostering their digital learning capabilities. to uphold academic integrity and ethical use of chatgpt in english teaching, a c++-based chatgpt application has been designed and tailored to the specific needs of english language learners. the school-based intelligent courses based on chatgpt are available for students to carry out more diverse and effective english learning, promoting the rational use of chatgpt in learning. keywords the pedagogy of performing another culture, chatgpt technology, intelligent english teaching 1. introduction since the official release of the generative artificial intelligence system chatgpt in november 2022, it has rapidly become the focal point of the education sector. with outstanding capabilities in text-based content generation and contextual understanding, chatgpt is expected to have a significant impact on education. this impact includes alleviating teachers’ routine and repetitive workloads, advancing personalized teaching, and enhancing overall teaching quality (lu et al., 2023). chatgpt can be www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 14 published by scholink inc. applied to personalized learning needs, such as speech recognition and pronunciation exercises, reading practice, writing exercises, translation practice, grammar exercises, and more. this article, focusing on english language teaching, explores how to integrate chatgpt into english language instruction to promote the development of intelligent courses. drawing on the “the pedagogy of performing another culture” proposed by american scholar galal walker, the article examines the specific application of chatgpt in english teaching through teaching design, application scenarios, and learning effectiveness evaluation. additionally, the article attempts to develop a c++-based chatgpt english teaching application program to enable students to use the program for english learning, addressing concerns about students abusing chatgpt for assignment ghostwriting (lu et al., 2023). 2. the pedagogy of performing another culture 2.1 the pedagogy of performing another culture overview the core concepts of “the pedagogy of performing another culture” are “performance” and “culture.” the term “performance” integrates multiple layers of meaning from the fields of drama, anthropology, sociology, and linguistics, involving immersive and hands-on language and culture learning experiences for learners (yu, 2010). similar to theatrical performance, all human verbal behaviors encompass five key elements: time, place, characters, audience, and script (walker & noda, 2000; qin, 2017). “culture,” defined in various ways across different domains, is conceptualized in the methodology as “how people conduct themselves” (walker & noda, 2000). from the perspective of foreign language learning, culture can be categorized into achievement culture, information culture, and behavior culture (hammerly, 1986). the pedagogy of performing another culture aims to cultivate students’ intercultural communication competence through practical experiences, helping them better understand and immerse themselves in culture. the approach advocates diverse teaching methods, emphasizes student initiative and creativity, enabling learning through experience and growth through practice. 2.2 application of the pedagogy of performing another culture in english teaching 2.2.1 application in english listening english listening teaching guided by the pedagogy of performing another culture aims to help students master english phonetics, intonation, understand the inherent cultural characteristics of the english language, and enhance listening proficiency. teachers can employ the following methods: ① incorporating situation-specific listening training: situation simulation is a crucial aspect of this instructional methodology. in listening teaching, teachers can design various scenario simulations based on students’ real situations and learning needs. this approach allows students to immerse themselves in the context during listening exercises, experiencing the interconnection between language and culture. ②emphasizing phonetics and intonation training: in the performance and culture instructional methodology, training in phonetics and intonation holds significant importance. accurate phonetics and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 15 published by scholink inc. intonation are crucial for english listening comprehension. teachers can assist students in understanding the rules of english phonetics and intonation through methods such as imitation, comparison, and explanations, thereby enhancing their listening comprehension abilities. ③ highlighting the use of listening strategies: the performance and culture instructional methodology emphasizes the active use of various listening strategies, such as prediction, inference, judgment, summarization, etc. these strategies help students more effectively comprehend listening materials. 2.2.2 application in english speaking guided by the pedagogy of performing another culture, english oral teaching aims to enhance students’ english speaking proficiency and provide an understanding and experience of the cultural nuances of the english language. teachers can employ the following methods: ①organizing cultural role-playing activities: engage students in role-playing activities within simulated contexts where they use english for communication, such as simulating international business negotiations. this approach not only helps improve students’ oral expression skills but also allows them to gain a deeper understanding of english culture. ②encouraging students to watch english movies and listen to english songs: foster a contextual understanding of the cultural nuances represented by the english language by encouraging students to watch english movies and listen to english songs. this exposure helps students better comprehend and apply english. additionally, students can enhance their pronunciation, intonation, and listening skills through these activities. ③actively facilitating language and cultural exchange activities: utilize online platforms, including video communication, to facilitate language and cultural exchange activities between students and those from english-speaking countries. this enables students to authentically experience english culture, thereby enhancing their cross-cultural communication skills.。 2.2.3 application in english reading guided by the pedagogy of performing another culture, english reading instruction aims to equip students with reading skills in english and foster a deep understanding of the inherent features of english culture. teachers can employ the following methods: ①selecting culturally relevant reading materials: teachers can choose reading materials that incorporate elements of english culture, such as traditional british festivals or historical figures in the united states. this approach enables students to gain insights into english culture through reading. ②encouraging emotional engagement: teachers can guide emotional engagement through questioning and discussions, allowing students to emotionally connect with the reading materials. this involvement helps students perceive the emotional elements inherent in english culture, including emotions like joy, anger, sorrow, and traditional cultural values. ③creating cultural contexts: teachers can establish cultural contexts by providing background information, delivering cultural explanations, or showcasing cultural videos. this approach immerses students in cultural scenarios, facilitating a deeper understanding of the cultural nuances within english culture. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 16 published by scholink inc. 2.2.4 application in english writing guided by the pedagogy of performing another culture, english writing instruction aims to develop students’ writing skills and delve into the intrinsic values of english culture. teachers can employ the following methods: ①selecting culturally relevant writing topics: teachers can choose writing topics that incorporate elements of english culture, such as describing historical landmarks in the uk or crafting a biography of an american historical figure. this approach allows students to explore english culture through the act of writing. ②encouraging emotional engagement: teachers can foster emotional engagement through questioning and discussions, enabling students to emotionally connect with the writing process. this involvement helps students experience the emotional elements inherent in english culture, such as the beauty of nature and cultural heritage. ③creating cultural contexts: teachers can establish cultural contexts by showcasing culturally relevant images, videos, or other materials. this approach creates cultural scenarios, allowing students to gain a deeper understanding of the cultural nuances within english culture.。 3. on the intelligent english teaching based on the pedagogy of performing another culture and chatgpt technology teachers should guide students in critical and creative thinking, encouraging them to make better use of ai-driven technologies (jiao, 2023). in the following sections, a chatgpt intelligent english teaching model based on the pedagogy of performing another culture will be designed. students will explore acceptable ai technologies and engage in english learning through ai-enhanced courses utilizing chatgpt technology. 3.1 on the intelligent english teaching design based on the pedagogy of performing another culture and chatgpt technology 3.1.1 teaching objectives the chatgpt english teaching based on the pedagogy of performing another culture aims to achieve the following objectives: ①enhance students’ understanding and sensitivity to english language and culture through experiential learning and performance: integrating intelligent courses based on chatgpt technology, students engage in physical and linguistic interactions to gain a profound insight into the cultural nuances of the english language. ②foster students’ abilities and strategies for autonomous learning: students will learn how to leverage intelligent courses based on chatgpt for self-directed learning and assessment. they explore personalized learning methods, develop self-awareness, and enhance self-management skills. through physical expression and role-playing, students cultivate interest and motivation for learning. ③improve students’ english expression and writing skills: utilizing intelligent educational resources based on chatgpt, students enhance their english expression and writing skills. engaging in performance and interpretation activities contributes to increased confidence and accuracy in language application. additionally, the course encourages students to discuss acceptable artificial intelligence technologies and understand the applications of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 17 published by scholink inc. chatgpt technology. students will grasp the core principles and technological applications of intelligent education to adapt to the developmental needs of the digital era. 3.1.2 teaching process (1) before class: ①cultural introduction and understanding: utilizing chatgpt technology to provide customized cultural knowledge and background introductions for students. through conversational interactions, chatgpt can offer diverse and personalized cultural information and explanations based on students’ needs and interests, helping them gain a deeper understanding of english culture. (2) during class: ①script writing and practice: utilizing chatgpt technology to assist students in writing relevant practice scripts. chatgpt can help students check grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation errors, and provide personalized feedback and suggestions. tailored exercises based on students’ language proficiency and cultural backgrounds can also be provided to enhance students’ language and cultural abilities. ②scenario simulation and experience: using chatgpt technology to construct diverse scenario simulations and experiential settings. chatgpt can provide students with authentic, vivid, and multidimensional language practices and experiences. for example, using virtual reality technology to simulate real-life scenarios, online games, social platforms, etc., allowing students to immerse themselves in the target culture and practice. ③performances and shows: leveraging chatgpt technology to provide online platforms for students to perform and showcase their language and cultural skills. through online video conferences, social platforms, live streaming, etc., students can demonstrate their language and cultural abilities anytime, anywhere, engaging in cross-cultural communication. chatgpt can also use natural language processing and machine learning technologies for assessment and feedback, helping students improve their language and cultural skills. (3) after class: ① personalized teaching feedback and self-evaluation: utilizing chatgpt technology to deliver personalized teaching feedback tailored to individual student needs. providing students with opportunities for self-evaluation and proposing improvement plans. enabling access to learning resources at any time and place, automating administrative tasks like record-keeping and grading through chatgpt. ②enhanced cross-cultural communication skills: leveraging chatgpt’s conversational interactions to assist students in analyzing language and cultural proficiency. facilitating peer review sessions among students using chatgpt, fostering collaborative assessment and improvement. strengthening cross-cultural communication abilities through interactive feedback and guidance. ③accurate evaluation and adaptive teaching strategies: employing chatgpt’s natural language processing for accurate assessment of students’ oral, vocal, and grammatical skills. providing instructors with precise teaching feedback and evaluation reports. allowing teachers to promptly adjust teaching strategies based on real-time insights obtained through chatgpt’s monitoring and evaluation functions. (see figure 1) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 18 published by scholink inc. figure 1. english teaching process diagram based on the pedagogy of performing another culture and chatgpt 3.1.3 teaching evaluation (1) evaluation of english expression and writing abilities: intelligent english courses can utilize chatgpt’s language generation and natural language understanding capabilities to provide personalized language training and feedback, assisting students in enhancing their english expression and writing skills. teachers can assess students’ english expression and writing abilities by observing their performance in the classroom, assignments, and interactions with chatgpt. (2) evaluation of intuition and cultural sensitivity: intelligent english courses can foster students’ understanding and sensitivity to language and culture by providing cultural background knowledge, contextual information, and multimedia resources such as audio and video. teachers can assess students’ intuition and cultural sensitivity by observing their understanding and reactions to culture, as well as gathering feedback on multimedia resources. (3) evaluation of autonomous learning and utilization of ai tools: “the vigorous development of artificial intelligence technology has promoted the innovation of foreign language teaching concepts and learning methods” (hong, 2018). “traditional foreign language teaching methods and learning approaches can no longer meet the increasingly updated technological culture, and a new ecology and paradigm for foreign language teaching must be reconstructed” (chen, 2017). teachers can assess students’ ability to use intelligent courses, gather feedback on learning suggestions and exercise questions, to evaluate students’ autonomous learning and digital learning capabilities. additionally, schools should establish regulations and guidelines to ensure that students comply with school www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 19 published by scholink inc. management requirements when using intelligent courses, ensuring the effectiveness of course teaching. 3.2 intelligent english application scenarios based on the pedagogy of performing another culture and chatgpt technology 3.2.1 auditory training and cultural introduction application 1 is an interactive language teaching program developed in c++. different functional modules of the program are encapsulated into independent classes to achieve a modular and highly cohesive design. for example, modules such as auditory training, cultural introduction, and interactive dialogue are encapsulated as separate classes, each with clear interfaces and interaction methods. these classes are independent of each other, ensuring a well-defined structure. the program focuses on auditory exercises and cultural introductions, aiding students in gaining a better understanding of language and cultural backgrounds, as well as common expressions. it provides various thematic options, including news and culture, randomly presenting content based on different themes to assist students in auditory exercises. in the cultural introduction segment, the program offers students background knowledge related to the selected theme, enhancing their comprehension of cultural nuances. through interactive dialogue, students can seamlessly immerse themselves in the learning process. the following code represents a portion of the source code, demonstrating the ‘cultural introduction’ functionality within the auditory training. the ‘generate culture info’ function, based on the provided ‘topic’ parameter, returns a string containing cultural information relevant to that theme.” application 1: excerpt from an interactive language teaching program based on c++ 1. string generate culture info(string topic) { 2. string cultureinfo = ”“; 3. if (topic == ”news”) { 4. cultureinfo = ”in this culture, people are very interested in current events and news.”; 5. } else if (topic == ”culture”) { 6. cultureinfo = ”this culture has a long and rich history that dates back thousands of years.”; 7. } else { 8. cultureinfo = ”i’m sorry, i don’t have any information about the culture related to that topic.”; 9. } 10. return cultureinfo; 11. } 3.2.2 oral training and performance application 2 is a real-time feedback program for spoken language, based on the c++ programming language. the program utilizes features such as class encapsulation, inheritance, and polymorphism to encapsulate student information within the student class, enhancing the program’s scalability. additionally, it provides an online performance platform using advanced network communication www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 20 published by scholink inc. technologies like webrtc and websockets. this platform aims to offer students a highly interactive and personalized communication environment, fostering the improvement of their language expression and cross-cultural communication abilities. the following code excerpt demonstrates part of the source code, showcasing the implementation of the student class and the generateexercise method. in this context, the student class includes attributes such as the student’s name, language proficiency, and cultural background. the generate exercise method takes a student object as a parameter and returns an exercise string. this method calls the get culture info method to retrieve the student’s cultural background, randomly selects an exercise theme, and incorporates it into the exercise string. application 2: real-time spoken language feedback program based on c++ (excerpt) 1. string generateexercise(student student) { 2. string exercise = ”“; 3. string culturalinfo = getcultureinfo(student.getculturalbackground()); 4. exercise += ”welcome ” + student.getname() + ” to the language and performance training session.\n”; 5. exercise += ”today, we will focus on ” + culturalinfo + ” culture.\n”; 6. exercise += ”let’s start with a warm-up exercise: ”; 7. string selectedexercise = exerciselist[rand() % exerciselist.size()]; 8. exercise += selectedexercise + ”.\n”; 9. exercise += ”please take a few minutes to prepare and then start the exercise.\n”; 10. return exercise; 11. } 3.2.3 reading comprehension and cultural experience application 3 is a multimodal language learning program based on the c++ language, aiming to provide language and cultural learning support for students. the program employs natural language processing (nlp) and deep reinforcement learning (drl) technologies, utilizing openai’s gpt-3 to generate reading materials of varying difficulty and topics. it provides relevant vocabulary and grammar explanations to help students better understand the target language and culture. additionally, nlp technology enables text sentiment analysis, topic classification, and text translation, while drl technology automatically adjusts learning content and difficulty based on students’ learning progress, achieving personalized teaching. the following code snippet is part of the source code, using articles generated by chatgpt to provide vocabulary and grammar explanations, cultural background introductions, and explanations of key points to assist students in better understanding the text. application 3 is a multimodal language learning program based on c++ 1. // provide more detailed explanations of relevant vocabulary and grammar. 2. string vocab = generatevocabularyfromchatgpt(topic, difficulty, true); 3. cout << ”vocabulary: ” << vocab << endl; 4. string grammar = generategrammarfromchatgpt(topic, difficulty, true); www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 21 published by scholink inc. 5. cout << ”grammar: ” << grammar << endl; 6. 7. // introduction to cultural background and explanations of key points. 8. string culture = getculturalbackground(topic); 9. cout << ”cultural background: ” << culture << endl; 10. string knowledgepoints = getcultureknowledgepoints(topic); 11. cout << ”culture knowledge points: ” << knowledgepoints << endl; 3.2.4 writing training and script composition application 4 is a personalized style training and script writing program based on the c++ language. it aims to enhance students’ english grammar, vocabulary, sentence structure, etc., by combining nltk (natural language toolkit) and openai tools, thereby improving their creativity and learning outcomes. in terms of writing training, the program utilizes nltk to check for grammar errors and provide correction suggestions. it also employs openai to generate text based on writing prompts to inspire students’ creativity and learning effectiveness. additionally, the program, following the pedagogy of performing another culture, incorporates various experiential teaching methods such as role-playing, group collaboration, multimedia presentations, etc. the following code excerpt demonstrates the use of the “find_misspelled_words” function from nltk to identify spelling errors in a given text and the “correct_spelling” function to offer correction suggestions. correcting spelling errors contributes to improving the overall quality and readability of the text, reducing misunderstandings caused by spelling mistakes. it is evident that utilizing automated spell check is a highly beneficial writing tool, aiding in enhancing text accuracy and readability. application 4: c++-based stylistic training and script writing program (excerpt) 1. // check for spelling errors in writing 2. vector<string> misspelled_words = nltk.find_misspelled_words(paragraph); 3. if (misspelled_words.size() > 0) { 4. cout << ”misspelled words detected!\n”; 5. for (const auto& word : misspelled_words) { 6. cout << ”did you mean ’“ << nltk.correct_spelling(word) << ”‘?\n”; 7. } 8. } else { 9. cout << ”spelling is correct.\n”; 10. } 3.3 english learning effect evaluation based on the pedagogy of performing another culture and chatgpt technology the evaluation of english learning effectiveness based on artificial intelligence technology includes four aspects: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. subsequently, a conceptual map for the assessment of learning outcomes has been devised in accordance with the pedagogy of performing www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 22 published by scholink inc. another culture (see figure 2). figure 2. english learning effect evaluation as shown in figure 2, the evaluation of english learning effectiveness encompasses four aspects: (1) english listening proficiency is assessed through audience perception and script comprehension abilities. to enhance students’ audience perception, teachers should guide them to comprehend emotional changes while listening to materials. to improve students’ script comprehension, teachers should introduce relevant cultural backgrounds to assist students in understanding implicit meanings and cultural connotations. (2) evaluation of english speaking proficiency focuses on cross-cultural communication skills and cultural awareness. to enhance students’ cross-cultural communication skills, teachers should encourage them to approach different cultures with an inclusive and open mindset. to cultivate students’ awareness of cultural differences, teachers should increase students’ understanding of the history and culture of other countries, emphasize respect for cultural differences, and enhance students’ awareness of diverse cultures. (3) evaluation of english reading proficiency includes critical thinking abilities and information acquisition and processing skills. english reading involves the interaction between readers and texts (koda, 2005; grabe, 2009), requiring readers to use various cognitive, linguistic, and non-linguistic skills to integrate and process textual information (dhanapala & yamada, 2015). teachers can foster critical thinking skills by guiding students to identify gaps or errors in articles. teachers can also promote information acquisition and processing skills by guiding students to read interesting texts, such as novels and news articles. (4) evaluation of english writing proficiency includes context awareness and emotional expression abilities. chinese students often lack mastery of english vocabulary collocations, pragmatics, and semantic evaluative meanings, making it challenging for them to flexibly use complex sentence structures. this is a significant factor contributing to the simplification of student writing (zhao,2003). teachers can focus on students’ understanding of context and cultural background, such as enhancing context awareness by analyzing literary works and famous speeches. teachers can also improve students’ emotional expression abilities by creating a communicative atmosphere through activities like performances and simulations. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 23 published by scholink inc. 4. conclusion in conclusion, chatgpt effectively facilitates digitized english language instruction by providing personalized and diverse guidance and feedback, thereby enhancing students’ interest and efficiency in learning. guided by the pedagogy of performing another culture, students can gain a more comprehensive understanding of the english language and culture, ultimately strengthening their cross-cultural communication skills. looking ahead to the future of intelligent english language instruction, educators can harness the advantages of chatgpt technology to deliver even more diverse and effective english teaching. in prospect, chatgpt technology is poised to find broader applications in english education, offering students a deeper and more personalized learning experience. reference chen, j. l. (2017). reconstructing a new paradigm for foreign language teaching in the big data era. social sciences in china, 2017-10-12. dhanapala, k., & yamada, j. (2015). reading processing skills among efl learners in different proficiency levels. the reading matrix: an international online journal, 2015(1). grabe, w. (2009). reading in a second language: moving from theory to practice. new york: cambridge university press. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9781139150484 hammerly, h. (1986). synthesis in second language teaching: an introduction to linguistics. blaine: second language publication. hong, c. c. (2018). research on the construction of university english ecological teaching model in the era of artificial intelligence. computer-assisted foreign language education, 2018(06). jiao, j. l. (2023). chatgpt accelerates the digital transformation of school education what and how to teach in the era of artificial intelligence. china distance education, 2023(03). koda, k. (2005). insights into second language reading: a cross linguistic approach. cambridge: cambridge university press. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9781139524841 lu, y. et al. (2023). educational applications and prospects of generative artificial intelligence: a case study of the chatgpt system. china distance education, 2023(03). qin, x. (2017). understanding intercultural misunderstandings between chinese and american cultures: applying the performed culture approach. beijing: foreign language teaching and research press. shen, s. s., & zhu, z. t. (2023). chatgpt-like products: inherent mechanisms and their impact on learning assessment. china distance education, 2023(02). walker, g., & noda, m. (2000). remembering the future: compiling knowledge of another culture. in birckbichler, d. (ed.), reflecting on the past to shape the future. lincolnwood: national textbook company. yu, l. (2010). performance in performed culture: a student’s notes. in walker, g. (2010), the pedagogy of performing another culture. wuhan: hubei education press. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 24 published by scholink inc. zhao, x. f. (2003). evaluation of english writing and quantitative system of language style. foreign language teaching, 2003(05). microsoft word fet-v1n1-p70 frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 70 original paper students’ perceptions of technology-enhanced pedagogy in their statistics learning guolin lai1* & long li2 1 university of louisiana at lafayette, lafayette, la, usa 2 louisiana state university at alexandria, alexandria, la, usa * guolin lai, university of louisiana at lafayette, lafayette, la, usa received: april 21, 2018 accepted: may 11, 2018 online published: may 25, 2018 doi:10.22158/fet.v1n1p70 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v1n1p70 abstract statistical literacy, reasoning, and thinking are highly valued in various industries. however, many college students struggle in their required statistic course(s). the use of technology has the potential to bring about positive changes in content, pedagogy, and course format of statistics instruction. this study explores undergraduate business students’ perceptions of the instructor’s technology integration efforts in their statistics learning. the research results reveal that students mostly regarded their learning experience as positive, engaging, informative, and effective. they attributed their learning gain to the instructor’s innovative teaching style, the availability of various learning resources on moodle, and how the resources were presented. keywords statistics learning, technology integration, technology-enhanced pedagogy, resource-based learning, performance support 1. introduction statistical literacy, statistical reasoning, and statistical thinking are highly valued in various industries (ben-zvi & garfield, 2004; davenport & harris, 2007; franklin & garfield, 2006; lane, mansour, & harpell, 1993; philip & schultz, 1994). statistics course is required by most college degree programs in the united states (ramirez, schau, & emmioglu, 2012). however, many college students have not had a positive attitude or conducive learning experiences toward statistics, either due to their math-phobia and statistical anxiety, or due to their negative attitude towards statistics and pre-dispositions against statistics (gal & ginsburg, 1994; garfield, 1995; hogg, 1991; rochelle & dotterweich, 2007; verhoeven, 2006). surveys of graduating seniors at the first author’s business college reveal that students www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 71 published by scholink inc. constantly rank the two statistics courses offered as the least valued and yet most difficult in their degree programs. therefore, it remains an important task to develop more innovative teaching methods to improve the situation. the significance of teaching statistics with a technology-enhanced pedagogy was endorsed by the board of directors of the american statistical association (franklin & garfield, 2006). researchers contemplate that “traditional lecture-based teaching methods should be replaced or supplemented by new approaches” (tishkovskaya & lancaster, 2012, p. 11), and the use of technology has the potential to bring about positive changes in content, pedagogy, and course format of statistics instruction (chance, ben-zvi, garfield, & medina, 2007). higher education is heavily investing in technology to enhance teaching and learning activities (kagima & hausafus, 2000; kozma, 2011; massy & zemsky, 1996; stensaker, maassen, borgan, oftebron, & karseth, 2007). researchers have called for the use of technology and multitude of online learning resources to enrich students’ statistical learning experiences, and ultimately enhance their academic performance (ben-zvi, 2000; chance et al., 2007; des nicholls, 2001; garfield, 1995; mills & raju, 2011). meanwhile, researchers observe that pedagogy matters more in student learning than any particular technology adopted. they caution that “teaching and learning activities should be designed and implemented to take pedagogical principles of learning into account” (tishkovskaya & lancaster, 2012, p. 11). the results of a previous quantitative research suggest that online video tutorials, when systematically provided as a supplement to traditional classroom instruction on course management system moodle, were instrumental to some students (lai, zhu, & williams, 2017). it seemed that the video tutorials benefited those students: (a) aspiring to earn a higher grade, (b) with average statistical capability, and (c) who struggled to understand the course materials during the limited class time. in statistics education literature, there is a lack of qualitative research exploring the effectiveness of such technology-enhanced pedagogy in students’ learning experiences. to fill the gap, in this paper, we will explore students’ perceptions of the effects of technology-enhanced pedagogy in their statistics learning process. the focus of the pedagogy in this study is the extensive use of course management system, moodle, in traditional lecture-based instruction of an undergraduate statistics class. on moodle, throughout the semester, the instructor makes available various online learning resources/materials to supplement students’ statistics learning. 2. literature review 2.1 multimedia learning multimedia refers to combined use of multiple media including text, audio, music, graphics, animations, and videos. multimedia has considerable promise for teaching statistics. multimedia offers a highly interactive and individualized environment in which the learner is constantly invited to manipulate animations, asked to respond to questions, and encouraged to work independently to exercise newly learned concepts. the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 72 published by scholink inc. interactivity and continuous availability of automated calculations and graphics are ideal for data analysis. animation and simulation can provide visualizations of concepts from probability and interference. video, text, map, etc., vividly present real problem settings. the learner can control the pace of instruction, request review or enrichment, and emphasize the media that best suit her individual learning style (velleman & moore, 1996, p. 217). multimedia learning serves as an integral component of technology-enhanced pedagogy. multimedia learning materials should add the potential in developing students’ schemata of statistical problem solving, and ultimately increasing their interest in statistics learning. for example, lai, zhu, and williams (2017) found that, online video tutorials, if systemically made available as a supplement to traditional classroom instruction, could enhance undergraduate business students’ academic performance in a required introductory business statistics course. aberson (2002) used an interactive web-based tutorial to supplement instruction on statistical power. students who used the tutorial achieved better performance. students also rated the tutorial as clear, useful, and easy to use, and they reported increased comfort with the topic after the tutorial use. mcdaniel and green (2012) found that the use of an applet and audio-visual tutorials contributed to an increase in students’ understanding of sampling variability concepts. similarly, chandrakantha (2014) found out that the use of simulation enabled by microsoft excel and data tables helped students visualize and comprehend statistics concepts such as sampling distribution, confidence intervals, and hypothesis testing. neumann, d., neumann, m., and hood (2011) explored students’ perceptions of integrating computer-based simulations, multimedia, and animations in their first year university level statistics course. the results showed that: (a) the use of technology increased connection between statistics and real concepts and showed examples of practical application; (b) enhanced their statistics comprehension; and (c) increased their interest, engagement, motivation, and enjoyment of statistics learning. moreover, viewing video of statistics-in-action can positively affect students’ attitudes towards statistics (allredge, johnson, & sanchez, 2006). boyle and colleagues (2014) conducted a narrative literature review of games, animations and simulations, and they identified the potential of a games-based approach to statistics learning. specifically, the activities enabled by these multimedia venues provide active approaches to statistics learning. meanwhile, these researchers caution that, to make the most effective use of digital resources such as games in statistics instruction, such resources should be pedagogically incorporated within the context of curricula. 2.2 technology adoption in higher education and technology adoption barriers massy and zemsky (1996) maintain that there are three levels of technology adoption in higher education: a) personal productivity aids, e.g., the use of microsoft excel and powerpoint. most faculty members in higher education are at this level. b) enrichment add-ins, e.g., the application of web page, multimedia, and simulation to enhance traditional teaching. this level of technology adoption is very common. and c) and paradigm shift where faculty redesign teaching and learning activities to take full advantage of the potentials of the available technologies. this level of technology adoption is still in the emerging phase. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 73 published by scholink inc. numerous barriers might hinder faculty’s technology integration into their classroom teaching. leggett and persichitte (1998) identify five categories of barriers including time, expertise, access, resources, and support. according to fabry and higgs (1997), key barriers to technology integration in the classroom include resistance to change, negative attitudes toward computers, constraints on training and support, costs, and a lack of access to the right types of technology in appropriate locations. keengwe, onchwari, and wachira (2008) synthesize major technology integration barriers that include lack of computers and relevant quality software, lack of time, lack of funding, technical problems, teacher attitude toward computers, lack of teacher confidence, resistance to change, poor administrative support, poor training, and lack of vision to integrate technology into the curriculum. su (2009) summarizes similar common technology integration barriers for teachers in kindergarten through grade 12. most of these barriers are external to teachers, and thus more resource-related. ertmer (2005) links external and internal technology integration barriers, and classifies them into first-order and second-order. first-order barriers refer to external obstacles including lack of equipment, unreliability of equipment, lack of technical support and other resource-related issues. second-order barriers include both school level factors such as organizational culture, and individual teacher-level factors such as teacher’s pedagogical beliefs, technology beliefs, and willingness to change. first-order barriers are easy to overcome, but not the second-order barriers. for ertmer, many technology integration conditions have already existed; it is teachers’ beliefs that hold them back. tsai and chai (2012) suggest a third-order barrier, because the removal of first-order and second-order barriers might be insufficient to enable technology integration in classroom. they posit that the removal of first-order barriers may facilitate teachers’ technology usage; the elimination of second-order barriers may help them be committed to technology integration. teachers still need to overcome third-order barriers, their lack of design thinking skills and disposition. due to the dynamic nature of classroom context and students, teachers “should rely on some design-thinking to re-organise or create learning materials and activities, adapting to the instructional needs for different contexts or varying groups of learners” (tsai & chai, 2012, p. 1058). after third-order barriers are removed, teachers can undertake technology integration more actively and more fluently. in summary, this section presents how multimedia learning resources can be leveraged to enrich students’ statistics learning experiences and enhance their statistics performance. this section also identifies different technology adoption levels in higher education, and the various barriers that might hinder faculty’s adoption and integration of technology in their teaching. 3. method the purpose of this study was to explore business college students’ perceptions of the effects of technology-enhanced pedagogy in their statistics learning process. qualitative methods were chosen to guide data gathering and data analysis. the following research questions guided the study: 1) what was the impact of the technology-enhanced pedagogy on students’ learning experiences in the course? www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 74 published by scholink inc. 2) which aspects of course delivery enriched students’ learning experiences and enhanced their academic performance? 3.1 course description and participants the research setting for the study is a business college of a state university in the southern united states. the first author taught two sections of a required undergraduate course, advanced business statistics, in spring 2015, delivered in a traditional classroom setting. the instructor took advantage of affordances of moodle. on moodle, the instructor provided students with multiple supplementary learning resources including powerpoint slides, textbook examples presented in microsoft excel, video tutorials, quizzes, and discussion forums. participants for the study were the students enrolled in the two sections. altogether, 43 students completed the course. 3.2 data sources student reflection. approaching the end of the semester, students completed a voluntary reflection and posted them on moodle. they followed question prompts to reflect on their overall learning experiences, the aspects of course delivery they enjoyed the most, the aspects of course delivery where specific improvement might be needed, as well as any suggestions that they think might contribute to enhance their learning experiences and academic performance. student evaluation of instruction (sei). university collected students’ online voluntary evaluation of instruction at the end of each semester. the first author received sei results after the university aggregated and analyzed the course evaluations. journal entries. throughout the semester, the first author kept weekly journal entries of his observations and reflections of his technology-enhanced pedagogical practices. an entry typically describes the specific practice adopted for the class, the reactions, feedback, and recommendations for improvement from the class. 3.3 data analysis two researchers coded the data. they used miles and huberman’s (1994) data analysis procedure to guide data analysis. first, in the data reduction step, they coded the reflections, sei comments, and instructor notes and observations into conceptual chunks, and grouped them into categories. next, in the data display step, they made sense of relationship among the categories. finally, we wrote up answers to the research questions. discrepancy in data analysis was reconciled through discussion between the two researchers until full agreement was reached. 4. research results question 1. what was the impact of the technology-enhanced pedagogy on students’ learning experiences in the course? most students admitted that advanced business statistics is quite a challenging course. compared with the prerequisite statistic course, there is a sharp learning curve for students to overcome while being introduced to two-sample tests of hypothesis during the first couple of weeks of the semester. students www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 75 published by scholink inc. not only needed to brush up their knowledge and skills of one-sample tests of hypothesis learned in the prerequisite statistic course, but also had to quickly become comfortable with various two-sample test statistics in a short time. it seemed that the availability of video tutorials related to one-sample hypothesis tests helped them close the learning gap. eventually, many of them indicated their learning experiences in the course as positive, engaging, and effective. a few students considered the pedagogy exceptional, because they realized the instructor’s technology integration efforts and acknowledged the learning benefits brought about by such efforts. as a result, some students expressed their gratitude on how the instructor effectively delivered the course. for example, one student stated that the instructor “really made an effort to make sure we all understood the material”. another student commented, i feel that you truly wanted us to learn the material and gave us everything you possibly could to assure that. posting the excel files and video instruction to refer to really went above and beyond any other professor i have had when it comes to the use of moodle. another student concurred: i think you utilized moodle more than any other professor i’ve had. that is a huge plus in the class. it was very well organized throughout the semester. the excel files that you used are very helpful and i can tell that you put a lot of work into this course with those and the videos. moreover, they showed their appreciation of such pedagogy by saying, for example, “you gave us other resources to help us understand the information and for that i was most grateful!” students taking this class generally hope for a short-term learning goal, to pass the test(s). some students realized that the way the class was delivered provided them with an avenue to long-term learning transfer. for example, one student reflected how the pedagogy helped transfer her learning in this class into a long-time memory: surprisingly i have not only learned a lot but have also contained and remembered so much information from this course. normally with a course like this, i don’t remember much after a test day. but the way things are taught, i have a better time remembering the information. compared with students in his previous semesters when supplementary learning resources/materials were not as extensively and systemically provided, the instructor realized that students were more engaged in the classroom throughout the semester. they were more attentive to the instruction and asked less peripheral statistics questions for the instructor to clarify so that the instructor could spend more quality class time to go deep in the topics covered. moreover, from the instructor’s numerous discussions and conversations with his students, he found out that students experienced less statistics learning anxiety due to their self-proclaimed abhorrence of mathematics. it seems that the messages of difference between statistics and mathematics instructor constantly embedded in the video tutorials helped students increase their interest in their statistics learning. question 2. which aspects of course delivery enriched students’ learning experiences and enhanced their academic performance? www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 76 published by scholink inc. overall, three aspects of course delivery stood out. first, students appreciated the comfortable learning/teaching environment the instructor created and maintained in classroom setting and on moodle. they commented that such a learning environment was conducive to their statistics learning process. for example, only after a few classes into the semester, i had these threaded journal entries. after covering chapter 11 [two-sample tests of hypothesis], i told the class to take advantage of the ungraded practice multiple choice questions on moodle. upon their completion of the graded chapter quiz, i asked why some of them did not attempt more than once the practice quiz. some of the students complained that, even if they tried twice or thrice, they would always get the same set of questions. they made a point here. i instantly told the class i would create more randomly selected questions for chapter 12 [analysis of variance]. i created twenty-five more questions for chapter 12. it turned out their participation in this chapter increased a lot, so did their performance. a couple of students today in class showed their appreciation of such opportunity when asked about the instructor’s new efforts. second, students appreciated the instructor’s innovative teaching style in the course. immersed in purposefully designed sequence of instruction and supplementary learning resources, students found themselves engaged in their learning process. for each chapter, the instruction sequence went like the following-powerpoint slides and learning resources in excel were made available on moodle upfront to allow for student preparation ahead of the class. after instruction of statistical techniques, the instructor provided ample in-classroom practice and review of related problems. supporting materials/resources such as pdf documents of the instructor’s problem solving and video tutorials on the same problems were then made available on moodle to allow students unlimited review to enhance their understanding. meanwhile, unlimited chapter practice quiz with instant detailed feedback was made available on moodle to provide students with opportunities to comprehend the statistical concepts and techniques introduced. after homework problems were assigned, collected for evaluation, and reviewed in class, video tutorials on the homework problems were made available on moodle. the students were also encouraged to post their questions in asynchronous discussion forum on moodle to cultivate a community of engaged statistics learning. because of the way the course was structured and delivered, students perceived that student/instructor interaction, student/content interaction, and student/student interaction both in classroom and on moodle were enhanced to the greatest extent. third, students enjoyed most the availability of various learning resources on moodle. such availability satisfied their learning needs, and eventually contributed to their success in the class. for example, one student commented how the availability of various learning resources on moodle helped him succeed in the class: the excel files are a huge help in understanding the problems. the videos help a lot too since they actually walk you through the problem all over again outside of class. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 77 published by scholink inc. the interaction on moodle was great. it is much easier to keep track of a class when all of the information is available on moodle. qmet is not my thing, but those three tools previously mentioned helped me get through this class. another student summarized the benefits of the resource-based learning he experienced in the class as below: overall, i think that if everyone pays attention in your class and uses all the resources you give online that they cannot fail the class. i only used most of the resources provided and easily have an a, and that is definitely not because i am really smart but that your teaching style is extremely effective to those who put in the effort. i took this class after taking your qmet251 class because i knew that even though the material can be difficult, your teaching style and plentiful learning resources make it possible to get a good grade in the class, which is definitely my favorite aspect of your class. 5. discussion the purpose of the study was to explore undergraduate business students’ perceptions of technology-enhanced pedagogy in their statistics learning process. relatively little qualitative research has been conducted in this area. the findings of the study shed some insights on the significance of such pedagogy in enriching college students’ statistics learning experiences and enhancing their statistics performance, as well as on how to promote and support technology-enhanced pedagogy in higher education. the findings of the current study revealed that students’ learning experiences with the statistics course enriched by technology-enhanced pedagogy were positive, engaging, and effective. the students appreciated the conducive learning environment created and maintained in both classroom setting and course management systems, moodle. they also gave credit to the instructor’s innovative teaching style, which not only enriched their statistics learning experiences, but also enhanced their academic performance. most importantly, students enjoyed the availability of various learning resources/materials on moodle to enable just-in-time supplementary support. resources as performance support mechanism are integral to learning. recent years have witnessed the resurgence of resource-based learning in various learning environments (freeman, patel, routen, ryan, & scott, 2013; hill & hannafin, 2001). educators in higher education are increasingly provided with various digital teaching materials/resources from textbook publishers. students can also easily retrieve learning materials/resources from the internet, for example, wikipedia, google and youtube, which have been increasingly touted as elearning tools (quinn, 2004). moreover, with the exponential growth of computer technology, and development and easy access to various educational tools (for example, the university of the first author provides edutools including panopto, a lecture capture software; screencast-o-matic, a desktop application for computer screen activity capture; animoto, a web-based video editing platform; skype; voicethread, a web-based sharing and collaboration tool; and zoom, a synchronous web conference tool), educators find www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 78 published by scholink inc. themselves better equipped to design and develop digital learning resources like the multimedia materials used in the study. in their statistical learning process, other than the routine in-class instruction, students in this study seemed to enjoy the availability of multitude of supplementary digital resources on moodle; subsequently, students perceived that their course performance benefited from their easy access to such purposefully designed and developed resources. however, easy access to learning materials/resources does not automatically translate into students’ learning gain. or as tolmie (2001) put it, simply providing technology resources without effectively integrating them into instruction will not produce better learners. other researchers concur. dede (2000) posits that technology by itself will never help improve education, unless simultaneous innovations occur in pedagogy, assessment, and other primary areas of education reform. similarly, according to jacobsen, clifford, and friesen (2002), technology should only be regarded as means to improve learning. the challenge is to develop educators’ fluency with pedagogically sound teaching repertoire with technology. just like the first author’s journal entries indicated, unless pedagogy with unlimited practice quiz on moodle evolved, students would not benefit or appreciate such availability. it seems that how to leverage the rich amount of readily available resources for meaningful and purposeful learning presents a challenge to educators. technology-enhanced pedagogy seems to have potential in improving the teaching and learning of statistics. neumann, neumann, and hood (2011) argue that, in statistics education, technologies need to be suitably integrated with lecture content, and make sure that technology should not be used merely for the sake of using it. according to the synthesis of tishkovskaya and lancaster (2012), one of the major directions of the statistics education reform movement implies that “integration of technology and computer-based methods into teaching statistics as an important tool for effective delivery of teaching and essential part of effective pedagogy” (p. 11). in addressing some students’ yearning for abstract statistics knowledge construction, the first author is contemplating to provide them with such learning opportunity by infusing more statistical reasoning and thinking while he designs and develops video tutorials. as a result, it is viable to offset the restriction of limited class time to offer motivated learners a pathway for growth. moreover, as the first author experienced, the embedded messages in the video tutorials can not only help address students’ negative attitudes and misconceptions about statistics, but also increase their interest in being engaged in their statistics learning process. this seems to fit in another major direction of the statistics education reform movement which involves “pedagogical reforms toward development of conceptual understanding and teaching to statistical thinking and reasoning” (tishkovskaya & lancaster, 2012, p. 11). in anonymous university-administered student evaluation of instructions, students never hesitated to disclose their gratitude or dislike toward the pedagogical principles the instructor adheres to. the findings of the study highlighted the effectiveness of technology-enhanced pedagogy in college students’ statistics learning, and their appreciation of the instructor’s technology integration efforts in their learning process. however, we have to accept the reality that technology integration paradigm shift is www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 79 published by scholink inc. still at the emerging phase in higher education (rogers, 2000), and technology-enhanced pedagogy has not yet been widely embraced in higher education (strauss, 2015). as human beings, we have a natural tendency to abhor change or be reluctant to change. content with their comfort zone of teaching repertoire, educators might find various excuses to stay away from technology integration into their classroom teaching, as synthesized in the literature review section of this study. on one hand, the concept of “publish or perish” has been ingrained in tenure-track faculty members’ mindset in higher education in the united states, especially in the universities categorized as research extensive or intensive. subsequently, majority of faculty’s merit evaluation comes from their research efforts/contribution, and not their teaching effectiveness per se. literature reveals that it takes tremendous amount of time and efforts to effectively incorporate new technologies into instruction (tsai & chai, 2012). while addressing barriers and enablers of technology integration, spector (2013) posits that politics and policies stand out as the greatest challenge. therefore, how to engage and motivate faculty members in integrating technology into their classroom teaching remains a challenge to higher education administration. on the other hand, lai, hill, and ma (2015) find out, typically there exist three categories of challenges related to technology integration: technological, managerial, and pedagogical ones. technological and managerial challenges are comparably easier to be alleviated than the pedagogical ones. technological and managerial challenges can be easily overcome with sustained training and support. pedagogical challenge is closely tied with one’s pedagogical belief. ertmer (2005) argues that the biggest barrier to effective technology integration in education is educator’s pedagogical beliefs of what sound teaching practices are. unlike k-12 teachers who are required to take methods courses and pass tests on pedagogical knowledge, higher education faculty typically had little training on pedagogy prior to becoming a faculty member, and they generally teach the way they had been taught (mehlinger & powers, 2002). to make matters even worse, most higher education institutions have limited resources for faculty development related to pedagogy, not even to mention technology-enhanced pedagogy. therefore, to improve student learning with emerging technologies, we need to provide faculty with an easy access to technologies and in-depth training on technological know-how, and ongoing technical support. other than that, it is imperative that knowledge and support be provided for them to try out new instructional strategies and reflect on them so that they can grow in their teaching repertoire and teaching effectiveness (ertmer, 2005; keengwe et al., 2008). moreover, effective technology integration in education is not simply as a state of “technology”, but a state of “art” (tsai & chai, 2012). to be proficient in the art of teaching, educators also need to be continuously cultivated with course design thinking skills and disposition to undertake technology integration. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 80 published by scholink inc. 6. limitations of the study and future research the research findings were based on students’ semester-long exposure to technology-enhanced pedagogy in their statistics class taught by one instructor. the external validity of the study may hence be limited. we would also like to point out that this study only examined students’ reflections and their voluntary and anonymous evaluations of instruction, the generalizability of the study may also be limited. more research involving cross discipline or cross campuses needs to be done on the effects of such pedagogy, and how and why it works. there are several directions in which we would like to approach our future research. we could conduct an explanatory mixed methods research by first collecting quantitative data to examine whether technology-enhanced pedagogy could enhance students’ academic performance, then collecting qualitative data to help explain the quantitative results. we could also consider conducting student surveys or interviews, and interviews with university administrators to enrich the data sources. references aberson, c. l. 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(2009). effective technology integration: old topic, now thoughts. international journal of education and development using ict, 5(2), 161-171. tishkovskaya, s., & lancaster, g. a. (2012). statistical education in the 21st century: a review of challenges, teaching innovations and strategies for reform. journal of statistics education, 20(2). https://doi.org/10.1080/10691898.2012.11889641 tolmie, a. (2001). examining learning in relation to the contexts of use of ict. journal of computer assisted learning, 17(3), 235-241. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.0266-4909.2001.00178.x tsai, c.-c., & chai, c. s. (2012). the “third”-order barrier for technology-integration instruction: implications for teacher education. australasian journal of educational technology, 28(6), 1057-1060. https://doi.org/10.14742/ajet.810 velleman, p. f., & moore, d. s. (1996). multimedia for teaching statistics: promises and pitfalls. american statistician, 50(3), 217-225. verhoeven, p. (2006). statistics education in the netherlands and flanders: an outline of introductory courses at universities and colleges. paper presented at the icots-7. frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no.4, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) original paper racial apartheid education: the politics of online learning, traditional education, self learning, and independent study in the united states earnest n. bracey, ph.d., dpa1* 1 professor of political science, college of southern nevada, social sciences department, las vegas, nv, usa * earnest n. bracey, ph.d., dpa, professor of political science, college of southern nevada, social sciences department, 6375 west charleston boulevard-w2, las vegas, nv 89146-1164, usa received: september 2, 2020 accepted: september 26, 2020 online published: october 30, 2020 doi:10.22158/fet.v3n4p64 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v3n4p64 abstract unfortunately, there has been vehement debates throughout the united states about how we should educate our students—that is, whether we should use a hybrid mix of educational tools, to impart knowledge to all americans. for example, will virtual learning be embraced by all educational institutions? not surprisingly, online education is a frequent topic of conversation with teachers, professors, administrators, and other educators. still, there is uncertainty about what some of our venerable education institutions should do. suffice it to say, colleges and universities must underscore the importance of providing a first-class education for all its people. for example, african american students shouldn’t be denied educational opportunities. at stake: minority students might be left behind. indeed, education diversity will become a self-perpetuating problem if blacks and other students are left behind, particularly because of a lack of technology access. furthermore, a long-overdue, educational reckoning with systemic racism in all systems and levels of education is in order. it is important to be on-point about these controversial matters. meanwhile, education groups in the united states are struggling with ideas of incorporating distance education programs, independent study, and virtual learning in respective curriculums; but are such notions really about educating all our children? needless to say, the increasing importance of online education has become the so-called new thing. but the jury is still out on whether such education technology can be effectively put in place for all students. in this regard, some colleges and universities haven’t entirely lived up to certain educational principles. no doubt, the internal struggles for 64 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 providing a good learning experience for students is on-going at colleges and universities, especially when it comes to admission standards. in the final analysis, students must shrewdly learn how to navigate the various education systems, and find strength in their abilities to learn traditionally or online, without resignation. keywords virtual/remote education, older students, racism and educational separation, brick and mortar schools, discrimination, self-learners, independent study, admission standards, and white segregationists 1. introduction: dimensions in american education the way in which we obtain knowledge, and educate ourselves in today’s education market (in the united states) takes many forms, like acquiring a higher degree online, apprenticeship programs/on-the-job training, and other traditional learning endeavors. educating ourselves also allow people to have better lives, while becoming productive members of our society. when it is all said and done, “the purpose of school [at all levels] is more than training the future workforce; it is one of the foundations of our democracy.” to say the least, education at schools “should also be the pathway through which [american] students learn the knowledge and skills to reach their full potential as informed, engaged citizens” (jimenez, 2018, p. 3). the goal, of course, is to determine whether we should have a more fully integrated and inclusive education system in america. in so many words, a well-rounded education (for all our students) should be an unambiguous undertaking, without uncertainty or politics, particularly in regards to public, private or “for-profit,” online schools. unfortunately, it is hard to know exactly what level of success these respective, online schools, throughout the united states, will have on modern-day education, and traditional, academic institutions. because in the end, online learning and independent study are examples of turning the reality of higher education and traditional education systems on their head. it should also be noted that our current education systems are deeply rooted in having students study “in-person” with a professor or teacher. which is to say that, “in more complex societies, [like ours], where there is more knowledge to be passed on, a more selective and efficient means of transmission—the [brick and mortar] school and teacher—becomes necessary” (“education,” 2000). understandably, some students need the personal touch or interaction from teachers and educators, to succeed in school. however, alternative, technological approaches to education are rapidly moving ahead in the united states. yet, there are legitimate reasons to believe that the specific needs of all students will not be met, as educators, in american schools, struggle to get their heads around speculative policies that are concerned with “in-class,” and distance education. moreover, can teachers and professors educate all our students remotely in the same way? and who exactly will finally decide on the number of students who will be educated in elite american schools, especially with the new order of challenges in online education? these questions are important to understand, because as educator stanley d. frank (1996) has written, “more than 95 percent of college-bound high school seniors lack the necessary reading 65 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 skills to enable them to succeed in their college, business, and professional lives.” additionally, “50 percent of [our] students who enter college never graduate” (p. 8). the question is: why? is it because some students lack academic discipline or interest? columnist for the new york times, david brooks (2015) explains: universities are more professional and glittering than ever, but in some ways there is emptiness deep down. students are taught how to do things, but many are not forced to reflect on why they should do them or what [they] are [there] for. they are given many career options, but they are on their own when it comes to developing criteria to determine which vocation would lead to the fullest life. (p. 3) after all, as already intimated, students are “attending college so they can get a good job and make more money. they [students] want to end up [as] authorities in their fields; [and] they want to end up well off financially” (brinson, 1999, p. 17b). this objective is, perhaps, indelibly etched into the minds of almost every american student. nevertheless, and unbeknown to most americans, “about one in three students who enroll in college never earn a degree” (leonhardt & chinoy, 2019, p. 8). investigative reporters davis leonhardt and sahil chinoy “suggest that the problem isn’t the students—it’s the schools” (p. 8). this means that some colleges and universities will likely be negatively affected by their actions toward gullible students. it should also be noted that: “the for-profit college industry is struggling under the weight of declining enrollment, stiff competition from traditional universities and an image battered by past misdeeds” (danilova & lardner, 2020, p. 16a); and many exist without accreditation. so are “for-profit” schools more like a kafkaesque education situation? perhaps. we must keep in mind that “for-profit” schools in the united states have been the bane of traditional, public education. therefore, traditional colleges and universities shouldn’t take anything for granted, despite the obvious educational headaches from “for-profit” schools. moreover, we must highlight the principal merits of our traditional education systems. meanwhile, traditional colleges and universities in the united states shouldn’t misrepresent themselves, or their own distance education programs, because virtual learning for some students is educationally unfriendly or remotely untenable. indeed, some american students are having a hard time adjusting to the technology, which is at the heart of the distance education issue today, as it is not the conventional way of educating our students. admittedly, a virtual learning environment (or online/remote learning) doesn’t work for some students, as it can be impersonal and frustrating. it has even been argued that “in-person” instruction is better than online education. no doubt, some of our students believe that they can only learn by instruction in the classroom. or, they can learn “more from in-person instruction” (quintana, 2020, p. 2d) (note 1). more importantly, some american students may feel disconnected from each other with distance education. simply put, there is no substitute for “in-person” instruction. equally important, some “instructors may deal with new technologies and ways of teaching that [might] leave them uncomfortable” (p. 2d). moreover, it may be harder to find appropriate educators or academics who 66 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 want to teach online or virtually. education expert julie yaeger (2019), however, tells us that: “technology can provide dynamic tools for monitoring student achievement, timely communication with parents and guardians and at times increase student engagement” (p. 7) (note 2). but, with computer technology, will colleges and universities damage the long-term hopes of u.s. students to achieve their educational goals to graduate? this question comes across most clearly when schools work hard to set-up unchanging, or entrenched, but appropriate educational priorities, including distance learning programs, and “classroom instruction that encourages a balance of technological and non-technological opportunities for learning” (p. 7). hence, we must continue to take such practical approaches that would allow all students to be educated. paradoxically, at the back end of our traditional educational spectrum, we must consider that some students and “many individuals choose to develop their intelligences” by other means, like “personal study and [even] individualized learning projects” (armstrong, 1993, p. 163). so will distance learning/education, with computer technology, and flexible courses, become the way we educate ourselves (or students) in the 21st century, and beyond? equally significant, will students and others gain the same level of educational expertise (online) needed to have a successful life and career? according to educator r. lee viar (2019): online degree programs can be challenging, and are sometimes even more difficult than some of their on-campus counterparts because they require the adult learner to be more self-disciplined and manage their time effectively. however, the convenience of online [education] is the tipping point that enables many adult learners the opportunity to earn their degrees while working around their own schedule. (p. 10) 2. the failure of school admission standards by and large, technology is like a seismic, learning shift when it comes to educating all students. however, it is not the panacea for all our education problems in the united states. furthermore, we must keep in mind that, “technology is also forcing [educational] change[s],” particularly at the higher education level. this is also to say that, “online course[s] make the transmission of [educational] information a commodity” (brooks, 2015, p. 3). professor of education, thomas armstrong (1993) has written that, “an estimated 40 million american adults participate every year in educational activities through these [online] and other learning channels” (p. 163) (note 3). therefore, “if colleges are going to justify themselves, they are going to have to thrive at those [educational] things that require physical proximity” (brooks, 2015, p. 3), and remote learning. moreover, through continuing adult education programs, “a person [or student] can engage in a wide range of learning activities across the spectrum of intelligences,” and education levels. armstrong (1993), goes on to write that, “there are even educational brokering services that can assist [students] in identifying [their specific] needs, [while] setting goals, and linking up with educational resources in [their home] area[s]” (pp. 162-163) (note 4), or states, particularly in regards to higher education. however, it should be noted that so-called consulting or brokering services can backfire for parents and students, as it did with college consultant 67 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 william “rick” singer, who founded the key worldwide foundation, which was a fake “charitable front for laundering money and helping wealthy families [illegally] get their [unqualified] children into [prestigious] college[s]” (westfall, 2019, p. 46) (note 5) and universities. we must ask: how long has this cheating and bribing (by parents) been going on, to get mostly white (children) or students into top colleges and universities? we may never know. but according to u.s. district judge nathaniel gorton, “higher education in this country aspires to be a meritocracy. [and] those [students] who work the hardest or make the best grades [are] rightfully [supposed to be] accepted into the best schools” (garrison, 2019, p. 6a) (note 6), regardless of their socio-economic status. fortunately, many american parents value education, and are doing the right thing when it comes to enrolling their children into colleges and other schools. but in a broader educational context, college and university students (in the u.s.) must have the wherewithal, smarts and flexibility to adjust, without “hemming and hawing” about some kind of perfection when it comes to their education, as it is really up to them to get what they want out of the experience, especially at the higher education levels. unfortunately, in this regard, some “students, teachers and reformers are pushing back against the [so-called] failures of mainstream higher education” (worthen, 2019, p. 1) (note 7), whether the education is online or in the classroom, because many, perhaps, believe that such schools (or school systems) cannot bring about the desired educational outcomes, as already discussed. but challenging higher education institutions shouldn’t be a reason to cheat, to get students through the doors of these great places of higher learning. additionally, we shouldn’t look at student education through totally political lens, which might help with our admission problems—at all education levels. moreover, myopically focused debates about such controversial matters can be counter-productive or counterintuitive to our education goals. indeed, this education lethargy must be overcome in the united states—that is, if we are to be fair and honest with our students, especially when it comes to admission standards. even more important, we must “look at [different education] technology and use it to better engage students on their [own] terms” (murray, 2018, p. 34). no doubt, focusing on these education matters will (positively) influence all american students, and their capacity to learn, without cheating in some way. 3. the education of older american students while assessing more significant opportunities, many older students/learners who lack higher education, specific credentials, or a college degree are going back into the college classroom, in record numbers. this is a very good thing, indeed, because older adult students are highly motivated, competent, and usually complete the classroom work/lessons and assignments without much prompting. older students also question things that don’t seem realistic, or practical. or they might ask about academic things that sound suspicious or wrong, to make the best decisions about their education. furthermore, according to educator laurie carlson (1989), “some of the major obstacles faced by [older] adults trying to obtain education or training” include the following: • on-campus residency requirements. 68 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 • classes offered at inconvenient times. • unavailability of the courses they want to take. • home and job responsibilities. • commuting to class. • credits taken at a previous school are not accepted at another school. • living too far from a campus. • child care; and • fear of competing against younger students in a classroom. (pp. 9-10) as a practical matter, these obstacles must be continuously addressed by adult student/learners. older students might also start a traditional academic career only to find the classwork too hard, or educationally stifling (bronner, 1997, p. c23), and finally give up. therefore, older adult learners/students are trying to learn, and educate themselves through alternative methods, like rigorous online classes, because they are “focused on trying to find opportunities that match… their specific career path, which is challenging [traditional] institutions to rethink their [education] models.” essentially, this means that the “on-ground experience or full degree experience doesn’t [always] meet the demands of today’s [older student or] learner” (murray, 2018, p. 34). therefore, older students/learners can educate themselves online, and receive a (higher) degree without leaving home or attending the hollowed grounds, so to speak, of a brick and mortar school. in the final analysis, this is, again, a good thing. ultimately, we should all be interested to see what direction our education endeavors take when it comes to educating the older student/learner. 4. racial apartheid education and minority students angry voices (in the united states) from some minority parents criticize the “traditional college curricula as [being] shamefully distorted due to an emphasis which they view as overly white, excessively male, and skewed far too much toward european cultures and values” (davis, 1994, p. 11). to say the least, there must be tailored learning strategies for proactive, traditional and online classes, and/or remote learning, which should include minority students, without equivocation. in this regard, it is essential for colleges and universities to pay close attention to the various stakes for u.s. education, while opening up schools to all students, regardless of the color of their skin, or financial backgrounds. in other words, if we are to be successful with our goals, systemic racism must be addressed at all levels of education. it also should be remembered that: being poorer, black children are more likely to attend substandard schools, and less likely to graduate from college, than whites. this depresses future earning power, and keeps blacks over-represented in jobs that offer no benefits or retirement plans. they have less money to put towards home-ownership, and homes account for the largest share of wealth for both black and white families. thus low wealth perpetuates itself. (“waking life,” 2013, p. 25) (note 8) 69 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 to be sure, the education realities (in the united states) are quite different for blacks and other minority students. this is to say that affluent, white, upper-middle-class families might always have the upper-hand, or an unfair advantage, because of educational inequalities, better resources, segregated schools, or racial apartheid education. historian lynn hunt (2018) tells us that, “it is almost impossible to grasp how difficult it [is] for minority students to make their way in the university” (p. 73) (note 9). consequently, some believed that african americans and other minorities are deprived a well-rounded education. indeed, according to journalist nicholas kristof (2019), “the largest group of all that falls through the [u.s. education] cracks is probably made up of those from poor, chaotic or working class backgrounds.” kristof goes on to conclude that, “children from the top 1 percent are 77 times more likely to attend an ivy [league] college than kids from the bottom 20 percent” (p. 11) (note 10). it is also more than disturbing that poor black american students and other minority students cannot even afford a lap-top or other computer technology. it is also suggested that minority students are hurt the most by distance education, because they don’t have access to wireless internet connection. so can these american students really be educated correctly, and remotely via online classes if they cannot afford to pay for the necessary internet technology? the major problem is that online education can (absolutely) reinforce racial segregation, making some u.s. schools more unequal. hence, diversity is critical for educational institutions, even if classes are held online. it also should be made abundantly clear that american colleges and universities must make education accessible to all students, all things being equal, even if it means providing the specific technology needed for at-risk or high-risk minority students. otherwise, these vulnerable, poor students might fall behind academically. this issue should be of primary concern for u.s. educational institutions, particularly as it concerns learning traditionally, or online. either way, it is more democratic if our society educates students from all ethnic groups in the same way. in general, as pulitzer prize winners will and ariel durant (1968) write: “if equality of educational opportunity can be established, democracy [in the united states] will be real and justified. for this is the vital truth beneath its catchwords: that though men cannot be equal, their access to education and opportunity can be made more nearly equal” (p. 79) (note 11). which is to say that educating minority students in america has always been shown to help them rise above their poverty-stricken existence. therefore, qualified minority and low-income students should be accepted at prestigious schools, no matter their financial circumstances. coincidentally, this take on educating minority students in the u.s. begs the question: should all students “demand that college curricula devote substantial attention to the role of women, minorities and other long-excluded or neglected groups and cultures?” (davis, 1994, p. 11) in a diverse society, such as ours, african americans, indigenous and other people of color should never be undermined, neglected or left behind when it comes to higher learning and education in the united states. to be sure, we must recognize the negative impact of systemic racism in education. or are american education systems rigged against poor, marginalized people? consider: segregation and discrimination, as well as racial disparities in education, at all levels, must be eradicated. 70 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 5. self learning and traditional education unfortunately, some american students, perhaps, “in both external and traditional [education] programs consider their efforts to earn a degree [as] nothing more than a credit chase—[or] a race to accumulate as many credits as possibly by any means available” (duffy, 1994, p. 25), to graduate. but higher education must never be a zero-sum game, where the wealthy are always winners and marginalized people are the losers. furthermore, it should be established that some adult learners are brilliant, self-educated, and have no need for some kind of educational structure or guidance, like sir richard branson, bill gates or the late steve jobs, to name a few individuals. these wealthy men prevailed and became experts in their respective fields, without a college degree. which is to say that they succeeded by their own devices, while conducting complicated research and becoming self-made scholars and authorities in their own right. self-learners, therefore, believe that they can achieve success without higher education or a college degree. although he was highly educated, albert einstein was a swiss patent clerk, while working on his general theory of relativity; and he would later become the world’s most famous physicist (“great people,” 1996, pp. 132-135), and an american citizen, teaching at princeton university. einstein, of course, was considered a genius, a self-learner, and a great problem solver, while often working on his own; but while at the university of zurich, he was not a very attentive student. nevertheless, einstein was still able to graduate. so why was he so different? davis lewis and james green (1982) explained it this way: for his tremendous contribution to human knowledge, einstein has justly been termed a genius. but this does not mean that his brain was uniquely different or that he possessed intellectual abilities that must always lie beyond the range of most people. like so many great thinkers, his performance in school was dismal and only a frenzied bout of last-minute studying, together with extensive coaching from his friends, allowed him to pass his final [university] examination. (pp. 240-241) as professor ronald gross (1993) has pointed out, “independent scholars,” and self-learners, like einstein, and others in the united states, “are often impelled by social purpose. their pursuit of knowledge and understanding frequently focuses on some issue or problem that affects people’s lives.” equally important, many self-learners are confident about what they are trying to achieve intellectually, without ambivalence, for the most part. additionally, “their [insightful] books [and works in the public square] may present new, vital facts about ourselves or our society, or they may report original research as well as synthesizing prior studies of an important, interdisciplinary problem” (p. 145). in this respect, today, online learning becomes a harbinger of necessity that must be made a part of our lives (even for the self-learner) when it comes education. another question: can we really get a traditional education totally or entirely online, especially if some “for profit” schools jilt unsuspecting american students out of their tuition money? unfortunately, this question remains to be seen. 71 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 6. independent study and continuing education independent study also becomes part of the education equation, because it defies the traditional education norms of colleges and universities, and other educational avenues/outlets. therefore, independent study, or learning through an extensive reading program, is also important because it allows the student the flexibility to learn and grow without constraints, possible roadblocks or other limitations. thus, independent study shouldn’t be an objectionable endeavor when it comes to education. more importantly, “earning [a higher] degree through alternative methods,” like with independent study, “can be an exciting and rewarding experience” (duffy, 1994, p. 25), or proposition. take for example the master’s degree in military history offered by distance learning/education at the university of birmingham in england or the united kingdom. although students in the united states must access the course materials via the university’s virtual learning environment, in england, they only have to write six 4,000-word essays and a 15,000-word dissertation, with no written exams, in order to receive the ma degree (“the centre for war studies,” 2020) (note 12). in this regard, american educators and administrators must be willing to shift gears, and preemptively strategize to provide such independent ways and means to achieve a higher education degree. therefore, should american colleges and universities and other schools embrace independent study entirely in some way? probably not. nonetheless, our educational institutions must seriously look at alternative ways to solve our collective education/learning problems. this is why incorporating independent study in the curriculum is extremely important. to say the least, this method allows adult learners or students to explore what they want and to research education topics without any rigid or set formulas. indeed, students are not at the mercy of an educator’s ability or lack thereof, to teach, because they are essentially in charge of themselves, and can get out what they put into the effort (carlson, 1989, p. 3). as students in pursuit of advanced degrees in the united states, we must all take these independent matters about education to heart, along with advanced and strategic learning, particularly using computers, and the internet in higher education. hence, the educator and student can, perhaps, ascertain in this paper that, the use of computer technology at higher education institutions is increasing exponentially. we should also bear in mind that attaining a diploma/degree from an innovative, non-traditional institution (or a directed independent study program) offers a holistic alternative for already accomplished individuals. in addition, when it comes to higher education, we should not only expand the (set/established) curriculum; but american colleges and universities must also consider implementing different, creative and nontraditional ways to acquire knowledge. such unique approaches can also be a learning experience for teachers and educators as well. when it is all said and done, american high schools, colleges and universities should definitely give our students a first-class, liberal arts education, but they should also give us educational alternatives, or options, like specific programs on the internet that are dynamic, interactive, flexible and user-friendly. such actions will expose our students to the larger educational world, no matter their learning difficulties. but it should also be noted that at the highest 72 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 academic levels, “remote [or online] schooling poses a special challenge for [american] families who are not fluent in english” (rani, 2020, p. 4) (note 13). journalist rikha sharma rani (2020) writes: “about five million american schoolchildren are classified as english-language learners, meaning they lack fluency, and even more come from homes where their parents speak a different language” (p. 4). rani goes on to point out that, online education isn’t exactly ideal for non-english-speaking students. however, in the grand scheme of our educational universe, all students “need a much broader understanding of world cultures” (davis, 1994, p. 11), and higher learning/education in the united states. generally speaking, higher education allows students to expand their minds and their interests, because there is always something new to learn. disappointingly, however, some conservative politicians in the united states have “complained that american higher education [is] in sharp decline due to the cumulative effects of affirmative action, moral relativism, political correctness, soft graduation requirements, abandonment of traditional subject matter, grade inflation, and lower course requirements” (p. 11). of course, this harsh assessment isn’t entirely true: but the political dimensions of this education issue can’t be simply ignored, given that some american schools are dealing with constant uncertainty. and perhaps such criticism is how it should be, as it provides a snapshot of some of our national education woes. for example, it will be interesting for our schools to monitor exactly how educating american students in the future will be divided between in-class or online/virtual education. or will we have a patchwork of education systems in the united states? or should we start over when it comes to our national education system? probably not. one more thing: the negative and positive education implications of our u.s. education system can be long term, at every level (see figure 1). 73 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 table 1: u.s. education system and potential consequences -students -learners -other participants educators -professors/teachers -facilitators/m oderators -parents/guardians/influencers -consultants/advisers -tutors -academic community -counselors -administrators schools -public schools/k-12 -independent institutions: voucher, charter, religious, private schools/academies -public and private colleges and universities: continuing education programs/online and remote learning programs -graduate/professional schools -for profit schools -correspondence schools -apprenticeships -corporations/government schools admission process specific results -professional careers/goals/careeradvancement -asset to respectivecommunity -m ilitary jobs/government positions -life enhancement -small businesses/self employment -higher socioeconomic status -key m anagement positions assessm ents -equality of outcome (not guaranteed) -education/racial inequality -equality of opportunity -graduation rates -failures other education -selfeducation -advanced education -internships/specialization -independent study -academic dissertations -on-job/home training figure 1. u.s. education system and potential consequences 74 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 7. conclusions ironically, some of the controversial things brought out in this paper don’t change the fact that distance education, as well as other educational alternatives, will continue for the near future. even more critically, traditional colleges and universities must be able to shift to online/remote teaching, or some kind of hybrid education at any given moment for the good of the student. notwithstanding, as education journalist joann tyler arlington (1996) writes: “perhaps one of the smartest, if not wisest things [american education] administrators can do for our [students] is to train and support—or inspire—teachers to know how to help every [student] in a classroom feel important, special, cared for and valued” (p. 3c) (note 14). otherwise, we might be wasting our time in educating our students, at all levels in the united states, whether it is done virtually (or online), or in a traditional, in-class, educational manner. therefore, schools must have a sense of urgency for properly educating all our students, regardless of their ethnic background. this is particularly important to note, because of our clouded and ugly, segregated education history. the american people should also be tired of the incessant debates about improving our education systems, when we already know what is needed, and what we should do to improve student education in the united states. for example, distance education allows schools to expand their notions of what education should be for students. furthermore, traditional education, independent study, distance learning, or the use of the internet for all american schools, colleges and universities is not only the wave of the future, but many higher education institutions will probably not survive (or operate effectively) unless they make use of such rapidly expanding computer technology. in so many words, effective distance learning cannot happen without the appropriate technology. this is also to say that our education systems might (one day) be totally dependent on computers, “coupled with software such as electronic mail, calendar automation, [online conferencing], and [respective,] shared databases” (ramos & schroeder, 1994, p. 164) (note 15). therefore, we must not pooh-pooh or demonize the technology of online teaching, learning and/or distance education. by almost any education metric, learning by computer access in the future is not an anomaly or just a technological fluke; but it just might be an affordable way to earn an education, and precious knowledge. this means that a person (or student) will be able to start and complete college without going on some campus, by using computers connected to appropriate american education institutions that offer such courses and other educational requirements. this is what distance learning and nontraditional education is all about: independent work/learning. to be certain, the internet is an invaluable tool in the education process for most educational institutions in the united states (ramo, 1996, p. 58) (note 16). however, some students might pose the question: why aren’t they learning anything practical, or things that will help them in the real world? american students might also ask: why should they care about history, philosophy or political science? furthermore, are today’s academic institutions responsible for assuring a student have a successful career, an important position or a job? of course not. or how can american schools guarantee equality of outcome? moreover, why are some students even questioning an educator’s ability to teach? should we assume that they know more? 75 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 probably not. nevertheless, some american students often complaint about the competencies of their teachers, and the efficacy of online or distance education programs, where they “are expected to learn quite a bit as a result of an extensive [independent] reading program” (duffy, 1994, p. 25) (note 17), as earlier mentioned. simultaneously, “it is important to review the methods of study that will help [students] maximize… learning from all [their] effort[s]” (p. 25) (note 18). unfortunately, some american students are still having trouble accepting the fact that online learning will be a serious component of higher education. or many students, perhaps, see it as earning an educational degree the hard way. the truth is that any prevarication on distance education really doesn’t work. moreover, these consequential and educational things cannot be pushed aside, because “in-class” teaching or learning online goes hand-in-hand. but does online learning increase the risk of some minority students dropping out of school entirely? perhaps. and given this question, we must still worry about wi-fi connectivity, which is worrisome for some american students, educators and schools that are out of (respective) technology ranges. in this regard, also, we must consider the negative consequences when african american students and other students of color are unable to have internet access, because they might not be able to afford wi-fi connection, to study effectively online. indeed, can american colleges and universities manage the remote learning concerns of minority students and engender their active participation? perhaps. which is to say, will schools in the united states pay for the necessary technology to connect all disadvantaged students? after all, low-income students should be educated in the same way with wi-fi connection. but remote learning might not apply to some at-risk students—that is, if they don’t have the ability to access the internet, like with poor and homeless american students. therefore, online training and distance educational planning at respective u.s. schools must be of paramount importance. in addition, minority students and educators must have reliable internet devices and connection, to achieve positive education results. more important, american colleges and universities should be obligated to prevent the discrimination of all students, while providing traditional online-centric education, without violating the civil rights of students of color when providing particular or specific, educational classes. for some american schools, it is uncharted territory, as they are in the throes of eliminating racial apartheid education, and creating more diverse places for learning. more controversially, there is still racial bias, as pointed out in this paper, in schools throughout the united states, at all levels. thus, american college and universities should also continue to brainstorm different and specific ways to combat racial prejudice, by implementing diverse online learning, and creating other appropriate education programs, including new ways of thinking about inclusion for all students. according to journalist shawn hubler (2020), for example, some u.s. colleges and universities have stopped “requiring the sat and act tests for admission” (p. 22), (note 19) as they can be bias and discriminatory. hubler goes on to write that, “the california [school] system has become the biggest and best-known american institution of higher education to step away from the use of the two major standardized tests, citing charges that they disadvantage students who are poor, black, and hispanic” (p. 22). nevertheless, in terms of higher 76 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 education, our nation is woefully behind the power curb when it comes to rooting out the inequality that still remains in our school systems. therefore, encouraging diversity in our schools is the way to go, because it helps with “a more equitable education system” (chklovski, 2020, p. 7a) (note 20), at all levels. on top of that, should all students have a choice between traditional learning and virtual learning? in a larger sense, some relevant questions about the incorporation of online education, also, still remain. even more important, will distance learning equalize things for american students, particularly “students with disabilities [that] have not been well-served in the transition to remote learning?” (richards, 2020, p. 1a) (note 21). this problem has been especially true with the advent of covid-19, or the onslaught of the coronavirus pandemic. one thing is certain: diversity is important in almost every educational setting. educator philip goldberg (1938) argues us that, “in higher education and in professional training,” diversity is necessary for [american] colleges and universities, because it “make[s] for more intuitive [students] and creative professionals in all fields” (p. 221) (note 22). however, diversity will mean almost nothing if our educational institutions cannot better serve students from different ethnic groups. indeed, how will diversity be remotely achieved if american students, as mentioned, can’t access innovative online technology? according to journalist katie reilly (2020): about 15% of u.s. households with school-age children [or students] lack high-speed internet access, according to a pew research center analysis of 2015 census bureau data. rural communities lag behind urban areas, as do tribal lands, where about a third of people don’t have high-speed internet, according to the federal communication commission. (p. 39) (note 23) suffice it to say, distance education for all americans is paramount for a strong democracy. and when it comes to online learning, we must take the long view. this is to say that our colleges and universities must make adjustments and do their due diligence to incorporate distance education, no matter the situation. indeed, for some older american students, it might be difficult for them to attend traditional college classes, signifying that online courses might be the only way that they can finish a higher education degree. also, without a significant discussion about the consequences of excluding marginalized students from the larger educational scheme of things, segregation will take root again, in a serious way, in all our education systems. and this shouldn’t be tolerated. question: should a national education plan be put in place to make things equal in all aspects of american education? after all, there are no assurances that traditional or online learning is the solution to our education challenges. indeed, even with access to the internet and mainstream education, we cannot predict if blacks, indigenous and other minority students will graduate or complete their degrees. finally, the cynicism in distance education in the u.s. is profound and ingrained, where some students argue that they are not learning much of anything. however, the potential for online education is vast and necessary, even if some find it hard to come to terms with the technology. therefore, we should ask: will distance education be the only way that we can teach our students at all levels in the future? more 77 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 importantly, can virtual education replace the “brick and mortar” schools? additionally, should we try to motivate all students to persevere, no matter the complications with technology? the best thing that educational institutions can do is to devise educational strategies that will educate all american students based on their academic prowess and abilities. according to elaine p. wynn of the family foundation, all students absolutely deserve “access to virtual learning” (“ensuring distance learning,” 2020, p. 65), and other educational tools for learning. after all, as mentioned: education provides the skills necessary to expand horizons and allow for economic success. education also exposes young men and women to the great ideas of our heritage—liberty and responsibility, participation and patriotism. and in doing so, we secure our democratic way of life. (wicks, 2019, p. 3) of course, parents will always be worried about whether their children can get into the best schools, or get the best education; but such efforts must never be at the expense of low-income american families and students. finally, regardless of the educational consequences, the overall goal should always be to ensure that american colleges and universities, and other educational systems/institutions do the right thing for all students, “in-class” or virtually/online. to be sure, all these education matters must be taken into consideration for the greater good of our democratic society. references arlington, j. t. (1996, may 5). teachers need to focus more on our students than scores. las vegas review-journal. armstrong, t. (1993). 7 kinds of smart: identifying and developing your many intelligences. new york: penguin books. brinson, c. s. (1999, october 1). is a college education only a means to an end? las vegas review-journal. bronner, e. (1997, october 15). university for working adults shatters mold. the new york times. brooks, d. (2015, october 13). universities can find ways to nurture the whole student. las vegas sun. carlson, l. m. (1989). home study opportunities: the complete guide to going to school by mail. white hall, virginia: betterway publications, inc. chklovski, t. (2020, august 17). ‘pods’ only widen education gap. usa today. danilova, m., & lardner, r. (2020, april 8). for-profit colleges’ woes persist. las vegas review-journal. davis, d. (1994, march/april). to be educated in the 1990s… nevada revamps its core curriculum. silver and blue magazine, 5(4). duffy, j. p. (1994). how to earn a college degree without going to college. new york: john wiley and sons, inc. durant, w., & durant, a. (1968). the lessons of history. new york: simon & schuster paperbacks. 78 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 education. (2000). in merriam-webster’s collegiate encyclopedia (p. 511). springfield, ma: merriam-webster, inc. ensuring distance learning doesn’t harm the vulnerable. (2020, august 14). las vegas review-journal. frank, s. d. (1996). remember everything you read. new york: g.p. putnam’s sons. garrison, j. (2019, november 15). college scam dad gets most time in prison yet. usa today. goldberg, p. (1938). the intuitive edge: understanding and developing intuition. new york: jeremy p. tarcher, inc. great people of the 20th century. (1996). time. new york: time inc., home entertainment. gross, ronald. (1993). the independent scholar’s handbook. berkeley, ca: ten speed press. yaeger, j., grosso, v., & mason, p. a. (2019, june). education experts on the main challenges and future of education. mediaplanet, education and careernews.com. hubler, s. (2020, may 24). why the tests instituted to lift college diversity are falling out of favor. the new york times. hunt, l. (2018). history: why it matters. medford, ma: polity press. jimenez, l. (2018, august 15). why students need stronger career and technical education. las vegas sun. kristof, n. (2019, may 26). abused by her prof, then 5 decades to a ph.d. the new york times. leonhardt, d., & chinoy, s. (2019, may 26). the college dropout crisis. the new york times. lewis, d., & greene, j. (1982). thinking better. new york: rawson, wade publishers, inc. murray, g. (2018, june). why more adult learner are opting for online education. education and careernews.com. quintana, c. (2020, march 31). pets, pornography appear in online college classes. usa today. ramo, j. c. (1996, september 16). winning take all. time. ramos, e., & schroeder, a. (1994). concepts of data communications. new york: macmillan publishing company. rani, r. s. (2020, april 26). remote learning is hard. now, add a language barrier. the new york times. reilly, k. (2020, april 6-13). the online learning divide. time. richards, e. (2020, july 17-19). not all online learning created equal. usa today. the centre for war studies. (2020). university of birmingham. school of history and cultures, www.birmingham.ac.uk/pg-war. viar, r. l. (2019, june). 3 myths about online education. education and careernews.com. waking life: briefing black america. (2013, august 24). the economist. westfall, s. s. (2019, april 1). operation varsity blues: inside the college admissions scandal. people magazine. wicks, a. (2019, november 15). fast times at capitalism high—what young people need to thrive. las vegas sun. 79 published by scholink inc. http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/pg-war www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 worthen, m. (2019, june 9). the anti-college is on the rise. the new york times. notes 1). indeed, some students widely deride what is happening in online education. or they lament “online learning,” when they don’t excel or get all a’s. therefore, we must educate our students in an appropriate way, while exceeding expectations. 2). the challenge for some colleges and universities, according to yaeger, “usually surround professional development training to insure efficiency for the educator and the incorporation of lesson[s] or unit modifications to maximize learning through technology.” 3). figuratively and literally, education at all levels must be scripted and in-line with the current needs of students. to be sure, our current education systems reflect a long-standing tradition with necessary, educational protocols. 4). it is honestly believed that minority students will be negatively affected in an educational system that is polarized or stratified because of white supremacists and white segregationists, and their racialist thinking. 5). see also evgenia peretz, “to cheat and lie in l.a.,” vanity fair, september 2019, 134-139 and 183-186. 6). unfortunately, some minority students are disenfranchised when it comes to higher education. 7). time and time again over the years, we have seen the wealthy in our society cheat the education system, to find a way for their unqualified children to attend prestigious, or ivy league colleges and universities. this is another education problem that we must fix in our education systems. 8). the fact that black children can’t go to good schools smack of racism and discrimination; and jeopardize their chances for a quality education, as well as fulfilling their educational needs and dreams. therefore, equality and diversity must be of primary concern for all of us. 9). in so many words, some educators have noted that we cannot guarantee equitable outcomes for minority students; but institutional racism must be eradicated at educational institutions at all levels. 10). the most vexing question about learning and education is an undercurrent of frustration and exasperation—that is, why aren’t blacks and other minority students educated in the same way? or shouldn’t there be more equality when it comes to educating minority students? 11). education provides a unique opportunity for minority students, which is essential for addressing these diversity problems. we must bear in mind that education relies on reciprocity when it comes to democracy and equality of education for all students. 12). according to james p. duffy, “most external degree programs place strong emphasis on learning through reading. some schools call this guided reading, directed study, or simply independent reading/study.” see james p. duffy, how to earn a college degree without going to college (new york: john wiley and sons, inc., 1994), 25. 80 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 13). parents should be very conscious of the fact that schools are or should be able to incorporate an online component to their traditional way of learning and teaching. 14). students must also share some of the responsibility for their own education. finally, educator meredith d. call tells us that students can become better learners, and improve their study skills, which involves “planning, organizing their time, setting goals, solving problems, tracking down information, and communicating ideas.” see meredith d. gall and joyce p. gall, making the grade (rocklin ca: prima publishing and communications, 1988), 6. 15). note that the future of online education is not predetermined; however, there might be challenges and unknown obstacles to proceeding effectively. the fact that public colleges and universities had to revert to online learning was inevitable or a foregone conclusion. 16). so will some students be negatively affected by remote learning in some way? perhaps. moreover, colleges and universities must be courageous enough to adjust their online systems without interrupting traditional educational routines. 17). unfortunately, some educators are not worried that some students are not prepared, because they believed that most students are flexible and tuned into technology; but this may not always be the case with marginalized students. 18). perhaps our methods of teaching our children will always be a contentious education issue. indeed, how will distance education policies move forward throughout our education systems? 19). critics have argued that “the [sat and act] tests cite decades of data indicating that they are inherently biased in favor of affluent white and asian-american students.” therefore, “admissions officers typically look at several data points, not just test scores.” 20). the bottom line is: colleges and universities should ensure that all students be given the same educational opportunities. 21). according to journalist erin richards, “teachers should provide students with more individual communication in a remote learning environment compared with an in-person class….” see the same reference and page number. 22). in this regard, should educators find out more about what students expect to get from respective courses, as well as their specific needs and interests? finally, should we also consider the sacrifices made by some students who are trying to educate themselves? 23). journalist erin richards suggests that, “if you don’t have the technology your child needs, or if the teacher seems to be struggling online, ask whether there’s a plan to receive high-quality, tailored materials in print form,” see richards, “not all online,” 1a. biographical sketch earnest n. bracey is a retired army lieutenant colonel, with over twenty years of active military service. he was commissioned through reserve officer training (distinguished military graduate) at jackson state university, where he graduated with honors (magna cum laude), and received his 81 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 4, 2020 bachelor of arts degree in political science in 1974. in addition, he received the masters of public administration in 1979 from golden gate university, his masters of arts degree in international affairs in 1983 from the catholic university of america, his masters of business administration in 2009 from california coast university, and his doctorate of public administration (with emphasis in public policy) in 1993 from george mason university. dr. bracey also earned his ph.d. in education from capella university in 1999. a recipient of numerous military awards and civilian honors, he is also a graduate of the united states naval war college and the command and general staff college at fort leavenworth, kansas, and previously served as director of administration at the prestigious industrial college of the armed forces, washington, d.c. he was also recognized as who’s who among america’s teachers in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2006. dr. bracey is professor of political science, and currently teaches american politics and black american history at the college of southern nevada in las vegas. he was formerly chair and professor of political science at jackson state university and chairperson of the political science and history department at hampton university. he serves as an editorial board-member for the nevada historical society quarterly. his work has appeared in professional journals and other publications, and he is the author of the books, prophetic insights: the higher education and pedagogy of african americans, university press of america, 1999, on racism: essays on black popular culture, african american politics, and the new black aesthetics, university press of america, 2003, daniel “chappie” james: the first african american four star general, mcfarland & company, inc., 2003, places in political time: voices from the black diaspora, university press of america, 2005, and the moulin rouge and black rights in las vegas, mcfarland & company, inc., 2009. he also co-authored the book, american politics and culture wars (2001). he is also the author of the novels, choson (1994) and the black samurai (1998), and the book of short stories, requiems for black folks, 2002. 82 published by scholink inc. original paper frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 91 original paper analysis of the current situation and optimization paths of teaching quality in rural primary schools in ganzi prefecture under the background of “double reduction” fei tang1* 1 sichuan minzu college, kangding, sichuan, china * fei tang (1982-), female, han nationality, from xichang, sichuan, associate professor, master’s degree, mainly engaged in research on basic education and teacher education. received: october 5, 2024 accepted: october 22, 2024 online published: november 11, 2024 doi:10.22158/fet.v7n2p91 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v7n2p91 abstract to further implement the fundamental task of strengthening moral education and cultivating people, the country issued the “double reduction” policy in 2021. nowadays, the whole country is reducing the academic burden on students with unprecedented policy intensity. although the development speed of education in ethnic regions is relatively slow, this policy has also been gradually promoted and implemented in the basic education stage. this article takes “double reduction” as the background and observes the current situation of teaching quality in rural primary schools in ganzi prefecture through questionnaires and interviews. it analyzes the objective factors in three aspects: learning quality, teaching quality, and management quality, and proposes optimization paths for teaching quality. keywords double reduction, rural primary schools, teaching quality, factor analysis in july 2021, the “opinions on further reducing the homework burden and extracurricular training burden of students in compulsory education” (hereinafter referred to as the “double reduction”) was issued. the general office of the ministry of education issued regulations on effectively strengthening the “five management” of homework, sleep, mobile phones, reading materials, physical fitness, etc. for primary and secondary school students. in order to reduce the heavy homework burden and extracurricular training burden of students in compulsory education, effectively improve the level of education in schools, and enhance the quality of teaching, compulsory education schools in various regions across the country have taken different measures. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 92 published by scholink inc. 1. implementation status of “double reduction” in ganzi prefecture the ganzi prefecture is located in the western sichuan plateau, covering an area of one-third of sichuan province, with a small population. as of september 2023, there are a total of 304 primary schools in the state, with 119600 primary school students, 7706 full-time primary school teachers, and 6761 in-service teachers. due to geographical location and population factors, agricultural and pastoral areas adopt centralized education, with appropriate concentration for grades 1-3, concentration for grades 4-6, and complete concentration for high schools. in recent years, ordinary people in rural areas have gradually tasted the sweetness of education and actively sent their children to school, fulfilling their obligation to send their children to compulsory education stage; due to outdated educational concepts, the common people in pastoral areas still do not attach importance to their children’s education. some parents spoil and are reluctant to let their children go to school at home, so they let them herd cattle and sheep at home. therefore, the phenomenon of controlling dropouts during compulsory education still exists. the local government has formulated and introduced many response measures, and has achieved good results in controlling dropouts and ensuring education. however, controlling dropouts and ensuring education in remote areas has always been on the way. due to their remote location and underdeveloped economic conditions, rural primary schools in the ganzi prefecture have almost no off campus training institutions, and students do not have much homework on campus. their backpacks are almost the lightest in the province. since the implementation of the "double reduction" policy, the only two private schools in ganzi prefecture have gradually turned into public schools.the education bureau of ganzi prefecture requires compulsory education schools to implement curriculum in accordance with national curriculum standards, strictly implement five management measures in accordance with provincial requirements, focus on strengthening mobile phone management, sleep management, homework design management, and develop implementation plans for inspection and implementation. each school shall develop a schedule in accordance with the requirements of the education bureau, provide delayed services, and effectively reduce students’ homework burden. there is a huge difference in basic education between the ganzi prefecture and developed areas, with parents having low cultural levels and backward educational concepts. students rely solely on school teachers for learning, and some schools have a phenomenon of main subjects occupying secondary subjects. in this context, what is the current situation of teaching quality in rural primary schools in ganzi prefecture? 2. analysis of the current situation of teaching quality in rural primary schools in ganzi prefecture under the background of “double reduction” the education dictionary defines teaching quality as the level of education and the degree of effectiveness. the ultimate manifestation of teaching quality lies in the quality of the training objects, and the measurement standards are mainly based on the purpose of education and the training objectives of various levels and types of schools. teaching has a bilateral nature, including both www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 93 published by scholink inc. teacher’s teaching and student’s learning. the study used questionnaire surveys and interviews to analyze the teaching quality of rural primary schools in ganzi prefecture under the background of “double reduction”, from three dimensions: student learning quality, teacher teaching quality, and teaching manager management quality (li, 2023)). 2.1 analysis of the quality of student learning the study selected 4-6 grade students from eight rural primary schools in kangding city, danba county, yajing county, jiulong county, xinlong county, and daofu county of ganzi prefecture for a questionnaire survey. 200 survey questionnaires were randomly distributed, and 193 valid questionnaires were collected, with an effective response rate of 96.5%. the quality of students’ learning was understood from the forms of homework, completion time of homework, parental participation in homework, number of exams, publication of exam rankings, and students’ sleep time. 2.1.1 the form of homework after class is single, the completion time is reasonable, and the participation of parents is low in order to implement the “double reduction” policy, on november 15, 2021, the education department of sichuan province issued the “notice on further improving the management of examinations and homework in compulsory education schools”, which clearly stipulates the number of examinations, difficulty, and total amount of homework. through a questionnaire survey, it was found that 62.18% of students’ homework after class is mainly written and in a single form, with less emphasis on experiential, practical, exploratory, and interdisciplinary assignments. 84.97% of students are able to complete their homework within one hour, and the completion time is reasonable. parents rarely participate in students’ homework due to cultural level and educational concepts. 2.1.2 the frequency of subject knowledge testing is not high, and the results are mainly announced by the whole class the frequency of subject knowledge testing for rural primary school students is not high, with 58.55% of classes conducting 1-3 tests every two weeks to assess students’ knowledge mastery, and 17.1% of classes conducting subject tests once a month. compared to urban schools, the frequency of subject knowledge testing is relatively low. 65.80% of the classes announce their test scores in front of the entire class, without going through the class qq group or wechat group. the test results are promptly fed back to the students as a way to fill in the gaps after knowledge testing. 2.1.3 students have sufficient sleep time since the implementation of the “double reduction” policy, it has been required that primary school students in compulsory education sleep for 10 hours or more. through a questionnaire survey, it was found that 61.66% of students sleep for more than 10 hours, 23.83% of students sleep for 9-10 hours, and 85.49% of students in rural primary schools in ganzi prefecture sleep for time that meets national requirements. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 94 published by scholink inc. 2.2 analysis of the quality of teacher teaching a study randomly distributed 320 survey questionnaires to teachers in eight rural primary schools in kd city, db county, yj county, jl county, xl county, and df county of ganzi prefecture. 312 valid questionnaires were collected, with an effective response rate of 97.5%. understand the quality of teacher teaching from the aspects of teaching methods and the application of information technology, curriculum and textbook construction, frequency of research and development activities, collective lesson preparation, and design of student assignments. 2.2.1 the teaching method is traditional and single, and information technology is limited to the use of ppt rural primary school teachers still use traditional teaching methods that focus on teacher lectures supplemented by questioning and discussion. the teaching method that takes students as the main body and mobilizes their learning enthusiasm and initiative is rarely adopted, with only 9.62% of teachers using inquiry based teaching methods, and almost no teachers using situational teaching methods (as shown in table 1). the school has complete multimedia teaching equipment, but teachers’ use of information technology is limited to the production and use of ppt, and they cannot apply high-quality online teaching resources to their own teaching. table 1. teachers’ teaching methods teacher’s teaching methods number of people proportion (%) mainly based on group discussions, with teacher participation and guidance 82 26.28% emphasize heuristic teaching 93 29.81% mainly focused on teaching 107 34.29% inquiry teaching 30 9.62% situational teaching 0 0% summation 312 100% 2.2.2 lack of school-based curriculum development and school-based textbook construction through questionnaire surveys and interviews, it was found that the development of school-based curriculum and textbooks in rural primary schools is almost zero. some individual teachers in some schools have participated in the construction of famous teacher studios in urban schools, but have not yet established teams in their own schools and acted as responsible persons to establish studios for www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 95 published by scholink inc. curriculum development and textbook construction. there is a lack of school-based curriculum development and textbook construction for teachers. 2.2.3 the frequency of teaching and research activities is relatively low, and there are few teachers for collective lesson preparation through questionnaire surveys and interviews, it was found that the frequency of teaching and research activities for rural primary school teachers is relatively low. the teaching and research departments of chinese, mathematics, and english conduct teaching and research activities once a semester. in addition, schools organize teacher teaching skills competitions, and most schools conduct teaching and research activities once a month on average. since the implementation of the “double reduction” policy, teachers have been required to carry out collective lesson preparation. however, in actual teaching, most teachers mainly rely on independent lesson preparation according to curriculum standards. although teachers maintain consistency in textbook selection, teaching content, teaching progress, etc., they are based on their own teaching experience in teaching processes, teaching strategies and resource selection, and integration of information technology. 2.2.4 simple homework design the “double reduction” proposes to effectively reduce students’ homework burden; the five management aspects include homework management, where teachers should design and assign homework according to students’ levels in a hierarchical manner; the sichuan academy of educational sciences has issued a notice on the guidance of homework design and use in compulsory education schools in sichuan province, which provides clear guidance on the design and use of homework in primary school chinese, mathematics, english, ethics and rule of law, and science subjects. through investigation, it was found that the homework design of rural primary school teachers in ganzi prefecture still remains at the level of assigning based on students’ exam scores, without designing and assigning according to students’ interests, knowledge levels, strengths, and individual differences. 2.3 quality analysis of teaching manager management on the basis of randomly distributing survey questionnaires to teachers, further interviews were conducted with education authorities and school managers to understand the quality of teaching managers’ management from the perspectives of teachers’ educational level, age, professional title structure, degree of matching between majors and teaching disciplines, teacher preparation form, five education course offerings, school digital campus construction, and home school cooperation. 2.3.1 the structure of teacher professional titles is reasonable, but the educational level is low and the age is aging. the matching degree between teacher profession and teaching subject is also low through a questionnaire survey, it was found that first level teachers account for 49.04%, second level teachers account for 27.88%, and senior teachers account for 18.91%. the structure of teacher titles is reasonable. only 0.64% of teachers have a master’s degree or above, while 36.22% have a vocational degree, indicating a relatively low level of teacher education (as shown in table 2). teachers with over 30 years of service account for 16.99%, those with 16-30 years of service account for 45.83%, those www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 96 published by scholink inc. with 7-15 years of service account for 29.49%, and those with less than 7 years of service account for only 7.7%. through interviews with school management personnel, it was found that the average age of teachers in two schools reached 46 years old, while rural primary school teachers are aging and lack the injection of fresh blood. table 2. educational structure of teachers teacher’s educational background number of people proportion (%) master’s degree or above 1 0.32% master of education 1 0.32% undergraduate programs (full-time undergraduate, associate degree, and correspondence undergraduate) 196 62.82% college diploma or equivalent level 113 36.22% technical secondary school or equivalent level 1 0.32% summation 312 100% the teaching subjects of rural primary school teachers are arranged according to the needs of school teaching. through questionnaire surveys and interviews, it was found that only 64.42% of teachers in rural primary schools in ganzi prefecture teach subjects that match their own subject majors, and more than 30% of teachers are engaged in teaching other subjects. many teachers who have achieved excellent results in state and county teaching competitions do not match their subject and professional background. 2.3.2 the school curriculum is not reasonable, and there is a phenomenon of main subject teachers occupying sub subjects in curriculum implementation since the implementation of the “double reduction” policy, it has been required to promote the development of the five educations simultaneously, but some schools have unreasonable curriculum offerings. most rural primary schools have not yet offered labor courses, and labor education is completed through methods such as student cleaning and class hygiene. some schools offer english courses for students in grades 1-3 but not for students in grades 4-6, while others offer english courses for grades 4-6 but not for grades 1-3, resulting in unreasonable course offerings. there is a www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 97 published by scholink inc. phenomenon of main subject teachers crowding out secondary subjects in order to improve students’ academic performance, and the teaching of art courses cannot be guaranteed. 2.3.3 rural primary schools have basically achieved digital campus construction, but the utilization rate of teaching resources is not high with the development of the national economy and the investment in education funds in ethnic areas, the multimedia facilities and equipment in rural primary schools in ganzi prefecture are fully equipped. the ganzi prefecture provides 500000 yuan in digital education funding for each county every year. high schools adopt live teaching, middle and primary schools adopt recorded teaching, and kindergartens adopt observation based teaching. the entire prefecture has basically achieved digital campus construction, but rural primary schools do not use teaching resources frequently in actual teaching. 2.3.4 single channel of home school cooperation the communication between school teachers and parents is limited to the convening of parent teacher conferences. in daily work, most teachers rarely contact parents to introduce their children’s learning situation in school and understand their family environment and learning situation at home. parents of rural primary school students have a low level of understanding of education, and their support for their children’s education is relatively weak. family school cooperation is limited to participating in cultural and sports activities organized by the school, and they do not provide more support and cooperation to the school in their children’s learning. home school cooperation requires the efforts of both teachers and parents. teaching managers have not made parents aware through more channels that the cultivation of children requires joint efforts from both schools and parents to achieve good results. they have also not taken effective measures to motivate teachers to actively engage in home school cooperation. 3. the influencing factors of teaching quality in rural primary schools in ganzi prefecture under the background of “double reduction” 3.1 teaching management factors 3.1.1 difficulty in introducing highly educated teachers and uneven quality of teaching staff rural primary schools are located in remote areas with backward economic conditions, and there is a significant gap between the supporting facilities around the school and those in cities, making it difficult to introduce highly educated teachers. young and excellent teachers consider their children’s education and family’s medical issues, and they often leave for better equipped urban schools whenever they have the opportunity, resulting in a large number of excellent teachers leaving rural primary schools; the remaining ones are local and older teachers who are unwilling to tinker anymore, resulting in uneven teacher strength. 3.1.2 the management department provides limited opportunities for teachers to pursue further education and learning www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 98 published by scholink inc. 3.1.3 the tedious work outside of teaching leads to a lack of energy for teachers ordinary people have a low level of culture and outdated concepts, and the development and promotion of many local government tasks rely on schools to complete them. from top to bottom, many tasks unrelated to teaching, such as forest protection and fire prevention, telecommunications fraud prevention, and physical health statistics, are completed by school teachers, which takes up a lot of teachers’ time and leads to a reduction in the time and energy that teachers truly use for teaching. after the implementation of the “double reduction” policy, teachers need to improve classroom teaching efficiency, scientifically and reasonably assign homework, timely evaluate students’ learning situation, and provide after-school delayed services. many tasks have exhausted teachers both physically and mentally, leading to the inability to improve teaching quality. 3.1.4 insufficient efforts by educational administrators to promote home school cooperation teaching administrators attribute the lack of cooperation between home and school to parents, and generally believe that parents have not played a leading role in setting an example for students at home, just like the way the older generation manages children, only providing basic living guarantees for children and never caring about their learning. during winter and summer vacations, if a child does not complete their homework, parents will contact the teacher in advance to excuse the child. the cooperation between home and school only stays in the development of student activities, such as participating in student sports events. parents will place all their expectations for their child’s learning on the teacher. the cultivation of children requires the efforts of schools, families, and children in order to achieve good results. although teaching managers have found the reasons for the lack of cooperation between families and schools, they have not taken corresponding solutions and have searched for ways of cooperation through multiple channels. 3.2 teacher’s factors 3.2.1 teachers lack advanced educational ideas and concepts due to geographical factors, rural teachers have a long way to go to cities for learning and further education, and there is a significant gap between teachers in rural areas and those in urban areas. they are unwilling to go out and learn advanced educational ideas and concepts, and still teach according to traditional teaching methods, which makes it difficult to improve their teaching level. 3.2.2 teachers have weak self-learning abilities in today’s rapidly developing economy and rapidly changing society, teachers must establish the educational philosophy of lifelong learning and continuously learn and recharge in their work to meet the needs of students’ development. however, older teachers in rural primary schools have a “lying flat” mentality, do not actively learn new knowledge, are unwilling to explore the use of online teaching resources, and are not involved in the construction of textbooks and the development of school-based curriculum. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 99 published by scholink inc. 3.2.3 teachers lack a sense of teamwork online teachers lack a sense of teamwork and work independently in teaching, unwilling to share their lesson plans, ppts, and other materials with other teachers. there is no teaching team formed among teachers, and teachers should play a collective role by conducting collective lesson preparation, exploring textbook content, discussing teaching methods, and improving teaching quality. 3.3 student factors 3.3.1 poor student learning foundation in recent years, the awareness of education among parents of rural primary school students in ganzi prefecture has gradually increased. they know how to send their children to school, but their emphasis on education is still insufficient, and most children have almost no basic education. after sending their children to school, parents believe that their children’s learning is solely the responsibility of the school and has nothing to do with themselves. they turn a blind eye to their children’s learning and cannot even supervise them to complete their homework, let alone provide guidance and check on their homework, resulting in a poor foundation for the students. 3.3.2 students lack motivation to learn and have weak self-restraint abilities elementary school students have low cognitive levels and weak willpower. they have lived in remote areas since childhood and have little understanding of the convenience that knowledge brings to humanity, resulting in unclear learning goals and insufficient learning motivation. it is a child’s nature to enjoy playing, and children with weak self-discipline cannot restrain themselves and actively engage in learning. 4. optimization path for improving the teaching quality of rural primary schools in ganzi prefecture under the background of “double reduction” 4.1 teaching administrators strengthen guidance and supervision over schools 4.1.1 pay attention to the construction of the teaching staff and improve the level of education in schools teaching administrators should strengthen guidance and supervision over schools, and clearly stipulate that matters unrelated to teaching should not be left to school teachers to complete, but rather teachers should be devoted to teaching and nurturing students (yang, 2022). emphasize the construction of the teaching staff, coordinate the arrangement of teachers based on the school’s class and subject offerings, and assign teachers with professional backgrounds in the subject to engage in teaching work in that subject. according to the “four good teachers” standard, we will build a high-quality and specialized teacher team, increase training efforts for teachers, and provide them with opportunities for learning and training; regularly conduct different types of training activities based on the actual situation of teachers. give full play to the professional driving role of regional subject teaching backbone teachers and the platform support function of studios as teaching practical knowledge, provide suitable platforms for teachers of different professional levels to participate in regular teaching practice training, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 100 published by scholink inc. observation, and discussion, and organize mixed professional training activities that combine “online” and “offline” from time to time. with the help of information technology, establish a convenient, equal, open, free, and shared operating mechanism (li & zhao, 2022). through multiple channels, teachers can master professional knowledge, continuously improve their professional competence, and ultimately enhance the quality of teaching. 4.1.2 adhere to the dual development of five educations and strictly implement art courses under the background of “double reduction”, teaching managers need to develop plans, strictly implement the five education curriculum, and ensure that art courses are implemented according to the schedule. incorporate labor education into the comprehensive education system, develop a guiding outline for labor education, optimize the curriculum structure of comprehensive practical activities, strengthen students’ life practice, labor technology, and vocational experience education, and coordinate household chores, school labor, and social labor. widely carry out campus art activities, encourage schools to form characteristic art teams, and invite intangible cultural heritage artists, dancers or theater performers with various skills from society to volunteer, in order to enhance students’ artistic cultivation. 4.1.3 carry out diversified evaluation to promote student development teaching evaluation is the “direction” and “baton” that leads classroom teaching reform (wan, 2023), changing the traditional evaluation model based on teacher’s teaching theory, focusing on student development, and evaluating students in a diversified way. in terms of evaluation criteria, we will change the traditional single evaluation standard of the percentage system and adopt a five level scoring method of “a-excellent, b-good, c-medium, d-qualified, e-unqualified”. in terms of evaluation format, it is no longer determined by the scores of outcome based assessments, but focuses on process based evaluation, with classroom performance, homework, and reading as one of the indicators for evaluating students. the evaluation subject is no longer a single teacher, and can include student self-evaluation, group evaluation, parent evaluation, etc (zeng & zhang, 2021). putting students at the center, conducting diverse evaluations, and promoting student development. 4.1.4 promote and educate parents to enhance their awareness of home school cooperation in the context of the “double reduction” policy, schools must integrate educational resources and work together with families to better utilize the effectiveness of education and improve teaching quality (li, 2023). cultivating children is a shared responsibility of both families and schools. parents and schools should build an equal, mutually respectful, and trusting “alliance” relationship, actively contact teachers, understand their children’s learning status and performance in school, and actively cooperate with teachers to do a good job in educating their children in response to their existing problems. there are barriers, contradictions, and even conflicts between families and schools in rural primary schools. teaching managers should actively spread scientific and rational educational concepts to parents, and timely and accurately convey educational policy information. parents should learn about education policies from authoritative media, especially when encountering unclear issues such as education www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 101 published by scholink inc. reform and enrollment policy adjustments. they should learn more about the authoritative interpretations of education authorities or communicate directly with school teachers. only through the collaborative efforts of schools, families, and children can we promote their growth. 4.2 teachers change their mindset, learn through multiple channels, and continuously improve their professional competence 4.2.1 multi channel learning, continuously improving business level rural primary school teachers have a relatively low level of education and can improve their academic qualifications through on-the-job learning; carry out online and offline learning through the internet to update educational concepts; observe teaching videos from renowned teachers and celebrities; seek advice from experienced teachers in the school; continuously reflecting on one’s own teaching, discovering one’s strengths and weaknesses, and improving one’s business level through multiple channels. 4.2.2 update teaching modes and explore diverse teaching methods most teachers adopt traditional teaching methods such as lecturing, simply imparting knowledge through indoctrination, ignoring the training objectives of primary school students, resulting in low teaching quality (jiang, 2023). to improve the quality of teaching, it is necessary to innovate teaching methods, change the traditional teacher centered teaching method, and try to adopt student-centered inquiry based teaching, situational teaching, group cooperative learning, student mind map creation, role-playing and other teaching methods. while imparting knowledge, students’ cooperation awareness, cognitive level and thinking ability can be enhanced. 4.2.3 efficiently utilize the classroom and carry out student-centered high-quality teaching the quality of classroom teaching is an important component of primary school teaching quality, reflecting the quality of teachers’ teaching. teachers attach great importance to the subject status and role of students in classroom teaching, pay attention to their learning process, learning outcomes, and development, and encourage students to actively explore and learn; design teaching activities based on a thorough understanding of students’ existing knowledge, experience, and learning situation, as well as a grasp of the number of students and their actual needs; design and assign homework based on students’ cognitive level, abilities, and individual differences in a hierarchical manner; carry out teaching and personalized guidance based on individual differences of students. teachers efficiently utilize the classroom to carry out student-centered high-quality teaching, allowing students to perceive their own value and the joy brought by knowledge learning in the classroom. 4.3 home school co-education, turning students from passive to active, improving the quality of learning the growth of students cannot be separated from the effective guidance of school teachers, the active cooperation of parents, and the efforts of children themselves. only by working together can we promote the better development of children. parents should abandon the erroneous practice of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 102 published by scholink inc. entrusting education to schools and work together with school teachers to form a sense of co-education, turning students from passive to active and improving the quality of their learning (wan, 2023). 4.3.1 help students build confidence, enhance their enthusiasm and initiative in learning students are the main body of learning, and only by truly mobilizing their learning enthusiasm and initiative can the quality of their learning be improved. interest is the best teacher, and frontline teachers and parents should start from their children’s learning needs and interests, and maximize their students’ subjective initiative in learning. help newly enrolled students build their confidence in learning through praise and encouragement; for senior students, teachers and parents should recognize their children’s autonomy and not take care of everything. let children learn to learn actively and feel the joy of success in learning and life, constantly building their confidence in learning. 4.3.2 guide students to establish reasonable learning goals and stimulate their learning motivation only with goals can there be motivation. teachers and parents guide students to establish clear and feasible learning goals based on individual differences. students feel the joy of success in the process of moving towards their goals, constantly stimulating their motivation to learn. 4.3.3 cultivate students to develop good study habits teachers and parents should learn and understand the “double reduction” policy through multiple channels, effectively reducing students’ academic burden while cultivating good study habits, such as pre class preparation, attentive listening during class, timely consolidation after class, and reading during spare time. it can be seen that under the background of “double reduction”, the quality of learning for rural primary school students, the quality of teaching by teachers, and the quality of management by teaching managers in ganzi prefecture all show different orientations. in order to narrow the gap between basic education in ethnic areas and developed areas, the education authorities of ganzi prefecture have implemented the “double reduction” policy based on local conditions. teaching managers, teachers, students, and parents need to work hard from different perspectives to truly improve the teaching quality of rural primary schools. fund project key project at the school level of sichuan minzu college “research on teaching quality improvement path of rural primary schools in ganzi prefecture under the background of double reduction policy” (xyzb2204sa) reference jiang, h. (2023). research on strategies for improving teaching quality in student centered vocational colleges: a case study of c vocational college. nanning: guangxi university for nationalities. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 103 published by scholink inc. li, d. n. (2023). research on quality management of online primary school teaching from the perspective of pdca cycle: a case study of f primary school in anshan city, liaoning province. dalian: liaoning normal university. li, j. x. (2023). exploration of primary school family school cooperation model under the background of “double reduction”: a case study of s primary school in harbin city. harbin: harbin normal university. li, m., & zhao, m. r. (2022). improvement of classroom teaching quality under the background of “double reduction”: realistic difficulties and path selection. journal of tianjin university (social sciences edition), 2022(4). wan, j. x. (2023). research on the problems and countermeasures of home school cooperation in primary schools in urban rural areas under the background of “double reduction”: taking h primary school as an example. huangshi: hubei normal university. yang, s. r. (2022). interpretation of the national “double reduction” policy. journal of taiyuan city vocational and technical college. zeng, s. z., & zhang, m. c. (2021). analysis of the reform of the “student-centered” teaching mode under the background of “double reduction” taking primary school teaching reform as an example. journal of longyan college, 2021(11). frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) original paper cyberdependency and school performance among students in 3rd grade of bingerville high school djelle opely patrice-aime1* 1 department of educational sciences, ecole normale supérieure, abidjan, côte d’ivoire * djelle opely patrice-aime, department of educational sciences, ecole normale supérieure, abidjan, côte d’ivoire received: august 11, 2020 accepted: august 22, 2020 online published: august 29, 2020 doi:10.22158/fet.v3n3p47 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v3n3p47 abstract this study examines the link between cyberdependency and school performance among students in the 3rd grade of the mamie houphouët fêtai high school in bingerville. it covers a sample of one hundred and ninety (190) female students between the ages of 14 and 17. students’ addiction to the internet and social networks is measured using a questionnaire based on vavassori et al. (2002) and young’s internet addiction test in its french version validated by khazaal (2008). as for academic performance, they are verified using the end-of-term scoring matrices. the results, obtained using student t and anova, show that students in the third grade using the internet as teaching tools have higher academic performance than their peers who use it as entertaining instruments. all these different results are explained by the models of zuckerman (1969) and viau (1994). ultimately, this study will inform and raise awareness among students, educational system actors and parents about the risks of excessive use of the internet and social networks on school learning. keywords cyberdependence, performance, comprehensively addictive, social networks 1. introduction cyberaddiction or internet addiction is perceived as a psychological disorder resulting in an excessive and obsessive need to use the internet and interfering with daily life. several authors and researchers have conducted studies on non-chemical or behavioural addictions and have shown that it is relevant to distinguish between two types of internet users: extroverts and introverts (potera, 1998; leung, 2004; shapira et al., 2003). the former avoid chat rooms and other social sites to visit sites corresponding to their interests, such as travel or sports. the latter frequently go to chat rooms and are afraid to leave 47 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 their homes. as for some authors such as pawlak (2002) and andrade (2003), loneliness and low social support are correlated with internet addiction. internet addicts are therefore individuals who are often socially isolated. however, in the literature on developing countries, very little research on sub-saharan africa addresses cyber-dependency among young girls in school, from the perspective of addiction to the internet and social networks. our research will explore the relationship between cyberdependency and academic achievement among third-level students, and will enrich the understanding of behavioural addictions, specifically dependence on the internet and social networks. our research will explore the relationship between cyberdependency and academic achievement among third-level students, and will enrich the understanding of behavioural addictions, specifically dependence on the internet and social networks. the scientific interest of such research lies in the contribution and updating of current knowledge and data on this topic in a non-mixed population, that is, girls in school. the objective of this study is to show the influence of social media addiction on school performance among third-graders. different theoretical approaches explain the development of addictive behaviors. some highlight addictive driving on the development of psychological characteristics. others, on the other hand, point to the impact of the influence of cyberdependency on school performance. thus, at first we will present the psychobiological theory of zuckerman (1969) and then the model of viau (1994). sensation-seeking theory was born in the 1960s. it seeks to explain psychophysiological differences. this search for sensations suggests that increased cortical activation is the general motivation for any stimulation-seeking activity (zuckerman, 1969, 1974). also, he postulates that people eager for sensations are like individuals who need varied, new and complex experience and sensations in order to maintain an optimum level of activation (zuckerman et al., 1972). subsequently, he will develop a psychobiological model of the sensation-seeking trait by specifying the role of neurotransmitters such as gonadal hormones, mao endorphin and catecholamine in different facets and catecholamine in different facets of sensations research (zuckerman, 1991, 1994). zuckerman has shown that the search for sensations can go from the abuse of psychotropic substance or compulsive behaviors to risk-taking inducing a trait characterized by the need for varied experience and sensations, new, complex and willing to engage in risky physical and social activities of the individual himself (zuckerman, 1979). sensation-seeking theory postulates that sensation-seekers, in a state of non-stimulation, have low activity and use the behaviours that reveal this activity (zuckerman, 1984). later, he developed a general model of five dimensions and showed the connection between these dimensions. thus, it exposes the link between the search for strong sensations and impulsiveness, aggressiveness, exhibitionism and extraversion (zuckerman et al., 1998). zuckerman’s theory (1969) helps us to understand logically that the manifestation of substance-free addictive behaviors is related to the search for sensations. however, addiction to the internet and social networks are associated with many disorders such as personality disorders and behaviors seeking thrills or novelty (dsmiv, 2000). indeed, this addiction isolates these individuals. those looking for sensations stay connected to social networks for several hours, which could affect their academic results. this brings us to the theoretical 48 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 models of school performance, in particular that of school motivation according to the viau model. viau (1994) chooses a more practical definition of motivation to learn in schools and thus speaks of motivational dynamics. thus, he defines motivational dynamics as “a phenomenon that has its source in the perceptions that the student has of himself and of his environment, and which has the consequence that he chooses to commit himself to accomplish the pedagogical activity that is proposed to him and to persevere in its accomplishment and this, in order to learn.” according to this author, the motivational dynamics of students include three sources corresponding to perceptions that refer to the judgments that a person makes about events, about others and about himself. these three sources include the perception that the student has of the value of an activity, the perception that he has of his ability to perform it and his perception of controllability on its course. the perception of the value of an activity is characterized by the student’s judgment of the interest and usefulness of the activity in relation to the student’s goals. the perception of controllability on the course of the activity corresponds to the degree of control that the student considers to exercise on the course of the activity. finally, according to viau, the perception of student competence refers to the “judgment he makes about his ability to succeed adequately in an educational activity proposed to him”. for example, students with learning difficulties often have motivation problems. their difficulties in learning, their many failures and the image they have in the eyes of other students lead many of them to lose their motivation and interest in learning in a school context. in short, the model of viau (1994) shows that motivation is a necessary condition for learning for all students. pouts-lajus (2007) says that young people have invested in machines to communicate with such enthusiasm that it changes their social being, and also their psychology. social networks increasingly have an irresistible appeal and a decisive influence on young people to the point of unfavourable personality changes. indeed, through chat, facebook, wathsapp, etc., schooled teenagers try to forge a new personality, most of the false cases, having fun trapping each other in this virtual world. in addition, social networks are made up of two facets, the most noble and beneficent consisting of rich and varied documentary and cognitive resources, opportunities for distance learning, forging friendly links he weaving of virtual friendships, etc. the other, dark and harmful, highlighted by cyberdelinquency, scams, video games, violent films, pornography, sites conveying xenophobic, fundamentalist ideas and focusing on social deviances, etc. thus conceals proven and potential risks that dangerously threaten our young students. social networks can also become harmful due to lack of control over the use of these cognitive data piles. this state of affairs engenders plagiarism, the famous copy and paste that could lead students to laziness, lack of discernment and creativity, insight, and awakening of the mind and the language style «sms» that affects their writing beyond these social networks. it is in this sense that rondeau (1997) notes that young people are immersed several hours a day in a universe of often very violent images, and rarely educational that gradually transform them into passive consumers of sensations, images and sounds. in addition, the advent of social networks has developed a 49 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 type of language called “sms” or “cyberlanguage” to the detriment of standard writing, online interactions, instant messages and live videos occupy more of the students’ time. for example, accustomed to shortening words and expressions in a whimsical, uneducated manner, learners end up acquiring spelling and grammar inaptitudes, which leads to mistakes that teem on their homework and copies of exams. in addition, their attention can be relaxed during classes, as they quietly indulge in viewing images, music clips or even violent or pornographic films between friends and friends. similarly, mobile phones are used as a means of fraud or cheating during supervised checks and examination tests by the silent reception of electronic messages (sms) from friends, relatives and even unscrupulous teachers. we then notice that the management or consumption by young people of this diverse and varied information distilled through social networks, mobile phones and other modern tools for sharing and transmitting knowledge seem to direct them towards the fun and entertaining rather than cognitive, educational and cultural. we then notice that the management or consumption by young people of this diverse and varied information distilled through social networks, mobile phones and other modern tools for sharing and transmitting knowledge seem to direct them towards the fun and entertaining aspect rather than cognitive, educational and cultural. faced with this problematic situation, we ask ourselves the question: does the use of the internet and social networks affect students’ academic results? from this central research question follow the following subsidiary questions: -are icts, through the internet, used by students as teaching tools or as entertaining instruments? -is internet addiction likely to negatively influence learners’ academic performance as a general assumption, there is a relationship between the reason for internet use, cyberaddiction and the academic performance of third-level students. 2. methodology: population and sample 2.1 population this study aims exclusively to study the impact of cyberdependency on the academic performance of third-grade students at the lycée mamie houphouët fêtai de bingerville. so, we have composed the social field on all the individuals likely to inform us or to constitute a channel of access to information that can help us to identify the topic under study. to this end, all students in the third (3rd) class of the lycée mamie houphouët fêtai de bingerville, enrolled regularly for the academic year 2019-2020, constitute our target population. practically speaking, we have a total of 570 students in grade 3, all of them female. it is therefore from this target population that we will draw up the sample from which will be collected. 2.2 sample in order to collect information from the study population, the researcher cannot at the same time interview all the people involved in the study. this is how he uses a representative sample to obtain his information. for the construction of the sample, we used the reasoned sampling technique. it is 50 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 intended to constitute groups of equivalent samples or to set up a homogeneous sample. this technique therefore consists in subjecting the subjects of the population to the criterion of equivalence or homogeneity taken one by one in order to eliminate the individuals who do not meet certain criteria. for example, we controlled the repetition effect and age. to control these parasitic variables, of the 570 students enrolled in the third class at the mamie houphouët fêtai high school in bingerville, we only retain 190 students. these sample subjects are adolescent girls between the ages of 14-17. in order to carry out such work, it is necessary to present the research instruments, the data collection procedure followed by the statistical test used for data processing and the difficulties encountered. 2.3 data collection techniques this test, comprising twenty-four (20) items, measures the frequency of use of social networks and the impact of the use of social networks on adolescents’ school activities. for each item, students must check according to their degree of agreement with the statements entered. thus, the assessment is made on a five-point lickert scale: (1) “not at all”, (2) “rarely”, (3) “frequently”, (4) “often” and (5) “always” (see appendix i). furthermore, in order to enrich the explanation of our results, we also conducted a semi-directional interview with some students (15) and teachers (10) using an interview guide. 3. search aids 3.1 questionnaire the questionnaire is one of the most widely used tools currently in social sciences and humanities research. this frequent use is due to the easy transfer and processing of data from this tool. thus, our questionnaire consists of two parts, the first relates to the socio-demographic characteristics of the respondents. it concerns the age, the professions of the parents, the number of siblings, etc. the second part evaluates cyberdependency. in this vein, we have developed a test based on vavassori et al. (2002) and young’s internet addiction test in its french version validated by khazaal’s study (2008). to control these parasitic variables, out of the 570 students enrolled in third class at the lycée mamie houphouët fêtai de bingerville, we only retain 190 students. these sample subjects are adolescent girls between the ages of 14-17. in order to carry out such work, it is necessary to present the research instruments, the data collection procedure followed by the statistical test used for data processing and the difficulties encountered. 3.2 maintenance guide according to guittet (quoted by n’cho, 2013) the interview is a face-to-face relationship that consists of seeking information, verifying facts, questioning, exploring, explaining and commenting on ideas. it allows to question the activity that adolescents organize around the internet and to capture the representations of the internet. this information allows us to better interpret our results from the questionnaires. our interviews focused on the academic performance of the subjects and the time they put on the internet to use social networks. 51 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 3.3 note matrices in order to carry out this research, it is important to have information on the subjects selected for our study. to do this, it seems necessary to use the subject’s note matrices. for the most part, these matrices contain all the information concerning our subjects as well as their annual averages. here it should be noted that these grades are awarded by the teachers at the end of the evaluations. thus, we consider the ratings of the first and second quarter of the current year. 3.4 operational assumptions ho1: students in the third grade who use the internet as an educational tool have higher academic performance than their peers who use it as an entertaining tool. ho2: students in the third grade who have no addictive behaviour in internet use have higher academic performance than students in the third grade who have addictive behaviour. ho3: students in the third grade who do not exhibit addictive behaviour in internet use and use them as teaching aids have higher academic performance than their peers who exhibit addictive behaviour in internet use and that use it as entertaining instruments. 3.5 methods of data analysis the statistical technique that allows this operation is the student t. since our subjects can only belong to one group, we are in the presence of independent groups. this leads us to apply the student t to our data in the case of independent samples. however, the student t, by comparing the groups two to two, does not allow to compare more than two averages and to isolate more finely the effects of the combination of several factors on the same phenomenon measured. in this case, it is more appropriate to use the variance analysis (anova), because it makes it possible to make the different comparisons without having to make two-to-two comparisons. thus, we will apply these two tests (the anova and the student t-test) to the collected data. 4. presentation of results the results will be presented in two ways. the first axis will focus on highlighting the characteristics of the respondents and the use of the internet by them, and the second axis will focus on the assumptions made (quantitative and qualitative analysis). 4.1 verification of operational assumptions 4.1.1 operational assumption 1: students in grades 3 who use the internet as a teaching tool have higher academic performance than their peers who use it as an entertaining tool 4.1.1.1 quantitative analysis 52 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 table 1. presents the reasons for using the internet tool in relation to school performance internet reason eff. moy. standard deviation pedagogical 84 12,09 1,35 entertainm 106 11,83 1,81 (t = 3,095 ; p < 0.05) table 1 shows that students in the third grade who use the internet as a teaching tool perform better than those who use it as an entertainment tool. thus, we observe that the difference between the two groups is significant (t = 3.095; p 0.05). this means that there is a significant difference between the averages compared. the first operational assumption (h01) is confirmed. 4.1.1.2 qualitative analysis the verification of operational hypothesis 1 could be explained by the fact that students using the internet for educational purposes would develop good learning methods and techniques that learners using it as entertaining instruments. indeed, for the first cities, innovative communication technologies are formidable instruments of culture and intellectual training for them. they argue that social networks are not their priorities on the internet but rather they prefer research sites, information to better cultivate and be more efficient at school. they are quite motivated to succeed through school. these students also revealed to us, during the semi-directional interview, that they approach their teachers and peers to enrich their knowledge learned on the internet about the different lessons seen in class. this allows them to better understand the lessons and therefore to be better equipped to deal with the various evaluations. this would lead to better academic results. unlike them, learners who use ict as leisure tools, games and satisfaction of fantasies or passions, are therefore not motivated to attend classes and focus more on social networks that they consider more as a work tool. indeed, they can communicate with their friends, strengthen their friendships, entertain themselves or with others, plan outings, publish photos, exchange information. through social media, these teenagers are also looking for certain sensations, a form of recognition and appreciation. in sum, the superiority of learners who use the internet as teaching tools over their peers who use it as entertaining instruments seems to stem from the fact that they would use ict in the sense of cultivating and being motivated to succeed by the way to school. 4.2 operational assumption 2: students in the third grade with no addictive behaviour in internet use have higher academic performance than their counterparts with addictive behaviour in internet use 4.2.1 quantitative analysis 53 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 table 2. presents addictive behaviours and school performance among students in grade 3 cyberdpendence eff. moy. standard deviation non-addict 111 11,93 1,51 addict 79 11,96 1,79 (t= 1,06 ; p ˃ 0.05) in the table above, we observe that non-addict students obtain slightly higher averages than addict students. however, with regard to the value of the student t, it is found that these differences in averages between the two groups are not significant (t calculated = 1.06; p 0.05). in view of the above results, it is noted that our hypothesis 2 is invalidated. 4.2.2 qualitative analysis the non-significant difference in the averages of non-addicts and internet addicts is believed to stem from the fact that with the advent of icts in our tropics, learners have developed other fraud strategies during school assessments or exams and competitions. this new form of cheating created by students, a corollary of the use of laptops, most teachers have often met and managed it (80% or 8 out of 10 teachers interviewed) during our interview. this phenomenon has become so widespread in recent years that the administrative officers of the schools have taken the resolution to prohibit through the internal regulations, the use of mobile phones in schools and even at ministerial level by orders prohibiting their presence during mass examinations. but, as a strategist, some students still manage to use their cells to cheat during school assessments, exams and competitions to the great displeasure of their supervisors. this explains why their school results do not differ significantly. 4.3 operational assumption 3: students in the third grade with no addictive behaviour in internet use and using them as teaching aids have higher academic performance than their peers who have addictive behaviour in internet use and who use it as entertaining instruments 4.3.1 quantitative analysis table 3. comparison of student averages by reason of internet use and cyber dependency internet et reason cyberdependance eff. moy. standard deviation f sig. pédagogical et 52 12,15 1,28 9,52 0,05 non addict entertainm et addict 47 11,93 1,99 (f = 9,52; p < 0.05) the interactive effect of the internet usage pattern and cyber dependency on school performance is significant (f = 9.52; p 0.05). moreover, by observing these results, we find that the averages of 54 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 students in third grade who do not exhibit addictive behaviour in internet use and use them as educational tools are higher than those who have addictive behaviour in internet use and who use it as an entertaining instrument. the third operational assumption (h03) is confirmed. 4.3.2 qualitative analysis the significant difference observed could be explained by the fact that students who do not use the internet and use it for educational purposes claim to be more focused on studies in order to be able later to have a better social condition. these present an alternative approach to the use of social networks and the internet. they prefer to use them moderately and to do research in the school setting and general culture. but students addicted to the internet and who use it for entertainment, prefer to spend their time on social networks, play games or listen to music in line rather than studying. for the most part social networks and internet occupy all their time, they can connect to it all day long or even 24/24. through these interviews, we note that the consequences of excessive use of social networks are more addictive and affect school performance. 5. discussion in this study, we sought to highlight the impact of internet addiction on the educational outcomes of third-grade students. in this chapter, we compare our results with those of the authors presented in the review of the work. to do this, we will recall the results that we have achieved as a result of the methodological approach in order to better conduct the comparison of the results. thus, our first operational hypothesis being confirmed, we assert that 9th grade students using the internet as a pedagogical tool have higher academic performances than their peers who use it as an entertaining tool. this result is in line with those obtained by bamaré (2014) and karpinski et al. (2013). indeed, these authors discover that play activities such as social networks, video downloading, and film would have a negative impact on school performance because their ordinary use by these school-going adolescents captivates their attention to the point of neglecting their lessons and homework to some extent. in other words, students who use their technology or computer tools for documentary, cognitive and cultural research have higher academic performance than their peers who use them for leisure, games and fantasy fulfilment. in the same vein, tiemtoré (2006) showed in his study that cyberaddiction via social networks influences school work. indeed, information and communication technologies are used by students primarily for entertainment and rarely for culture. and this is thanks to the access they provide to a very large quantity of video and audio files on the internet, games and also, through the use of the means of communication (mail, chat, discussion forums, ip telephony, social networks, etc.). this conformity of our results with those of these authors comes from the fact that the subjects are all teenagers. according to rathus (1991), there are coherences in the behaviours of individuals of the same generation. thus, all adolescents in all latitudes would be similar. in fact, they seek to create an adult identity. in the school environment, this is expressed, among other things, through performance 55 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 goals that consist in doing better than others. it is therefore this coherence in the behaviour of adolescents that justifies the similarity between our results and those of the authors mentioned above. with regard to our second operational (h.o.2), our results contrast with those of thuseethan and kuhanesan (2015) and abu-shanab (2015). our results indicate that excessive internet use is not associated with lower educational achievement. in contrast to us, thuseethan and kuhanesan (op.cit.) and abu-shanab (op.cit.) find that social network and internet addiction has a negative influence on students’ academic performance. the non-conformity of our results with those of the above-mentioned authors could be explained by the non-mixed nature of our sample. in fact, we worked on female students whereas the studies of these authors have focused on both genders. the data collected on our subjects were statistically processed using the multivariate analysis of variance, which is a parametric test. this type of statistical test is suitable for large samples. our small sample size may have prevented the appearance of significant differences between cyberaddiction and girls’ academic performance. hence, our results are in contrast to those of these authors. the discrepancy between our results and those of the authors mentioned above may also be due to the fact that we used a different measure of cyberaddiction than the one they applied to their subjects. indeed, to evaluate the addiction of our subjects, we constructed an addiction measurement questionnaire based on the vavassori et al. (2002) and young’s internet addiction test in its french version validated by the khazaal (2008) study. these authors, for their part, constructed a questionnaire to measure internet addiction and, more specifically, the use of facebook, which they applied to their subjects. as a result, our results are not consistent with those of thuseethan and kuhanesan (2015) and abu-shanab (2015). the results of the third operational hypothesis converge in the same direction as some authors. thus, rosen (2003), conducted a study on social networks at le corbusier high school in aubervilliers (93 seine saint denis). it emerges that some respondents spend more than three hours taping their news feeds on facebook or twitter. this influences their academic results because the hours spent on social networks are hours less to concentrate on their revisions. students who use the internet for educational purposes claim to be more focused on their studies so that they can have a better social status later on. these present another approach to the use of social networks. for example, they analyse the demands inherent in school work and plan and mobilise cognitive strategies adapted to these demands. hence the quality of these learners’ achievements. for example, they prefer to use them in the context of educational research, general culture and documentaries. however, students using the internet for entertainment and fantasy fulfilment prefer to spend their time on social networks, downloading videos, music and films rather than studying. for most of them, social networks take up all their time, they can connect to them all day long or even 24 hours a day. teenagers in school who are very often connected on facebook are less good at school. the use of facebook mainly hinders concentration. these students lose all motivation for their studies and live only in the virtual world. during the survey, one student said she liked the comments on the photos she posts on facebook more than the comments composed in class, which tire her brain. 56 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 in sum, 9th grade students who use the internet as a pedagogical tool have higher academic performance than 9th grade students who use it as an entertaining tool, because the former have academic motivation and self-perception in themselves and are therefore able to put in place resources and strategies adapted to school tasks using ict in the sense of cultivating themselves and being motivated to succeed through school. for addictive behaviours it is the theories that are related to certain personality traits such as sensation seeking and impulsivity. in our study we worked on addictive behaviours through sensation seeking. for students with no addictive behaviour, social networks are not their priority on the internet. they rather prefer research and information sites to better cultivate themselves and be more efficient at school. they are quite motivated to succeed through school. as viau says, motivation is the first condition for academic success. moreover, students with addictive behaviours are attracted by the dynamic of sensation-seeking through social networks. they can communicate with their friends, strengthen friendships, entertain themselves or others, plan outings, publish photos, exchange information. indeed, through social media, teenagers are looking for certain sensations, a form of recognition and appreciation. by publishing their content, they are waiting for a reaction from their peers. they are waiting for the validation of their acts. they are looking for adhesion or a reaction. in this way, they can concretely visualize their popularity in their group. at the same time, social networks allow young people to manage their image. by choosing the image they post, they try to show their best profiles. they feel they can control their reputation. this can be explained by viau’s (1994) and zuckerman’s (1969) models, insofar as they emphasize academic motivation and sensation seeking would act to create individual differences in academic performance. in fact, hours lost, scrolling from profile to profile, from photo to photo, are endless. yet the next day they will do exactly the same thing. each time, they forget that they have wasted their time for nothing. as a result, these schoolgirls who are very often connected to social networks (facebook, twitter, whatsapp...) are not as good at school because excessive use of these networks hinders concentration. these subjects lose all motivation to study and live only in the virtual world. in addition to this aspect, to communicate on social networks, girls use more of a writing style that fairon, klien and paumier (2006) describe as sms or cyberlanguage. the sms language does not consist of a separate language or neo-french, but of a series of non-systematically used and intertwined processes to code the french language. the aim of the users being to reduce the message as much as possible, conciseness remains the essential rule of all the transformations noted. numerous coding procedures can be used. it has been noted that the younger the users of sms, the greater the deviation from the standard french language. the cyberlanguage or sms language is significantly shorter with abbreviations than e-mails, which are themselves shorter than the indications produced using paper and pencil. truncated words are also much more frequent in sms. in other words, this language is primarily the product of a search for ways to save time and effort, in order to reduce the number of pressures and to respond more quickly to a message received at the risk of losing the thread of the 57 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 discussion. having the habit of writing in this language on a daily basis, they end up reproducing it in their homework, as we have seen in our research. the female subjects, who do not show any addictive behaviour in the use of the internet and use it as an educational tool, feel that they have the necessary qualities to carry out the tasks requested and get into the activity more easily; they say they persevere and do not fear the difficulty. they prefer research in the library or on the search engine “google” to better train, inform themselves and strengthen their capacity. it should be noted that most of them do not have frequent access to the internet and do not have an account on social networks or when they do, they rarely consult it. they therefore have more time to better focus on their studies. bamaré (2014) announced that the use of social networks mainly hinders concentration. he conducted an experiment in which he found that when students work for fifteen minutes on something important to them, they cannot stay focused for more than about three minutes before going back to the classroom. this created a certain form of addiction and a certain obligation to always connect. it is also observed among teenagers who connect on average 7 days a week, which affects their grades at school and their concentration. 6. conclusion the results we have achieved on the one hand, thanks to statistical processing (student t and anova), show that students in the third grade who use the internet as a teaching tool perform better than those who use it as an entertainment tool. on the other hand, we found that internet addiction does not influence educational outcomes. and finally we found that the averages of students in the third grade who do not exhibit any addictive behaviour in internet use and use them as educational tools are higher than those who have addictive behaviour in the use of the internet and use it as an entertaining and satisfying. the explanation of these different results was based on the models of zuckerman (1969) and viau (1994) to give them a psychological significance. like previous work, this work has shown that cyberaddiction is a reality, and there are considerable variations in it in schools. such a study will make it possible to inform parents about the educational dangers to which their children are exposed by contact with the internet. as for adolescents, it will make them aware of the risks of excessive use of social networks on their studies. references abu-shanab, e. 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(1990). influences of sensation seeking gender, risk, oppraisal, and situational motivation on smoking. addict behavior, 15, 209-220. https://doi.org/10.1016/0306-4603(90)90064-5 61 published by scholink inc. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-6494.00124 https://doi.org/10.1016/0306-4603(90)90064-5 original paper frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no.3, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 44 original paper the relationship between saudi cadets’ willingness to communicate and their english language proficiency ali falah alqahtani1 1 department of languages, king abdulaziz military academy, riyadh, saudi arabia received: april 20, 2023 accepted: may 19, 2023 online published: june 8, 2023 doi:10.22158/fet.v6n3p44 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v6n3p44 abstract this study examines a group of saudi military cadets studying english as a foreign language and their willingness to communicate (wtc) using english. the study investigated the relationship between the cadets’ wtc using english and their english vocabulary size, along with the cadets’ perceived english competence. in addition, the study looked at the relationship between the saudi military cadets’ wtc using english and their l2 anxiety. a survey was designed for and administered to 113 saudi military cadets with an average age of 20 years old. correlation and regression analyses revealed an association between the saudi cadets’ wtc in l2 and the size of their english vocabulary. furthermore, the study found a strong linear relationship between the students’ perception of their competence in english and their wtc in l2. however, the analysis showed a negative relationship between the saudi cadets’ wtc using english and their l2 anxiety. keywords english learning anxiety, vocabulary knowledge, willingness to communicate 1. introduction people learn another language (l2) for various reasons. one such reason is to communicate with people who cannot speak the learner’s mother tongue. for instance, one of the main reasons why saudi students learn english as a foreign language (efl) is to communicate with people around the world who cannot speak arabic. the l2 learners’ desire to communicate in an l2 (i.e., their willingness to communicate (wtc)) helps the l2 learners to develop and become competent l2 users. however, if the l2 learners lack the wtc, they are less likely to engage in opportunities to communicate when they arise, which might hinder them from becoming successful l2 users (alqahtani, 2017). nevertheless, l2 learners’ wtc does not guarantee effective communication, as l2 learners also need to be competent. in addition, competent l2 users should have a decent vocabulary knowledge to help www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 45 published by scholink inc. them to successfully get through communication situations (alqahtani, 2020). therefore, l2 learners who have a wtc and are competent in the l2 usually engage in frequent l2 communication situations, which in turn helps them to develop in the l2 and be more willing to communicate with others. this interactive relationship has been raised by a number of empirical studies in efl contexts (e.g., yashima, 2002, 2009). following the work of macintyre et al. (1998) in conceptualising wtc in l2, a great deal of research has looked at predictors of wtc in l2 from different perspectives. for example, ghonsooly et al. (2013) investigated the relationship between wtc, self-confidence and classroom environment. in addition, öz (2014) looked at the relationship between wtc and personality traits. bursali and öz (2017) and öz and bursali (2018) investigated the relationship between wtc and the l2 motivational self system or one of its constructs. this study will employ a different perspective, as the author will focus on the l2 proficiency of a group of saudi l2 learners of english, as measured by their l2 vocabulary knowledge (vk) and their perception of their l2 competence, and the possible relationship between these factors and the students’ l2 wtc. in addition, the study will investigate the possible relationship between l2 wtc and the saudi l2 learners’ anxiety when using english (i.e., l2 anxiety). another issue that adds to the significance of the study is its context, as the study investigates the l2 wtc construct in an under-researched context: a group of saudi military cadets studying efl. 2. literature review 2.1 l2 willingness to communicate macintyre (2020, p. 115) defines willingness to communicate as “the behavioural intention to communicate at a particular time”. the wtc construct was initially conceptualised in native language (l1) communication literature as a stable personality disposition (burgoon, 1976). basing her work on the idea that some individuals talk more than others, burgoon proposed a scale to measure unwillingness to communicate (unwtc), which would examine “restrained communication” (macintyre, 2020, p. 112). however, mccroskey and baer (1985) criticised the unwtc scale on the grounds that its underlying structure was not clearly defined. they proposed an alternative scale to measure wtc, which was widely used later (chan & mccroskey, 1987; macintyre et al., 1999; mccroskey & richmond, 1991; zakahi & mccroskey, 1989). in addition, macintyre and charos (1996) used a path model on their study and found that perceptions of competence and anxiety have the most direct impact on l1 wtc. nevertheless, when an individual is willing to communicate in l1 (i.e., l1 wtc), he or she will not necessarily also be willing to communicate in l2 (i.e., l2 wtc), as some studies (e.g., charos (1994) have found a negative correlation between l1 wtc and l2 wtc for beginning l2 learners. such differences between l1 wtc and l2 wtc are likely due to the following: [an] uncertainty inherent in l2 use that interacts in a more complex manner with those variables that influence l1 wtc. for example, among most adults, a much greater range in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 46 published by scholink inc. communicative competence would be found in the l2, as compared to the l1. (macintyre et al., 1998, p. 546) one of the most influential works in l2 wtc literature is the heuristic pyramid model of l2 wtc proposed by macintyre et al. (1998). the pyramid consists of six layers organised by time and breadth of concept. the base of the pyramid “reflects the influence of long-term, stable processes. as one moves upward the pyramid, shorter-term, more situation specific or time-limited processes begin to become relevant” (macintyre, 2020, p. 115). see figure 1 for more details. figure 1. the pyramid model of l2 wtc (from macintyre et al., 1998). following the work of macintyre et al. (1998), a number of l2 studies have aimed to identify factors likely to influence wtc in an l2 (e.g., cao and philp (2006) and yashima (2002)). these factors vary, such as the mode of the l2 learner, his or her anxiety, his or her l2 competence and whether there is sufficient time to communicate. yashima (2002) investigated the relationship between l2 wtc among japanese university learners of english and their international posture. she found that international posture “affects learners’ motivation, which leads to proficiency as well as self-confidence, which, in turn, accounts for l2 wtc” (yashima, 2009, p. 147). kim (2004) used macintyre et al.’s model to investigate the l2 wtc among south korean efl students and found that the students’ perceived self-confidence directly impacted their l2 wtc. similarly, cetinkaya (2005) examined the relationship between l2 wtc of turkish l2 students and their perceived communication competence, motivation, anxiety, personality and attitudes. the study revealed a positive relationship between the turkish l2 students’ perceived communication competence and their l2 wtc. furthermore, the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 47 published by scholink inc. students’ l2 wtc was indirectly impacted by the l2 students’ motivation through their own self-confidence. more recently, mahmoodi and moazami (2014) studied the l2 wtc of iranian students learning arabic and concluded that students with high l2 wtc are high l2 achievers. furthermore, saidi (2018) investigated the l2 wtc among malaysian undergraduate students learning english and found that the l2 wtc of the learners fluctuated in accordance with their l2 proficiency levels and ethnicities. finally, in a saudi context, alqurashi and althubaiti (2021) found a relationship between l2 wtc of saudi students learning english and their l2 learning outcomes. they concluded that “students who are reluctant to speak in efl are influenced by limited lexicon, perceived linguistic inadequacies, and fears from making mistakes in their attempt to speak english” (alqurashi, 2022, p. 8992). saudi culture can be regarded as collectivist (alqahtani, 2015; hofstede, 1980). members of collectivist cultures, such as the saudis, tend to be sensitive to social judgment; therefore, they usually adopt face-saving strategies, which makes them less tolerant of ambiguity and uncertainty (obeidat et al., 2012). learning a foreign language such as english implies a great deal of ambiguity, which negatively impacts the willingness of l2 learners from collectivist cultures (e.g., china (wen & clement, 2003), korea (kim, 2012), oman (al-amrani, 2021) and saudi arabia (alqahtani, 2015)) to communicate using the target language. indeed, l2 learners from collectivist cultural backgrounds usually “believe that wrong or inappropriate use of the l2 elements may result in loss of face”, which is likely to make them be “seen as ridiculous” (al-amrani, 2021, p. 2). 2.2 vocabulary knowledge (vk) vk is a twofold concept, as it covers both breadth of knowledge and depth or quality of knowledge. anderson and freebody (1981, p. 92) refer to the breadth of the vk as “the number of the words for which the person knows at least some of the significant aspects of meaning”. in contrast, the depth or quality of the vk refers to the learner needing to “know a great deal about each individual lexical item in order to use it well” (schmitt, 2010, p. 15). the lexical capability of l2 learners mainly depends on the number of words they know: that is, the breadth of their vk (alqahtani, 2020). this has been shown in studies such as that of meara (1996), who found that learners with high levels of vocabulary size were more flexible in comprehension and language use than those with low levels of vocabulary size. in addition, l2 learners’ vocabulary size affects their performance on any language test. therefore, l2 learners’ “language ability is to quite a large extent a function of vocabulary size” (alderson, 2005, p. 88). l2 learners need to acquire a solid level of vocabulary size (breadth of vk) to function in an l2. moreover, to use these vocabulary items efficiently, l2 learners need to know more than just a superficial understanding of a word’s meaning (the depth of vk). in other words, l2 learners should “develop a rich and specific meaning representation as well as knowledge of the word’s formal features, syntactic functioning, collocational possibilities, register characteristics, and so on” (read, 2004, p. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 48 published by scholink inc. 155). thus, “in comparison to learners with lower vocabulary proficiency, learners with higher proficiency are more efficient language users and are well organized” (alqahtani, 2020, p. 3). this study uses the concept of vk to refer to the l2 learners’ recognition of word form. the scale used in the study to measure the participants’ vocabulary size reflects the number of vocabulary items known by the l2 learners (masrai & milton, 2017). it has been found that there is a relationship between english-language learners’ ability as well as their academic achievement and their vk, which affects l2 learners’ success in english (daller & phelan, 2013; roche & harrington, 2013). for instance, saville-troike (1984) examined the vk of school children studying english as an l2 and concluded that it “is the single most important area of l2 competence” (p. 199). in addition, a number of researchers have found moderate to high correlations between the number of vocabulary items known by the language learners and language skills of the language they learn; for example, reading comprehension (qian, 1999); writing ability (stæhr, 2008); and oral fluency (milton et al., 2010). vocabulary size was responsible for “over 50% of variance in scores in foreign language performance” in these studies (masrai & milton, 2017, p. 129). 2.3 l2 anxiety macintyre and gardner (1989, p. 284) define l2 anxiety as “the feeling of tension and apprehension specifically associated with second language contexts, including speaking, listening, and learning”. this feeling negatively affects the l2 learning process, with some studies (e.g., coulombe (2001) revealing a negative impact of l2 anxiety on language learners’ achievements. in addition, horwitz et al. (1986) found that anxious l2 learners showed avoidance behaviours such as missing classes. moreover, in comparison with other l2 learners in the same class, anxious l2 learners normally take more time to learn and recall new l2 vocabulary items (macintyre & gardner, 1989). moreover, anxious l2 learners usually hesitate to volunteer answers in oral activities more than other l2 learners in the same class (ely, 1986). l2 anxiety can be separated into two main divisions: 1) ‘state anxiety’ vs. ‘trait anxiety’ (spielberger & gorsuch, 1983); and 2) ‘debilitating anxiety’ vs ‘facilitating anxiety’ (scovel, 1978). state anxiety refers to the anxiety being temporary and passing, while trait anxiety refers to the anxiety being stable and not fluctuating across different situations. debilitating anxiety negatively impacts l2 learners’ behaviour and hinders their performance, whereas facilitating anxiety improves the l2 learners’ behaviour and enhances their performance. thus, l2 anxiety is a multi-faceted concept, a “distinct complex of self-perceptions, beliefs, feelings, and behaviours arising from the uniqueness of the language learning process” (horwitz et al., 1986, p. 128). in an attempt to measure l2 anxiety, horwitz et al. (1986, p. 127) have suggested that l2 anxiety has three distinct performance-related levels (communication apprehension, test anxiety and fear of negative evaluation), and they developed the foreign language classroom anxiety scale (flcas) to measure these distinct levels of l2 anxiety. alqahtani (2018) recently developed a similar scale, which www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 49 published by scholink inc. he used in a saudi context. the scale focuses on the connection between anxiety and interaction in efl, and this scale is used in this study. 2.4 research questions 1) what is the relationship between the saudi cadets’ l2 wtc and their english language proficiency? 2) is there a statistically significant correlation between l2 wtc and vocabulary size among the saudi cadets? 3) is there a statistically significant correlation between l2 wtc and perceived l2 competence among the saudi cadets? 4) what is the relationship between the saudi cadets’ l2 wtc and their l2 anxiety? 3. method 3.1 participants the population of the study was saudi cadets at a military academy. the academy accepts male students with a high school certificate. therefore, the sample of the study was only males. cadets spend three years (two terms a year) at the academy, studying a range of civilian and military subjects. to graduate from the academy, cadets must pass in all subjects. cadets study efl in each of the six terms, and the curriculum covers a wide range of topics, from general english to military english. based on their performance in english tests, cadets may receive a scholarship to study abroad. this means that english is essential for the future of these saudi cadets. the sample of the study was randomly selected from cadets in their second year at the academy. the average age of the participants was 20 years old. the number of the cadets who volunteered to participate in the study was 113 (16.5%) of the 684 second-year cadets. 3.2 instruments 3.2.1 l2 wtc and l2 anxiety questionnaire the author used a 5-point likert-scale questionnaire to measure the students’ l2 wtc, l2 communication frequency, perceived l2 competence and l2 anxiety. the questionnaire was adapted from a number of previous scales: the l2 wtc scale (macintyre et al., 2001); the l2 communication frequency scale (macintyre & charos, 1996); the perceived l2 competence (alqahtani, 2020) scale; and the l2 anxiety scale (alqahtani, 2018). the cadets participated in the study on a voluntary basis. the author assured the anonymity of the participants before distributing the questionnaires. the scales of the study are defined below, and an example is given for each scale: the l2 wtc scale consisted of 26 items that referred to the willingness of the cadets to engage in english (l2) communication tasks during class time. on a scale from 1 to 5, the cadets were asked to indicate how willing they would be to communicate in english, with 1 = almost never willing; 2 = sometimes willing; 3 = willing half of the time; 4 = usually willing; and 5 = almost always willing. the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 50 published by scholink inc. 26 items covered four major l2 skills areas to get a better understanding of both the more receptive (e.g., reading) and more active (e.g., speaking) engagement with the l2: 1) speaking (8 items): “speaking in a group about your summer vacation” 2) comprehension (5 items): “listen to instructions and complete a task” 3) reading (5 items): “read a novel” 4) writing (8 items): “write an advertisement to sell an old bike”. the l2 communication frequency scale consisted of nine communication contexts involving speaking in english (l2) to friends, acquaintances, and strangers in three settings: dyads, small groups and formal meetings. on a scale from 1 to 5, the students were asked to indicate how frequently they would communicate in english, with 1 = never; 2 = rarely; 3 = sometimes; 4 = often and 5 = many, many times. an example item is “talk with an acquaintance”. the perceived l2 competence scale was a self-rating scale, with the cadets assessing their own english (l2) competence in the four skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing). the respondents were asked to rate themselves in each skill on a scale from 1 to 5, with 1 being the lowest value and 5 being the highest. such a self-rating scale is common in second-language acquisition (sla) studies (e.g., alqahtani (2020); zhou (2016)). the l2 anxiety scale was made up of six items that referred to how anxious the students would feel when speaking english (l2). on a scale from 1 to 5, the cadets were asked to indicate how anxious they would feel when communicating in english, with 1 = almost never, 2 = seldom, 3 = half of the time, 4 = usually and 5 = almost always. an example item is “i feel nervous and confused when i speak english in my english class.” testing vocabulary size to measure the vocabulary size of this sample of saudi efl learners, the author used the x-lex vocabulary test (meara & milton, 2003), which measures the most frequent 5000 receptive words in english in written modality. the x-lex is composed of 120 words: 100 real english words and 20 pseudowords (non-words) that are used as a control for guesswork. the participants were simply asked to tick the vocabulary items they knew and to leave the vocabulary items they did not know unticked. the maximum possible score of 5000 would be obtained when the student ticked all the 100 real english words and left the 20 pseudowords unticked. 3.3 data analysis procedure the collected data were analysed using ibm spss 20 software. first, the coefficient of the internal consistency for the scales used was measured to examine the reliability of these scales. after that, descriptive statistics such as mean, standard deviation and skewness were calculated to help the author describe the characteristics of the sample and check possible violation of the variables (pallant, 2010). at last, the author administered correlation and regression analyses to investigate the relationships between the scales used in the study. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 51 published by scholink inc. to proceed further with statistical tests such as correlation and regression for the vocabulary size of the sample of the study, the participants were divided, based on their score in the vocabulary test, into five groups (i.e., levels) ranging from 1 (the lowest value) to 5 (the highest value). the length of the category was calculated based on the highest score (4200), as it was divided by the levels of the score (5): 4200/5 = 840. for more details, see the tables below: table 1. levels of participants based on their l2 vocabulary size test degree level vs test score frequency percentage 1 very poor 0–840 26 23 2 poor 841–1680 37 32.7 3 good 1681–2520 33 29.2 4 very good 2521–3360 11 9.7 5 excellent 3361–4200 6 5.3 total 113 100 table 2. descriptive statistics of the participants’ l2 vocabulary size score descriptive statistics value mean 2.42 median 2.0 standard deviation 1.11 skewness .52 kurtosis -.29 4. results 4.1 reliability and descriptive statistics the reliability of the items used in the study questionnaire can be claimed based on the values of the cronbach’s alpha. the questionnaire attained internal consistency, as the cronbach’s alpha values for all the scales were above the minimum accepted value in social sciences studies, which is 0.60 (pallant, 2010). see table 3 for the cronbach’s alpha values of the scales used. next, for the purpose of assessing the normality of the obtained data, the skewness and kurtosis data were calculated. the perfect normal distribution of the data takes place when the values of the skewness and kurtosis are 0, which is difficult to achieve in social sciences studies (pallant, 2010). however, the data can be claimed normal if skewness values do not exceed 2.0, and kurtosis values do not exceed 7.0 (tabachnick & fidell, 2007). the data of this study can be regarded as normal, as the values of skewness did not exceed 2.0, and the values of kurtosis did not exceed 7.0. see table 3 for details. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 52 published by scholink inc. later, descriptive statistics (mean, median, standard deviation) for the scales used were calculated to compare the values of the scales used and to have a comprehensive interpretation of the results. for instance, it was found that the l2 vocabulary size score of the students was low (2.42 out of 5), as more than half of the students scored below 1680 words out of 5000. moreover, in comparison, students’ perception of their l2 competence could be considered as high (3.27 out of 5), and their score in l2 anxiety was low (2.20 out of 5). such values combined might have indicated that despite the fact that the participants’ l2 vocabulary size was poor, their perception of their competence in english was high, as their anxiety was low. table 3. reliability and descriptive statistics of the scales name of the scale cronbach’s alpha value mean median std. deviation skewness value kurtosis value 1. l2 wtc .94 2.88 2.77 .855 .31 -.58 2. l2 communication frequency .93 2.53 2.33 1.09 .62 -.47 3. l2 anxiety .80 2.20 2.17 .875 .69 .19 4. perceived l2 competence .74 3.27 3.25 .866 .01 -.57 5. l2 vocabulary size 2.42 2.00 1.11 .52 -.29 4.2 correlation the correlation analysis was used to help explore possible linear relationships between the scales used in the study. based on the instructions of cohen (1988), the correlation between scales could be regarded as strong if the values of the correlation coefficient exceeded .49. half of the correlation coefficient values were strong. another issue to mention was that all correlation coefficient values between l2 anxiety and other scales were negative, which might have indicated the negative influence of anxiety on the l2 learning process. see table 4 for more details. the l2 wtc had a strong linear correlation with the l2 communication frequency (.738), as well as a strong linear correlation with the students’ perception of their l2 competence (.685). this might have indicated that when l2 learners had a serious willingness to communicate in l2, this would possibly help them to have more frequent communication in l2, which in turn likely helped them to gain a positive perception of their competence in l2. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 53 published by scholink inc. table 4. correlation coefficient values for the scales scales 1 2 3 4 5 1. l2 wtc __ 2. l2 communication frequency .738** __ 3. l2 anxiety -.343** -.385** __ 4. perceived l2 competence .685** .591** -.491** __ 5. l2 vocabulary size .355** .227* -.285** .460** __ **p < .01 * p < .05 4.3 regression a stepwise multiple regression was administered to a) determine the scales contributing to the willingness of the designated group of saudi cadets to communicate in english and b) predict the frequency of their communication with others using english. the assumptions of normality and multicollinearity were tested for violation. when the independent variables show high correlation (r = .9 and above), multicollinearity exists. another indicator is the values of “tolerance” and “vif” (variance inflation factor). multicollinearity exists when the values are below (.10) for tolerance and above (10) for vif. see pallant (2010, pp. 151-158) for more details. the values of the scales used did not show any violation of the multicollinearity assumption. first, the model of the best predictors for the frequency of the communication of the saudi cadets in english explains 56% of the variance in their communication with others using english. the mentioned value can be regarded as exceptionally high in the field of social sciences studies (alqahtani, 2020; dörnyei & ushioda, 2011). the model showed that the l2 wtc scale and the l2 anxiety scale respectively contributed significantly to predicting the frequency of the communication of the saudi l2 learners in english. while the l2 wtc scale contributed positively to the designated group of saudi l2 learners’ frequent l2 communication, the anxiety that the saudi l2 learners experienced when using english contributed negatively to these learners’ frequency of communication in english with others. see table 5 for details. then, the author conducted a stepwise multiple regression analysis to determine the scales that contributed to the l2 saudi learners’ perception of their competence in english. the model explained 58% of the variance in the saudi l2 learners’ perceived competence. three scales contributed significantly to predicting the saudi cadets’ perception of their competence in english, which were l2 wtc, l2 anxiety and l2 vocabulary size, respectively. the strongest predictor was the willingness of these learners to communicate in english, which explained 53% of the variance in their perception of their competence in english. in addition, the l2 vocabulary size that the participants obtained positively contributed to their perceived l2 competence. however, the anxiety that the saudi learners www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 54 published by scholink inc. experienced when using english negatively contributed to their perception of their competence in english. see table 6 for details. a stepwise multiple regression analysis was then conducted to determine the scales that contributed to the students’ l2 vocabulary size. the regression model explained 21% of the variance in the english vocabulary size of these saudi l2 learners. the students’ perception of their competence in english was the only scale that contributed significantly to predicting the students’ english vocabulary size. see table 7 for more details. finally, a stepwise multiple regression analysis was conducted, based on the saudi l2 learners’ wtc in english. the regression model explained 64% of the variance in the saudi students’ wtc in english. the model showed that the l2 communication frequency scale and perceived l2 competence scales respectively contributed significantly to predicting the saudi l2 learners’ wtc in english. the saudi cadets’ frequent communication in english explained 51% of the variance to their wtc in english, and their perception of their competence in english explained 38% of the variance. for more details, see table 8. table 5. regression model based on l2 communication frequency as the dependent variable variable final model b se b β l2 wtc .88 .09 .69* l2 anxiety -.19 .08 -.15* r² .56 f for change in r² 4.98* *p < .05 table 6. regression model based on perceived l2 competence as the dependent variable variable final model b se b β l2 wtc .53 .07 .53* l2 anxiety -.25 .07 -.25* l2 vocabulary size .16 .05 .20* r² .58 f for change in r² 8.76* *p < .05 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 55 published by scholink inc. table 7. regression model based on l2 vocabulary size as the dependent variable variable final model b seb β perceived l2 competence .59 .11 .46* r² .21 f for change in r² 29.81* *p < .05 table 8. regression model based on l2 wtc as the dependent variable variable final model b se b β l2 communication frequency . 40 .06 .51* perceived l2 competence .38 .07 .38* r² .64 f for change in r² 29.12* *p < .05 5. discussion the vast majority of the participants had poor l2 proficiency, with only 17 (15%) out of the 113 students scoring above the average 2500 out of 5000 that the x-lex vocabulary test (meara & milton, 2003) measured. this mirrored the findings of recent studies conducted in similar saudi contexts (e.g., alqahtani, 2020; alqurashi and althubaiti (2021)). there is a consensus among these studies that saudi efl learners suffer from a limited lexicon and have linguistic inadequacies. by combining the results of the correlation analysis and regression analysis, some interesting findings can be noted. for example, the correlation analysis showed that the relationship between the l2 vocabulary size of the designated saudi english learners and their wtc in english was moderate (r = .355), and the relationship between the learners’ l2 vocabulary size and their perception of their competence in english was also moderate (r = .460). the correlation analysis also revealed a strong linear relationship between the students’ perception of their competence and their wtc in english (r = .685), as well as the frequency of their communication with others using the target language (r = .591). in addition, the regression analyses revealed that the l2 vocabulary size contributed significantly (explaining 20% of the variance) to the prediction of the saudi l2 learners’ perception of their competence in english, which in turn significantly contributed (explaining 38% of the variance) to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 56 published by scholink inc. the prediction of the willingness of these saudi english learners to communicate in l2. this possibly indicates that the l2 proficiency of the l2 learners impacts their wtc using the target language, which is in line with the findings of other studies conducted in other asian efl contexts, such as saidi (2018) in malaysia and yashima (2002) in japan. nevertheless, the results of this current study suggest that such influence was mediated by the learners’ perception of their competence in english, which coincides with the findings of al-amrani (2019), who concluded that the omani l2 learners’ perception of their competence had a significant and direct influence on their wtc in english. in the same vein, after examining the relationship between the l2 proficiency scales (l2 vocabulary size and perceived l2 competence) and the communication-related variables (l2 wtc and l2 communication frequency), it is notable that the regression analysis showed that the l2 vocabulary size contributed significantly to the prediction of the perceived l2 competence (explaining 20% of the variance). furthermore, the perceived l2 competence contributed significantly to the prediction of the saudi english learners’ wtc with others using the target language (explaining 38% of the variance). moreover, the l2 wtc significantly contributed to the prediction of the saudi learners’ frequency of communication using english (explaining 69% of the variance). this possibly means that the more english vocabulary items that the saudi l2 learners acquire, the more proficient in english they are likely to feel, which in turn might help them to be more wtc in english with others, which also might help them to have more frequent communication with others using the target language. such a conclusion lends more support to the findings of macintyre and charos (1996) in their study in a canadian context: namely, that adult french learners’ perceived l2 competence positively contributed to their wtc in french, which in turn positively contributed to their frequent communication in french. furthermore, the correlation analysis in this study showed negative relationships between 1) l2 anxiety and l2 wtc (r = -.343), which was moderate; 2) l2 anxiety and l2 communication frequency (r = -.385), which was also moderate; and 3) l2 anxiety and perceived l2 competence (r = -.491), which was strong. in addition, the regression analysis revealed that l2 anxiety made a significant negative contribution to the prediction of the saudi students’ frequency of communication with others using english (explaining 15% of the variance), as well as to the prediction of learners’ perception of their competence in english (explaining 25% of the variance). moreover, the regression analysis revealed that l2 anxiety was not among the scales that contributed to the designated saudi efl learners’ wtc with others using english. this might have suggested that the influence of l2 anxiety on the saudi l2 learners’ wtc with others using the target language was mediated by the students’ perception of their competence in english, as well as the frequency of their communication with others using the target language. in other words, as the saudi efl students perceived their own linguistic inadequacies and were aware of their limited lexicon, this might have made them afraid of making mistakes while communicating with others using english. in turn, this might have made the students less wtc in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 57 published by scholink inc. english, which supports the findings of alqurashi and althubaiti (2021) in a similar saudi efl context. another issue that might have influenced the saudi efl learners’ wtc using the target language, despite their high perception of their competence in english, was the impact of the arab collectivist culture. namely, l2 learners from collectivist cultures are often low risk takers and adopt face-saving strategies (al-amrani & harrington, 2020; kim, 2012; wen & clement, 2003). therefore, arab l2 learners such as the saudis “prefer to be reticent and silent rather than enter into discourse” when “they are not certain about the language elements (e.g., grammar, vocabulary, structure, pronunciation and meaning)” (al-amrani, 2021, p. 3). 6. conclusion in relation to the research questions of the study, a relationship was found between the willingness of the saudi cadets to communicate with others using english and their proficiency in the target language. the relationship between the cadets’ perception of their competence in english and their wtc with others using english was strong. however, the relationship between the size of the l2 vocabulary items they had acquired and their willingness to communicate with others using english was not strong. in addition, the analysis of the data showed that l2 anxiety negatively influenced the designated sample of saudi english learners’ frequency of communication with others using english, as well as their perception of their competence in english, which in turn affected their wtc in english. last but not least, i acknowledge, based on the sample of the study, the gender bias of the survey, since the military academy admission is restricted to male students. therefore, the generalisation of the findings to the wider saudi english learners is limited. nevertheless, the study might help researchers, readers, and/or teachers to get a better understanding of english learners from efl contexts and, more specifically, those from collectivist cultures such as the saudis. references al-amrani, s. n. 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(2016). the roles of social anxiety, autonomy, and learning orientation in second language learning: a structural equation modeling analysis. system, 63, 89-100. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2016.09.001 https://doi.org/https:/doi.org/10.1186/2229-0443-3-12 https://doi.org/https:/doi.org/10.2307/3586690 https://doi.org/https:/doi.org/10.1057/9780230293977 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-1770.1978.tb00309.x https://doi.org/https:/doi.org/10.1080/09571730802389975 https://doi.org/10.1080/07908310308666654 https://doi.org/https:/doi.org/10.1111/1540-4781.00136 https://doi.org/10.21832/9781847691293-008 https://doi.org/10.1080/08934218909367489 https://doi.org/https:/doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2016.09.001 frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no.1, 2021 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) original paper icts and new scenarios for diversity josé manuel salum tomé, phd1 1 doctor of education, cautin, chile received: january 2, 2021 accepted: january 21, 2021 online published: february 8, 2021 doi:10.22158/fet.v4n1p12 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v4n1p12 abstract research is a process aimed at seeking new knowledge, in this case, it will be to find alternative paths in the field of new technologies that serve to support special educational needs. society demands these technological contributions to solve problems that contribute to inclusion, which led man to work with greater ergonomics; the school, a social institution, also needs these resources so that all students can build a teaching process of functional and meaningful learning for each and every student. the educational system outlines an education that attends to the educational needs of all students; and from these pages the intention is that new technologies are a path of support that assists diversity and inclusion. keywords icts, diversity, inclusion 1. introduction society advances at a dizzying pace, the future is immediately present, the institutions that make up the different spheres provide efficiency, quality, drive and validity in a minimum time; and education cannot be withdrawn, it must be in accordance with the world in which we live. and a key part of most social systems are new technologies, they support current and future projects in all areas, and we stop here, since it is also educational. icts as an educational instrument will have to create immediate responses in order to attend to diversity; will have to solve pending questions in the education regarding the subjects with deficiency, handicap and/or disability; new challenges will have to be faced in the face of equal opportunities for all subjects with the right to a decent education; it will create material resources so that students, whether or not they have special educational needs, can learn without distinction; in short, research must be at the service of the educational process, in this case, innovating and creating technological resources that can be incorporated into the inclusive classroom. 12 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 we can observe that when speaking of the media and new technologies applied to attention to diversity, it is to focus on two important points: to keep in mind that these materials are intended to integrate students; teachers must include these means as a resource capable of adapting to a wide range of educational needs of students; otherwise, we would be segregating subjects for having some learning difficulty. research must be at the service of education to design and produce specific means that can be of help and benefit to people with special educational needs. educational institutions, throughout their history, have used different technological resources to support their activities. traditionally, the educational resources used only allowed to carry out information transmission processes in a unidirectional and passive way for students through standard formats, while on the contrary, the new icts incorporated in the last decades have made it possible to guarantee two-way communication, higher levels of interaction between teachers and students, and the use of new multimedia formats. in the case of chile, in recent years the use of ict in education has increased considerably, responding to the changes brought about by the introduction of new technologies to the teaching and learning processes, which has opened up the possibility that education reach a larger number of students, also allowing to generate a greater personalization of the teaching and learning processes, a necessary condition to achieve significant learning and finally, it has provided the possibility of providing students with the technological and pedagogical resources that eventually allow them to be agents in the production and distribution of knowledge. this introduction of ict to education has been the result of a process fundamentally planned, implemented and promoted by the enlace program, an initiative that dates back to the early 1990s. this program began in 1992 as a pilot initiative and aimed to introduce infrastructure and connectivity in schools, implement digital resources, develop teacher training and carry out methodological support, promoting educational equity and quality. in 1998, this program became a national-level initiative under the ministry of education, and in 2006, 92% of public schools already had appropriate infrastructure. according to sánchez and salinas, the implementation of links considerably improved the access and use of ict. even the report of the world economic forum, which aims to compare the use of technology among 143 countries in different social areas such as work, daily life and education, places chile as the best positioned latin american country in the region. however, the measurements made in 2011 by the chilean ministry of education, through the simce ict for new ideas in educational computing tise 2015, 222 school students, show some limitations. the assessed skills, which go beyond a purely technical domain, assume the ability to solve real-life problems in digital environments. the results obtained reveal that three quarters of the students can be considered functional manipulators of technologies, that is, that they have the ability to search for information, organize and manage digital information. notwithstanding the foregoing, only a third of students are capable of developing higher-order cognitive processes, which involve the development of their own ideas in digital environments. in summary, although there has been an intention to promote the 13 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 use of ict, particularly in education, a large part of users is still not able to build and/or distribute agent knowledge and information. considering the above, it is necessary to know what is effectively investigated when empirically studying the relationship between ict and education. with this objective, this review seeks to account for the current state of research in this area, through an updated and systematic review of the literature that allows assessing the state of research regarding the use of technology and its relationship with processes of learning in which it is involved, seeking to answer the following questions: what are the real uses of technology for educational purposes? what is the effect of its uses on the teaching and learning processes? 1.1 the concept of icts and education as a previous step to the description of the findings of this review, it is necessary to clarify the terminology related to the topic that gives rise to this work. in more concrete terms, address concepts and definitions related to ict and education in chile. the concepts that arise from this thematic area are related, for the most part, to the use or employment of technology to the teaching and learning process. when talking about the use or application of technology in educational contexts, we commonly refer to digital technologies in general, which can include software, television, smartphones and the internet. more specifically and for the purposes of this review, the ict concept will include all those digital technologies or resources, mentioned above, used for the purpose of communicating, creating, disseminating, storing and managing information in teaching and learning situations. one of the main and most recurring concepts in the literature reviewed is that of information and communication technologies or ict. for this same reason, this concept also has multiple meanings, something similar occurs with the term e-learning or online learning/education, distance learning and computer supported collaborative learning (cscl). similarly, the term e-learning or online learning/education refers to the teaching and learning processes facilitated through ict, specifically the internet. distance learning/education, meanwhile, defines all those teaching and learning situations where teachers and students do not share the same space and time. the foregoing is also related to the concept of blended learning or b-learning, which refers to those instances that combine teaching and learning processes in face-to-face and non-face-to-face contexts. for allen & seaman blearning (also called hybrid learning) consists of instructional processes where much of the content (30% to 80%) is provided online. a line of research that manages to group together these commonly used generic concepts when we refer to technology and learning is computer supported collaborative learning (cscl). cscl is a multidisciplinary research line based on collaborative learning and information and communication technologies. in simple terms, this area of research studies how people learn in conjunction with the support of computers, emphasizing the construction of knowledge that occurs in teaching and learning situations. 14 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 this area of research has different approaches, but fundamentally focuses on the idea that the construction of knowledge and subsequently, learning are processes that occur through the mediation of technology. this concept of mediation has its origin in the sociocultural perspective of teaching and learning that arises in agreement with the ideas of vygotsky and his followers. as coll, mauri and onrubia maintain, the development of higher psychological processes that operate in learning are characterized by the use of instruments of symbolic origin acquired socially such as language and other systems of representation that mediate between the subject and that which is the object of your learning (content). similarly, ict is a means of representation that can introduce favorable changes in learning since it implies that students develop new skills through these new forms of transmission, processing and use of information. according to what rassmussen and ludvigsen have stated, this mediation process is based on the hypothesis that individual agency and, therefore, the construction of knowledge, occurs through the relationship and interaction with other individuals in diverse social contexts. similarly, the relationship between the learning process and technology is located at the intersection between the individual and what surrounds him, that is, this relationship occurs through the mediation of cultural tools, which can be mental and/or materials. another dimension of the relationship between ict and education relates to the abilities or skills that students have to use these tools, called computer literacy, media literacy or ict skills in english. this area is related to the development, measurement and comparison of skills and/or abilities in the use of ict in teachers and students. in the field of teaching, much of the research carried out corresponds to teacher training, which in turn is divided into initial teacher training and university teaching training. in this area, a previous review carried out by claro (2015), which summarizes research related to the impact of ict on the learning of chilean students, indicates that the improvements reported in learning are fundamentally related to the development of specific skills in the use of ict in also specific areas of knowledge, reporting greater impacts on the uses and skills of ict in the areas of language, mathematics and science. there are also minor impacts on “other” learning, such as motivation, digital literacy, and development of transversal skills and abilities. in short, considering the background set out above, it is widely known that icts can contribute to considerably improve in the processes of new ideas in educational computing (tise 2015), teaching and learning, in some occasions, an adequate use of these technologies can generate a significant impact within the classroom, specifically when they mediate the relationship of the users of these technologies with information and with other users. in this sense, there is also an agreement that the use of ict contributes considerably to facilitating processes related to learning, such as the transfer of information, the exchange and development of ideas, the exploration of shared resources and collaboration in the construction of knowledge. however, the aforementioned, this relationship is somewhat more complex, considering that the introduction of technology to teaching processes does not by itself modify or improve learning processes. 15 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 returning to the approaches held by the sociocultural perspective mentioned above, the acquisition or development of skills in the use of ict refers to the meaning given to information through the use of socially and culturally available resources and the way they are used said resources in communication through different formats and media. thus, technology is conceived as an available cultural tool that also changes over time. in this same sense, the acquisition of competences and/or skills in the use of technology for educational purposes overcomes the simple “literacy” that is related to basic communication skills with the support of technology and is closer to higher-order cognitive skills than they are linked to the creation of content and the construction of knowledge through or through the mediation of technological tools or supports. sefton-green, nixon and erstad point out that these ict skills and competences can be summarized as: basic skills (general use of a computer that includes aspects such as the use of text editing software and other basic programs), skills related to information access and management (searching the internet, downloading information, classifying and reorganizing it critically) and skills related to content creation (communicating information through different media and formats and interacting or collaborating with others to create new content). 1.2 what do we understand by new educational technologies? we can say that technological development defines social change, and that consequently technology has a direct and significant influence on society, which also has an impact on the educational field. but what is understood by “new technologies”, according to martínez (1999) states that in recent years this term has been coined to name a series of machines that have the common denominator of having been created from the material development of microelectronics and that they are being applied in various communication systems; and the idea of “progress” has been associated with new technologies; in short, they are electronic tools in continuous development. these new technologies are made up of a formal aspect, since they are “means” that consume, store, use and provide data; and a material aspect, they have storage capacity and complementation, and speed. the new educational technologies that are being progressively incorporated in the educational centers are innovative means that will allow members of the educational community to develop more complete and effective training due to the characteristics offered by these resources, among which we can highlight: great ability to adjust and adapt to the different characteristics of individuals, group work, the sender and the receiver can be found in different places and times, training in technological content, among others. in the educational process, technological resources must be incorporated that are truly useful for all students because, given a diversity of individual characteristics, the teacher must resort to mechanisms that offer adequate performance. many are the social institutions, worldwide, that obtain a beneficial result from these technologies, and at the educational level, the compensation that working with them should also be used. 16 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 1.3 how to attend to diversity with technological tools educational development is based on an understanding between the teacher and the students, for this, good communication is necessary; this does not occur in a vacuum, in this case, its context is the classroom, and according to schramm (1973; cit. in cabero, 1999, p. 39) “to communicate you have to want to do it.” communication is a process of data transmission and acquisition, it is an explicit and implicit manifesto of information that the issuer intends to manifest to the receiver; in an inclusive classroom, individual differences are quite a lot, so attention must be paid to ensure that there is fluid communication between members. we must say that the new technologies as an educational resource will help us so that the teaching-learning process enjoys good communication since there are hardware and software adapted to the educational needs of the students and thus, the teacher can impart their work without difficulty of understanding. educational technological resources have a high capacity to adapt to the handicaps, deficiencies and/or disabilities that may arise in the classroom; an example of this may be the different hardware and software that we can resort to so that students work with multimedia equipment and can access it without causing segregation between subjects with special educational needs and the rest of the individuals. regarding these hardware and software mentioned, we can present a series of examples depending on the type of disability (toledo, 2001): 1). motor disabled: keyboards adapted to subjects with psychomotricity problems where the repetition rate of the keys and the sequence of keystrokes, switches or pointers are modified to access computers, telephones, etc., for students who cannot move their fingers and type (hardware); speech recognition programs for subjects who cannot use the keyboard due to their limitations (software). 2). visually impaired: screen amplifiers for people with low vision, and they would become like a kind of magnifying glasses (hardware); the “dile” program is an encyclopedic dictionary in spanish designed to be used by blind people or people with severe visual problems (software). 3). brain injuries and cognitive delay: the “millie’s house of mathematics” program that consists of six activities where students can explore mathematical knowledge (software); “trudy’s house of time and space” also includes five activities, but related to geography and time (software). equal opportunities can be a reality today with the help of these technological advances. all subjects enrolled in educational centers who receive formal education must receive adequate support according to their specific characteristics (arnáiz, 1996); education must be tailored to everyone, otherwise we would be segregating and discriminating against students (garcía pastor, 2000); from these pages we propose how necessary is a legal framework that responds to diversity, as well as functional, human and material resources to bring the theory to an educational practice accessible to all. we previously said fuentes 4 magazine, pere marquès pilar casals (2003), that educational research is an essential tool for teaching to develop and adjust to all learners; new technologies can provide this service as material 17 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 capable of adapting to special educational needs, and the teachers trained in these resources will be the appropriate personnel to instruct. the use of new technologies for educational purposes must open new doors in the teaching-learning processes for those who use them and may obtain important benefits in education. although we do not intend to cut traditional material such as textbooks, blackboards, worksheets, we must say that these are characterized by the unidirectional relationship between them and the receiver; and in favor of new technologies, we must say that a good use and knowledge of these promote bidirectional communication processes, for which we say that for this, both students and teachers must be trained in handling, language and ideological criticism. in this educational context, and fuentes 4 magazine, pere marquès pilar casals (2003), muntaner (2000, p. 775) exposes: “... interactivity with computer and audiovisual technologies should mean the construction of new knowledge that can be represented in a way different from what we are used to.” now, since the presence of personal computers began to expand in the 1980s, a career of advances began that had a boost in 1990 with the penetration of the internet and that in recent years with the possibilities that our cell phones have. society has changed. a change that should be reflected in education. there are many looks to be made in which, perhaps, the educational use of these tools is a very important topic, but it is not the only one. let’s start with initial education, where everything begins. the digital world is approaching these levels. is it appropriate? should the construction of all the competencies be different? families play an important role in these ages. are you aware of the harm/benefits of parking your child with technological devices? something similar occurs in primary education. the media is full of news, some not so true, that in a reference country handwriting is eliminated, the fact that a public school in madrid forces 6-year-olds to equip themselves with a 650-euro ipad, and many similar ones. faced with these situations, what attitude should education take? at this level, the relationship with two aspects of life such as nature and art. are they used? are they taught? what role should we give to technologies in the education of a 10-year-old boy or girl? when we face secondary education and high school we must begin to bear in mind the end of that stage. are the same knowledge that we should give to students in the digital society as in the industrial one? a subject that may require major reforms so that our students upon arrival at the university have the required knowledge, attitudes, aptitudes and content. an example is the ability to work as a team. another example is digital citizenship. our students pass secondary school spend a large part of their social life in the digital environment. do we educate them for it? do they know how to protect their privacy? do they know how to react to digital harassment? at these levels, technologies take a more present role in education. education cannot be neutral against commercial interests and must defend technological independence so as not to create tied consumers for tomorrow. 18 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 an important point for the new economy is the ability of education to train professionals suited to the new labor markets and in this point professional technical education plays an important role. it must stop being the second option, it must offer attractive studies for its connection to the new society and for its employability. our public inclusion policies have several constant slogans. one of them, perhaps the main one, is to promote an inclusive education, in which everyone feels welcomed, in which young people have the opportunity to be in classrooms and in which their right to be educated is not expropriated. can the digital environment help us in this regard? could it be a means to help us dramatically decrease school failure? how? two instruments are mainly affected by the digital environment. on the one hand, literacy and on the other, mathematics. they are two curricular spaces that are present from early childhood education. their good learning is transferred to other subjects and therefore they have great relevance. how do we approach literacy in the digital society? mathematics has found a great resource in geogebra and other free tools that can be used from primary to university and behind which there are a huge number of developers who improve and extend them. on these reflections we have two pending issues. the first is that of teacher training, both initial and continuing. it is necessary to give a relevant role to the digital environment. teachers must know the tools that they will have and be able to keep up to date, and collaborative work is essential for this. the other pending issue, and perhaps always pending, is that of evaluation. we must move from words to deeds. fifty years ago there was talk of ratings, numbers, and increasingly stronger now there is talk of evaluations, that is, appreciations not always transferable to numbers. many teachers find themselves with an elaborate assessment work that they cannot later transfer to the data collection tools that are not allow you to enter anything other than a number. we must break the numerical inertia and go to the qualitative. are new possibilities opened up thanks to the digital environment? 1.4 the chilean experience in recent years, chile has considerably increased the use of ict in educational contexts. despite this progress, there is little information to report the research that has been carried out in this area. with the purpose of knowing the state of the arts in education that uses information technologies, a systematic search of the literature was carried out, which resulted in 90 works, of which 45 were selected, corresponding to studies published since 2005 in forward and obey previously defined criteria to ensure the rigor and quality of the review. the findings refer to three main areas: research related to the development of skills and use of ict, development of ict skills in teacher training and use of technological supports in educational contexts. the findings of this review allow us to have a clearer picture regarding the work of education and ict in chile, showing that most of the research carried out in the area refers to the measurement of ict use or skills in teachers and students or technological devices and very little to the impact of technology on learning. categories and subject descriptors [computers 19 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 and education]: computer uses in education. general terms documentation, human factors. keywords systematic literature review, ict in chile, empirical studies. virtual education with e-learning and b-learning modality for teacher updating is an initiative with coverage throughout the chilean territory and is funded by the chilean ministry of education through the center for improvement, experimentation and pedagogical research (cpeip). it has been developed by the center for the development of innovations in education. the training is inserted within the framework of the curricular reform, and incorporates ict resources in learning activities and teacher training. this modality was born in the context of a line of teacher training with the support of a virtual component implemented by the cpeip. on the other hand, a recent study carried out under the links project shows that 92% of establishments have technological infrastructure and 76% of teachers have been trained in the use of ict, the foregoing as a result of project implementation. links. on the other hand, the penetration of ict use in teachers is increasing, 80% of teachers with equipment in the home, 51% with internet, 58% with broadband (collect & links, 2004). the development and implementation of the experience included: a) the selection and training of tutors, b) the pedagogical design of the course, c) the design and implementation of the course on the moodle platform; d) development of various content support resources, e) application of pre and post test and summative and formative evaluations. the course trained 786 teachers nationwide, divided into 29 courses, with an average of 27 students per course. for tutorial support during the implementation of the course, a community of tutors was created to support them in their tasks of tutoring the course in the areas: administrative, technical, social and pedagogical. the work methodology placed the teacher at the center of learning, as an apprentice who autonomously defines her learning path. in this context, the participant builds knowledge through interaction with: the materials, the tutor and the classmates in a diverse educational environment. the development and implementation of the experience included: the selection and training of tutors, for which the salmon e-modetaring model was used, creating activities as learning objects. a profile was designed to select the tutors and they were trained through an e-learning course that ended with a face-to-face meeting. regarding the pedagogical design of the course, which has been conceived under an interactive model for the teaching of mathematics whose conception is very close to the expression of the madison project, which is synthesized in: “guess-try, put the idea to the test-watch what happens and ... learn how to continue. otherwise the design and implementation of the course on the moodle platform; contemplated the organization of content into units, which have three areas: activities and assessment: it meets the set of activities organized weekly, within the week by day and within the day, specific activities with a brief description and time development estimate, considers a weekly formative evaluation and a unit grade; interactions: includes a discussion forum, a space for consultations and a wall newspaper; library: groups the different resources such as readings, guides, applets, reference material. 20 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 guides, reference material, applets (component of an application that runs in the context of another program, for example, in a web browser), readings, references to sites were implemented for the development of the various content support resources, among other resources. likewise, a pre and post tests were applied at the beginning of the course, a pre-test and a post-test at the end. in the obtaining and analysis of the information, statistical data were taken on in-person participation, evaluations with qualifications on the platform and registration of participations in interactive spaces on the platform. 1.5 results and discussion in this section the main results of the course are presented, they have been obtained through the different information registration systems such as: the application of the pre and post test, the attendance to the face-to-face, the results of the summative evaluations on the platform and the data obtained from the platform regarding participation in interactive spaces. 2. participation in the course during all the weeks, a monitoring of the active students in the course was carried out, a weekly report was issued which accounts for the number of active and inactive students in the week, in addition to counting those without any connection in the course. in this section the main results of the course are presented, they have been obtained through the different information registration systems such as: the application of the pre and post test, the attendance to the face-to-face, the results of the summative evaluations on the platform and the data obtained from the platform regarding participation in interactive spaces. participation in the course: during all weeks, a monitoring of the active students in the course was carried out, issuing a weekly report which accounts for the number of active and inactive students in the week, in addition to counting those without any connection in the course. 2.1 participation in-person sessions the course includes three classroom sessions, at the beginning, end of the course and after the first unit of content. for the development of these face-to-face, the tutor was given a plan to continue with the activities to be developed and digital resources as a presentation for their support. 2.2 participation in person sessions the course includes three classroom sessions, at the beginning, end of the course and after the first unit of content. for the development of these presentials, the tutor was given a plan to follow with the activities to be developed and digital resources as a presentation for their support. 2.3 participation in exchange spaces this section will analyze the participation of the participants in the various asynchronous spaces contemplated for communication between the tutor with the students and between the participants themselves. 21 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 2.4 participation in permanent spaces permanent spaces are a set of tools mainly forums that are available for use by participants throughout the course. 165 technical questions are presented, an average of 5.5 per course. these doubts are related to the use of the platform and the configuration of computers to run certain applications such as applets. in the social forum there are 765 topics open by the participants, within them there are various levels of interaction difficult to quantify, the average is 26.3 topics open per course, remember that these topics are initiated and encouraged by the participants themselves, there being no or little participation of the tutor, except in the welcome forum that the tutor starts in this space. the social forum becomes a kind of “virtual teachers’ room”. in news items restricted to tutor-only publications that cannot be debated by the participants, 624 interventions were registered with an average of 21.5 interventions. these correspond to information and guidelines that the tutors make available to their students regarding the development of the activities, rendering of evaluations and evaluation criteria, among others. 2.5 participation in interactive spaces the participation in the interactive spaces, although it is variable in each unit, follows similar trends that are later reflected in the global of the three units. in this sense, the discussion forum concentrates most of the interventions, followed by the daily mural forum and queries. as you can see, the course presented an effort to provide teachers of the second cycle of primary education with a quality improvement process that allows building the knowledge, both disciplinary and didactic, necessary for the participant to improve their practices, pedagogical. the above in a distance modality that favors interaction with peers and the tutor within a learning community. the main conclusions are: high interest in participating in the course: the interest shown by teachers to improve in geometry has been reflected in the high numbers of enrolled and enrolled, which confirms the perceived need to train in this area. a total of 1,004 registered participants are registered. active students: the number of students who have remained active in the course is highly positive of the original 1,004 enrolled 786 gave summative evaluation 1, 78% effective participation, and between these and those who take the final evaluation there is a retention level of 83 % of the participants. additionally, an average of 670 participants connect to the course weekly, 85% of the active participants. assessment of content and resources: the course content and the various resources it provides have been valued by the participants, due to their quality, contextualization and the feasibility that they can use and transfer to work in the classroom. applets applications have been the most innovative in this set, since they simulate geometric constructions. the face-to-face meetings: the positive aspects of the face-to-face meetings focused mainly on the possibility of collaborative work, sharing experiences, increasing the sense of belonging and solving doubts associated with the methodology and the use of technology. the first face-to-face presented 22 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 problems in its development due to the call and problems with the platform, the second developed normally. the participants have suggested for future versions to incorporate work related directly to the contents and some, despite being a distance course, suggest more face-to-face. the platform: the platform has shown great stability, it only encountered problems at certain specific moments in the development of the course, mainly related to online questionnaires, in general terms it has been in a high operational and accessible percentage. the way in which the interactive spaces have been arranged are positively evaluated by the participants. they highlight its ease of use, find it “friendly”, spaces you use frequently and find useful. in this sense, providing differentiated spaces for discussion, sharing resources, clarifying doubts and interacting on free topics such as the “social forum”, we believe is an element that contributes to increasing interaction and organizing it. when participants are asked about the platform, they usually end up talking about the course, and that is a sign that was made “invisible” to them, merged into one great element: the course. the interactions: an interesting use was made by the participants of the interactive spaces. concentrating the interventions in the discussion forums 66%, the “ diario mural” and “consultas” recorded 28% and 6% respectively of the interventions. there was also a permanent space in which the social forum that monopolized the greatest participation based on topics raised by the participants, transforming itself into a kind of “virtual teachers’ room”. in this sense, we believe that the key to participation was to have established differentiated spaces for the types of interventions, which could channel the type of interventions that the participants normally carry out in these courses, in addition to the animation of the tutor, especially in the discussion forum. community of tutors: the community of tutors has been a space that has allowed the coordination of the pedagogical and tutorial team that coordinates the project with the tutors, through it it has been possible to guide and support the tutors in the development of their work. the main spaces used have been: orientations, consultations, request for information and reports, as can be seen in the first two devoted to pedagogy and the remaining two to administrative ones. an active role of tutors is observed in this community, especially those who achieve better results in their courses. the tutors: the tutors are relevant agents in the development of the course, they have developed various tasks in the areas: pedagogical, social, technical and administrative. the role played by them especially at the beginning of the course to “enchant” those who did not attend the classroom and at the time of the evaluations. formation of the groups: in large regions such as the metropolitan region where the country’s capital is located, forming the groups according to the teacher’s home, we believe that it is not the most optimal, since it transfers to the virtual environment the divisions we carry out in the labor sphere. teachers from poor commune establishments with their peers and those from more affluent establishments with theirs. this from the perspective of the social construction of knowledge and the concept of vigostky’s proximal development zone is not very adequate. in this sense, we believe that the participation of 23 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 teachers from private schools can become a contribution to the rest of the learning community, especially when they join groups from more popular sectors. the evaluations: important progress in learning is observed at the general and unit level, reflected in the pre and post test differences. additionally, online summative assessments also reflect these advances. an element in our relevant judgment is that the difference obtained in relation to the online summative tests and the pre and post test reflect that these are significantly closer to the post test, which is why they account for the learning acquired, overcoming mistrust initial in terms that these do not reflect individual learning since the teacher is presumed guilty of doing it with additional support to their own knowledge. the process followed by the participating teachers has been largely successful, undoubtedly perfectible in various aspects. it has meant the development of a virtual experience of teacher training that has provided participants with a new way of accessing content, quality materials and interaction with peers, tutor and specialists, on a theme that is a priority in the mathematical training of chilean children like geometry. the experience of this course shows a way forward in these new forms of teacher updating that integrate the use of ict as a channel of communication and training during professional life, giving access to a training experience that many of the participating teachers do not they would have had access in the traditional face-to-face training formats. 3. conclusion to finish, i would like to point out a series of factors that can favor the incorporation of ict in inclusive education, and among them we can indicate the following: • establishing clear public policies for the use and incorporation of ict in the classroom. • clear support from the management teams of educational institutions for their incorporation. • the presence of ict in classrooms, in a way that favors the “invisibility” of ict. and the existence of teams that favor their adaptation to the characteristics of the students. • clear training and support policies for teachers for the incorporation of ict for schools. • the organization of good practice transfer policies and collaborative work between teachers. • the incorporation of subjects in the initial training plans of teachers that favor the incorporation of ict for inclusive education. • and the empowerment of research to search for new proposals for media design and search for teaching strategies and methodologies for subjects with certain characteristics. in any case, their incorporation goes through teacher training (teachers must be sensitive to social reality and the historical moment that serves to promote the reflection of students and take responsible and prosocial positions as future citizens), transforming the organizational structures of schools and adopting measures to enhance the visibility of ict in educational centers. along these lines, we must not forget that one of the great challenges of education today is to guarantee the quality of education for all students. for this, it is necessary to establish didactic approaches that recognize the diversity of the students and 24 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 promote strategies in the teaching-learning process that allow for difference and promote flexible responses in diverse educational contexts. references anderson, t., & kanuka, h. 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(2000). new trends in education. world report on communication and information 1999-2000 (pp. 51-67). unesco/cindoc editions. cabero, j. (2001). the application of ict: snobbery or educational need? red digital [online], 1(2002, december 22). collect & enlaces. (2004). survey: education in the information society. in statistical links 2005 (pp. 9-22) (2005, may 15). https://doi.org/10.1177/0266382105052264 coll, c. (2001). constructivism and education: the constructivist conception of teaching and learning. in c. coll, j. palacios, & a. marchesi (comps.), psychological development and education ii. educational psychology (pp. 157-186). madrid: alliance. crook, c. h. (1998). computers and collaborative learning. madrid: morata/mec ministry of education and culture (original title: computer and the collaborative experience of learning, london: routledge, 1994). greening, t. (1998). building the constructivist toolbox: an exploration of cognitive technologies. educational technology, 38(2), 23-35. gros, b. (2002). constructivism and designs of virtual learning environments. revista de educación, 328, 225-247. gros, b., & silva, j. (2005). the training of teachers as teachers in virtual learning spaces. revista iberoamericana de educación, 36(1). grünberg, j. (2002). redocente: an investigation on electronic collaboration between mathematics and science teachers. new technologies in education, montevideo, uruguay university of the republic (2003, december 13). 25 published by scholink inc. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1083-6101.1997.tb00078.x https://doi.org/10.1177/0266382105052264 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 1, 2021 harasim, l., hiltz, s., turoff, m., & teles, l. (2000). learning networks: guide for teaching and learning online, barcelona: gedisa/ediuoc [original version: learning networks. a faithful guide to teaching and learning online. cambridge (usa): massachusetts institute of technology press, 1995). hernández, p. (1997). building constructivism: criteria for its foundation and school application. in mª. j. rodrigo, & j. arnay (comps), the construction of school knowledge (pp. 285-312). barcelona/buenos aires/mexico: paidós pérez, a. (2002). elements for the analysis of educational interaction in new learning environments, pixel-bit media and education magazine [online], 19. (2003, april 1) ryan, s., scott, b., freeman, h., & patel, d. (2000). the virtual university: the internet and resoursce-based learning. london: kogan page. salmon, g. (2000). e-moderating: the key to teaching and learning online. london: kogan page. swan, k., shea, p., fredericksen, e., pickett, a., pelz, w., & maher, g. (2000). building knowledge building communities: consistency, contact and communication in virtual classroom. journal educational computing research, 23(4), 359-381. https://doi.org/10.2190/w4g6-hy52-57p1-ppne vygostky, l. s. (1978). the development of higher psychological processes. barcelona: critique. 26 published by scholink inc. https://doi.org/10.2190/w4g6-hy52-57p1-ppne original paper frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no.3, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 120 original paper preparing for college and graduate school andrea nemeth1, tatiana shamirian1, maseri kisa schultz2, cheryl courtney hogue3, maria elena zavala3, rachel giacopuzzi3 & steven oppenheimer3,4,5* 1 department of mathematics, california state university, northridge, usa 2 learning resource center, california state university, northridge, usa 3 department of biology, california state university, northridge, usa 4 center for cancer and developmental biology, california state university, northridge, usa 5 california state university, northridge, usa * steven oppenheimer, california state university, northridge, northridge, ca, 91330, usa received: august 12, 2023 accepted: august 30, 2023 online published: september 15, 2023 doi:10.22158/fet.v6n3p120 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v6n3p120 abstract we know of no single programs that prepare students both for success in college and entry to graduate school. here we will describe a 5week summer program that attempts to do that. this 5week summer program helps students with math, writing and gives them access to information on graduate schools and research as a career. we recruit primarily underrepresented or economically disadvantaged (pell eligible) entering freshmen science students (likely science majors) using a rigorous application form that includes high school transcripts, letter of recommendation and an essay. for success in improving academic skills, motivation is key. that’s why we carefully and rigorously evaluate all candidates for this program. and that’s why we can claim some success. for science majors, math is critical. so let’s begin with describing our math program, which runs 3 days a week, for 5 weeks, all day, usually mon, tues and fri. 1. math program the goal of the math program is to provide strong foundations for pre-calculus and eventually for calculus, as most science majors will need to take calculus. during the class meetings, we review basic arithmetic and algebra skills, and we build on those that to cover higher level concepts as well. these essential topics include graphing, linear, quadratic, and polynomial functions, radicals, exponentials, and logs. these topics were covered for all students with individualized practice depending on the needs of the students. the more advanced students had the opportunity to learn basic trigonometric topics, as well. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 121 published by scholink inc. 2. brief summary the math program 1) week 1 a. order of operations b. gcd/lcm, mathematical algorithms c. adding/subtracting fractions d. multiplying/dividing fractionss e. eg. ratios f. percents 2) week 2 a. equations and inequalities i. solving linear equations ii. solving linear inequalities iii. solving absolute value equations b. graphing i. slope-intercept form of a line ii. point-slope form of a line iii. inequalities c. functions i. function notation ii. evaluating function value using a table, graph, and given function ii. domain iii. range 3) week 3 a. polynomials / polynomial functions i. simplifying exponents ii. multiplying and dividing monomials iii. distributive property b. factoring c. solving quadratics i. factoring ii. completing the square iii. quadratic formula iv. solving equations in quadratic form 4) week 4 1. roots and radicals 2. rational expressions 3. evaluating exponentials and logs www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 122 published by scholink inc. 4. exponential and log functions 3. class conduct the morning session (9:30-12:30pm) was led by an instructor with the help of two in-class tutors. the instructor provided a brief lecture on the topics for the day, and then the students worked on worksheets and exercises in groups. this provided opportunity to the students to communicate the language of mathematics effectively, discuss the topics by brainstorming together, and present their solutions. the instructor and the two tutors walked around to make sure each student grasped the concepts, and they provided extra help and explanations as needed. to make the class more engaging, the instructor developed reviews, games, and presented real-life applications of the math concepts covered previously. the instructor provided feedback to each student about their progress in the class, suggesting study and time management tips, as well as strategies for success in the student’s math course in fall. we focused not only on the math skills of the students, but also strengthening the students’ confidence in their abilities as demonstrated via their improvement in math, emphasizing growth mindset and reducing math anxiety (pre and post test for reducing math anxiety?). during the afternoon session (1:30-4:30pm), we took advantage of the adaptive nature of aleks ppl (placement, preparation, and learning), a national science foundation funded, university of california developed research-based online program, that has been used nationwide to help students improve their math skills and get them placed appropriately in their math course. among many other csu campuses, this is the tool the mathematics department at csun uses to place students in math courses. by placement test results. aleks ppl is the perfect tool to ensure student engagement through the equity lens. each student has their own weaknesses and strengths in math, and aleks ppl provides the tools to bring each student up to the same level. when students sign up for aleks ppl, they take an initial assessment, so aleks ppl can map their knowledge. based on this assessment, aleks ppl provides the necessary practice problems to students and checks their mastery level regularly with knowledge checks. in their individualized path, the students work on the problems they need to master. even though aleks ppl provides explanations and help for each problem, the instructor and the two tutors also helped the students with the problems, and motivated students to keep working on their path even at home. during the last week of the program, the students took the 2nd assessment on aleks ppl; a practice placement test to give them an idea how they would score on the proctored placement test. at the end of the program, the students took the proctored placement test on aleks ppl. they were not allowed to use their notes or any other websites. their score was available for them once they submitted the test, and if they were not satisfied with their score, and consequently their fall math placement, they had the opportunity to practice more and retake the proctored placement test two more times, if they wanted to. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 123 published by scholink inc. 4. placement test scores and fall math placement • score of 40-64: math 102/l (pre-calculus i) or appropriate entry level ge math course • score of 65-79: math 105/l (pre-calculus ii) • score of 80-100: math 150a/l (calculus i) or math 255a/l (calculus i for life sciences) 5. results-summer 2023 the primary goal of the program was not to push students to a higher level of math class for fall 23 but rather increase their content knowledge and confidence. nevertheless, some students had the opportunity to start at higher level of math in fall 23 based on their proctored placement test score. these students saved some units, and some skipped a semester or two in their math sequence. although higher placement is impressive, we primarily focused on learning and providing the tools to be successful college students. the results for the 20 students who took the placement test are shown below in the table. table 1. the results for the 20 students who took the placement test student initial score placement test score major initial fall math placement fall math placement units saved 1 19 55 bio ba m 102/l m 102/l 0 2 33 70 bio ba m 102/l m 105/l 4 3 25 43 chemistry m 102 trio m 102/l 1 4 43 55 bio ba m 106 m 106 0 5 8 48 bio ba m 106 m 106 0 6 11 33 bio ba m 106 duo m 106 duo 0 7 43 68 math m 102/l m 105/l 4 8 14 42 psychology m 141 trio m 141/l 1 9 24 78 marine bio m 102/l m 105/l 4 10 42 58 biotech m 102/l m 102/l 0 11 31 59 public health m 140sci m140sci 0 12 5 12 marine bio m 102 trio m 102 trio 0 13 77 99 psychology m 141/l m 141/l* 0 14 29 9 psychology m 141 trio m 141 trio 0 15 69 96 bio bs m 102/l m 255a/l 10 16 50 66 bio bs m 102 trio m 105/l 5 17 71 81 public heath m 140sci m 140sci* 0 18 40 82 bio bs m 102 trio m 255a/l 11 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 124 published by scholink inc. 19 46 47 psychology m 141/l m 141/l 0 20 49 66 psychology m 141 trio m 141/l** 1 figure 1. placement test score vs initial score remarks: • 19 out of 20 students improved on their score. • the mean difference in scores is +21.9 with standard deviation 16.3. • 4 students (20%) scored into calculus. two of these students are taking math 255a/l in fall, instead of pre-calculus i, saving 2 semesters and 10-11 units. the other two students (marked with *) are eligible for calculus but their major doesn’t require it. • 5 students (25%) placed into math 105/l, pre-calculus ii. four of these students skipping a semester of math saving 4-5 units. one of the students (marked with **) doesn’t need the calculus sequence as a psychology major, so that student will just take math 141/l. • 2 students (10%) are placed out of the trio classes (either math 102 + 102l + 91b or math 141 + 141l + 91s). they don’t need to take math 91b/s in fall, saving a unit. • 4 students (20%) improved in their content knowledge, but they were already in their ge math, and they don’t need to take calculus, so there is no improvement in placement (nowhere to move them) but their placement test score indicates improvement in their knowledge. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 125 published by scholink inc. • 4 students are in the stem field who could have been placed higher in the calculus sequence, but they didn’t score high enough. they learned a lot, it seems from their scores and work, but just didn’t score high enough to move to a higher level, but they will have an easier time in math 102 or 106 having stronger foundations. • 1 student did not improve in content knowledge. 6. results summer 2022 to evaluate the success of the program, we need to investigate more results. we need to ask whether the students are successful in their first academic year. looking at the results of the 20 students from summer 2022: • 18 of the 20 students are still enrolled in fall 2023. this is retention rate of 90.0% compared to the 1-year continuation rate of 74.1% for all csun students in fall 2021 (the fall 2022 continuation rate is not available yet) • 17 of the 18 (94.4%) students passed their math class in fall 2022 o 8 of the 17 (47.1%) students passed their math class with a grade of a or a o 6 of the 17 (35.3%) students passed their math class with a grade of b or b o 3 of the 17 (17.6%) students passed their math class with a grade of c or c+ • the average gpa of the 18 students (after spring 2023) is 3.33. this can be compared with a gpa of 2.76 for non-program students (source csun counts). although there are many confounding variables, at least partially we can attribute the success of the students from the summer 2022 cohort to this summer enrichment program. it seems that the program prepared them to be successful not only in their math classes but also in general as college students. here are the actual student scores from summer 2023 using the tool that lets students work at their own pace, called aleks, a national science foundation funded, university of california developed program, that has been used to train millions of students. the student code (first before the scores) is the first letter of the student’s first name. the first number is the diagnostic day 1 test. the second number is attempt 2. the 3rd number is the placement attempt. in a couple of cases there is a 4th number (placement attempt 2). as can be seen, the program is what enhanced these student skills, as the initial scores vs final scores suggest. m 29 31 9 a 5 9 12 s 14 37 31 e 11 31 33 a 19 35 39 55 c 25 45 43 i 46 44 47 a 8 25 48 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 126 published by scholink inc. k 43 48 55 a 42 43 56 e 31 48 59 c 50 62 62 66 d 49 59 66 b 43 60 68 a 33 53 70 j 24 60 78 a 71 81 81 s 40 41 82 s 69 83 96 a 77 92 99 cut off scores math 102: 0-64 math 105: 65-79 math 150a: 80-100 7. the writing program each thursday of this 5-week program is dedicated to english enrichment; our goal is to help students build basic college-level writing skills that they will utilize throughout their college career and beyond. the english enrichment sessions take a deep dive into argumentative research essay writing as all aspects of this genre are transferrable to other genres of writing and communication that our students will perform in their future coursework and careers. we covered writing topics such as crafting and defending arguments; introductory, body, and concluding paragraphs; mla and apa formatting; and academic voice. 8. brief summary the writing program 1) week 1: introductions a. ice breaker b. introduction to argumentation c. introductory paragraph structure iii. attention getter, a.k.a. “hook” iv. background information v. claim, a.k.a. thesis d. writers’ workshop 2) week 2: thesis statements & research a. reading & understanding essay prompts www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 127 published by scholink inc. b. generating research questions c. crafting thesis statements d. finding credible sources (how to use onesearch) e. writers’ workshop 3) week 3: body paragraphs & mla/apa formatting a. body paragraph structure iii. topic sentence iv. context for evidence (summary of source) v. quote (integrated into writer’s words) vi. analysis (connect evidence to thesis) b. citation basics iii. overview of mla and apa citation formatting c. writers’ workshop 4) week 4: counterargument & conclusion a. types of counterarguments (direct opposition vs. alternative viewpoint) b. counterargument paragraph structure iii. topic sentence iv. context for evidence (summary of source that supports counterclaim) v. quote (that supports counterclaim) vi. analysis (of how someone would use evidence to support counterclaim) vii. rebuttal (refute counterclaim & transition into writer’s main argument) c. concluding paragraph structure iii. restate thesis in new words iv. briefly summarize main ideas from the body of the essay v. answer the questions “so what? who cares?”—explain why the essay matters or future research implications d. writers’ workshop 5) week 5: putting it all together a. mla & apa paper formatting b. peer review c. writers’ workshop 9. class conduct students spent the first half of each english enrichment day (9:00-12:30) with a faculty instructor who lectured and facilitated practice activities regarding that day’s topics. the instructor led interactive lectures and incorporated interactive games to make writing content engaging, relatable, and memorable for students. the instructor also provided feedback on the students’ writing each week, as www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 128 published by scholink inc. well as opportunities to revise their writing so that students could implement and grow from instructor feedback. during activities, the instructor and tutors monitored the room to assure that students remained on task, answer questions, and support students as needed. after lunch, students spent the remainder of their day (1:30-4:30) with the two writing tutors who provided additional practice and writing workshop time. the tutors provided fresh perspectives on each day’s writing topics; while writing in academia follows certain conventions, receiving nuanced writing instruction from the faculty member and tutors helped students understand that writing can be malleable, subjective, and individualized. the tutors also facilitated a writing workshop in the last 1.5-2 hours of each day to provide immediate feedback and support as students worked on their writing. the wednesday full day at home program on graduate programs, and virtual tours, and research papers. here’s what we tell the students. because not all students are interested in advanced research programs, we offer them other educational opportunities. so here’s what we have for them. you have 2 choices for the wednesday program (mix and match is fine): 1) for those interested in research, the first choice is each wednesday email to steven.oppenheimer@csun.edu a one page summary of a program to which you might be interested in applying. it could be a ph.d. program from a specific university. if you are interested in a research career, ph.d. programs that often pay you instead of you paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to m.d. or d.d.s or physician’s assistant programs, this is a good option for you. 2) virtual tours. each wednesday email to steven.oppenheimer@csun.edu an insightful summary of two of the virtual tours linked below. all submissions on wednesdays to steve need to be by regular email (in body of email) or a regular email word attachment (in body of email is preferred) to steven.oppenheimer@csun.edu for those doing virtual tours if you have netflix if you have netflix or can access a friend’s, the following are added options for your virtual tours: a 5 part series on our great national parks (each is about 1 hour long), narrated by barak obama 2022 includes: a world of wonder chilean patagonia tsavo, kenya monterey bay national marine sanctuary usa gunung leuser, indonesia. steve will comment to the student when he receives each submission. here are the virtual tour selections that you can connect to without going on to netflix: virtual tours yellowstone national park (u.s. national park service) https://www.nps.gov/yell/learn/photosmultimedia/virtualtours.htm ...× contact us virtual tours ready to explore yellowstone? you don’t have to wait...you can start exploring now by virtually touring some www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 129 published by scholink inc. of the main ... virtual tours denali national park & preserve (u.s. national park service) https://www.nps.gov/dena/learn/photosmultimedia/virtual-tours.htm virtual tours, guides, and resources...× contact us virtual tours virtual tours: science and research in denali explore...in the park. view full ... national cemetery virtual tour gettysburg national military park (u.s. national park service) https://www.nps.gov/gett/planyourvisit/national-cemetery-virtual-tour.htm national cemetery virtual tour...× contact us national cemetery virtual tour four score and seven years ago....cemetery. nps photo to begin your tour ...virtual tours klondike gold rush national historical park (u.s. national park service) https://www.nps.gov/klgo/learn/photosmultimedia/virtual-tours.htm ...× contact us virtual tours virtual tours let you explore park buildings and...significant historic buildings from home! virtual tours are the next ... virtual tour bandelier national monument (u.s. national park service) https://www.nps.gov/band/learn/photosmultimedia/virtualtour.htm virtual tours...× contact us virtual tour wishing you could visit the park but it just isn’t...is available in the park. these virtual tours may be ... virtual tour statue of liberty national monument (u.s. national park service) https://www.nps.gov/stli/learn/photosmultimedia/virtualtour.htm ...× contact us virtual tour want to know what’s going on inside the statue of...get an idea of what it’s like, a virtual tour is the way to go. you ... “footprints of our ancestors”: descendants bring stockbridge mohican history to life in virtual tour (u.s. national park service) https://www.nps.gov/articles/uhvnha_footprints.htm stockbridge to record video for a virtual tour of their ancestral land....stockbridge mohican history to life in virtual tour odessa arce and robert ... virtual tours grand teton national park (u.s. national park service) https://www.nps.gov/grte/learn/photosmultimedia/virtualtour.htm contact us virtual tours access the park through a series of virtual tours. experience...is recommended to view each of these tours. you will also ... virtual tour upper delaware scenic & recreational river (u.s. national park service) https://www.nps.gov/upde/learn/virtual-tour.htm virtual tour...× contact us virtual tour created for the national park service centennial celebration...celebration, the upper delaware virtual tour ... virtual tour oregon caves national monument & preserve (u.s. national park service) https://www.nps.gov/orca/learn/photosmultimedia/virtual-tour.htm ...× contact us virtual tour last updated: november 1, 2019 contact the park mailing virtual tour mount rushmore national memorial (u.s. national park service) https://www.nps.gov/moru/learn/photosmultimedia/virtual-tour.htm ...× contact us virtual tour mount rushmore’s rope access team scans theodore roosevelt...material including an interactive virtual tour of the memorial ... virtual tour salem maritime national historic site (u.s. national park service) https://www.nps.gov/sama/learn/photosmultimedia/virtualtour.htm virtual tour...× contact us virtual tour for photographs and text descriptions of the historic. jeff. smiths parlor museum virtual tour klondike gold rush national historical park (u.s. national park service) https://www.nps.gov/klgo/learn/photosmultimedia/jspm-virtual-tour.htm parlor museum virtual tour jeff. smiths parlor museum ad tour guided, https://www.nps.gov/dena/learn/photosmultimedia/virtual-tours.htm https://www.nps.gov/gett/planyourvisit/national-cemetery-virtual-tour.htm https://www.nps.gov/klgo/learn/photosmultimedia/virtual-tours.htm https://www.nps.gov/stli/learn/photosmultimedia/virtualtour.htm https://www.nps.gov/articles/uhvnha_footprints.htm https://www.nps.gov/grte/learn/photosmultimedia/virtualtour.htm https://www.nps.gov/upde/learn/virtual-tour.htm https://www.nps.gov/orca/learn/photosmultimedia/virtual-tour.htm https://www.nps.gov/moru/learn/photosmultimedia/virtual-tour.htm https://www.nps.gov/sama/learn/photosmultimedia/virtualtour.htm https://www.nps.gov/klgo/learn/photosmultimedia/jspm-virtual-tour.htm www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 130 published by scholink inc. audio-described...audio-described tour of the park’s jeff. smiths parlor museum ...virtual tour of monocacy monocacy national battlefield (u.s. national park service) https://www.nps.gov/mono/learn/photosmultimedia/virtualtour.htm contact us virtual tour of monocacy worthington house virtual tour with rare...house is closed to the public. this virtual tour allows you to explore ... virtual tours in the redwoods redwood national and state parks (u.s. national park service) https://www.nps.gov/redw/learn/photosmultimedia/vrtours.htm ...× contact us virtual tours in the redwoods virtual tours in the redwoods we...we are bringing the redwoods in virtual reality to you. to experience ... delta-09 silo virtual tour minuteman missile national historic site (u.s. national park service) https://www.nps.gov/mimi/learn/photosmultimedia/d9-virtualtour.htm ...× contact us delta-09 silo virtual tour the delta-09 missile silo allows a rare...in-person tours are not conducted underground, however this virtual ... virtual tours minuteman missile national historic site (u.s. national park service) https://www.nps.gov/mimi/learn/photosmultimedia/virtualtour.htm ...× contact us virtual tours screenshot from the delta-01 launch control center...center virtual tour nps photo take a peek into once restricted places ... virtual tours canyonlands national park (u.s. national park service) https://www.nps.gov/cany/learn/photosmultimedia/virtualtour.htm ...× contact us virtual tours the 360-degree panoramas available here require quicktime virtual tour kobuk valley national park (u.s. national park service) https://www.nps.gov/kova/learn/photosmultimedia/virtual-tour.htm a virtual tour of the northwest arctic heritage center at kobuk national park...× contact us virtual tour of the northwest arctic heritage center you ... videos white sands national park (u.s. national park service) https://www.nps.gov/whsa/learn/photosmultimedia/videos.htm ...explore white sands national park virtually by watching the videos gene editing youtubes (you can do one of these for a wednesday submission) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ykfw2kza5o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukbrwpl3wxe https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ft-160cax38 glycobiology youtube (you can do this for a wednesday submission) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rorgifz6c2y oppenheimer lab simple papers for a taste of research. anyone can do research. it’s learned. you can summarize a paper for a wednesday submission. selections follow but any paper from a good journal is fine. following is a selection of peer-reviewed papers from the oppenheimer lab. we selected oppenheimer lab papers because the director of this component of the summer program is dr. oppenheimer. he responds to all submissions and because he knows his own labs’ papers best, he is best qualified to respond. https://www.nps.gov/mono/learn/photosmultimedia/virtualtour.htm https://www.nps.gov/redw/learn/photosmultimedia/vrtours.htm https://www.nps.gov/mimi/learn/photosmultimedia/d9-virtualtour.htm https://www.nps.gov/mimi/learn/photosmultimedia/virtualtour.htm https://www.nps.gov/cany/learn/photosmultimedia/virtualtour.htm https://www.nps.gov/kova/learn/photosmultimedia/virtual-tour.htm https://www.nps.gov/whsa/learn/photosmultimedia/videos.htm https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rorgifz6c2y www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 131 published by scholink inc. [1] s. oppenheimer, m. berman, h. chun, a. lundgren, s. tanaka, a antoniou, t. miller, g. zem, applied science research for all part 1 pre-college level, american journal of applied scientific research 6: 72-75 (2020). doi:10.11648/j.ajasr.20200606.11. [2] s. oppenheimer, ed., new journal of student research abstracts, 27 annual volumes, http://scholarworks.csun.edu/handle/10211.3/125029, 1995-2022. [3] s.oppenheimer, covid-19 pandemic, glycobiology, glycan shields, vaccine strategies, heparin sulfate: a mini review, american journal of applied scientific research 6(2): 46-48 (2020). [4] s.oppenheimer, cell clusters in cancer metastasis: a mini review, american journal of applied scientific research 6(2): 43-45 (2020). doi: 10.11648//j.ajasr.20200602.13. [5] smith, t., oppenheimer, s.b., involvement of l-rhamnose in sea urchin gastrulation: a live embryo assay, zygote, doi:10.1017/s0967199413000452 (2013) [6] singh, s., karabidian, e., kandel, a., metzenberg, s., carroll, jr.e., oppenheimer, s.b., a role for polyglucans in a model sea urchin embryo cellular interaction, zygote doi:10.1017/s0967199413000038 (2013) [7] ghazarian, h, b.idoni, s.oppenheimer. a glycobiology review: carbohydrates, lectins, and implications in cancer therapeutics). acta histochemica, vol. 113, pages 236-247 (2011) pmcid pmc3027850. on the order of 10,000 downloads. one of the most of all time. [8] dreyfuss, j. and s. oppenheimer. cyclodextrins and cellular interactions in e. bilensoy, ed., cyclodextrins in pharmaceutics, cosmetics, and biomedicine, current and future industrial applications, john wiley and sons, hoboken, n.j., chapter 15, pp. 287-295. (2010) [9] idoni, b. h. ghazarian, s. metzenberg, v. hutchins-carroll, s. oppenheimer, and e. carroll jr. use of specific glycosidases to probe cellular interactions in the sea urchin embryo. experimental cell research, vol. 316, pp. 2204-2211 (2010) pmcid pmc2921930 [10] alvarez, m., nnoli, j., carroll, e.j., jr., hutchins-carroll, v., razinia, z., oppenheimer, s.b., exogenous hyalin and sea urchin gastrulation, part ii: hyalin, an interspecies cell adhesion molecule, zygote 16: 73-78 (2008). pmcid pmc2557437 [11] carroll, e.j., jr., hutchins-carroll, v., coyle-thompson, c., oppenheimer, s.b., hyalin is a cell adhesion molecule involved in mediating archenteron-blastocoel roof attachment, acta histochemica 110: 265-275 (2008). pmid 18262230 [12] contreras, a., vitale, j., hutchins-carroll, v., carroll, e.j., oppenheimer, s.b., exogenous hyalin and sea urchin gastrulation. part iii: biological activity of hyalin isolated from lytechinus pictus embryos, zygote 16: 355-361 (2008). pmcid pmc2586997 [13] oppenheimer, s.b., alvarez, m., nnoli, j., carbohydrate-based experimental therapeutics for cancer, hiv/aids and other diseases, acta histochemica 110: 6-13 (2008). pmcid pmc2278011 [14] oppenheimer, s.b., cellular basis of cancer metastasis: a review of fundamentals and new advances, acta histochemica, 108:327-334 (2007). this paper garnered the most downloads of all papers in this elsevier journal, august 06-march 07 (813 downloads). pmid16730054 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 132 published by scholink inc. [15] petrossian, k., banner, l., oppenheimer, s.b., lectin binding and lectin effects on human cancer and non-cancer cell lines: examination of issues of interest in drug design strategies, acta histochemica 109: 491-500 (2007). [16] razinia, z., carroll, jr., e.j., oppenheimer, s.b., microplate assay for quantifying developmental morphologies: effects of exogenous hyalin on sea urchin gastrulation, zygote 15: 1-6 (2007). [17] sajadi, s., rojas, p., oppenheimer, s.b., cyclodextrin, a probe for studying adhesive interactions, acta histochemica 109: 338-342 (2007). pmcid pmc 1988679 [18] zem, g.c., badali, o., gaytan, m. hekmatjou, h., alvarez, m., nnoli, j., katus, e., oppenheimer, s.b., microbead analysis of cell binding to immobilized lectin: an alternative to microarrays in the development of carbohydrate drugs and diagnostic tests, acta histochemica 108: 311-317 (2006). [19] ghazarian, h., coyle-thompson, c., dalrymple, w., hutchins-carroll, v., metzenberg, s., razinia, z., carroll, jr., e.j., oppenheimer, s.b., exogenous hyalin and sea urchin gastrulation, part iv: a direct adhesion assayprogress in identifying hyalin’s active sites, zygote 18: 17-26 (2010). pmcid pmc2817981 [20] oppenheimer, s. & meyer, j. (1982). carbohydrate specificity of sea urchin blastula adhesion component, experimental cell research, 139, 451-456. [21] idoni, b., ghazarian, h., metzenberg, s., hutchins-carroll, v, carroll, jr., e., & oppenheimer, s. (2010). use of specific glycosidases to probe cellular interactions in the sea urchin embryo. experimental cell research, 316, 2204-2211. [22] liang, j., aleksanyan, h., metzenberg, s., & oppenheimer, s. (2016). involvement of l-rhamnose in sea urchin gastrulation. part ii: alpha rhamnosidase , zygote 24, 37—377. [23] k. crocker, j. deleon, l. telliyan, k.aprelian, a. rosenberg, n. pouri, g. beltran, v. ramirez, d. kaufman, a. petrosyan, d. nazarian, m. magistrado, s. matinian, d. hanna, s. eskandari, f. atanante, a. nerses, g. zem, s. oppenheimer a kinetic assay for drug discovery: part 2, sodium sulfate american journal of applied scientific research 2020; 6(2): 39-42 http://www.sciencepublishinggroup.com/j/ajasr
doi: 10.11648/j.ajasr.20200602.12
issn: 2471-9722 (print); issn: 2471-9730 (online) [24] v. nahapetyan, s. delos santos, k. crocker, d.tobar, d.nazarian, h. chirishyan, g.beltran, r. dubin, l. reque, p. singh, b. cardona, g. royce bachin. a manual kinetic assay in a fixed yeast model for drug discovery american journal of applied scientific research 5, no1: 28-35. doi 10.11648/j.ajasr.20190501.15 (2019). [25] aleksanyan, h., liang, j., metzenberg, s., oppenheimer, s.b., terminal alpha-d-mannosides are critical during sea urchin gastrulation, zygote doi: 10.1017/so967199416000113 (2016). [26] a. ghazarian, oppenheimer, s. microbead analysis of cell binding to immobilized lectin. part ii: quantitative kinetic profile assay for possible identification of anti-infectivity and anti-cancer reagents http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.acthis.2014.07.015 , acta histochemica 116 (2014) 1514-1518. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 133 published by scholink inc. [27] singh, e. karabidian, a. kandel, s. metzenberg, e. carroll, jr,. s. oppenheimer, a role for polyglucans in a model sea urchin embryo cellular interaction , zygote (cambridge university press), (2013), doi.10.1017/s096719943000038 (2013). [28] h. ghazarian, c. coyle-thompson, dalrymple, v. hutchins-carroll, s. metzenberg, z. razinia, e. carroll, jr., s. oppenheimer. exogenous hyalin and sea urchin gastrulation, part iv: a direct adhesion assay – progress in identifying hyalin’s active sites zygote 18: 17-26 (2010). [29] a. contreras, vitale, v. hutchins-carroll, e. carroll, jr, s.oppenheimer. exogenous hyalin and sea urchin gastrulation, part iii: biological activity of hyalin extracted from lytechinus pictus embryos zygote, vol. 16, pp. 355-361 (2008). [30] e. carroll, jr., v. hutchins-carroll, c.coyle thompson, s. oppenheimer. hyalin is a cell adhesion molecule involved in mediating archenteron blastocoel roof attachment, acta histochemica, vol. 110, pp. 265-275 (2008). [31] m. alvarez, j. nnoli, e. carroll, jr., v. hutchins-carroll, z. razinia, s. oppenheimer. exogenous hyalin and sea urchin gastrulation, part ii: hyalin, an interspecies cell adhesion molecule , zygote, vol. 16, pp. 73-78 (2008). [32] m. alvarez, j. nnoli, s. oppenheimer. carbohydrate-based experimental therapeutics for cancer, hiv/aids and other diseases , acta histochemica, vol. 110, pp. 6-13 (2008). [33] k. petrossian, l. banner, s. oppenheimer.lectin binding and effects in culture on human cancer and non-cancer cell lines: examination of issues of interest in drug design strategies, acta histochemica , vol 109, pp. 491-500 (2007). [34] z. razinia, e. carroll, jr, s. oppenheimer. microplate assay for quantifying developmental morphologies: effects of exogenous hyalin on sea urchin gastrulation , zygote, vol 15, pp. 1-6 (2007). [35] s. sajadi, rojas, s. oppenheimer. cyclodextrin, a probe for studying adhesive interactions, acta histochemica, vol. 109, pp. 338-342 (2007). [36] s. oppenheimer. cellular basis of cancer metastasis: a review of fundamentals and new advances acta histochemica, vol. 108, pp. 327-334 (2006). [37] g. zem, o. badali, gaytan, hekmatjou, m. alvarez, j. nnoli, katus, s. oppenheimer. microbead analysis of cell binding to immobilized lectin: an alternative to microarrays in the development of carbohydrate drugs and diagnostic tests , acta histochemica, vol. 108, pp. 311-317 (2006). [38] l. welty, e. heinrich, c. garcia, l. banner, m. summers, l. baresi, s. metzenberg, c coyle-thompson, s.oppenheimer. analysis of unconventional approaches for the rapid detection of surface lectin binding ligands on human cell lines acta histochemica, vol. 107, pp. 411-420 (2006). [39] c. coyle-thompson, s. oppenheimer. a novel approach to study adhesion mechanisms by isolation of the interacting system , acta histochemica, vol. 107, pp. 243-251 (2005). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 134 published by scholink inc. [40] e.heinrich, l. welty, l. banner, s. oppenheimer. direct targeting of cancer cells: a multiparameter approach , acta histochemica, vol. 107, pp. 335-344 (2005). [41] m. khurrum, hernandez, eskalaei, o. badali, c. coyle-thompson, s. oppenheimer. carbohydrate involvement in sea urchin gastrula cellular interactions acta histochemica, vol. 106, pp. 97-106 (2004). [42] m.maldonado, g. weerasinghe, f.ambroise, yamoah, m. londono, j. pelayo, grigorian, s. oppenheimer, the charged milieu: a major player in fertilization reactions , acta histochemica, vol. 106, pp. 3-10 (2004). [43] l. ngo, m. barajas, g. weerasinghe, g. zem, s. oppenheimer. a new histochemical approach for studying sperm cell surfaces , acta histochemica, vol. 105, pp. 21-28 (2003). [44] m. khurrum, g. weerasinghe, e. soriano, r. riman, o. badali, s. gipson, medina, alfaro, v. navarro, c. harieg, l. ngo, t. sakhakorn, l. kirszenbaum, khatibi, abedi, m. barajas, g. zem, a. kirszenbaum, razi, s. oppenheimer. analysis of surface properties of human cancer cells using derivatized beads, acta histochemica, vol. 104, pp. 217-223 (2002). [45] v. navarro, s. walker, o. badali, abundis l. ngo, g. weerasinghe, m. barajas, g. zem, s. oppenheimer. analysis of surface properties of fixed and live cells using derivatized agarose beads , acta histochemica, vol. 104, pp. 99-106 (2002). [46] b. salbilla, h. vaghefi, chhabra, hall, bworn, sadoughi, e.francisco, l. attas, s. walker, nguyen, s. oppenheimer. analysis of cell surface properties using derivatized agarose beads acta histochemica, vol. 101, pp. 271-279 (1999). [47] v. latham, s. oppenheimer. a simple image analysis method for evaluating cell binding to derivatized beads acta histochemica, vol. 101, pp. 263-270 (1999). [48] v. latham, m. tully, s. oppenheimer. a putative role for carbohydrates in sea urchin gastrulation acta histochemica, vol. 101, pp. 293-303 (1999). [49] v.latham, l. latham, s. oppenheimer. desktop computer-based image analysis of cell surface fluorescence patterning from a photographic source acta histochemica, vol. 98, pp. 295-300 (1996). [50] j. philip, rodriguez, r.bada, f. ambroise and hernandez, s.oppenheimer. charge interactions in sperm-egg recognition , acta histochemica, vol. 99, pp. 401-410 (1997). [51] ghoneum, vojdani, a. banionis, lagos and gill, s. oppenheimer. the effects of carcinogenic methylcholanthrene on carbohydrate residues of nk cells toxicology and industrial health, vol. 13, no. 6, pp. 727-741, 1997. [52] v. latham, martinez, l. cazares, hamburger m. tully, s. oppenheimer. accessing the embryo interior without microinjection, acta histochemica, vol. 100, pp. 193-200 (1998). [53] r. roque,s. herrera,yeh,. j. philip,t. borisavljevic,l. brunick,miles,haritunians,c. addy,r. bada,h. vaghfi,s. matsumoto, g. picionelli and rodriquez, s.oppenheimer. cell adhesion mechanisms: modeling using derivatized beads and sea urchin cell systems , acta histochemica, vol. 98, pp. 441-451 (1996). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 135 published by scholink inc. [54] m. daily,v. latham,c. garcia, c. hockman, h. chun, m. oppenheimer, s. west, k. rostamiani, r.chao, e. pollock,s. oppenheimer. producing exposed coat-free embryos, , zygote, vol. 2, pp. 221-225 (1994). [55] m. spiegler, s. oppenheimer. extending the viability of sea urchin gametes , cryobiology, vol. 32, pp. 168-174 (1995). [56] v. latham, j. ducut, k. rostamiani, h. chun, lopez, s. herrera, s. oppenheimer. a rapid lectin receptor binding assay: comparative evaluation of sea urchin embryo cell surface lectin receptors, acta histochemica, vol. 97, p. 89-97 (1995). [57] v. latham, s. herrera, k. rostamiani, h. chun, s. oppenheimer. rapid identification of lectin receptors and their possible function in sea urchin cell systems, acta histochemica, vol.97,pp. 373-382 (1995). [58] m. ghoneum, a. banionis, gill and romero, s. oppenheimer demonstration of involvement of mannose residues on nk cell cytotoxicity using lectin coupled beads , natural immunity and cell growth regulation 10:132(1991). [59] s. oppenheimer, biology and cultivation of teratoma cells , in tests of teratogenicity in vitro, north holland, amsterdam, pp. 261-274. [60] s.oppenheimer, human made carcinogens vs. natural food carcinogens: which post the greatest cancer risk? american clinical products review, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 16-19, february 1985. [61] s.oppenheimer cancer and stress, longevity letter, 2(6): 3, 1984. [62] s.oppenheimer, carcinogens in food and water, longevity letter, 2(9): 2-3, 1984. [63] s. oppenheimer carcinogens in the home, longevity letter, 3(5): 2-4, may 1985. [64] s. oppenheimer preventing cancer, american longevity 1 (no.1), pp. 1-5, 1983. [65] meyer, p. thompson, r. behringer, r. steiner, saxton, s. oppenheimer. protease activity associated with loss of adhesiveness in mouse teratocarcinoma exp. cell res., 143, pp. 63-70, 1983. [66] meyer, s. oppenheimer. carbohydrate specificity of sea urchin blastula adhesion component , exp. cell. res., 139, pp. 451-456. 1982. [67] s. oppenheimer causes of cancer: gene alteration versus gene activation, amer. lab., pp. 40-46, november 1982. [68] j. meyer, s. oppenheimer isolation of species-specific and stage-specific adhesion promoting component by disaggregation of intact sea urchin embryo cells, exp. cell res., 137, pp. 471-476, 1982. [69] c. capelle, j. meyer, s. sorensen, s. oppenheimer isolation of aggregation inhibitory factor from non-adhesive mouse teratoma cells , exp. cell res., 131, pp. 470-476, 1981. [70] w. childress, freedman, c. koprowski, doolittle and p. sheeler, s. oppenheiimer, surface characteristics of separated subpopulations of mouse teratocarcinoma cells , exp. cell res., 122, pp. 39-45, 1979. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 136 published by scholink inc. [71] m. grodin, nystrom, j. scordato,, m. cantor, s.oppenheimer relationship of adhesiveness of cells in culture with specific enzyme activity, exp. cell res., 122, pp. 149-157, 1979. [72] m.asao, s. oppenheimer inhibitor of cell aggregation by specific carbohydrates , exp. cell. res., 120, pp. 149-157, 1979. [73] s. oppenheimer introduction to the symposium and studies on the surfaces of separated and synchronized tumor and embryonic cell populations. , american zoologist, 19, pp. 801-808, 1979. [74] s.oppenheimer, cell surface carbohydrates in adhesion and migration. , american zoologist, 18, pp. 12-23, 1978. [75] b. bales, brenneman, l. knapp, lesin, a.neri , e.pollock, s. oppenheimer modulation of agglutinability by alteration of the surface topography in mouse ascites tumor cells exp. cell res., 105, pp. 291-300, 1977. [76] b. bales, lesin, s. oppenheimer on cell membrane lipid fluidity and plant lectin agglutinability: a spin label study of mouse ascites tumor cells, biochemica et biophysica acta, 465, pp. 400-407, 1977. [77] j. meyer, s. oppenheimer the multicomponent nature of teratoma cell adhesion factor , exp. cell res., 102, pp. 359-364, 1976. [78] a. neri, m. roberson, d. connolly, s. oppenheimer quantitative evaluation of concanavalin a receptor site distributions on the surfaces of specific populations of embryonic cells, nature, 258, pp. 342-344, 1975. [79] d. connolly, s. oppenheimer cell density-dependent stimulation of glutamine synthetase activity in cultured mouse teratoma cells, exp. cell res., 94, pp. 459-464, 1975. [80] m. roberson, a.neri, s. oppenheimer), distribution of concanavalin a receptor sites on specific populations of embryonic cells , science, 189, pp. 639-640, 1975. [81] s. oppenheimer functional involvement of specific carbohydrates in teratoma cell adhesion factor, exp. cell res., 92, pp. 122-126, 1975. [82] m. roberson, s. oppenheimer quantitative agglutination of specific populations of sea urchin embryo cells with concanavalin a exp. cell res. 91, pp. 263-268, 1975. [83] k. krach, a. green g. nicolson, s. oppenheimer cell surface changes occurring during sea urchin embryonic development monitored by quantitative agglutination with plant lectins , exp. cell res., 84, pp. 191-198, 1974. [84] s. oppenheimer utilization of l-glutamine in intercellular adhesion: ascites tumor and embryonic cells, exp. cell. res., 77, pp. 175-182, 1983. [85] r. potter m. barber, s. oppenheimer alteration of sea urchin embryo cell surface properties by mycostatin, a sterol binding antibiotic, developmental biology, 33, pp. 218-223. [86] s. oppenheimer j. odencrantz, a quantitative assay for measuring cell agglutination: agglutination of sea urchin embryo and mouse teratoma cells by concanavalin a, exp. cell res., 73, pp. 475-480, 1972. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 137 published by scholink inc. [87] s. oppenheimer, t.humphreys isolation of specific macromolecules required for adhesion of mouse tumor cells , nature, 232, pp. 125-127, 1971. [88] s.oppenheimer m. edidin, c. orr and s. roseman an l-glutamine requirement for intercellular adhesion, proceedings of the national academy of sciences usa, 63, pp. 1395-1402, 1969. [89] s.oppenheimer, motivating college students: evidence from 20 years of anonymous student evaluations, higher education reseach, doi: 10.11648 (2019). please note: most of the co-authors on these papers are students. these are only the full length peer-reviewed papers from the oppenheimer lab. published abstracts and national presentations are not included. [90] s.oppenheimer, lab training: undergraduate research in action, nature 519, 158 [2015). [91] s.oppenheimer, include mentoring skills in hiring and promotion criteria, nature 554, 31 (2018). [92] camacho, n.l., er doctor’s gift honors biology professor for changing the trajectory of her life, csun magazine, (may 30, 2018). [93] oppenheimer, s., et al., applied science research for all part 2 college level, american journal of applied scientific research 7(1): 1-7 (2020). [94] oppenheimer, s., university on the rise without ph.d. students, nature 538: 171 (2016). information on the research program option. about ph.d. programs, you can look into these as a wed project. many of you awardees expressed an interest in eventually entering ph.d. programs in research science but did not know about them. here is some information. m.d., dds, pharmacy, optometry, veterinary, physician assistant, etc. careers are great for those who want them but one is often in debt for a half million to a million dollars from student loans. ph.d. programs are so different financially. the majority of them or many of them in research science pay you. so, no or little debt. debt. no tuition. instead you get a stipend in the $30,000 per year range, no tuition and they often provide health insurance. you may have to do some undergraduate teaching or provide support in classes including solution preparation, tutoring and recitation session leader. personally, i did my undergraduate work at a place like csun in new york and was accepted into a ph.d. program in biology research science at johns hopkins. i found this program easier than my undergraduate program. that’s just my personal situation. you may ask, how in the world can i (you) do research? sounds too complicated. doing good research is learned! you are taught to do research by top scientists in the ph.d. programs. so, for me, my johns hopkins ph.d. program was fun. and i became sort of famous for the research i did. and now i’m professor emeritus. you can do a wed. project on researching ph.d. programs and submit a one page review on ph.d. programs. no specific format. in this way you can learn in depth about ph.d. programs in research science. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 138 published by scholink inc. what can you do with a ph.d. degree? professor, teacher, researcher, industry, biomedical research, drug development, environment, genetic engineering of eukaryotic cells and microbes, foods etc., national parks, water quality, etc. the key is to love what you do. that’s the key for any career. here’s an example of a student submission on ph.d. programs. slightly edited. fontana, joaquin <joaquin.fontana.782@my.csun.edu> wed 7/19/2023 4:58 am oppenheimer, steven b ph.d. at scripps institution of oceanography, uc san diego for marine biology what makes up 71% of our world …. water, the scripps hands-on program seems to be an excellent choice for a phd program as it not only provides possible financial support, but also top notch scientific training in order to keep learning as the main focus. looking further than just california it is easy to note that scripps institution of oceanography is globally known and respected due to its outstanding ripple in leading in research for marine sciences. this ph.d. program uses its state of the art research facilities and vessels to promote further research for students in order to truly engage and provide impactful teaching and research. scripps not only use its state of art equipment to teach students but also their renowned scientists such as simone baumann-pickering who has a phd in biology, m.s. biology, b.s. biology, and a b.s. in media engineering, which were all acquired from stuttgart media university, germany. this is just one of the main seven marine mammal biology professors and researchers. when using scripps scientists, they provide a collaborative atmosphere with people who have further knowledge. furthermore, into the collaborative space, the onsite work and programs which are in place give an emphasis to hands-on work and experiences with fellow colleagues. the programs allow for workshops, teaching opportunities, and also seminars which all work together in order to prepare students for future careers in academia, research, and the overall industry. even with all this program has to offer, the process in order to enter seems very straight forward as there is an application process, which uses transcripts, letter of recommendation, statement of purpose, and possible test scores (ielts, toefl) however it seems as though that is due to change with the current pushes. an admission committee then evaluates students on academic background, passion, and possible scientific contributions. although the submission process seems straightforward, the acceptance rate here is not the highest as only 20% of students are accepted based on records which note that five hundred and two students applied; however only one hundred seventeen were accepted into this program. in conclusion, people devoted to the research of marine biology and eager to learn and develop a deeper connection will find a perfect fit into the marine biology program at scripps institution of oceanography at uc san diego. with the amazing research backed up behind their renowned faculty and resources make scripps a good choice, while still providing possible financial support in order to ease the stress on students. sincerely, joaquin fontana www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 3, 2023 139 published by scholink inc. 10. conclusions success in programs such as this one depends on students buying into the concept and goals. the record of student placements in advanced math courses speaks for itself. this program has direct and simple goals…skills enhancement in mathematics and writing. we are fortunate that we have a director of our math department andrea nemeth, an expert in aleks, who has the ability to place students completing this program in math courses. when the program ended there was overwhelming enthusiasm by the students for the summer program. many students for the wednesday program chose to report on possible ph.d. programs that interest them. these programs will stay in their minds when it comes to post graduate applications. so this program not only helps prepare students for success in math and writing but it also gives them a legs-up in applying to graduate programs. references 2-89 show that college students can co-author research papers. the seed of research career in stem was planted during this five-week program. acknowledgements supported by nih 5ts4gm136450; nsf due 182345, the csun college of science and mathematics, the president and provost. thanks to carolyn oppenheimer for logistical assistance. references aleksanyan, h., liang, j., metzenberg, s., & oppenheimer, s. b. 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(2006). microbead analysis of cell binding to immobilized lectin: an alternative to microarrays in the development of carbohydrate drugs and diagnostic tests. acta histochemica, 108, 311-317. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acthis.2006.03.019 zem, g., badali, o. g., hekmatjou, m. a., nnoli, j. k., & oppenheimer, s. (2006). microbead analysis of cell binding to immobilized lectin: an alternative to microarrays in the development of carbohydrate drugs and diagnostic tests. acta histochemica, 108, 311-317. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acthis.2006.03.019 please note: most of the co-authors on these papers are students. these are only the full length peer-reviewed papers from the oppenheimer lab. published abstracts and national presentations are not included. these references show that students can co-author peer reviewed papers and they have fun doing it. these references help plant the seed of doing science research in these beginning students. that’s one of the goals of this summer program. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acthis.2005.10.005 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acthis.2006.03.019 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acthis.2006.03.019 microsoft word fet-v2n3-p124 frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 124 original paper student evaluations of teaching: is there a relationship between student feedback on teaching and the student final grade? darren pullen 1*, steven collette2, loan dao3 & j-f1 1 college of arts, law & education, university of tasmania, launceston, australia 2 the business intelligence, surveys & analytics team, university of tasmania, launceston, australia 3 school of access education, central queensland university, sydney, australia * darren pullen, college of arts, law & education, university of tasmania, launceston, australia. e-mail: darren.pullen@utas.edu.au received: june 5, 2019 accepted: june 28, 2019 online published: july 4, 2019 doi:10.22158/fet.v2n3p124 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v2n3p124 abstract the use of student evaluations of teaching (set) has become widespread practice in higher education despite inconclusive evidence reported in the literature around its validity. not surprisingly, the question of the validity of set continues to be a current debate in higher education, pointing to more research to be conducted in this area. the current study contributes to broadening knowledge and understanding on the validity of set by drawing on an online unit evaluation completed by students (n=2430 out of total student enrolment of n=7757) in one university across three postgraduate education programs over a two-year period, to determine whether there is a relationship between student feedback on teaching and student final unit grade. findings revealed that students who achieved very high or very low final unit grades did not participate in the set, while students who achieved pass or credit grades partook in the set, thus providing feedback. this indicates that teaching and evaluating staff need to be aware that a large subset of their students that are not providing feedback to staff to improve the quality of their courses. keywords student evaluations of teaching, unit evaluations, online evaluations, higher education www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 125 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction there is much debate surrounding the validity and utility of student evaluations of teaching (set) within the current literature. some papers have posited that such evaluations are important mechanisms for improving not only teaching practice but also course content (e.g., borman & kimball, 2005; kinash et al., 2015; richardson, 2010; secret, bentley, & kadolph, 2016), while some authors have raised concerns around its validity and utility (e.g., hornstein, 2017; spooren, brock, & mortelmans, 2013). according to hornstein (2017), studies on the validity of set “have been beset by questionable conceptual and statistical interpretations … [that] … have rendered the conclusions questionable at best” (p. 5). thus, the validity of set is a highly contested topic in which there is inconclusive evidence around its validity (spooren et al., 2017), which leads to its utility being questioned for purposes, such as improving teaching and promotion and tenure. this situation calls for continued research in the area. this study contributes to the debate on validity of set by investigating the relationship between student feedback on teaching and the students’ final unit grade. some studies have investigated this relationship (e.g., centra, 2003; eizler, 2002; march & roche, 2000), however much of this research is dated. this calls for more recent studies to be conducted in this area, particularly considering online evaluations are becoming more prevalent in universities. the current study contributes to the debate on validity of set in two key areas. first, we assess who are the key respondents in terms of their final unit grades. second, students’ feedback on teaching is assessed to determine whether more favourable student feedback on teaching is associated with higher grades, and whether less favourable student feedback on teaching is associated with lower grades. for our analysis we investigated two research questions: 1) does the grade a student receives from the class affect the likelihood that they will respond to the set? 2) does the grade affect the type of response made by the student? 1.1 background literature—the use of set higher education institutions employ several mechanisms for monitoring and evaluating course satisfaction from the end-user/students-perspective. these mechanisms range from the informal, such as a tutor asking their students how they are finding the course, through to formal. in terms of formal student evaluations of teaching and courses (units) australian universities employ a standard survey tool that contains the same base questions for use across all their courses. the dissemination of student surveys seeking to measure and understand teaching and course delivery may be in some part due to increased higher education regulation and a growing need for institutions to be more accountable to consumers and regulatory bodies, such as tertiary education quality standards agency (teqsa) which mandates that universities provide a mechanism for student feedback on courses, with the focus becoming compliance driven (shah, cheng, & fitzgerald, 2017) or under the higher education standards framework (gannaway, green, & mertova, 2017). the collection and interpretation of survey results are systematically carried out in many institutions (shah et al., 2017). in recent years, the australian federal government has initiated the annual student experience survey www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 126 published by scholink inc. [ses], annual graduate outcomes survey [gos] and annual graduate outcomes survey-longitudinal [gos-l] to measure levels of satisfaction and course performance. these results are being embedded into organisational key performance indicators. similarly, internal student feedback is also being embedded into organisational key performance indicators and used as evidence for probation, promotion (fraile & bosch-morell, 2015; mcclain et al., 2017) and academic achievement in addition to curriculum development (richardson, 2005). within teaching and the education sectors it has been recognised and shown that amongst other aspects, such as content and pedagogical knowledge, teaching quality influences student achievement (boman & kimball, 2005; rozina, noor, & mohamed, 2016). in determining the effectiveness of the teaching and content, educators have used amongst other things, student surveys of teaching and content effectiveness. commonly these types of student evaluations on teaching are used by teachers and institutions to monitor the effectiveness of the teaching instruction and as a mechanism for course quality assurance (macfadyen, dawson, prest, & gašević, 2016). indeed, student ratings have a high degree of validity (cashin, 1995; felder, 1992; kong, 2014). after all, it is the students who are being taught and are learning content and attempting to meet course learning outcomes. the use of set amongst academics to improve their teaching has been shown to be low (stein et al., 2012, 2013). gold and adam (2016) point out that such low use of set to improve teaching is attributed to concerns around validity of data from these evaluations, thus making them less likely to be used for improving teaching. the literature on validity of set is further explored next. 1.2 validity of set despite reported various uses of data from set, concerns have been raised in the current literature around the validity of such data (spooren et al., 2013). there is some discussion amongst the academic community on the validity of online evaluations due to responses being lower in number than paper-based surveys and being less representational of the learning and teaching experience (rienties, 2014); however, some studies show that lengthier comments are supplied in online surveys (bennett & de bellis, 2010) that may be more positive (sorenson & reiner, 2003). the meta-analytical review conducted by spooren et al. (2013) on the validity of set also found that students provided more comments in these evaluations that are administered online. studies on gender bias in set have sometimes revealed contradictory results where male academics are ranked more positively than their female counterparts (e.g., bachen, mcloughlin, & garcia, 1999) and vice versa (e.g., basow & silberg, 1987). however, macnell, driscoll and hunt (2015) point out that such studies have nonetheless demonstrated that gender plays a role in set, thus questioning the validity of these evaluations. the study conducted by macnell et al. (2015), in which assistant instructors operated under different gender identities in delivering an online class, revealed that “students rated the male identity significantly higher than female identity, regardless of the instructor’s actual gender, demonstrating gender bias” (p. 291). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 127 published by scholink inc. studies that have focused on the relationship between grades and set have raised further concerns around the validity of these evaluations (e.g., abrami et al., 1990; isely & singh, 2005; mcpherson, 2006). according to mcclain et al. (2017, such studies confirm the association between grades and set. some of these studies (e.g., johnson, 2003; lin, 2009) have found evidence of “reciprocity effect” (mcclain, gulbis, & hays, 2017, p. 4) in which students rate instructors according to the grade they received (i.e., reward instructors who reward them and punish those who punished them), while some studies have shown evidence of “leniency effect” (mcclain et al., 2017, p. 4) in which instructors who are seen as lenient in their marking are said to receive more favourable ratings (e.g., abrami et al., 1990; johnson, 2003; mcpherson, 2006). however, it should be noted that much of these studies are old and as online evaluations become more prevalent in universities, this calls for more research to be conducted on the relationship between grades and set. while the above studies have raised questions around the validity of data from set, it is argued that more research is still necessary to broaden knowledge and understanding in this area. according to spooren et al. (2013), evidence on the validity of set continue to be inconclusive and that “the utility and validity ascribed to set should continue to be called into question” (p. 629). the findings of this study are expected to contribute to broadening knowledge and understanding around validity of data from set, which may lead to more informed future use of such data. 2. method 2.1 data collection this research used student feedback data collected from the unit survey that was administered online from 2013 to 2015 inclusive in three postgraduate programs in the case university, namely the masters of teaching, and master of education and master of education (tesol). this provided an opportunity to observe a balanced view of students’ feedback from these programs, which have many units, yet moderate student enrolments. this kept the data set within a reasonable tolerance limit. students have access to the unit evaluation survey for a period of 6-weeks, 2-weeks prior to the conclusion of the unit and 4-weeks post. at the time of student completion of the set survey they do not know their final award (grade) for the unit, though many could work out an approximate award based upon their assessments 2.1.1 instrument the unit survey is a confidential online survey that reviews both teaching and unit content using likert scale questions to establish the percentage of agreement to the statements. there are also two qualitative free text questions to allow the respondent to offer opinions on what was done well and where improvement may be achieved. it should be noted that it is unusual for students to provide qualitative feedback in our set surveys. the reasons for that are not known and would provide a basis for an additional study. the unit survey is mandated for every unit offering each semester, and the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 128 published by scholink inc. historical data held within the university’s data warehouse enables the pilot to review and compare unit feedback across a reasonable timeframe. the content of the unit survey feedback reports provided to unit coordinators includes demographic information derived from the enrolment information. this allowed demographics data on the student cohorts to be accessed and investigated without retrieving extra data. the survey data were stored within the university’s data warehouse within information technology services (its), to which the project team did not have direct access. to investigate the relationship, the its technical analyst was able to pair the individual confidential response from the student with the final unit grade received by the student, without supplying raw data with the student id stored in the data warehouse. this method using its as independent custodians of the data guaranteed anonymity for the respondents and allowed mapping of unit demographics (e.g., fe/male, age, campus/location, study mode, etc.) provided to staff within existing evaluate reporting. 2.1.2 analysis the quantitative data were analysed using ibm spss statistics 22 to review the frequencies and relationships between the feedback from individual likert scale questions and final unit grades. the qualitative data were analysed by sentiment analysis by reading and coding each comment in the two free text questions individually within excel according to whether the student provided feedback using positive or negative language, made statements with no sense of sentiment or made no comment at all. the revised coding was then imported into the spss for further analysis. 3. results and discussions to better understand the statistical techniques used on the data and its meaning the results are presented with a running commentary (discussion). such an approach hopefully will provide a context for the analysis and what the findings mean. table 1 depicts the courses reviewed and the gender composition of each of those courses. participant age in years can be grouped into four roughly equal sub-groups, with 49% in the 21-28-year age group, another 27% in the 29-36-year age group, and the final 24% in the 37-69-year age group. student unit scores can be grouped according to whether students have failed, (27%) passed (18%), achieved a credit (28%), a distinction (20%) or a high distinction (7%). in terms of percentages required to achieve each of the aforementioned grades a pass grade is from 50-59%, credit 60-69%, distinction 70-79% and a high distinction 80+%. in terms of student responses on their unit teachers’ style and unit content they were asked to provide likert scale responses to 11 items, using a five-point likert scale (strongly disagree=1, disagree=2, unable to judge=3, agree=4, strongly agree=5). descriptive statistics were examined for evidence of univariate outliers (high skew values). the validity and reliability and the number of sub-scales was examined by entering items into exploratory factor analyses utilising principal components analysis (pca) with varimax (orthogonal) rotation for www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 129 published by scholink inc. single and multifactorial solutions. these analyses provided evidence for the validity of the identified factor structure with kmo=>.800 and bartlett’s test of sphericity<.05. cronbach’s alpha procedure was utilised to provide evidence for the reliability of the factor structure (ca=>.700). factor loadings were visible if .250 or above, with the threshold for acceptable loadings set at .300. as indicated in table 2, these students responded most positively to q1 (the learning outcomes in this unit are clearly identified), q6 (the workload in this unit is appropriate to the achievement of the learning outcomes), and q10 (i think about how i can learn more effectively in this unit) with all three sets of mean responses in the agree (4) to strongly agree (5) interval. they responded least positively to q5 (feedback on my work in this unit helps me to achieve the learning outcome). as indicated in table 2, none of the skew values exceeded 1.96 (i.e., 95% of the distribution was no more than 1.96 standard deviations from the mean). as indicated in table 3, all 11 items loaded with values above the threshold (.300). the kaiser-meyer-olkin (kmo) measure of sampling adequacy test of sampling adequacy was highly acceptable (.950). bartlett’s test of sphericity was significant (p<.001), and the single component explained 63% of the variance. finally, the cronbach’s alpha for the above was also highly acceptable (.941). based on these outcomes, an average score was computed for the learning outcomes scale (see table 2). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 130 published by scholink inc. table 1. female/male student count and percentage by year for enrolled and responding students f m year course name s tu d en t en ro lm en t % e n ro lm en t c ou n t of r es p on se s % t ot al e n ro lm en t % e n ro lm en t re sp on d ed s tu d en t en ro lm en t % e n ro lm en t c ou n t of r es p on se s % t ot al e n ro lm en t % e n ro lm en t re sp on d ed t ot al e n ro lm en t t ot al r es p on d en ts % t ot al r es p on d en ts 2014 master of education 94 65 29 20 30 50 34 8 5 16 144 37 25 master of education (tesol) 14 63 8 36 22 0 master of education with honours 1 100 1 0 master of teaching 2578 69 718 19 27 1146 30 322 8 28 3724 1040 27 2015 master of education 30 68 12 27 40 14 31 1 2 7.1 44 13 29 master of education (tesol) 20 74 11 40 55 7 25 4 14 57 27 15 55 master of teaching 2539 66 936 24 36 1256 33 389 10 30 3795 1325 34 total 5275 68 1706 21 32 2482 32 724 9 29 7757 2430 31 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 131 published by scholink inc. table 2. descriptive statistics for 11 course outcome indicators statistics n mean sd skew kurtosis min max q1: the learning outcomes in this unit are clearly identified 2430 4.16 0.933 -1.577 2.593 1 5 q2: the learning experiences in this unit help me to achieve the learning outcomes 2430 3.98 1.096 -1.280 0.924 1 5 q3: the learning resources in this unit help me to achieve the learning outcomes 2430 3.97 1.084 -1.279 0.986 1 5 q4: the assessment tasks in this unit evaluate my achievement of the learning outcomes 2430 3.93 1.083 -1.197 0.774 1 5 q5: feedback on my work in this unit helps me to achieve the learning outcomes 2430 3.76 1.245 -0.950 -0.213 1 5 q6: the workload in this unit is appropriate to the achievement of the learning outcomes 2430 4.01 1.002 -1.393 1.654 1 5 q7: the quality of teaching in this unit helps me to achieve the learning outcomes 2430 3.84 1.273 -1.032 -0.101 1 5 q8: i am motivated to achieve the learning outcomes in this unit 2430 3.98 1.150 -1.258 0.689 1 5 q9: i make best use of the learning experiences in this unit 2430 3.99 1.005 -1.216 0.981 1 5 q10: i think about how i can learn more effectively in this unit 2430 4.06 0.964 -1.366 1.679 1 5 q11: overall, i am satisfied with this unit 2430 3.84 1.247 -1.077 0.031 1 5 learning outcomes score 2430 3.95 0.875 -0.982 0.717 1 5 to further interrogate the available data, inferential statistical techniques were undertaken to investigate relationships between variables, as shown in table 3. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 132 published by scholink inc. table 3. component matrix for learning outcomes indicators component matrix single factor solution qi: the learning outcomes in this unit are clearly identified 0.767 q2: the learning experiences in this unit help me to achieve the learning outcomes 0.878 q3: the learning resources in this unit help me to achieve the learning outcomes 0.826 q4: the assessment tasks in this unit evaluate my achievement of the learning outcomes 0.813 q5: feedback on my work in this unit helps me to the achieve the learning outcomes 0.772 q6: the workload in this unit is appropriate to the achievement of the learning outcomes 0.702 q7: the quality of teaching in this unit helps me to achieve the learning outcomes 0.869 q8: i am motivated to achieve the learning outcomes in this unit 0.821 q9: i make best use of the learning experiences in this unit 0.680 q10: i think about how i can learn more effectively in this unit 0.657 q11: overall, i am satisfied with this unit 0.909 cronbach’s alpha 0.941 3.1 inferential statistics in this section associations between personal variables and learning outcomes were examined via regression and anova. a preliminary examination of bivariate correlations (spearman’s rho) did not find any of the personal variables to be redundantly (collinearly) correlated with one another or with the learning outcomes variables. as indicated in table 4, of the five personal variables, only semester was not significantly associated with learning outcomes. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 133 published by scholink inc. table 4. spearman’s rho for learning outcomes relative to personal variables learning outcomes spearman’s rho sig.(2-tailed) n age .118** 0.000 2430 unit score .194** 0.000 2046 participants are female .052** 0.010 2430 year .050* 0.015 2430 semester 0.033 0.103 2377 ** correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed); * correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed). 3.1.2 regression outcomes preliminary to conducting these tests, regression diagnostics were obtained by ticking the collinearity diagnostics box in the statistics dialogue box with five selected predictors (year of course; semester of course; gender is female; age in years, & unit score) and with learning outcomes as the outcome variable. also, multivariate outliers were examined by ticking the mahalanobis box in the save dialogue box. after excluding year and semester, based on collinearity testing, eigenvalue condition indices, tolerances, and the variance inflation factor (vif) values were deemed to be very acceptable. based on mahalanobis values, three cases were excluded from subsequent analyses. to simplify the display, all regression outcomes have been reported in tabular format with only significant outcomes per dv included, as indicated in table 5. table 5. regression coefficients for significant predictors of learning outcomes coefficients b se beta t sig. unit score 0.015 0.002 0.177 8.196 0.000 age 0.012 0.002 0.124 5.720 0.000 participants are female 0.124 0.042 0.064 2.983 0.003 as indicated in table 5, after excluding year and semester (neither of these significant predictors of learning outcomes), the model was significant (p<.001), with the 5% of variance explained (r2=.057). 3.1.3 anova outcomes an anova was conducted as a follow-up to examine potential interactions between the three significant predictors of learning outcome scores. to do so, the grouped version of age and unit scores and the binary variable, gender, were entered as predictors into an anova with learning outcomes as the outcome variable. this is shown in table 6. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 134 published by scholink inc. table 6. anova outcomes source type ⅲ ss df_trt df_error ms f sig. grouped unit score 51.583 4 2383 12.896 17.907 0.000 age (4gps) 21.988 3 2383 7.329 10.177 0.000 gender 1.484 1 2383 1.484 2.061 0.151 grouped unit score * age (4gps) 17.363 12 2383 1.447 2.009 0.020 grouped unit score * gender 8.318 4 2383 2.080 2.888 0.021 age (4gps) * gender 5.795 3 2383 1.932 2.682 0.045 grouped unit score * age (4gps) * gender 18.427 12 2383 1.536 2.132 0.013 levene’s test of equality of error variances was significant, consistent with this analysis being best conducted via non-parametric methods. however, given the interest in interactions, and the robustness of parametric methods, these are reported here. as indicated in table 6, the main effects for grouped unit score and age group were significant. further, the two-way interactions between the grouped unit score and age group, the grouped unit score and gender, and the interaction between age group and gender were all significant as was the three-way interaction between grouped unit score, age group and gender. as illustrated in figure 1, participants with high distinction or distinction scores obtained significantly higher learning outcome scores than those who obtained credit or pass scores. however, participants who failed these courses did about as well in terms of learning outcome scores as those with distinctions or high distinctions. participants in the 37-61-year age group did significantly better in terms of learning outcome scores as those in any other age group. students in the 21-24-year, 25-28 year and 29-36-year age groups obtained non-significantly different learning outcome scores www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 135 published by scholink inc. figure 1. mean learning outscores for each grade achieved as illustrated in figure 2, students in the 37-69 year with high distinctions obtained significantly larger learning outcome scores than students with pass or fail grades. in other age groups, students with distinctions obtained significantly higher learning outcome scores than students with pass marks. however, those with fail grades obtained learning outcomes equivalent to those with distinctions or high distinctions. as illustrated in figure 3, males and females with distinctions or high distinctions or who had failed obtained non-significantly different learning outcome scores. however, whereas males or females with pass grades obtained significantly lower learning outcome scores than those with distinctions, high distinction or fails, the learning scores of males with credit grades was significantly lower than those with distinction, high distinction or fail grades whereas the learning outcome scores for females with credit grades was non-significantly different from those with distinction, high distinction or fail grades. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 136 published by scholink inc. figure 2. two-way interaction between age group and grade figure 3. two-way interaction between gender and grade as illustrated in figure 4, female students in the 37-69-year age group obtained significantly higher learning outcome scores than those in the 21-24-year age group whereas male students in 37-69-year age group obtained significantly higher learning outcomes than those in every other age group. three-way interactions are by their nature problematic to interpret. as illustrated by figure 5, for those with high distinctions, males and females in the 21-24 and 37-69-year age groups obtain significantly higher learning outcome scores than females in the 25-28-year age group, whereas this is not the case for 25-28-year-old males. for those with credits, males in the 37-69-year age group obtain significantly higher learning outcome scores than males in other age groups whereas this is not the case for females. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 137 published by scholink inc. figure 4. two-way interaction between age group and gender figure 5. three-way interaction between age group, gender, and grade le for those with pass grades, males in the 37-69-year age group obtain significantly higher learning outcome scores than males in other age groups whereas females in that age group obtain significantly higher learning outcome scores than those in the 21-24-year age group but not otherwise. for those with fail grades, the differences in learning outcome scores do not differ significantly by age group for either males or females. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 138 published by scholink inc. 4. conclusion all students receiving various grades have provided either quantitative or qualitative feedback through the unit survey within the sample group. low and high achievers were not found to be the key responders, these were mid-range students. qualitative feedback received was not abusive or unprofessional and was constructive. of interest were that students who failed rated their instructors nearly as highly as those students who achieved a distinction or high distinction grade. there is still much work to do within the survey space; from encouraging non-responders to participate and increase response rates to continuing the cycle of student education on why feedback on the courses and student experience is important, plus closing the feedback loop and ensuring that students know that we are listening to their student voice to implement change. references abrami, e., d’apollonia, s., & cohen, e. 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(2003). grade inflation: a crisis in college education. new york, usa: springer. kinash, s., naidu, v., knight, d., judd, m., nair, c., booth, s., … tulloch, m. (2015). student feedback: a learning and teaching performance indicator. quality assurance in education, 23(4), 410-428. https://doi.org/10.1108/qae-10-2013-0042 kong, t. (2014). the validity and reliability of the student evaluation of teaching: a case in a private educational institution in malaysia. international journal for innovation education and research, 2(9), 57-63. lin, t. (2009). endogenous effects of midterm grades and evaluations: a simultaneous framework. economics bulletin, 29(3), 1731-1742. macfadyen, l. p., dawson, s., prest, s., & gašević, d. (2016). whose feedback? a multilevel analysis of student completion of end-of-term teaching evaluations. assessment & evaluation in higher education, 41(6), 821-839. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2015.1044421 macnell, l., driscoll, a., & hunt, a. n. (2015). what’s in a name: exposing gender bias in student ratings of teaching. innovative higher education, 40(4), 291-303. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10755-014-9313-4 marsh, h. w., & roche, l. a. (2000). effects of grading leniency and low workload on students’ evaluations of teaching: popular myth, bias, validity, or innocent bystanders? journal of educational psychology, 92(1), 202-228. https://doi.org/10.1037//0022-0663.92.1.202 mcclain, l., gulbis, a., & hays, d. (2017). honesty on student evaluations of teaching: effectiveness, purpose, and timing matter! assessment & evaluation in higher education, 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2017.1350828 rienties, b. (2014). understanding academics’ resistance towards (online) student evaluation. assessment & evaluation in higher education, 39(8), 987-1001. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2014.880777 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 3, 2019 140 published by scholink inc. richardson, j. (2005). instruments for obtaining student feedback: a review of the literature. assessment and evaluation in higher education, 30, 387-415. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602930500099193 rozina, n., noor, z., & mohamed, m. (2016). student ratings of teaching effectiveness: an importance-performance analysis (ipa). journal of educational and social research, 6(3), 33-44. secret, m., bentley, k., & kadolph, j. (2016). student voices speak quality assurance: continuing improvement in online social work education. journal of social work education, 52(1), 30-42. https://doi.org/10.1080/10437797.2016.1112630 shah, m., cheng, m., & fitzgerald, r. (2017). closing the loop on student feedback: the case of australian and scottish universities. higher education, 74(1), 115-129. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-016-0032-x spooren, p., brock, b., & mortelmans, d. (2013). on the validity of student evaluation of teaching. review of educational research, 83(4), 598-642. https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654313496870 stein, s., spiller, d., terry, s., harris, t., deaker, l., & kennedy, j. (2012). unlocking the impact of tertiary teachers’ perceptions of student evaluations of teaching. wellington: ako aotearoa. stein, s., spiller, d., terry, s., harris, t., deaker, l., & kennedy, j. (2013). tertiary teachers and student evaluations: never the twain shall meet? assessment & evaluation in higher education, 38(7), 892-904. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2013.767876 frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 25 original paper xenosociology: meeting the predator in the theory of val plumwood mušić lejla1 1 department of sociology, faculty of political sciences sarajevo, bosnia and herzegovina * mušić lejla, e-mail: musiclejla1@gmail.com received: november 18, 2023 accepted: december 7, 2023 online published: january 3, 2024 doi:10.22158/fet.v7n1p25 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v7n1p25 abstract plumwood as a famous eco feminist, delveaux (2001) had influenced the analyses inside the ecological ethic and deep ecology, and formed specific approach in ecological disputes, defined as ecosophy (warren, 1996), involving ecological approach as inherent to human, especially female nature. female attributes are celebrated, since they can influence the development of feminist ethic, as care ethic, global care ethic (adam, 2004). this form of ethic influenced development of animal ethic, or xeno ethic in her works. disputes around the position of female identity, (especially inherent to an educated professor such as herself), are caused by her encounter with the crocodile in cacadu national park; after she was assured that she can use canoe in that area, safely. val plumwood, with her book meeting the predator, had influenced the changes in discussions about animal ethics, transpecism, and the importance of human body and environment, that involves different forms of organisms, from predators to dangerous and exotic plants, that can also be seen as xeno organism threatening the life. keywords xenosociology, xeno ethic, ecosophy, predator, transpecism 1. introduction xenosociology, as a sub discipline of sociology investigates the xeno organisms, trans species, trans terrestrial, and their environment. plumwood’s essay meeting the predator, develops this questions as jacobean metaphor, as it follows: “of course, in some very remote and abstract way, i knew it happened knew that humans were animals and were sometimes—very rarely—eaten like other animals. i knew i was food for crocodiles that my body, like theirs, was made of meat. but then again in some very important way, i did not know it, absolutely rejected it. somehow, the fact of being food for others ad not seemed real, not in the way it did now, as i stood in my canoe in the beating rain staring down www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 26 published by scholink inc. into the beautiful, gold-flecked eyes of the crocodile. this encounter emphasised the importance of adequate situation of human inside the environment, or the hierarchy inside the “great” chain of beings. her encounter with a crocodile, happened in tropical australian, kakadu national park, where she was canoeing. this experience influenced the following insight: “how had i come to make this terrible mistake about myself, my place, my body? i asked myself, with that sinking sense of serious stupidity that mars many a final moment. was it a philosophical mistake about identity, the self as disembodied consciousness dissociated from the food-providing self as material body? or the idea that humans are special, above and apart from other animals? i had no real opportunity to ponder the cultural genesis of my false consciousness, for at that moment the crocodile made its move, leaping from the water so fast i saw only a flash, and grabbing me painfully between the legs before pulling me down into the water. nor did i pursue the issue later that day as i lay, terribly injured, in the path of the oncoming flood. but i have had many years since in which to think about these disastrous illusions, and to try to track them down” (plumwood, 2012). until that moment, i knew that i was food in the same remote, abstract way that i knew i was animal, was mortal. in the moment of truth, abstract knowledge becomes concrete. you gaze with dumb astonishment as your own death, known only as a shadowy, distant stranger, suddenly rises up right before you in terrifying, techno-coloured detail and gasp in disbelief that some powerful creature can ignore your special status and try to eat you”. (plumwood, 2012) question of being anthropocentric and ignoring the laws on natural division, in relation to xeno organisms, such as animal organisms, in entering their own space, as dominant human being, becomes more important after the encounter with the deathly jaws of the crocodile. human disrespect for the xeno organisms, and their environment, as the one that is not subject of dispute in who it belong to, and how we should approach it, has left significant impact in the contemporary, in the necessary education and sensibilization of especially youth, in aquatic parks and museums, all around the world. anthropocentric and dominant human nature, has to be educated about all sorts of different species, that exist in different natural surroundings, since those surroundings are their only home. entering into their home, can result in fatal consequences, as risk of becoming the living meet, or food for the predator. plumwood had encountered crocodile, driving a canoe in 1985-ties, and the education on xeno organisms and trans species, and predator animals, has evolved in formation of different centres, where the visitors can see different species, and learn the basics of their way of life, through the gathering for feed large animals, at exact times, to walking through the area with basins filled with different species. necessity to warn the humans, on their difference to larger animals, in recent times, is existent in different form of tv series, emitted on national geographic, animal planet, with plethora and plaids of metaphorical titles such as being prey, i am alive, the monster inside me. therefore, the importance of knowing your place inside the universe of being, is still important as it was in val plumwoods text, but this popular tv shows, make it easier to understand the jacobean metaphor felt by plumwood, after the encounter with the crocodile: www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 27 published by scholink inc. “this was a strong sense, at the moment of being grabbed by those powerful jaws, that there was something profoundly and incredibly wrong in what was happening, some sort of mistaken identity. my disbelief was not just existential but ethical—this wasn’t happening, couldn’t be happening. the world was not like that! the creature was breaking the rules, was totally mistaken, utterly wrong to think i could be reduced to food. as a human being, i was so much more than food. it was a denial of, an insult to all i was to reduce me to food. were all the other facets of my being to be sacrificed to this utterly undiscriminating use, was my complex organisation to be destroyed so i could be reassembled as part of this other being? with indignation as well as disbelief, i rejected this event. it was an illusion! it was not only unjust but unreal! it couldn’t be happening” (plumwood, 2012). 2. animal ethics: meeting the predator animal ethics, as a sub discipline of ethics, questions the moral dimension of encountering with the living life, besides human. there are different life forms, from plants, humans, small animals, to large predators that can eat human alive. the strong feeling of being self-confident human professor and lecturer, and being wrongly promised that that area was a safe area for canoeing, which resulted in famous val plumwood becoming the prey, later on produced different thoughts on position of female identity in the environment: “after much later reflection, i came to see that there was another way to look at it. there was illusion alright, but it was the other way around. it was the world of ‘normal experience’ that was the illusion, and the newly disclosed brute world in which i was prey was, in fact, the unsuspected reality, or at least a crucial part of it. but all i saw then was the lack of fit between the experience of being prey and the framework of belief and life i took to be normality. if the framework of normality was true, the lack of fit could only be explained if this experience of being prey was an illusion was a dream or nightmare. but if it wasn’t, i had to face the possibility that the lack of fit was there because both i and the culture that shaped my consciousness were wrong, profoundly wrong—about many things, but especially about human embodiment, animality and the meaning of human life (plumwood, 2012). this encounter with the predator, and meditation on the actuality of being prey, for some large jaws that grabbed her, influenced reopening of philosophical questions on the importance of human life on earth, and the corresponding in between the different forms of life that surround us. arctic circle as the outer point of earth surface, and museums dedicated to investigation of indigenous species in this area, already presuppose that humans will have to resign and give back those areas, to the animals, since they had borrowed it only for finite period in the time. this vast area, covered with ice, is not fitted for human to live. many sorts of different large predators, had influenced the disappearance of people, in great number, involving the different age group, involving even small children: “the illusion revealed by the crocodile encounter was of a different, more philosophical kind, about the meaning of everyday experience. but in the same way it revealed that it was possible for people—as individuals, groups, perhaps whole cultures that subscribe to a particular dominant story—to be www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 28 published by scholink inc. completely and systematically wrong about quite simple and basic things—our relationship to food, to one another, the intertwining of life and death, the fleshly, embodied character of human existence—and be quite unaware of it. a few people may come to see the illusion for what it is because they stumble across certain clues, experiences that do not fit the dominant story. suppose that in the same way as the illusion that the land was on the level, the fact of being always on the ‘winning side’ of the predation relationship tricks us, conceals from us the real slant of things, the real measure of our animality and embodiment.” (plumwood, 2012) this question falls into binary division section, when we compare humans to non-humans, male to female, pleasure to pain. nature is observed as place of spiritualistic embodiment, while western culture teaches us that nature is divided from spirituality that simultaneously represents the origin of human parting with nature, moreover devaluation and objectification of nature. eisler’s ecofeminist manifesto (eisler, 1987) states that the only reason for contemporary era ecological problems is creation of dichotomies male spiritual principal vs. female natural principle, in addition supported by transition from religious to secular worldview. technology as such is not a problem, thinks eisler (eisler, 1987), problem represents the anthropocentric masculine culture of violence that uses the technology for the same purposes. demands of ecofeminism, contained in ecofeminist domination. shared cooperation (2004) between male and manifesto are oriented towards the returning to egalitarianism and cooperation in order to overcome the system of female, negation of dichotomies is the only way to annulated mentioned system. return to nature is the only presupposition for desalination. table 1. binary oppositions (eisler, 1987; aristotle, 1988; bek, 2001; jo deegan & mary jo.,1990; malory, 2008; salleh, 1995; shipley, 2000) male female culture nature ratio emotion father mother sun moon form matter active principle passive principle rational substance material substance contract nature free will natural law mind body artificial natural civilised primitive www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 29 published by scholink inc. spirituality materiality war peace public private master slave ethic of dominance care ethic logic of dominance logic of care artistic work kitsch male stream, having the male in centre vs. female-stream, having the female in centre is binary that represents modern period (giddens & sutton, 2010), unlike the postmodern where the mentioned differences are annulated for academic marginalisation of women to be based on extremely rigidly formed differences between terms or dichotomies. the basic problem is identification of women with non-rationality, mindlessness, emotionalism, by which their exclusion from public and academic sphere is justified. ecological consciousness of deep ecology (dunlop, 2010) is considered to be deeper, because it involves the laws that caused certain phenomena. ecofeminism with its powerful activism since chupko movement in india, through the development of agricultural unions supported by vandana shiva, until the formation of institute for social ecology where the first ecofeminist conferences were organised (salleh, 2001), under the influences of ecofeminists ynestra king, val plumwood until public demonstration against the oppression of feminine identity and nature, accomplishes the active fight with risk as mark of postmodern reality. tom regan in that period, in his speech, raises certain questions in usa, in relation to survival and destruction of animals. this binary logic, in the theory of val plumwood (plumwood, 1991), involves another, different paradigm to consider, predator as the one who wins, and human being as the ones who can possibly lose, or can lose in fight with the higher forms of natural predator beings. “that i think is what has happened to western culture under the influence of the dominant story about our animality. for a modern human being from the first, or over-privileged world, the humbling experience of becoming food for another animal is now utterly foreign, almost unthinkable. and our dominant story, which holds that humans are different from and higher than other creatures, are made out of mind-stuff, has encouraged us to eliminate from our lives any animals that are disagreeable, inconvenient or dangerous to humans. this means, especially, animals that can prey on humans. in the absence of a more rounded form of the predation experience, we come to see predation as something we do to others, the inferior ones, but which is never done to us. we are victors and never victims, experiencing triumph but never tragedy, our true identity as minds, not as bodies.” (plumwood, 2012) strong belief in the strengths of human ratio (novalić, 2009), has been challenged by the ratio of predator. western culture is based on this belief in human progress (cochrane, 2012), that still ends in femicides, genocides, and concentration camps, refuges, internationally, and globally. that unlimited belief in being the ones who cannot do wrong, ended up in the holocaust and srebrenica (dimitrijević, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 30 published by scholink inc. 2011). therefore, the question of being wright must involve the limits of the integrity of other person, or in this particular case, other animal. therefore, the spengler did not foreseen the fall of western cultures, for no reason. that is the plumwood’s idea as well: “for thousands of years, western religions and philosophies taught that the human was set apart from the animals and the rest of nature, made, unlike them, in the image of god. it was heresy to believe that any species other than humans could be saved or go to heaven, a place of sacredness and perfection reserved exclusively for human beings. god is transcendent, not material, apart from nature, and is for our species alone.” (plumwood, 2012) question of god, is never less important. in contemporary, the show with morgan freeman, investigates the perception of god, and god related concepts in different parts of the world. it is precisely and clearly emphasised that the question of god is the crucial to understanding of different race, nations and identities. she gives an example from catholic perspective, and enforces the mistake in identifying the humans with god. “for example, papal doctrine until recently, instructed us that our bodies may have evolved from other animals, but that the real basis of our humanity, our minds have not—they are god-given, and in no way comparable to those of animals. we remain special, as the real owners of the world, the pinnacle of evolution, the ultimate species for whom it was all designed and to whom it all leads.” (plumwood, 2012) how did human beings evolute, what are different perspectives in relation to the creation. there are feminist perspective inside the evolution theory. this perspective state that there is the egalitarian perspective in creation, inside the genesis, why not focus onto that one. the catholic tradition involves, the idea of the embodiment and blood inside the religious practice. the notion of being inside the flesh, onto which plumwood alerts is felt only after the animal attack, or the meeting with the animal in it’s own house. “this way of viewing the world makes it very painful to come to terms with features of conscious animality, insofar as our culture has made of it a painful contradiction—a sidereal identity in a fleshly, decaying body, thinking flesh, knowing flesh, singing flesh, flesh that knows of its own vulnerability. being food confronts one very starkly with the realities of embodiment, with our inclusion in the animal order as food, as flesh, our kinship with those we-eat, with being part of the feast and not just some sort of spectator of it, like a disembodied eye filming somebody else’s feast. we are the feast. this is a humbling and very disruptive experience.” (plumwood, 2012) plumwood notices different position of human in great chain of beings, as the ones who can not only eat meat and be predators, but are the ones that can become the food for the predators. humans can eat animals, use their skin, bones, and meat in different consumer cultures such as branded stores, industry of meat, or even for the cure. but this still, even though it gives the human culture the godlike position, does not represent the reality of the position of human femininity, in the environment. therefore, femina xenologica investigates the encounters with feminine and xeno organisms. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 31 published by scholink inc. “but humans are food, food for sharks, lions, tigers, bears and crocodiles, food for crows, snakes, vultures, pigs, rats and goannas, and for a huge variety of smaller creatures and microorganisms. an ecological animalism would acknowledge this and affirm principles emphasising human– animal mutuality, equality and reciprocity in the food web.” (plumwood, 2012) 3. conclusion plumwood as an ecologist, thinks how to solve the puzzle, of being the democratic in ecological terms. she envisions the dichotomy of being live/becoming prey in her own terms, and proposes following: “my proposal is that the food/death imaginary we have lost touch with is a key to re-imagining ourselves ecologically, as members a larger earth community of radical equality, mutual nurturance and support. our loss of this perspective has meant the loss of humbling but important forms of knowledge, of ourselves and of our world. we can learn to look for comfort and continuity, meaning and hope in the context of the earth community, and work in this key place to displace the hierarchical and exception. my proposal is that the food/death imaginary we have lost touch with is a key to re-imagining ourselves ecologically, as members a larger earth community of radical equality, mutual nurturance and support. our lost of this perspective has meant the loss of humbling but important forms of knowledge, of ourselves and of our world. we can learn to look for comfort and continuity, meaning and hope in the context of the earth community, and work in this key place to displace the hierarchical and exceptional cultural framework that so often defeats our efforts to adapt to the planet. this involves reimagining ourselves through concrete practices of restraint and humility, not just in vague airy–fairy concepts of unity, cultural framework that so often defeats our efforts to adapt to the planet. this involves re-imagining ourselves through concrete practices of restraint and humility, not just in vague airy–fairy concepts of unity”. democratic approach in the theory of val plumwood, involves, therefore, necessity to always remember that we are only a part of environment. she, herself, has to remember that sometimes, since living in those area she has to meet the great predator herself, in hope that the time of the encounter will be postponed. references adam, b. (2004). time-the key concepts. polity press, cornwall. adam, b. (2010). zeit vielfalt in der evolution aus gesellschaftstheoretischer sicht. february, akademievorlesung an der berlin-brandenburgischen akademie der wissenschaften, berlin. aristotle. (1988). politika. globus, zagreb. bek, u. (2001). rizično društvo. filip višnjić, zagreb. cifrić, i. (2000). znanost i društvene promijene, razvoj i okoliš, zagreb. cochrane, k. (2012). women of the revolution, forty years of feminism. guardian books, london. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 1, 2024 32 published by scholink inc. delveaux, m. (2001). transcending ecofeminism: alice walker spiritual ecowomenism, and environmental ethics. university of exeter: united kingdom. source: www.ecofem.org/journal. dimitrijević, n. (2011). dužnost da se odgovori, fabrika knjiga, beograd. dunlop, r. (2010). a new ecological paradigm for sociology. in giddens, anthony and sutton, robert, sociology, polity press, cambridge. eisler, r. (1987). the gaia tradition and partnership future. an ecofeminist manifesto, in diamond, irene and ornstein, gloria, reweaving the world. sierra club books, san francisco. fair globalization seating opportunity for all. (2004). the world commission on the social dimension of globalization. ilo publication, april. giddens, a., & sutton, w. p. (2010). sociology: introductionary readings (3rd ed.). polity press, cambridge. jo deegan, & mary jo. (1990). women founders in sociology. greenwood press, new york. malory, ch. (2008). what is ecofeminist political philosophy? gender, nature, and the political. sixth annual joint meeting of the international society for environmental ethics, allenspark, colorado. novalić, f. (2009). imperij pohlepnog politeizma, izvori, ogledi iz socijalne ekologije. novi izvori, zagreb. plumwood, v. (1991). nature, self, and gender: feminism. in environmental philosophy and the critique of rationalism. hypatia, vi(1), 3-27. plumwood, v. (2012). meeting the predator in the eye of the crocodile (l. shannon, ed.). anu e press, canberra. ritzer, g. (1997). suvremena sociologijska teorija. globus, beograd. salleh, a. (1995). the ecofeminism/deep ecology debate: a reply to patriarchal reason (vol. 14). salleh, a. (2001). ecofeminism as sociology. conference of the international sociological association research committee on environment and society, (rc24), cambridge university, july 5-7. shipley, p. (2000). racionalna żena u feminističkoj debate. london. izlaganje u ateljeu za filozofiju, društvene nauke i psihoanalizu, jun. shiva, v. (1998). monocultures, monopolies, myths and the masculinisation of agriculture. at the workshop on women’s knowledge, biotechnology and international trade fostering a new dialogue into the millennium during the international conference on women in agriculture washington d.c., june 28 july 2. warren, k. (1996). ecological feminist philosophies. indiana university press: bloomington. wharton, a. (n.d.). sociology of gender. wiley and blackwell, new york. mastery of nature. routledge, london. frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no.1, 2022 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 9 original paper nsf presidential award webinar dominique evans-bye1, mindy berman1, helen chun1, alvalyn lundgren1 & steven oppenheimer1* 1 department of biology and center for cancer and developmental biology, california state university, northridge, northridge, ca, * steven oppenheimer, department of biology and center for cancer and developmental biology, california state university, northridge, 18111 nordhoff st., northridge, ca 91330-8303, usa received: december 31, 2021 accepted: january 20, 2022 online published: february 4, 2022 doi:10.22158/fet.v5n1p9 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v5n1p9 abstract this paper presents a summary of a national science foundation webinar on supporting student research with methods of relevance to applied research applications. this webinar featured invited presidential award (paesmem) winners dominique evans-bye and steve oppenheimer and showcases selections done by k-12 students that are every bit as good as many from university level research programs. k-12 research is often belittled as not real research but this concept will be negated by reading the applied research presented here. interesting data on ejecta pattern on martian crater, adhesion peptides binding to hydroxyapatite, and population dynamics of collembolans are presented here. dominique evans-bye, a high school teacher, is one of two us presidential award winners in the area of student research in science, of hundreds at the university level. this paper will show why she was selected to receive this honor and what other teachers can do to lift the level of student research in their classes. 1. introduction the presidential award for excellence in science, mathematics and engineering mentoring (paesmem) is a presidential award established by the united states white house in 1995 (note 1). the program is administered by the national science foundation (nsf) (note 2) on behalf of the white house office of science and technology policy (ostp) (note 3) to reward outstanding mentoring by individuals and organizations. paesmem is the highest national mentoring award bestowed by the white house (note 4). a national science foundation webinar was presented on august 11, 2020 (note 5) by invited presidential award winners dominique evans-bye and steve oppenheimer on the topic supporting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/national_science_foundation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/office_of_science_and_technology_policy www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 10 published by scholink inc. student research (note 6). an abbreviated version of this webinar is presented here as originally it was presented to a limited audience of presidential award winners. the selections cited here were also presented in the new journal of student research abstracts (note 7), a journal for k-12 teachers and their students and not for the general scientific community. therefore, neither the webinar or journal were given the widespread coverage of this applied research paper. the material presented is applied research and the methods are of interest to applied research scientists and educators. the webinar started with a presentation by steve oppenheimer telling teachers how to submit their students’ research to the journal. after reviewing and editing abstracts (the journal editors also review and edit the abstracts), teachers email the abstracts to steven.oppenheimer@csun.edu, usually by june 1 of each year (note 8). details and formats are given in each journal issue. all 25 annual issues are available for downloading free of charge world wide by clicking on: http://scholarworks.csun.edu/handle/10211.3/125029 (note 9). the sample selections from the journal show that k-12 student research can be every bit as good as university level research. also presented at the webinar by steve is the following national science teaching association (nsta) october 2019 commentary read by hundreds of thousands (note 9). it provides an important vision on the importance of recognizing all participating science students, if we are to increase the ranks of future research scientists. the value of recognizing the efforts of all science students by steve oppenheimer. current education research (note 10, note 11) has shown that precollege science experiences substantially increase the number of students choosing a science major in college. however, science fairs usually select a relatively small number of winners from hundreds of participants, leaving most with little to show for their efforts, which can diminish those students’ future interest. about 35 years ago, i established a research training program for k-12 teachers. after training many teachers in our labs, i developed the journal of student research abstracts (jsra) to showcase and reward participating students with published abstracts in a free online journal. all students, not just the high achievers, should be encouraged to do precollege science research, as by the time they reach college, they often have decided on careers. the united states needs more research scientists, so we should encourage many more students, not just high achievers, to fall in love with science. teachers across los angeles and across the u.s.a. submit abstracts on behalf of their middle and high school students to jsra. journal editors and teachers rigorously review abstracts, and students have the opportunity to correct any problems. although this research is conducted by students, scientific rigor is expected. abstracts document the use of appropriate controls, sufficient replications, and adequate numbers of samples. accepted abstracts are published in the journal, and student authors receive a print copy of the journal containing their published research. (jsra is available online at http://bit.ly/2kke0et.) one teacher said their students dance with joy upon seeing their work in print. working with teachers like greg zem, terri miller, stacy tanaka, and aphrodite antoniou, my colleagues and i also created the center for mailto:steven.oppenheimer@csun.edu http://scholarworks.csun.edu/handle/10211.3/125029 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 11 published by scholink inc. cancer and developmental biology pre-college research poster symposium, which also recognizes hundreds of middle and high school student scientists each year. the posters often are based on the reviewed project abstracts submitted to jsra, and a cadre of advanced senior level university students trained in research science evaluate them. students conduct their research at their schools and homes, and present their reviewed research in poster form at the symposium, held at california state university, northridge (csun), where they receive medals and certificates recognizing their efforts. this really inspires them to continue in science. former students who contributed to the journal and participated in the symposium have reported that their siblings “fight” to become involved. students have been admitted to a spectrum of higher learning institutions, including the california state university system, university of california system, drexel university, oxford, pepperdine, stanford, harvard, penn state, and the university of tokyo. thousands of good precollege science experiences exist that can motivate students to choose science careers. just having a great science teacher can spark students’ interest. our journal and poster symposium recognize thousands of kids for their research work. a reward like a published abstract or a medal and certificate may be the first and often only recognition from a university many of these students receive. following the most recent symposium, csun vice provost matt cahn noted, “this is one of those transformative opportunities that we hope all students have.” how often do hundreds of students receive university and parental recognition for science research work? the pride that families take in their children’s science work provides an extra push for them to choose a science career. these programs are replicable by teachers, schools, and school districts if they wish to encourage many more students to contemplate future science careers. i also suggest that science educators consider urging their middle and high school students to submit research abstracts to jsra. l author’s note i would like to thank andrew weiss, elizabeth altman, mindy berman, alvalyn lundgren, and helen chun for their work on jsra. i have been fortunate to have support from csun leadership and staff in launching and running the symposium and the journal. steve oppenheimer, professor emeritus, csun, has received several awards, including the presidential award for excellence in science, mathematics, and engineering mentoring and a csu system trustees outstanding professor award. he is an american association for the advancement of science fellow and serves as director of csun’s center for cancer and developmental biology. he was editor of elsevier’s international journal acta histochemica, affiliated with the international federation of societies for histochemistry and cytochemistry. he has taught, conducted research, and worked with middle and high school students and teachers at csun for 48 years (note 8). we think that the selections from students and teachers presented here and at the webinar confirm that k-12 applied research can be as good as university level research. this article helps in the recognition of an often under recognized segment of the world’s research efforts. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 12 published by scholink inc. 2. experimental procedure in the ejecta pattern report, a thermal emission imaging system (themis) was used (note 11). peptide and hydroapatite slab structures were generated using peptide configuration software and molecular editing software in the adhesion peptide interactions experiment (note 12). in the collembola (onychiuridae encarpatus) experiment petri dishes were used with experimental and control samples (note 13). 3. results and discussion here follow student research selections presented at the webinar or in the journal described in the webinar. it is important to read the mars paper because it provides a key clue on why d.evans-bye was selected as a paesmem recipient and how other teachers can lift the level of their student research. a unique ejecta pattern: erosion’s effect on a martian dual crater david abramyan, tadeh amirkhanian, madlen jalalyan, eliza petrosian, sevak vartanian, and d. evans-bye (teacher) anderson w. clark magnet high school 4747 new york ave., la crescenta, ca 91214 (note 11) i. introduction the research question that we investigated for this project was: “has the ejecta pattern around the double crater in stamp v15272005 been modified by erosion?” we found our research question interesting because as we were looking over thermal emission imaging system (themis) images, we noticed a double crater, which means there were two impacts. it appears the impacts were simultaneous, seeing as one crater does not overlap the other and the ridge cuts right in between the craters. the ejecta is unique because it does not match the shape of the other typical patterns such as butterfly, radial, or offset. the crater’s edges seem to be smoothed by erosion. we came up with the following hypotheses for our project: • if the ejecta has been modified, then we will find evidence of erosion. • if the ejecta has been modified by water erosion, then we will find evidence of channels. ii. background known as earth’s sister planet, mars is thought to have been very similar to present day earth millions of years ago (anderson, 2019). surprisingly, both mars and earth have roughly the same amount of dry land surface area. this might seem like a strange claim when objectively looking at the two planets, but two-thirds of earth’s surface is covered by water. because the diameter of mars is roughly half that of earth, mars’ gravity is much lower. the gravity of earth is 2.66 times that of mars. the composition of their atmospheres is greatly different. while they do share many of the same gases, the most abundant www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 13 published by scholink inc. gas on mars is carbon dioxide, with a whopping 95.32% compared to earth’s 0.038%. on earth, the most prevalent gas is nitrogen with 77%, while on mars it is 2.7%. arguably the most important gas for the presence of life, oxygen, is 21% of earth’s atmosphere and only 0.13% of mars’. the atmospheric pressure for mars and earth is 7.5 millibars (on average) and 1,013 millibars (at sea level), respectively (phoenix mars mission, 2007). in addition, earth is much more geologically active than mars. earth has a “hot interior” with a core, mantle, and crust. earth also contains a lithosphere, the rigid rock that forms the outer layer of a planet. these help with conducting heat flow around the planet, with gravity helping by sorting the materials in terms of density (mcgrath, 2005). these differences in the two planetary bodies provide a reasonable explanation as to why it is less common for certain features to form, why they look different on earth, or why they do not remain as long. while there are a myriad of different features that form on both mars and earth, there are specific features that pertain to the stamp v15272005 (figure 1). (see figures 1-8 on page 61.) these features include double craters, ejecta patterns, and channels (figure 2). these features are thought to form the same way on mars as they do on earth. craters are formed in three stages: compression, excavation, and modification (figure 3). during the compression stage, the impact from the meteor causes a shock wave to pass around the area. the energy is converted into heat and kinetic energy. the impact causes solid materials to behave like fluids. during the next stage, excavation, the shock waves continue outward through the material surrounding the impact. the material then moves upward and outward, causing it to form an ejecta blanket. in the third and final stage, the loose debris will move and slide into the crater’s walls. figure 1. our study area www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 14 published by scholink inc. figure 2. teal: channels blue: ejecta patterns purple double crater figure 3. formation of craters source: lunar and planetary institute www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 15 published by scholink inc. as seen in figure 4, these ejecta blankets can be modified by erosion, future impacts, lava, or tectonic activity (wiggins, 2017). double craters form when a pair of meteorites simultaneously hit the ground next to each other. if both asteroids are comparable in size, the pair of craters they create may be the same size as well. if the impactors vary in size, they will also have different sizes for the resulting pair. if the two impact explosions occur simultaneously, the result would be the interconnected ejecta shooting debris sideways. debris is the material that is formed during a meteor strike. also as seen in figure 4, debris is what creates “wings,” or ejecta patterns, on the sides of the double craters (arizona state university (asu), 2020). there are three different types of ejecta patterns — radial, butterfly, and offset. radial ejecta patterns are those with concentric shapes that extend outward (figure 5). butterfly ejecta patterns do not extend all around the crater. instead, they are off to the sides of the crater (figure 6). offset patterns form when the ejecta branches out on a specific side of the crater. this occurs when the meteorite hits at an angle (figure 7). figure 4. formation of ejecta blankets and patterns source: lunar and planetary institute figure 5. radial ejecta pattern www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 16 published by scholink inc. figure 6. butterfly ejecta pattern figure 7. offset ejecta pattern channels form through flowing water (figure 8). today, it is impossible for water to flow through channels on mars. because of mars’ thin atmosphere, water would evaporate or freeze before traveling anywhere (asu, 2020). however, scientists hypothesize that mars had a much warmer and wetter climate when it had an atmosphere up to five times thicker than earth’s current one (redd, 2018). this atmosphere would have made it very possible for water to flow and create channels. it is a common belief among scientists that earth’s thick atmosphere causes meteorites to burn up before they can hit earth’s surface (nasa, 2015). because of this theorized thicker atmosphere, it is very likely that there were fewer craters on the surface of mars in the past than now. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 17 published by scholink inc. figure 8. channel formation source: coolgeography.co.uk iii. methods we used the themis camera on the mars odyssey spacecraft to collect data for our research. we chose themis stamp v15272005 to be the focus of our research, noting the double crater, its ejecta pattern, as well as the banks on either side of the crater. we used jmars (java mission-planning and analysis for remote sensing) to find images of craters with different ejecta patterns, and also referred to the mars image analysis feature id charts to identify the geological features we were observing on mars. we obtained our research image using the themis stamp tool in jmars. we rendered a ctx (context camera) stamp to provide the highest-resolution image available. we used the mola (mars orbiter laser altimeter) color over themis day (plus mola numeric elevation layer) to not only visualize the changes, but to obtain graphs of each of the different types of ejecta patterns. we used the elevation profile tool to record the elevation change and to determine the direction water would flow through our study area. we worked on the premise that if ejecta has been eroded, then the elevation change would be lessened. to investigate this, we used the elevation profile tool to measure the change in elevation in one radial, butterfly, and offset crater ejecta sample. to support our claim of a water channel eroding away some ejecta, we measured the elevation changes from our study area down what appeared to be a floodplain, to a well-defined channel. iv. data we collected four themis images of craters, one of each crater type. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 18 published by scholink inc. figure 9. this three-dimensional graph shows the different average elevation changes of the ejecta patterns of each type of crater figure 10. this is a graph of the differences between the average levels of elevation change. the offset crater and our crater have the least difference in value www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 19 published by scholink inc. figure 11. elevation of cross-sections of ejecta patterns for our study area www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 20 published by scholink inc. figure 12. elevation of cross-sections of ejecta patterns for a butterfly crater www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 21 published by scholink inc. figure 13. elevation of cross-sections of ejecta patterns for an offset crater www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 22 published by scholink inc. figure 14. elevation of cross-sections of ejecta patterns for a radial crater table 1. data collected and tool used for each crater type type of crater data collected tool we used radial crater with ejecta average elevation change: 73 m elevation profile tool butterfly crater with ejecta average elevation change: 75 m elevation profile tool offset crater with ejecta average elevation change: elevation profile tool www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 23 published by scholink inc. 45 m our crater with ejecta average elevation change: 31.5 m elevation profile tool table 2. elevation level information for each crater type type of crater difference between average level of elevation for other craters and our crater radial crater 41.5 m butterfly crater 43.5 m offset crater 13.5 m v. discussion table 1 shows the type of object that was studied, the data we collected from that object, and the tool we used to get the information. data collected show the average elevation change. finally, the “tool used” column shows which tool in jmars was used to find the information. in this case, we used the numeric profile tool for all parts of the table. in the second table we have two sections: the “type of crater” and the “difference between average level of elevation for ejecta around other craters and the ejecta around our crater.” the “type of crater” shows which crater we are studying and the “difference between average levels” shows an estimate of the average elevation change of the ejecta. our project consists of 10 graphs. our data map (figure 15) shows the crater in stamp v15272005, as well as a water channel flowing toward a water bank. by using the tool, we saw that the elevation was decreasing as the channel was getting closer toward the bank (figure 16). figure 15. map of two water channels showing water flow from our study area water channels www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 24 published by scholink inc. figure 16. map of a floodplain flowing from near our study area to a water channel during our research we also found potential errors for the data collected. because we were able to analyze only one crater of each type, that left some room for inaccuracies. it also was difficult to find craters with the same radius. in addition, there is a possibility of misinterpretations in this project. because the edge of the ejecta is sometimes hard to define, it’s difficult to determine where it starts. additionally, we need to find craters that are younger, because in that case the average elevation changes would be greater than those of ones that were already eroded. an original ejecta pattern would have more fluctuation in the change of elevation, since erosion blows off parts of the ejecta pattern, thus smoothing the surface and decreasing the change in elevation. vi. conclusions our research question was: “has the ejecta pattern around the double crater in stamp v15272005 been modified by erosion?” and we found that yes, the ejecta pattern has been modified by erosion because we found evidence of a bank formed from a water body. using the elevation profile tool, we were able to find the direction the water would flow based on changes in elevation (figure 15), with our ejecta pattern being right in the middle of the flow path. our hypothesis was: “if the ejecta has been modified by water erosion, then we will find evidence of channels.” we want to continue this project on arcgis to create a watershed and do a downstream water trace. additionally, we still need to do statistical analysis to find out if our data show significant differences in erosion levels. we would like to acknowledge our gis & remote sensing teacher, ms. dominique evans-bye; don boonstra with arizona state university (asu) for his helpful suggestions on the mars student imaging project (msip) program; asu and nasa/jet propulsion laboratory (jpl) for developing the project; and the national science foundation for funding the msip. a key take-home lesson is funding and consultations, just as university faculty often require funding and consultations for doing high level research. the mars paper shows how evans-bye and her students went after funding and consultations www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 25 published by scholink inc. to accomplish this monumental mars paper. if one looked at her other papers, the same pattern of funding and consultations would be evident. that's one major reason that evans-bye was one of only a couple of high school teachers in many years who won a u.s. presidential award and why she was selected for this nsf webinar. vii. references anderson, morten garly. “mars in relation to the earth—dtu space.” national space institute, https://bit.ly/32ej4vs. “ch7.” nasa, https://go.nasa.gov/377yaxm. “channels” mars education | developing the next generation of explorers. arizona state university, https://bit.ly/3mvffjn. “classroom illustrations.” impact crater formation. lunar and planetary institute, https://bit.ly/33eclfi. “compare drainage channels on earth and mars.” idaho state university, https://bit.ly/33xxhek. “double craters.” mars education | developing the next generation of explorers. arizona state university, https://bit.ly/2zk3va5. dunbar, brian. “asteroid fast facts.” nasa, 31 mar. 2014, https://go.nasa.gov/3mdfxai. imster, eleanor. “researchers find double crater in sweden.” earthsky, 17 sept. 2015, https://bit.ly/2h7ioyk. “mars/earth comparison table.” phoenix mars mission education—mars 101, aug. 2007, https://bit.ly/2h7k7qc. mcgrath, elizabeth j. “astronomy 110 announcements,” 2005, https://bit.ly/2rxpfwp. redd, nola taylor. “water on mars: exploration and evidence.” space.com, 18 aug. 2018, https://bit.ly/33q0er1. “river processes.” river processes—water on the land. coolgeography.co.uk, https://bit.ly/3ccftd5. schirber, michael. “the meandering channels of mars.” astrobiology magazine, 10 dec. 2009, https://bit.ly/35hfimg. “what can craters tell us about a planet?” mars education program, https://go.nasa.gov/2zfwe4w. wiggins, don. “deep impact: science — cratering.” university of maryland, https://bit.ly/3kbqpxh. wynn, jeffrey c., and shoemaker, eugene m. “the day the sands caught.” scientific american, inc., nov. 1998, https://on.doi.gov/2fciaqj. investigation of adhesion peptide interactions with hydroxyapatite through computational molecular dynamics jaya srinivasan hamkins and o. tuason (teacher) crescenta valley high school 2900 community ave., la crescenta, ca 91214 (note12) https://bit.ly/32ej4vs https://go.nasa.gov/377yaxm https://bit.ly/3mvffjn https://bit.ly/33eclfi https://bit.ly/33xxhek https://bit.ly/2zk3va5 https://go.nasa.gov/3mdfxai https://bit.ly/2h7ioyk https://bit.ly/2h7k7qc https://bit.ly/2rxpfwp https://bit.ly/33q0er1 https://bit.ly/3ccftd5 https://bit.ly/35hfimg https://go.nasa.gov/2zfwe4w https://bit.ly/3kbqpxh https://on.doi.gov/2fciaqj www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 26 published by scholink inc. objectives: nanomedicine revolutionizes treatment of cardiovascular disease through the design of peptide-labelled nanoparticles that bind to hydroxyapatite (ha), the form of calcium in atherosclerotic plaques. this project evaluated binding efficacies of broad-range adhesion peptides (svsvgmkpsprp, stlpiphefsre, and vtkhlnqisqsy) to hydroxyapatite through the use of molecular dynamics (md) software. methods: peptide and hydroxyapatite slab structures were generated using peptide configuration software pep-fold3 and molecule editing software avogadro, respectively. three 5 ns simulation trials were run for each peptide using md software gromacs to model atomic force-field interactions between the peptide and the hydroxyapatite in water solvent. binding efficacy was evaluated through visual observation and calculation of the surface separation distance (ssd) between the peptides and the ha slab. binding is indicated by a separation of less than 1 nm between the amino acid binding site and ha slab. results: svsvgmkpsprp exhibited binding at its lysine (k) and arginine (r) residues. stlpiphefsre exhibited binding at its first serine (s), and vtkhlnqisqsy exhibited binding at lysine (k) and histidine (h). consistent adhesion interactions were evident in all three trials of svsvgmkpsprp, two trials of vtkhlnqisqsy, and one trial of stlpiphefsre. conclusions: the simulations confirmed that all three peptides possess binding capabilities and identified the specific binding sites. svsvgmkpsprp exhibited the smallest surface separation distance from hydroxyapatite over multiple trials, thereby demonstrating the greatest binding efficacy, and suggesting the greatest potential for clinical use. these results are contingent upon the initial peptide structures and would benefit from extended simulation periods and in vitro confirmation. will a population of collembolans increase if dawn® dishwashing foam soap is placed in their environment? nathaniel cruz, gavin decker, justin decker, angela sorensen, and t. miller (retired teacher) laughlin library 2840 s. needles hwy., laughlin, nv 89029 (note 13) the purpose of this experiment was to determine if dawn dishwashing foam soap will harm a population of collembolans (onychiuridae encarpatus). the hypothesis was that a population of collembolans would decrease if dawn dishwashing foam soap was added to their environment. collembolans are tiny insect-like animals that have a springtail for jumping and feed on mold. for the procedure, one part charcoal was measured and placed in a container. nine parts plaster of paris also were measured and placed into the container, and the lid was tightly closed. it was shaken until the ingredients were completely mixed. the mixture was placed in a different plastic container and water was added while the mixture was stirred to make it the consistency of yogurt. the liquid was poured into eight petri dishes and tapped on the table until it was spread out evenly in each petri dish. it was allowed to dry for a few days. half of the petri dishes were labeled control and half labeled experiment. water drops were added to make a moist environment. equal numbers of collembolans were added to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 27 published by scholink inc. the eight control and experiment petri dishes. dawn dishwashing foam soap was added to the four experiment petri dishes. yeast was added to all of the petri dishes for the collembolans to eat, and drops of water were added daily. the collembolans and their eggs were counted and graphed. after 35 days, a total of 1,208 collembolans were counted: 39% in the experiment and 61% in the control. a total of 623 collembolan eggs were counted on day 35: 105 (17%) in the experiment and 518 (83%) in the control. the hypothesis was correct. dawn dishwashing foam soap decreased a population of collembolans. 4. conclusion  the national science foundation webinar on supporting student research showed that k-12 applied student research is as good as some university level research. the research selections presented on ejecta patterns on a mars crater, adhesion peptide interactions with hydroxyapatite, and population dynamics in collembolans are examples of what can be done by students. it is important for the continued excellence of applied research that journals such as this one showcase what the next generation of future scientists can do. nsf selected this work as being important for the future health of science research worldwide. the u.s. presidential award for student research mentoring is usually given to university professors like steve. the fact that dominique received this award suggests that nsf and the white house office of science and technology policy recognize that pre-college student research and mentoring deserve a place in the annals of research excellence (note 14, note 15). but how can high school teachers like dominique achieve such a high level of sophisticated student research with their massive teaching workload? part of the answer is that they go after funds just like university professors. in dominique’s case: the mars ejecta project was developed with the help of arizona state university, nasa and the jet propulsion laboratory and funded by the national science foundation. dominique also received support from:  toyota tapestry large grant recipient, 2008  robert and karen newcomb graduate scholarship recipient, 2009  marine technical society student scholarship recipient, 2009  university of california los angeles teacher initiated inquiry project grant recipient, 2010 and 2012  chevrolet green educator award, 2012  presidential innovation award for environmental educators, 2013  steve allen “excellence in education award,” 2013  verdugo-montrose chamber of commerce educator of the year, 2013  california geographic society distinguished teaching award, 2014  totaling over $500,000. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 28 published by scholink inc.  it should be noted that like in college not all pre-college submissions are of the high level of sophistication as the selections presented here. fostering interest in science is most important even if the students’ work with far less sophisticated materials and mentors who are far less trained and motivated than dominique. what dominique has accomplished is legendary.  what is presented here is the only material by evans-bye and oppenheimer presented at the webinar. no other student research papers were presented. this presentation was invited by nsf and what is in this paper is a model for all teachers for enhancing their student research. a key take-home lesson is funding, funding, funding…just as university faculty often require funding for doing high level research. we see in this paper exactly how evans-bye obtained funding to help do the high quality of research presented in the mars paper. the mars paper is an example of what can be done at the pre-college level. notes note 1. https://paesmem.net note 2. info@paesmem.net note 3. https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/administration/eop/ostp/about note 4. www.paesmem.net note 5. alumni webinar: preparing for fall online learning, supporting student research, www.paesmem.net note 6. paesmem_ay2021_alumni_ engagement_webinar.pdf note 7. http://scholarworks.csun/handle/10211.3/125029 note 8. oppenheimer, s. the value of recognizing the efforts of all science students, nsta reports, october 2019, p. 3. note 9. http://bit.ly/2kke0et note 10. dou, r., hazari, z., dabney, k., sonnert, g., sadler, p., 2019, early informal stem experiences identity: the importance of talking science, sci.edu. 10. 1002/sce.21499. note 11. the new journal of student research abstracts, vol. 25, 2020, p. 57. note 12. the new journal of student research abstracts, vol. 25, 2020, p. 48. note 13. the new journal of student research abstracts, vol. 25, 2020, p. 15. note 14. oppenheimer, s., berman, m., chun, h., lundgren, a., tanaka, s., antoniou, a., miller, t., zem, g. applied science research for all part 1 pre-college level. american journal of applied scientific research, vol 6, pp. 72-75, 2020. note 15. oppenheimer, s., et al. applied science research for all part 2 college level, american journal of applied scientific research, vol 7, pp. 1-7, 2021. https://paesmem.net/ http://www.paesmem.net/ http://www.paesmem.net/ http://scholarworks.csun/handle/10211.3/125029 http://bit.ly/2kke0et frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 1 original paper managing staff diversity for effective secondary school management in delta state, nigeria ossai, a.g.1 & oyibokure, g.i.2 1 faculty of education, university of delta, agbor, nigeria 2 faculty of social science, university of delta, agbor, nigeria received: february 5, 2024 accepted: february 22, 2024 online published: march 13, 2024 doi:10.22158/fet.v7n2p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v7n2p1 abstract this study investigated the management of staff diversity for effective management of secondary schools in delta state. it was a descriptive survey. the population consisted of all delta state high school principals. a sample of 250 respondents (150 men and 100 women) was selected. the study was guided by two research questions and two hypotheses. a researcher-designed instrument called the employee diversity management questionnaire (edmq) was used to collect data. the instrument was verified by experts. the reliability index determined for the instrument using cronbach alpha was 0.78. mean and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions, while the z-test was used to analyze the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. among other things, the findings of the study revealed that there are certain strategies for managing age and gender diversity for effective management of public secondary schools and that both male and female school principals do not differ in their strategies for managing age and gender diversity. based on the findings, it was recommended, among other things, that the government formulate policies to guide school administrators in managing diversity among teachers, and that the ministry of education and other relevant authorities organize training programs for school administrators. keywords employees, diversity, leadership, high school, administration 1. introduction the increasing diversity of the workforce is one of the most important management issues that has started in recent years. diversity is the way people differ, which can affect task performance in an organization. diversity is the differences between people caused by age, gender, ethnicity, religion, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 2 published by scholink inc. sexual orientation, opinion, socio-economic background, educational experience, abilities, disabilities and any other characteristics that are used to differentiate between people (iibi, 2019) workforce diversity is the amount of individual differences and similarities that exist among people working in an organization (krietner & kinicki, 2002). no two human beings are the same. they differ not only in gender, culture, race, age, religion, social orientation, psychological characteristics, but also in perspectives and prejudices (saxema, 2014). diversity in the workplace includes race, age, gender, ethnic group, religion, sexual orientation, civil status, metal and physical conditions, as well as other significant differences between people. in recent years, organizations that understand how to effectively manage diversity in the workplace will have a distinct advantage when it comes to recruiting and hiring talent (saxema, 2014). today’s managers are responsible for both leading employees and responding to the needs of customers who are more ethnically and culturally diverse and older. diversity encompasses the full spectrum of primary dimensions of all individuals, including race, ethnicity, gender, age, religion, and disability. it is a common fact that each of us has unique characteristics in each of these dimensions. experience shows that when diversity is recognized and valued, it increases individual productivity, organizational effectiveness and sustainable competitiveness. in order to achieve success and maintain a competitive advantage, we must be able to draw on the most important resource the skills of the workforce. workforce diversity presents both a challenge and an opportunity for businesses. a growing number of progressive organizations recognize the need to value diversity in the workplace to ensure the strategic use of human resources to achieve strategic goals. when an organization has people of different castes, religions, minorities, age differences, and gender differences, the question naturally arises of how to reconcile the differences among these employees without causing too much friction in day-to-day interactions. workplace diversity has significant implications for management. managers will be required to change their approach from treating each group of workers equally to recognizing the differences between them and following such policies to encourage creativity, improve productivity, reduce worker turnover and prevent any discrimination. when workforce diversity is managed properly, there would be better communication, better interpersonal relations and a pleasant work culture in the organization. in a diverse workplace, employees are exposed to many perspectives and views of the world. when these different perspectives come together, they often come together in novel ways and open the door to innovation. in the same spirit, when employees with different backgrounds and focus come together, they come up with more sophisticated solutions, which leads to more informed and better decision-making processes and results (zojceska, 2018). clearly, the school system is one organization that boasts the reality of workforce diversity, specifically among teachers. secondary schools draw on staff from different cultural backgrounds, different ethnic groups, different genders, ages, religions and educational backgrounds. the teacher occupies an enviable position in the educational process and is a recognized academic leader with the potential to determine the nature, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 3 published by scholink inc. scope and content of learning. the teacher’s role is multidimensional but complementary. it requires great professionalism and dedication. a teacher’s primary role is to provide classroom instruction that helps students learn, but it encompasses much more than that (cox, 2020). teaching and learning are also part of the administrative activities that take place in the school system. administration is an integral part of management, which operationalizes strategic plans and actions, organizes the organization’s human and material resources for the purpose of realizing set goals and objectives. school administration is important in determining the quality of the education system. in the secondary school system, the principal, who is an administrator, directs and coordinates his subordinates, defines goals, evaluates the performance of employees and students. it provides a conducive environment for effective teaching and learning as well as maintaining peace and stability in the institution. school management requires the cooperation of the principal and teachers for the smooth daily running of the school. the teacher also participates to some extent in the administration of the school. however, these teachers are from different backgrounds. areas of diversity include gender, age, religion, culture and education. effective diversity management is not just about bringing in a diverse workforce, it is about responding appropriately and appreciating the needs, values, beliefs and needs that diverse people bring to the school. it also means finding the most effective ways to use the talents and skills of different employees by correcting misconceptions about how and why different groups of employees differ from each other. to achieve this, management shows greater efforts to accept differences by opening employment opportunities to people of different cultures, religions, races, backgrounds, experiences, ages, educations and disabilities. in a diverse school environment, secondary school management is concerned with understanding the educational curriculum, focus, educational preparation and experience of the staff. employee interests and organizational interests are always in conflict because of the diversity of employees. in some cases, the diversity of employee interests affects the interests of the organization, if the administration is not able to determine the interest of its employees and the interest of the organization when making decisions. diverse traits also affect an employee’s attitude and behavior towards work and therefore employee performance and productivity will experience varying levels of input (nwankwo, 2004). 2. conceptual clarification here, conceptual meanings and clarifications are made with respect to diversity and diversity management. 2.1 diversity concept the word diversity originated from the middle english word “diversity” used in the years 1300-1350. according to longman’s dictionary (2005), diversity is the state of having or being associated with opposing elements. it includes and adds different types of people of different races or cultures in groups, organizations or institutions. this is a situation where there is a partial change of life in the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 4 published by scholink inc. environment, education and the like. when individuals, plants, animals or things of different types or categories coexist in a certain environment, ecosystem, organization or institutions, it is referred to as diversity. but diversity means more than this. diversity also means how people perceive themselves and other people in their immediate environment and beyond. according to bhalin (2013), diversity is the variety of experiences and perspectives that result from differences in race, culture, religion, physical or mental abilities, age, gender, sexual orientation, and other characteristics. it means valuing the characteristics that make a person unique, such as age, ethnicity, gender, education level, and family background. inclusion of diverse individuals in the workplace promotes a greater and healthier exchange of new ideas among employees, allowing the organization to capitalize on the unique characters of the workforce. 2.2 age diversity it is traditionally believed that wisdom comes with age, so older people are highly respected and treated with respect. while these long-standing traditions may have served well in the past, they can present serious problems in times of huge populations. age diversity is an intergenerational behavior between old and young employees that can explain differences in observed workplace behavior (fajana, 2009). this is based on the assumption that employees who grew up in different times and periods have different world views, expectations, values and preferred ways of communicating and interacting with each other (glass, 2007). in this vein, teachers who grew up and are employed at different times may have different ideas about what the profession is about, its expectations, values, communication style, curriculum content and teaching style. the transfer of experience from an old worker to a new worker leads to more effective problem solving because a more age-diverse workforce provides a wider range of perspectives and consequently a greater number of alternatives are evaluated (okogbaa, 2005). age diversity can be effectively managed by the school taking into account the different needs of different age groups in all its actions and policies (young, madsen, & young, 2010). school principals are expected to address them on an ongoing basis to avoid any form of discrimination and intimidation. age diversity is a phenomenon that requires careful attention and effective management to create an inclusive learning environment. nigeria, with its diverse population and unique educational challenge, faces the challenge of developing strategies in the school system. however, the following strategies could be used in managing age diversity in the school system; mentoring programmes: implementation of a formal mentoring program where senior teachers lead and share their experiences with younger ones, covering pedagogical practices, classroom management, subject expertise and school culture orientation (egunjobi, 2017). both male and female principals can promote intergenerational collaboration in schools and foster knowledge sharing and mutual support across age groups. this may include the creation of mentor-mentee partnerships, the creation of intergenerational working groups, and the creation of space for open communication and mutual learning from experience (akinyemi, 2018). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 5 published by scholink inc. collaborative lesson planning: encourage collaboration between teachers of different ages in lesson planning. this allows senior teachers to offer guidance and younger teachers to bring fresh perspective (akinyemi, 2018). both men and women can recognize the importance of age-inclusive professional development opportunities, ensuring access to resources and training for education of all ages. this could include a targeted programme for early-career teachers in lesson planning, instructional initiatives for mid-career professionals, and professional development opportunities for experienced veterans (caldwell & martin, 2019). professional development opportunities: providing professional development opportunities tailored to the needs of both senior and junior teachers. older teachers can focus on areas such as mentoring skills, while younger teachers can receive training in new technologies, innovative teaching methods and classroom management strategies (fme, 2013). regular staff meetings: facilitating regular staff meetings where teachers of different ages can openly discuss issues, share best practices and build a sense of community (adedokun, 2014). peer observation and feedback: promoting peer observation and feedback sessions between teachers of different ages. this encourages mutual learning and respect while allowing for criticism (egunjobi, 2019). social events and activities: organizing social events and activities outside school hours to encourage interaction and relationship building between teachers of different ages. this can help break down age barriers and create a more supportive school environment. creating a supportive school environment that promotes work-life balance for all staff regardless of age can be a common goal for both male and female principals (ajayi, 2017). embracing junior teacher innovation: encouraging junior teachers to share their knowledge of new technologies, innovative teaching methods and social media with their colleagues (adedokun, 2014). 2.3 gender diversity this focuses on the equal treatment and acceptance of both men and women in the organization. gender diversity enhances creativity and innovation (mboya, 2009). the implication is that gender diversity in the workplace creates a richer flow of ideas and thus has the potential to increase creativity and innovation among the workforce in an organization. workforce diversity in any organization such as a school is a critical management task that requires tact and adequate knowledge of human resource management skills. diversity management allows everyone to naturally contribute to the organization’s goals. gender disparity among secondary school teachers in nigeria is a pressing issue as it impacts student learning, career choices and overall school dynamics. here are some strategies to manage gender differences: career counseling and scholarship programmes: targeting career counseling at girls’ high school , highlighting the benefits and rewards of a teaching career. additionally, consider scholarship programmes specifically designed for female teacher education students (obasi, 2021). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 6 published by scholink inc. better working conditions and support: addressing factors that disproportionately affect female teachers such as lack of childcare facilities, flexible work arrangements and harassment. provide adequate guidance and support systems for female teachers dealing with issues related to gender bias or discrimination (aina, 2018). due to the different educational needs at different life stages, male and female principals can educate for flexible work arrangements (adams, 2011). promoting gender inclusive policies and practices: principals and principals can educate to implement policies and practices that explicitly address gender equality and combat discrimination in schools. this could include setting clear guidelines for harassment and bullying, ensuring gender-balanced leadership positions and creating a safe space for open dialogue on gender issues. empowering marginalized voices: regardless of gender, principals and school leaders can support initiatives that empower students and staff from marginalized genders. challenging gender stereotypes: both male and female principals can play a vital role in challenging harmful gender stereotypes in schools. this could include integrating gender-inclusive curriculum materials, promoting the integration of positive gender representation in media and activities, and encouraging open conversations about gender roles and expectations (culdwell & martin, 2019). fostering a culture of respect and inclusion: creating a school environment where all individuals feel respected and valued, regardless of their gender identity or expression, can be a shared goal for both principals and women. this could include promoting empathy and understanding between different genders, implementing anti-bias training for staff and celebrating the diversity of identities and experiences in the school community (ajayi, 2017). professional development opportunities: offer professional development opportunities tailored to the needs of female teachers, focusing on leadership skills, subject matter expertise, and career progression strategies (adeyemi &aina, 2019). ordu’s (2015) study on secondary school diversity and diversity management showed that teachers’ views highlight the huge benefits of a diverse workforce when properly managed by school administration. also, a study by sayht et al. (2016) on diversity management and respect for diversity in schools showed that school principals and teachers agreed that staff diversity management in schools is above average. in the same vein, in a study by young et al. (2010) on principals’ perceptions of their roles in implementing the mayflower district strategy diversity plan found that despite all the challenges principals faced, they communicated their efforts to move the plan forward. two themes came to the fore in their efforts to understand their plan, their struggle for leadership during the implementation phase and the need for an educational component to educate directors on the strategic diversity plan and diversity self-efficacy training. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 7 published by scholink inc. 2.4 diversity management diversity management is a combination of programs, policies, and activities that foster an environment where differences among employees are valued and integrated into every part of the school’s operations. it is a process that aims to maintain and create a positive working environment where individual similarities and differences are valued in order to reach each individual’s potential and contribute maximally to the strategic goals and objectives of the organization (asodike, 2016). successful diversity management initiatives improve the performance and cohesion of the school system. schools that manage diversity are recipients of additional commitment and more satisfied and productive employees. effective management means learning to appreciate and respond appropriately to the needs, attitudes, beliefs, and values that different people bring to the organization. it also means correcting misconceptions about why and how different types of employees differ from one another, and finding the most effective way to leverage the skills and talents of different employees. effective diversity management addresses all school efforts to ensure that all people are valued regardless of their differences. it recognizes that people from different backgrounds can contribute new ideas and insights that can lead to a more efficient way of working and thereby increase productivity. effective diversity management helps an organization to develop creativity and innovation, thereby harnessing hidden capacities for growth and better competitiveness (asodike, 2016). the basic understanding of diversity management is to inspire employees to be comfortable with diversity in the workplace and to develop an appreciation for differences in age, race, gender, origin, sexual orientation or any other aspects that may not be shared by every person working in the same field. although workforce diversity is in different areas, the focus of this work will be on managing age and gender diversity. 2.5 statement of the problem the struggle to manage and protect the manifold challenges of human existence in nigeria remains a challenge facing nigeria since independence. these diverse themes center on religious, ethnic and political diversity bordering on gender, nationality, social class, origin, sexual orientation, age, mental and physical abilities, among others, in the school system. school administrators committed to organizational integration are caught in a web of coordinating moral and performance difficulties in managing diversity. the leadership of employees with diverse backgrounds largely determined their level of cohesion, cooperation, dedication and, by extension, productivity. there is diversity among these employees in terms of age, gender, and so on. all of this is related to the role of performance in the school system. also, a cursory glance at some secondary schools will reveal frequent cases of mutual suspicion, arbitrariness, discriminatory behavior, favoritism and the like. all these lead to conflict, disharmony, frustration and antagonism in the organization and consequently hamper the effectiveness and efficiency of the school system. based on these contributions, the study focuses on the management of staff diversity for the effective management of secondary schools in delta state, nigeria. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 8 published by scholink inc. 2.6 purpose of study generally, the main purpose of this study is to examine the diversity of management staff for the effective management of secondary schools in delta state, nigeria. specifically, the study focused on: 1). to determine the administrative strategies adopted by principals to manage age differences among secondary school teachers in delta state. 2). determining the strategies adopted by principals to manage gender diversity in secondary schools in delta state. 2.7 research questions the study was guided by the following research questions: 1). what administrative strategies have principals adopted to manage age differences among teachers in public secondary schools in delta state, nigeria? 2). what administrative strategies have principals adopted in managing gender disparities among teachers in public secondary schools in delta state, nigeria? 2.8 hypotheses the following hypotheses were formulated and tested; 1). there is no significant difference between the mean scores of male and female principals in terms of administrative strategies adopted by principals in managing age differences among teachers in public secondary schools in delta state, nigeria. 2). there is no significant difference between the mean scores of male and female principals on administrative strategies adopted by principals in managing gender differences among teachers in public secondary schools in delta state, nigeria. 2.9 methodology the study adopted a descriptive survey design. the population of the study consisted of all principals of public secondary schools in delta state. the sample size of this study was 250 (150 male and 100 female) principals selected by stratified random sampling method. a proprietary instrument called the “employee diversity management questionnaire” (edmq) was used for data collection. the instrument was verified by colleagues from the department of educational administration and measurement, university delta, agbor. the reliability of the instrument was determined using the cronbach alpha reliability technique with a reliability index of 0.78. the instrument consisted of elements arranged in a four-point rating scale of strongly agree (sa), agree (a), disagree (d), strongly disagree (sd). the weight was 4, 3, 2 and 1. the instrument was administered by the researchers with the help of two research assistants. the mean and standard were used to answer the research questions with a criterion mean of 2.50. a z-test at a significance level of 0.05 was used to test the hypotheses. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 9 published by scholink inc. 3. presentation of results 3.1 research question 1 what administrative strategies have principals adopted to manage age diversity among teachers in public secondary schools in delta state, nigeria? table 1. mean and standard deviation of male and female principals in age difference management strategies in public secondary schools in delta state s/n items male principals no. 150 female principals no. 100 x sd decision x sd decision 1 implementing mentorship programmes where senior teachers guide younger teachers. 3.43 0.26 agree 3.27 0.31 agree 2 encouraging collaboration between teachers of different ages during lesson planning session. 3.41 0.26 agree 3.06 0.30 agree 3 facilitating regular staff meetings where teachers of all ages can openly share ideas. 3.30 0.26 agree 3.00 0.30 agree 4 organizing social events among teachers at different ages 3.13 0.26 agree 3.06 0.30 agree 5 encouraging peer observations and feedback sessions between teachers of different ages. 3.12 0.24 agree 2.90 0.28 agree 6 embracing younger teachers’ innovation to share knowledge with colleagues. 3.15 0.24 agree 3.04 0.30 agree grand mean & sd 3.25 1.52 3.05 1.79 table 1 shows the mean scores of principals on strategies for managing age differences in secondary schools in delta state. the table revealed that all items had a weighted mean score above the criteria mean of 2.50, which means that all the identified strategies are adopted in the school system. a grand mean of 3.25 and 3.05 (for males and females respectively) indicated that strategies for managing age diversity in schools include implementing a mentoring program, encouraging collaboration between teachers of different ages during lesson planning, facilitating regular staff meetings where teachers share ideas, organize social events and activities among teachers of different ages, encourage mutual www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 10 published by scholink inc. observation and feedback, and use the innovations of young teachers to share knowledge with colleagues. 3.2 research question 2 what administrative strategies have principals adopted in managing gender disparities among teachers in public secondary schools in delta state, nigeria? table 2. mean and standard deviation of respondents regarding administrative strategies for managing age differences in public high schools s/n items male principals no. 150 female principals no. 100 x sd decision x sd decision 7 promoting gender inclusive policies and practices. 3.35 0.26 agree 3.00 0.30 agree 8 improving working conditions and support for female teachers. 3.29 0.26 agree 3.02 0.30 agree 9 empowering marginalized voices regardless of gender. 3.29 0.26 agree 3.06 0.30 agree 10 challenging harmful gender stereotypes in the school system . 3.32 0.26 agree 3.02 0.30 agree 11 fostering a culture of respect and inclusion in the school. 3.36 0.26 agree 3.04 0.30 agree 12 encouraging professional development opportunities for female teachers. 3.30 0.26 agree 2.96 0.28 agree grand mean & sd 3.31 1.56 3.01 1.78 table 2 shows the mean rating of respondents on administrative strategies for managing gender diversity in public secondary schools in delta state. the table showed that the respondents agreed with all the items because their average rating is above the criterion average of 2.50. also, the grand mean of 3.31 and 3.01 (for males and females respectively) indicated that administrative strategies for managing gender diversity in public secondary schools include; promoting gender-inclusive policies and practices, improving working conditions and support for teachers, empowering marginalized voices regardless of gender, challenging harmful gender stereotypes, promoting a culture of respect and inclusion, and promoting professional development opportunities for female teachers. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 11 published by scholink inc. 3.3 hypothesis 1 there is no significant difference between the mean scores of male and female principals on administrative strategies adopted by principals in managing age differences among teachers in public secondary schools in delta state, nigeria. table 3. z-test scores of principals’ mean ratings of administrative strategies for managing age differences in public high schools variables n x sd df z-cal z-crit remark male principals 150 3.25 1.52 248 0.91 1.96 accept female principals 100 3.05 1.79 • significant at 0.05 level table 3 revealed that male principals have a mean score and standard deviation score of 3.25 and 1.52, while female principals have a mean score and standard deviation score of 3.05 and 1.79, respectively. the result showed that the calculated value of 0.91 is less than the critical value of 1.96 at 0.05 alpha level and 248 degrees of freedom. on this basis, the null hypothesis was retained. consequently, there is no significant difference between the mean scores of male and female principals on the administrative strategies adopted by principals in managing age differences among teachers in public secondary schools in delta state, nigeria. 3.4 hypothesis 2 there is no significant difference between the mean scores of male and female principals on administrative strategies adopted by principals in managing gender diversity among public secondary school teachers in delta state, nigeria. table 4. z-test scores of the average evaluation of principals and principals of administrative strategies for managing gender diversity in public secondary schools variables n x sd df z-cal z-crit remark male principals 150 3.31 1.56 248 1.37 1.96 accept female principals 100 3.01 1.78 • significant at 0.05 level table 4 shows that male principals have a mean score and standard deviation score of 3.31 and 1.56, while female principals have a mean score and standard deviation score of 3.01 and 1.78, respectively. at the 0.05 alpha level and 248 degrees of freedom, the calculated z value of 1.37 is less than the critical z value of 1.96. on this basis, the null hypothesis was accepted. this means that there is no significant difference between the mean scores of male and female principals in terms of administrative www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 12 published by scholink inc. strategies adopted by principals in managing gender differences among teachers in public secondary schools in delta state, nigeria. 4. discussion of findings findings in the first research question revealed that principals have different administrative strategies to ensure effective management of age differences among teachers. these included introducing mentoring, programmes where older teachers lead younger ones, encouraging collaboration between teachers of different ages in lesson planning, facilitating regular staff meetings where teachers of all ages can openly share ideas, encouraging peer observation and feedback meetings between teachers of different ages, organizing social events and activities among teachers of different ages and accepting innovations from younger teachers to share knowledge with colleagues. also, hypothesis one indicated that there is no significant difference between the mean scores of male and female principals on the administrative strategies adopted by principals in managing age differences among teachers in public secondary schools in delta state. this is in agreement with akinyemi (2018) who argued that both male and female administrators (principals) can promote intergenerational collaboration in schools and promote knowledge sharing and mutual support across all age groups. coldwell and martin (2019) also argued that both male and female managers (principals) can recognize the importance of age-inclusive professional development opportunities, ensuring access to resources and training for educators of all ages. this could include targeted lesson planning programs for early-career teachers, instructional initiatives for mid-career professionals, and professional development opportunities for seasoned veterans. the second research question also revealed that strategies adopted by many principals to effectively manage gender gaps include promoting gender inclusive policies and practices, better working conditions and supporting female teachers, empowering marginalized voices, challenging gender strategies, promoting a culture of respect. and inclusion and promotion of professional development opportunities for female teachers. hypothesis two also indicated that there is no significant difference between the mean scores of male and female principals on administrative strategies adopted by principals in managing gender diversity among teachers in public secondary schools in delta state. this is in line with callister (2010) who believes that both male and female managers (principals) advocate the implementation of policies and procedures that explicitly address gender equality and combat discrimination in schools. in the same vein, ajayi (2018) argued that creating a school environment where all individuals feel respected and valued, regardless of their gender identity or expression, can be a common goal for both males and females. this could include promoting empathy and understanding between different genders, implementing anti-bias training for staff and celebrating the diversity of identities and experiences in the school community. this is very important for human resource management to guarantee cohesion, collegiality, cooperation, efficiency and effectiveness. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 13 published by scholink inc. 5. conclusion a diverse work team brings great value to the organization, so respecting individual differences benefits the workplace by creating a safe and fair work environment where everyone has access to challenges and responsibilities. this means that employees should be integrated, adapted and managed appropriately for the realization of objectives. school administrators should consciously understand issues that affect staff diversity, cultivate new knowledge, and implement management practices. in fact, school administrators (principals) should implement some strategies to effectively manage workforce diversity to ensure that the inherent benefits of diversity among teachers are maximized in pursuit of stated educational goals and objectives. 6. recommendation this study hereby recommends: 1). school principals should develop operational plans and strategies based on their specific characteristics that will help maximize the benefits of teacher diversity while minimizing the inherent disadvantages. 2). school principals should consciously understand the diversity of staff in educational institutions and thus assign courses to teachers in their areas of specialization. 3). the ministry of education and other relevant authorities should urgently regularly organize training programs for school principals to develop the professional competence to effectively manage differences among teachers. 4). the government should create a concrete policy to guide school administrators in managing differences among teachers for effective school management. acknowledgement we wish to acknowledge the following persons who helped in typing, editing and fermenting the work: professor (mrs). r. arisi, mr. s. nwabuwe, mr. solomon oliwe and mrs. charity ossai. also our regards to the teachers that worked as research assistants in gathering data for the research. to god be the glory. references adams, a. 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(2016). diversity management and respect for diversity of schools. international journal of progressive education, 12(1), 58-71. young, b. l., madsen, j., & young, m. a. (2010). implementing diversity plans: principals perception of others ability to address diversity in their schools. naasp bulletin, 94(2), 135-157. https://doi.org/10.1177/0192636510379901 zojceska, a. (2018). top 10 benefits of diversity in the workplace. retrieved january 4, from https://www.talentyft.come/en/blog/article244/top-10-benefits-of-diversity-in-the-workplace https://doi.org/10.1177/0192636510379901 frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no.3, 2021 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) original paper an empirical study of students’ acceptance of online education during the covid-19 pandemic in saudi arabia dalal bamufleh1 & lama talat alradady1 1 management science departmentmanagement information systems, yanbu university college, yanbu, saudi arabia received: july 28, 2021 accepted: august 14, 2021 online published: august 20, 2021 doi:10.22158/fet.v4n3p8 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v4n3p8 abstract this paper seeks to explore factors that determine the university student’s acceptance and adoption behavior towards online education platforms in saudi arabia (sa) during the covid-19 pandemic. the research relied mainly on two theories: unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (utaut), and the technology acceptance model (tam). five different constructs were utilized from those theories to investigate the university student’s intention toward using online education platforms. the proposed model and its five hypotheses were tested by conducting a quantitative survey across social media to university students from different regions around sa. for the model validity, the measurement model was analyzed using a structural equation modeling technique applied using smartpls software. the survey sample consisted of 708 university students in different regions of sa. the analysis results show that performance expectancy (pe) and facilitating conditions (fc) affect students’ attitude toward using (atu) and that atu positively affects behavioral intention (bi). nevertheless, effort expectancy (ee) is not significantly related to atu. thus, the level of difficulty in using the online education platform is not an effective determinant factor that would change the student’s attitude. keywords online education, blackboard, technology adoption 1. introduction the world began to face a pandemic that started in china and then gradually swept through most of the world (chen et al., 2020a). on monday, march 2, 2020, the ministry of health (moh) announced the emergence of laboratory results confirming the registration of the first case of the new coronavirus, covid-19, for a citizen coming from iran through the kingdom of bahrain (ministry of health, 2020). 8 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 3, 2021 saudi arabia was considered one of the first countries to initiate precautionary and early preventive measures, having sensed the inherent danger behind this outbreak, which became a pandemic in a short time (ministry of health, 2020). the first measure saudi arabia took was to suspend travel to china. after the confirmation of the first case in saudi arabia, strict and effective precautionary measures were taken to impose social distancing and to stop all activities in sectors, and establishments within its territory (ministry of health, 2020). on march 9, 2020, in-school suspension was declared in saudi arabia (moe, 2021), as well as in most countries, according to the preventive and precautionary measures recommended by competent health authorities. these measures prompted all universities to develop plans to continue providing their services to their students during the home quarantine period imposed by governments to limit the spread of the pandemic (chen et al., 2020a). as all universities around the world began to continue and broadcast lectures online, students moved from traditional to online education (chen et al., 2020a). the same applied for students in saudi arabia where the most used educational platforms/technologies in saudi universities (ranked from most, common, least) are blackboard lms, zoom, googlemeet, and cisco. online education creates communication between a teacher and students, helps in developing new teaching methods and modern learning styles, provides educational services anytime and anywhere, and enables course and lecture delivery via the internet (al-sharif, 2020). moreover, it reduces the high costs of education for universities as well as students; however, the utilization of these educational platforms is still below expectations. according to al-sharif (2020), the major reasons for not making full use of digital platforms in education are the lack of student training approaches and methods for using these digital platforms in education and poor internet connection. students’ attitudes are also affected by the ease of learning platforms or their differing computer skills (aixia & wang, 2011, liaw & huang, 2011). training and teaching students how to use educational platforms and computer tools make online education more enjoyable (aixia & wang, 2011). ultimately, students’ perspectives and attitudes are important and necessary for the continuity and development of online education (selim, 2007). most past research identified barriers regarding the use of online learning and the factors that affect students’ interest in online learning and difficulties facing university faculty members. although this study’s objective is similar, the study targeted students had not experienced online education before the pandemic. therefore, the current research has focused on investigating university students’ perspectives towards online education during the covid-19 pandemic. based on that, this study asks the following research question: what factors affected students’ acceptance of online education in saudi universities during the covid-19 pandemic? 9 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 3, 2021 2. literature review 2.1 online education many institutions have opted to cancel all face-to-face classes, including labs and other learning experiences, and have mandated faculty members to move their courses online to prevent the spread of the virus. as a result, online education during covid-19 pandemic has become an effective tool for preventing and controlling the pandemic. at the same time, it is used for ensuring the continuation of the educational process (chen et al., 2020a). according to basak et al. and others (2018), online education has multiple names, such as computer-based training, web-based training, internet-based training, online training, e-learning (electronic learning), m-learning (mobile learning), and computer-aided distance education. however, the general definition of online education is an electronically supported learning that relies on the online for teacher/student interaction and thus the distribution of class materials. with online education, students can turn anywhere with internet access and electricity into a classroom. it can include audio, video, text, animations, virtual training environments and live chats with professors. (basak et al., 2018) digital transformation isn’t a unique phenomenon; education institutions have been using it for a few years now (kopp et al., 2019). digital transformation of higher education institutions may be a topical issue about which several education stakeholders must feel concerned, for which universities must be up to the task of preparing potential professionals to face online education challenges and solutions (bond et al., 2018; sandkuhl & lehmann, 2017). 2.2 advantage and challenges one of the foremost frequently used terms after the pandemic is “new normal.” the new normal in education is the increased use of online learning tools (gautam, 2020). the pandemic has triggered new ways of learning. all around the world, educational institutions are looking toward online education platforms for teaching students. the new normal is a transformed concept of education with online education at the core of this transformation. today, digital learning has emerged as a necessary resource for universities and students. for many educational institutions, this is often a completely new method of education. online learning is now not only applicable to academic courses but also extends to extracurricular activities for university students. in recent months, the demand for online learning has risen significantly and will continue for the future. like most teaching methods, online learning also has its own set of positives and negatives. decoding and understanding them will help universities, colleges, and institutes create strategies for more efficiently delivering online courses, thus ensuring an uninterrupted learning journey for university students. advantages of digital learning include: • efficiency. online education provides efficient and easy ways for teachers and students to deliver and receive lessons. it provides a diverse set of tools such as videos, podcasts, interactive boards, easy sharing of multimedia materials, and lectures recording features and proofreaders (gautam, 2020). 10 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 3, 2021 • ease of access and flexibility. this allows students and teachers to deliver/attend/ participate in classes at any time and in any geographic locations. additionally, online lectures can be recorded, archived, and shared at any time (gautam, 2020). • affordability. online education is more economical than traditional education. moreover, all course materials are accessible on the web, consequently establishing a paperless learning climate (gautam, 2020). • customized learning. each student has a different learning style—visual, auditory, reading/writing, and kinesthetic—that can dramatically affect their ability to fully comprehend the topics (gautam, 2020). for the challenges, it is highly disruptive to shift all present courses online during a matter of days. with the covid-19 pandemic, it has become obvious that the education system is susceptible to external dangers (bozkurt & sharma, 2020). overall, an entire online course requires an elaborate lesson plan design, teaching materials such as audio and video contents, and technology support teams. however, because of the sudden emergence of the covid-19, most college members face the challenges of lacking online teaching experience, early preparation, or support from educational technology teams, and students may lack the technical skills to handle any obstacles (bao, 2020). also, ribeiro (2020) rightly noted that this digital transformation of instructional delivery came with several logistical challenges and attitudinal modifications. 2.3 online education platforms lately, online education having become popular, a wide variety of online education platforms have emerged one after another. meanwhile, higher requirements have been put forward for the teaching/learning outcomes and technical standards that the platforms need to achieve (chen et al., 2020a). during covid-19, more business software moved to developing online education functions and has been widely used. however, the standard of those platforms varies greatly, so it is necessary to pick a representative platform from many online education platforms. also, some educational platforms have added new tools or improved tools during the pandemic. therefore, the technical and interactive features of online education should be considered more closely when evaluating these platforms and online courses. currently, many online education platforms have been used in saudi arabia during a covid-19 pandemic, including blackboard lms, moodle, zoom, and googlemeet. • blackboard provides a wide variety of tools to build a better educational experience, virtual classrooms, offices, and meetings. this allows for more opportunities to collaborate with an outsized number of scholars and provides new methods for peer-to-peer education. through the blackboard, students, and faculty members can access their courses’ content and groups through various mobile devices, including android, blackberry, and iphone (saudi electronic university, 2020). • moodle is an open-source learning management platform. the platform can be used for more than 95 languages and also has the capacity to empower learning environments. it has a desktop and 11 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 3, 2021 mobile app (ios and android). moodle offers a variety of customization options and integrations to plugins and add-on-site gives users access to a community of developers, users and certified partners that share best practices on the use of the platform (raouna, 2020). 2.4 statistics of the most used educational platform in saudi universities at the beginning of the covid-19 pandemic crisis, colleges and universities in saudi arabia used some applications that were not specifically designed for educational purposes, such as zoom, cisco webex, and other similar applications. these platforms were not sufficient or satisfactory for the quality of education and the satisfaction of students and teachers. immediately after the end of the first online semester, universities and learning institutions rushed to plan using the best learning platforms that would meet students’ and teachers’ needs. some universities have chosen the blackboard lms, moodle or other educational platforms. the number of saudi universities is about 72 (private and public), and the number of university students is around 1,982,747 students according to the ministry of education (2021). according to the available information on saudi universities’ websites and social media accounts, most universities in saudi arabia used blackboard lms during the pandemic. as figure 1 shows, the blackboard has the largest usage rate (59.46%) whereas others platforms represent 33.78% (some universities used special systems belongs to the institution, and others also use zoom, google meet). finally, moodle won (33.78%). therefore, this paper measures the acceptance of university students’ use of the blackboard lms during the covid-19 pandemic. figure 1. the most used platform education in saudi arabia, 2021 2.5 students’ perspective on online education online education is arising as the new worldview of current advanced education. students’ initial perceived satisfaction with technology-based online education determines whether they will use the system continually (aixia & wang, 2011). students’ satisfaction is the state of pleasure or 12 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 3, 2021 disappointment formed by the comparison of the perceived effect of service with the expected value (chen et al., 2020a). on the other hand, there is minimal research on college students’ attitudes toward online education environments (aixia & wang, 2011). based on qazia et al. (2020), student satisfaction and acceptance of online education are linked to residence location, previous online learning experience, availability of education tools, and use of online education resources by a friend or family. moreover, students’ satisfaction has been affected during the lockdown (during the pandemic) because of bans on gathering, events, travel, and shutting down the educational institutes (sohrabi et al., 2020; chinazzi et al., 2020; chen, 2020a). therefore, this study proposes a new model to identify the factors affecting the use of online education in universities from the perspective of students during the covid-19 pandemic. the proposed model was developed based on the available literature, which concerns technology adoption and diffusion theories. some of the models are social cognitive theory (sct) (bandura, 1986), the technology acceptance model (tam) (davis, 1989), the model of pc utilization (mpcu) (thompson et al., 1991), the motivation model (davis et al, 1992), combined tam and tpb (taylor & todd, 1995), and task-technology fit (goodhue & thompson, 1995), and innovation diffusion theory (rogers, 1995), and the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (utaut) (venkatesh et al., 2003). 2.6 knowledge gap some studies have focused on the use of digital platforms from multiple perspectives, and among those studies is (al sharif, 2020) study. the research is concerned with investigating the opinions of taibah university students towards their reality in the direction of employing digital platforms in e-learning. the study emphasizes the significant role of training for faculty members and students on using the digital platforms, converting paper books into electronic books. another study (chen et al., 2020b) collected students’ and teachers’ experience in dealing with the online education platforms before and after the outbreak of covid-19 and evaluated the change of their experience. the paper summarizes the following suggestions to improve the user experience of the online education platform during covid-19: (a) improve the support services, (b) improve the convenience of interactive communication, (c) optimize ease of use, and (d) enrich platform resources. wan et al. (2020) proposes a model to assess user satisfaction and to investigate the determinants affecting university students’ continued intention of using moocs. the results revealed that performance expectancy (pe), effort expectancy (ee), and social influence (si) are the crucial predictors. al-okaily et al. (2020) explored students’ intention to use e-learning systems at a jordanian university. the results indicated positive effects of subjective norm (sn), perceived ease of use (peou), and perceived usefulness (pu). the results also showed that pu and peou mediate the relationship between sn and behavioral intention (bi) to use an e-learning system partially supported. limited research has examined the level of online education platforms from the end users perspective and the impact of the pandemic is not counted (chen et al., 2020a). thus, this paper optimizes the 13 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 3, 2021 indicators used in previous researches to analyze students’ acceptance of online education during covid-19 pandemic. 3. method the model proposed in this research aims at examining the main influencing factors that impact the adoption of blackboard lms. the model is developed by utilizing two models, utaut and tam, to serve the study’s purpose. the constructs used from the utaut model are pe, ee, and fc. for atu, and bi are obtained from the tam model (figure 2). figure 2. the study theoretical framework 3.1 hypothesis this research suggests that different models and their factors influence the adoption of blackboard lms: effort expectancy (ee), effort expectancy (ee), and facilitating conditions (fc) from the utaut model; and attitude toward using (atu) from the tam model. 3.1.1 utaut model hypothesis venkatesh et al. (2003) thought about the likenesses and contrasts among the eight models which recently utilized with regards to the information systems, all of which had their roots in sociology, psychology, and communications. these models are tam, theory of reasoned action (tra), joined tam and tpb, theory of planned behavior, mpcu, diffusion of innovation, motivational model, and sct. the critical constructs of utaut are effort expectancy (ee): the amount of effort required to use a new system/technology; performance expectancy (pe): which is the degree to which a person believes that using a new system/technology will aid in improving job performance, social influence (si): the individual’s perception of how important it is for others to think that he/she can use the new system/technology, and facilitating conditions (fc): the degree to which a person assumes that the available organizational and technological infrastructure facilitate the use of a new system/technology 14 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 3, 2021 (venkatesh et al., 2004). besides, four significant moderating variables were identified; gender, experience, age, and voluntariness of use. accordingly, hypothesis h1-h3 are as follows: • h1: the influence of performance expectancy (pe) on attitude toward using (atu) will be positive. • h2: the influence of effort expectancy (ee) on attitude toward using (atu) will be positive. • h3: the influence of facilitating conditions (fc) on attitude toward using (atu) will be positive. 3.1.2 tam model hypothesis tam explains the motivation of users towards using a new technology by three factors; perceived usefulness (pu) is the users’ perceptions regarding the outcome of a particular system that would enhance their job performance, perceived ease of use (peou): the degree to which an individual believes that using a particular system will be free of effort, and attitude toward use (atu): is the evaluative effect about performing the target behavior (davis, 1989). tam is probably one of the most widely cited models in the field of technology acceptance (bamufleh, 2021). accordingly, hypothesis h4 is as follows: • h4: the influence attitude toward using (atu) on behavioral intention (bi) will be positive. for the behavioral intention variable, it indicates an individual’s intention to benefit from a particular tool in the future (venkatesh et al., 2003). this variable was derived from the previous theories (tpb, tam, tam 2, and tra) (venkatesh et al., 2003). behavioral intention (bi) is considered a basic and conditional requirement in order to actually initiate the behavior (ajzen & fishbein, 1975). previous studies of venkatesh et al. (2003) have found a direct effect of bi on the future use behavior of individuals. 3.2 study survey to test the proposed model, the study adopted a quantitative research method, including a survey, to collect data from university students at various universities in saudi arabia who used the blackboard lms. the research questions were constructed based on five different measures used in the proposed model. the authors reviewed previous studies that have used them and adjusted the survey items to fit the study’s scope. table 1 shows the survey items. the survey items used a five-point-likert scale to measure the public’s level of agreement, from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). the survey was divided into two parts: the first part collected the demographic information, and the second one was based on the proposed research model’s constructs (table 1). the survey was distributed online through social media in saudi arabia in two languages arabic and english. the participants were selected randomly based on whether they had used blackboard lms. the survey was issued on march 18, 2021 and was valid until mar 28, 2021. 708 valid responses were received. 15 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 3, 2021 table 1. survey items constructs survey items reference performance expectancy (pe) pe1: i find using blackboard learning management system is useful to my study. pe2: using blackboard learning management system enables me to accomplish more tasks. pe3: using blackboard learning management system increases my productivity. pe4: if i use blackboard learning management system, i will increase my chances of getting a better grade. venkatesh et al., 2003 effort expectancy (ee) ee1: my interaction with blackboard learning management system is clear and understandable. ee2: it is easy for me to become skillful at using blackboard learning management. ee3: i find blackboard learning management easy to use. ee4: it is easy for me to attend virtual lectures, attempt exams, working on projects, participate in discussion forums, and submit assignments and homework through the blackboard learning management system. facilitating conditions (fc) fc1: i have the resources necessary to use the blackboard learning management system. fc2: i have the knowledge necessary to use the blackboard learning management system. fc3: a specific person or group of technical support is available for assistance with difficulties i experience with blackboard learning management system. fc4: during online exams, the blackboard team help me to solve the technical problems that i faced. attitude toward using (atu) atu1: using the blackboard learning management system is a good idea. atu2: blackboard learning management system makes classes more interesting. atu3: i am comfortable using blackboard learning management system. davis, 1989 behavioral intention bi1: i intend to use blackboard learning management system even if they are not mandatory. venkatesh et al. (2003) 16 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 3, 2021 (bi) bi2: i i’m willing to enroll in online courses, training, or workshops that use blackboard learning management system in future. bi3: i recommend blackboard learning management system to the teachers. 4. result 4.1 demographic demographic items such as gender, region/location, student level, and experience in using blackboard lms were collected in the survey. table 2 shows the demographic frequency and percentages. table 1. demographic sample demographic category frequency valid percentage gender number of females 399 56 % number of males 309 44 % total 708 region medina region 238 34% mecca region 112 16% riyadh region 82 12% eastern region 41 6% hail region 35 5% jazan region 33 5% northern borders region 32 5% al-baha region 29 4% al-qassim region 27 4% tabuk region 24 3% assir region 23 3% najran region 20 3% al-jawf region 12 2% total 708 student classification junior 250 35% senior 244 34% sophomore 120 17% freshman 56 8% 17 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 3, 2021 preparatory year 38 5% total 708 duration of use of the blackboard lms 12 months or more 539 76% 6 months 104 15% 3 months 41 6% 1 month 24 3% total 708 to assess the reliability and validity of each construct in the proposed model, the authors used the partial least-squares (pls) method based on the structural equation model (sem). the survey data was analyzed using smartpls version 3.3.3 and a two-step research approach. pe, ee, fc, aut, and bi are the five constructs in the proposed adoption model. 4.2 test of measurement model convergent and discriminant validity analyses were used to evaluate the reflective measures. factor loadings, composite reliability (cr), and average variance extracted (ave) were the three methods for determining convergent validity. table 3 shows that all reflective measures have factor loadings greater than 0.7, suggesting adequate indicator reliability (carmines & zeller, 1979). the cr values varied between 0.98 and 0.978, which is higher than the recommended value of 0.7 (nunnally, 1978; fornell & larcker, 1981). ave was in the range of 0.917 to 0.927, exceeding the suggested value of 0.5 (hair et al., 2017; comrey, 1992). this suggests that the constructs explain more than half of the variance in their indicators. as a result, the measurement model has convergent validity, internal accuracy reliability, and qualified indicator reliability. after convergent validity, discriminant validity was evaluated. item cross-loading was proposed as the primary measure for evaluating the discriminant validity of reflective indicators (hair et al., 2011; ringle et al., 2018). table 4 shows the items’ cross loading evaluation, where all of the metrics had eligible discriminant validity, which means that constructs shared more variance with their objects than with other constructs in the model. finally, the model was found to have strong convergent and discriminant validity. 18 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 3, 2021 table 3. reflective measurement model construct item loading cr ave performance expectancy pe1 0.96 0.978 0.917 pe2 0.948 pe3 0.967 pe4 0.954 effort expectancy ee1 0.945 0.98 0.924 ee2 0.967 ee3 0.969 ee4 0.963 attitude toward using atu1 0.956 0.973 0.924 atu2 0.955 atu3 0.972 behavioral intention bi1 0.96 0.974 0.927 bi2 0.967 bi3 0.961 *cr= composite reliability *ave= average variance extracted table 4. discriminant validity: item cross loading items pe ee atu bi pe1 0.96 0.917 0.915 0.906 pe2 0.948 0.904 0.881 0.882 pe3 0.967 0.866 0.916 0.885 pe4 0.954 0.856 0.91 0.895 ee1 0.897 0.945 0.882 0.893 ee2 0.879 0.967 0.866 0.884 ee3 0.881 0.969 0.863 0.88 ee4 0.896 0.984 0.887 0.903 atu1 0.919 0.912 0.956 0.917 atu2 0.902 0.836 0.955 0.907 atu3 0.907 0.875 0.972 0.918 bi1 0.903 0.879 0.921 0.96 bi2 0.891 0.894 0.908 0.967 bi3 0.896 0.901 0.917 0.961 19 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 3, 2021 next, the variable correlation was checked. the correlations between constructs and the square root of the average variance derived for that construct were compared. the square root of the ave was greater than the correlation with other constructs, as shown in table 5, implying adequate discriminant validity. as a result, the reflective measurement model’s convergent and discriminant validity were found to be adequate. the variance inflation factor was used to analyze the multicollinearity test for the formative measurement model, as shown in table 6. the authors found multicollinearity between indicators to be a significant indicator in determining formative measures’ validating. variance inflation factor (vif) was used for formative measurement evaluation to search for multicollinearity. according to previous studies, vif should not be more than ten. as shown in table 6, the vif for all items was less than 10. as a result, no objects were removed. table 5. variable correlation (root square of ave) pe ee atu bi pe 0.957 0.925 0.946 0.932 ee 0.961 0.91 0.926 atu 0.961 bi 0.951 0.963 table 6. formative measurement model items factor weight vif fc1 0.043 7.201 fc2 0.31 6.369 fc3 0.2 7.563 fc4 0.502 6.043 4.2 test of structural model to test the structural model, hypothesis testing was applied. according to table 7 and figure 3, all the hypotheses were supported except for the second hypothesis. the first hypothesis aimed to test the influence of university students’ performance expectancy on their acceptance of online education. in the context of the study, performance expectancy refers to the extent to which students believe that blackboard lms is useful or improves performance. the results showed that performance expectancy positively affects students’ attitude toward use of online education, (β = 00.606, p < 0.05). thus, h1 is supported, which means that student attitudes to learning via online education are enhanced when they find the educational platforms to be useful to them and increase their learning outcomes. 20 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 3, 2021 the second hypothesis concerns effort expectancy (ee), which measures the effort needed to use the blackboard lms. in the scope of the study, ee refers to the extent to which students believe that blackboard lms is easy to use and understandable. the study results revealed that ee is not significantly related to attitude. thus, h2 is not supported. this means that the level of difficulty of using the blackboard lms is not an effective determinant that would affect students’ attitudes. this can be justified because most of the sample used the blackboard lms for 6 months or more. the third hypothesis is facilitating conditions (fc), which are the necessary resources or technical support that influence students’ perceptions of ease or difficulty of performing a task on the blackboard lms. the results showed that (fc) positively affects the university students’ attitude to use online education platforms (β = 0.337 p < 0.05). thus, h3 is supported. consequently, the more support is provided to students, such as resource material, training courses, and effective and active technical support, the better acceptance of the blackboard lms. for the fourth hypothesis, the findings prove the relationship between attitude and bi. therefore, h4 is acceptable; it is generated with (β = 0.951 p < 0.05). thus, if a university student has a positive opinion toward blackboard lms, their intention to use the blackboard lms improves. table 7. hypothesis testing hyp. description path coefficient (β) standard error tvalue p-value decision h1 pe -> atu 0.606 0.069 8.73 0.000 supported** h2 ee -> atu 0.035 0.075 0.467 0.641 not supported h3 fc -> atu 0.337 0.06 5.592 0.000 supported** h4 atu -> bi 0.951 0.006 148.575 0.000 supported** significant at p**= < 0.01, p* < 0.05 figure 3. results of the structural model 21 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 3, 2021 4.3 multi-group analysis multi-group analysis was conducted to determine if there is a significant effect of some groups of the sample on the relationships among experience, effort expectancy (ee), and facilitating conditions (fc). therefore, four groups were created according to the four options provided in the survey for months of experience in using the blackboard lms: 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, and 12 months or more. as shown in table 2, the sample size for the participants with one month of experience is small; therefore, the first group (i.e., 1 month) was excluded from the multi-group analysis. the results presented in table 8 show that there are insignificant differences among the groups of students’ experiences in relation to ee and fc. table 8. multi-group analysis relationship groups t-value p-value experience > ee 3 months vs. 6 months 1.653 0.101 experience > fc 3 months vs. 6 months 0.019 0.985 experience > ee 3 months vs. 12 months 0.966 0.334 experience > fc 3 months vs. 12 months 0.166 0.868 experience > ee 6 months vs. 12 months or more 0.266 0.791 experience > fc 6 months vs. 12 months or more 0.211 0.833 5. discussion this study described the factors affecting university students to accept online education in saudi universities during a covid-19 pandemic. it further examined the associations between the university students’ behavioral intention (bi) and the four selected factors: pe, ee, fc, and atu. similar results in literature have verified the correlation between bi and the variables mentioned earlier. the study results revealed that majority of university students included in the sample had a strong bi to accept online education during the covid-19 pandemic. first, performance expectancy has a significant relationship with attitude toward use (atu). in other words, if the online educational platforms are useful to students and increase their learning outcomes, then their attitude to use online education will improve. these findings are congruent with altalhi’s study (2020), which aims at identifying the major factors determining learners’ acceptance of moocs in higher education in saudi arabia. additionally, same conclusions are reflected in bamufleh et al. (2020), in which this study explains students’ intention to use online simulation games. results of this study showed that students’ intentions were enhanced when the game appeared to be useful to them and increase their learning outcomes. second, effort expectancy (ee) does not have a significant relationship with atu. as per the study analysis, students’ attitude towards the lms will not be affected by the level of platform complexity. 22 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 3, 2021 this finding contradicted tan’s (2013) study which aimed to explore taiwanese college students’ needs for english e-learning websites. the results showed that ee positively affects users’ attitude to use english e-learning websites. third, facilitating conditions (fc) have a positive significant effect on attitude (atu). if the student finds sufficient resources and technical support for online educational platforms, then their attitude increases. these findings are congruent with bamufleh et al. (2020), in which facilitating conditions positively affects students’ behavior of using the online simulation games as a learning method. fourth, attitude has a positive significant effect on bi. this finding goes hand in hand with shao (2020), which investigates the factors of students’ satisfaction with online learning. the study indicated that attitude has a significant positive effect on students’ intention and perceived satisfaction of online learning. 6. conclusion this research aims at exploring the factors affecting students to accept online education in saudi universities during a covid-19 pandemic. on march 9, 2020, saudi arabia decided to adopt and use online education instead of traditional education, to enable students to continue their study during the pandemic. the most common platforms used in saudi universities is the blackboard lms. adopting lmss provides many benefits to university students as well as teachers. the study proposed a model based on utaut and tam to fulfill the study’s objective. the study found the most critical factors affecting the use of online education platforms are pe, fc, attitude (atu) and bi. the study confirmed the validity and reliability of the proposed model. this research makes theoretical as well as practice contributions. the study’s sample included more than 708 students from different regions of saudi arabia. also, this study conducted during a covid-19 pandemic, which is considered a new experience for university students. from a theoretical perspective, the study validated the utaut model for demonstrating and foreseeing university students’ behavior and acceptance of online education in saudi arabia during the covid-19 pandemic. thus, the paper contributes to technology adoption and acceptance literature in the domain of online education in saudi arabia. one limitation of the paper is the sample size. the study considered only students in saudi arabia. it considered five factors that would affect students’ acceptance of online learning platforms; therefore, deeper analysis could be done with more constructs. future research should enlarge the sample size. furthermore, more specific groups should be explored, such as teachers, educational organizations, and technical staff. different measures could also be applied in future studies for in-depth investigation and collection of more instructive findings. 23 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 3, 2021 references al-sharif, b. n. (2020). reality trends of university students towards employing digital platforms in university education in the kingdom of saudi arabia. retrieved from https://www.taibahu.edu.sa/pages/ar/downloadcenter.aspx?siteid=50a13fdf-fc2d-43ef-a1d5-50 bd4a749c1b&fileid=11e5ab96-c511-4caa-a478-0c48d8bde34d altalhi, m. (2020). toward a model for acceptance of moocs in higher education: the modified utaut model for saudi arabia. education and information technologies, 26, 1589-1605. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-020-10317-x aixia, d., & wang, d. (2011). factors influencing learner attitudes toward e-learning and development of e-learning environment based on the integrated e-learning platform. international journal of e-education, e-business, e-management, and e-learning, 1(3). https://doi.org/10.7763/ijeeee.2011.v1.43 bamufleh, d., hussain, r., sheikh, e., & khodary, k. 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(2019). five common assumptions that prevent digital transformation at higher education institutions. in 13th international technology, education and development conference (pp. 1448-1457). valencia, spain: iated. https://doi.org/10.21125/inted.2019.0445 liaw, s.-s., & huang, h.-m. (2011). a study of investigating learners attitudes toward e-learning. fifth international conference on distance learning and education, ipcsit, vol. 12, singapore. retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/267199358_a_study_of_investigating_learners_attitude s_toward_e-learning wan, l., xie, s., & shu, a. (2020). toward an understanding of university students’ continued intention to use moocs: when utaut model meets ttf model. sage open, 10(3), article no. 215824402094185. https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244020941858 ministry of education. (2021). general administration to support investors. retrieved from https://departments.moe.gov.sa/investorsrelations/statistics/pages/studentcount.aspx ministry of health. (2020). the experience of the kingdom of saudi arabia in the health preparedness and response to the covid-19 pandemic. retrieved from https://www.moh.gov.sa/ministry/mediacenter/publications/pages/publications-2020-10-27-001.a spx nunnally, j. c. (1978). an overview of psychological measurement. plenum press. retrieved from https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4684-2490-4_4 palmer, s. r., & holt, d. m. (2009). examining student satisfaction with wholly online learning. in d. m. stuart palmer, journal of computer assisted learning, 25(2), 101-113. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2729.2008.00294.x qazi, a., naseer, k., qazi, j., alsalman, h., naseem, u., yang, s., hardaker, g., & gumaei, a. (2020). conventional to online education during covid-19 pandemic: do developed and underdeveloped nations cope alike? children and youth services review, 119, article no. 105582. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2020.105582 25 published by scholink inc. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224378101800104 https://elearningindustry.com/advantages-and-disadvantages-online-learning https://doi.org/10.2307/249689 https://doi.org/10.1504/ijmda.2017.087624 https://doi.org/10.21125/inted.2019.0445 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/267199358_a_study_of_investigating_learners_attitudes_toward_e-learning https://www.researchgate.net/publication/267199358_a_study_of_investigating_learners_attitudes_toward_e-learning https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244020941858 https://departments.moe.gov.sa/investorsrelations/statistics/pages/studentcount.aspx https://www.moh.gov.sa/ministry/mediacenter/publications/pages/publications-2020-10-27-001.aspx https://www.moh.gov.sa/ministry/mediacenter/publications/pages/publications-2020-10-27-001.aspx https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4684-2490-4_4 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2729.2008.00294.x https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2020.105582 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 3, 2021 raouna, k. (2020). 27 best online learning platforms. retrieved from https://www.learnworlds.com/online-learning-platforms/ ribeiro, r. (2020). how university faculty embraced the remote learning shift. edtech magazine. retrieved from https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2020/04/how-university-faculty-embraced-remote-learn ing-shift saudi electronic university. (2021). blackboard system. retrieved from https://seu.edu.sa/en/blackboard-system/home/ selim , h. (2007). critical success factors for e-learning acceptance: confirmatory factor models. computers & education, 49(2), 396-413. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2005.09.004 shao, c. (2020). an empirical study on the identification of driving factors of satisfaction with online learning based on tam. in 5th international conference on economics, management, law and education (emle 2019) (pp. 1067-1073). atlantis press. https://doi.org/10.2991/aebmr.k.191225.205 sohrabi, c., alsafi, z., o’neill, n., khan, m., kerwan, a., al-jabir, a., … agha, r., (2020). world health organization declares global emergency: a review of the 2019 novel coronavirus (covid-19). international journal of surgery, 76, 71-76. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijsu.2020.02.034 thompson, r. l., higgins, c. a., & howell, j. m. (1991). personal computing: toward a conceptual model of utilization. mis quarterly, 125-143. https://doi.org/10.2307/249443 26 published by scholink inc. https://www.learnworlds.com/online-learning-platforms/ https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2020/04/how-university-faculty-embraced-remote-learning-shift https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2020/04/how-university-faculty-embraced-remote-learning-shift https://seu.edu.sa/en/blackboard-system/home/ https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2005.09.004 https://doi.org/10.2991/aebmr.k.191225.205 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijsu.2020.02.034 https://doi.org/10.2307/249443 original paper an empirical study of students’ acceptance of online education during the covid-19 pandemic in saudi arabia dalal bamufleh1 & lama talat alradady1 1 management science departmentmanagement information systems, yanbu university college, yanbu, saudi arabia abstract this paper seeks to explore factors that determine the university student’s acceptance and adoption behavior towards online education platforms in saudi arabia (sa) during the covid-19 pandemic. the research relied mainly on two theories: unified theo... keywords figure 1. the most used platform education in saudi arabia, 2021 figure 2. the study theoretical framework table 1. survey items table 1. demographic sample table 3. reflective measurement model figure 3. results of the structural model table 8. multi-group analysis references al-sharif, b. n. (2020). reality trends of university students towards employing digital platforms in university education in the kingdom of saudi arabia. retrieved from https://www.taibahu.edu.sa/pages/ar/downloadcenter.aspx?siteid=50a13fdf-fc2d-43ef... altalhi, m. (2020). toward a model for acceptance of moocs in higher education: the modified utaut model for saudi arabia. education and information technologies, 26, 1589-1605. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-020-10317-x aixia, d., & wang, d. (2011). factors influencing learner attitudes toward e-learning and development of e-learning environment based on the integrated e-learning platform. international journal of e-education, e-business, e-management, and e-learning... bamufleh, d., hussain, r., sheikh, e., & khodary, k. (2020). students’ acceptance of simulation games in management courses: evidence from saudi arabia. journal of education and learning, 9(4), 55-71. https://doi.org/10.5539/jel.v9n4p55 bamufleh, d. (2021). modelling the acceptance and use of electronic medical records from patients’ point of view: evidence from saudi arabia. international journal of business and management, 16(7), 12-31. https://doi.org/10.5539/ijbm.v16n7p12 basak, s., wotto, m., & belanger, p. (2018). e-learning, m-learning and d-learning: conceptual definition and comparative analysis. e-learning and digital media, 15(4), 191-216. https://doi.org/10.1177/2042753018785180 bozkurt, a., & sharma, r. c. (2020). emergency remote teaching in a time of global crisis due to the coronavirus pandemic. asian journal of distance education, 15(1), i-vi. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3778083 carmines, e. g., & zeller, r. a. (1979). reliability and validity assessment. sage publications. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781412985642 chen, t., peng, l., yin, x., rong, j., yang, j., & cong, g. (2020a). analysis of user satisfaction with online education platforms in china during the covid-19 pandemic. healthcare, 8(3), 300. https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare8030200 chen, t., peng, l., jing, b., wu, c., yang, j., & cong, g. (2020b). the impact of the covid-19 pandemic on user experience with online education platforms in china. sustainability, 12(18), 7329. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12187329 chinazzi, m., davis, j. t., ajelli, m., gioannini, c., litvinova, m., merier, s., … vespignani, a. (2020). the effect of travel restrictions on the spread of the 2019 novel coronavirus (covid-19) outbreak. science, 368(6489), 395-400. https://doi.org/... davis, f. d. (1989). perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and user acceptance of information technology. mis quarterly, 13(3), 319-340. https://doi.org/10.2307/249008 fornell, c., & larcker, d. f. (1981). evaluating structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement error. journal of marketing research, 18(1), 39-50. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224378101800104 gautam, p. (2020). advantages and disadvantages of online learning. retrieved from https://elearningindustry.com/advantages-and-disadvantages-online-learning goodhue, d. l., & thompson, r. l. (1995). task-technology fit and individual performance. mis quarterly, 213-236. https://doi.org/10.2307/249689 hair, j. f., jr., matthews, l. m., matthews, r. l., & sarstedt, m. (2017). pls-sem or cb-sem: updated guidelines on which method to use. international journal of multivariate data analysis, 1(2). https://doi.org/10.1504/ijmda.2017.087624 kopp, m., groblinger, o., & adams, s. (2019). five common assumptions that prevent digital transformation at higher education institutions. in 13th international technology, education and development conference (pp. 1448-1457). valencia, spain: iated.... liaw, s.-s., & huang, h.-m. (2011). a study of investigating learners attitudes toward e-learning. fifth international conference on distance learning and education, ipcsit, vol. 12, singapore. retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/2... wan, l., xie, s., & shu, a. (2020). toward an understanding of university students’ continued intention to use moocs: when utaut model meets ttf model. sage open, 10(3), article no. 215824402094185. https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244020941858 ministry of education. (2021). general administration to support investors. retrieved from https://departments.moe.gov.sa/investorsrelations/statistics/pages/studentcount.aspx ministry of health. (2020). the experience of the kingdom of saudi arabia in the health preparedness and response to the covid-19 pandemic. retrieved from https://www.moh.gov.sa/ministry/mediacenter/publications/pages/publications-2020-10-27-001.aspx nunnally, j. c. (1978). an overview of psychological measurement. plenum press. retrieved from https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4684-2490-4_4 palmer, s. r., & holt, d. m. (2009). examining student satisfaction with wholly online learning. in d. m. stuart palmer, journal of computer assisted learning, 25(2), 101-113. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2729.2008.00294.x qazi, a., naseer, k., qazi, j., alsalman, h., naseem, u., yang, s., hardaker, g., & gumaei, a. (2020). conventional to online education during covid-19 pandemic: do developed and underdeveloped nations cope alike? children and youth services review, 1... raouna, k. (2020). 27 best online learning platforms. retrieved from https://www.learnworlds.com/online-learning-platforms/ ribeiro, r. (2020). how university faculty embraced the remote learning shift. edtech magazine. retrieved from https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2020/04/how-university-faculty-embraced-remote-learning-shift saudi electronic university. (2021). blackboard system. retrieved from https://seu.edu.sa/en/blackboard-system/home/ selim , h. (2007). critical success factors for e-learning acceptance: confirmatory factor models. computers & education, 49(2), 396-413. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2005.09.004 shao, c. (2020). an empirical study on the identification of driving factors of satisfaction with online learning based on tam. in 5th international conference on economics, management, law and education (emle 2019) (pp. 1067-1073). atlantis press. ht... sohrabi, c., alsafi, z., o’neill, n., khan, m., kerwan, a., al-jabir, a., … agha, r., (2020). world health organization declares global emergency: a review of the 2019 novel coronavirus (covid-19). international journal of surgery, 76, 71-76. https://... thompson, r. l., higgins, c. a., & howell, j. m. (1991). personal computing: toward a conceptual model of utilization. mis quarterly, 125-143. https://doi.org/10.2307/249443 frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 39 original paper exploration of national basic education—reflection on localization of framework for improving student outcomes policy yukai wei1 & yi zhang2* 1 faculty of education, beijing normal university, beijing, china 2 faculty of education, university of melbourne, melbourne, australia * corresponding author: yi zhang, faculty of education, university of melbourne, melbourne, australia. e-mail: zy1212dd@163.com received: july 8, 2024 accepted: august 2, 2024 online published: september 12, 2024 doi:10.22158/fet.v7n2p39 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v7n2p39 abstract school improvement is an important way to enhance the resilience of schools and to ensure education quality. fiso (framework for improving student outcomes) is a unified policy framework for school improvement and effectiveness research in basic education in victoria in australia. improvement cycle and improvement model are the main elements, and has achieved a certain degree of success in its implementation. with the gradual advancement of education reform, difficulties and barriers in ethnic minority basic education in china are emerging. based on the effective practical experience of fiso project, and its combination with the current situation and dilemmas of ethnic minority basic education in both countries, this paper attempts to construct a new framework to provide innovations and insights for the promotion of ethnic minority basic education in china, under guidance of policy improvement model and the theory of “four stages of policy borrowing in education”. chinese schools can optimise ethnic minority basic education schools in four areas: teaching and curriculum, leadership and management, community participation, and learning atmosphere. keywords australian education, school improvement, education policy transfer, ethnic minority education, basic education, fiso www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 40 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction 1.1 significance of the research in knowledge economy age, talent training relies on quality education, and the quality of basic education contributes to sustainable and healthy development of the education system. without basic education as the basement, higher education cannot be realised. with the continuous development of education globalisation, most of the current education reforms in countries around the world are centred on upgrading school education, and school improvement is the constant pursuit of high quality basic education service. the declining trend in students’ pisa test scores, as seen in australia’s academic performance, has triggered educational researchers to explore school improvement and student performance improvement. to strengthen schools’ focus on student performance, australia implemented the fiso policy. the fiso policy, centred on the school improvement model (sim) and the improvement cycle (ic) as a pathway, is school improvement policy that responds to existing deficiencies in victorian basic education schools. the project has been shown to be effective, providing a theoretical framework and resources to support school improvement in victoria, by increasing students’ test scores and their confidence levels, and controlling their poor behaviour. the practice of several countries in adapting education policies based on pisa scores suggests that school improvement is an initiative with significant impact on improving student outcomes. at the theoretical level, the study of fiso policy content is conducive to drawing on the advanced mechanisms of school improvement in australia, and helps to explore the effectiveness and relevance of a particular educational element in improving learning outputs. it is instrumental in summarising the priority scope and implementation areas of school improvement, and provides effective experience and theoretical support for optimising school improvement proposals. at the practical level, china’s ethnic minority basic education suffers from a significant imbalance in educational resources, which hinders learning practices and disrupts students’ academic performance. studying fiso policy benefits learning from advanced experiences, grasping school improvement practices, advancing improvement measures in the context of china’s realities, narrowing internal divisions in education, and achieving balanced development of compulsory education. this study facilitates both teaching practice and learning outcomes at the practical level and theoretical field. 1.2 theoretical foundations 1.2.1 theories on education policy transfer education policy transfer theory uses knowledge about policies, administrative arrangements, institutions and ideas in one political environment to develop policies, administrative arrangements, institutions and ideas in another political environment (dolowitz & marsh, 2000). according to the theory, the research framework for policy transfer includes: causes, participants, transfer content, transfer duration, transfer extent, limitations and pathways. policy transfer is a combination of transfer process and content. in fiso policy, improvement model is content and improvement cycle is process. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 41 published by scholink inc. policy transfer can be categorised into four types: copying, imitation, combination and inspiration (dolowitz & marsh, 1996). policy transfer decisions bases on a factual assessment in particular of how the relevant policy features operate in the transfer country and the similarities with the transfer country in terms of economic, social, policy consequences and educational background. 1.2.2 educational policy borrowing the theory “four stages of policy borrowing in education” consists of four steps: cross-national attraction, decision, implementation and internalisation/indeginisation (phillips & ochs, 2003). these four steps are cyclical and constitute the basic process of educational borrowing. educational policy borrowing is a two-way interactive process in which one country, through educational policy input, and the other country, through educational policy output, jointly incorporate and put into action an educational policy that has been transformed and adapted into the educational strategy of the importing country. educational policy borrowing has been a central theme in the field of international and comparative education research. “cross-national attraction” consists of two components: impulses and externalising potential. “impulses” refers to “stimulus” or “catalyst” that arouses domestic interest in foreign education. “externalising potential” refers to those factors in foreign education policy or practice that are theoretically considered to be useful, including guiding philosophy, ambitions, strategies, enabling structures, processes, and techniques. in response to the push for “cross-national attraction”, there is a need for “decision” about how to learn. it includes a wide range of measures taken by governments or other organisations to improve or reform education (phillips, 2006). “decision” includes theoretical decision, realistic and practical decision, quick fix decision and phoney decision. implementation requires adapting foreign model to national context. the degree of adaptation is determined by range of contextual factors, and reform duration depends on the local adaptation of foreign policy. the implementation process follows interpretation path, transmission, reception and implementation, each of which is accompanied by the filtering and processing of education policies. internalisation and indigenisation examine integration of foreign educational policies with domestic education system. this stage consists of four main parts. (1) impact on the previous system, based on the concepts of ‘cultural relativism’ and ‘national identity’, examining the existing education system in the country, as well as the motivations and goals of policy makers around curriculum, assessment, pedagogy and organisation; (2) incorporation of foreign education policies and practices, and agreeing on the extent to which these foreign educational features can be adopted and implemented in the country through contextual analysis; (3) integration. reinterpreting foreign policies in the national context in order to better integrate them into the overall macro-strategy of the country; (4) evaluation. reflecting on the policy borrowing process to determine whether it has served its intended purpose and to correct errors in implementation (phillips, 2006). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 42 published by scholink inc. the theory on educational policy borrowing explains the complex process of educational transfer. the theory implies discussion on policy content, policy consequences and differences in the state of education across countries to gain theoretical inspiration and provide policy recommendations. 1.3 research ideas based on the analysis of theories related to education policy transfer, this study focuses mainly on theoretical insights and more on possible transfer recommendations based on a common context. “four-stage theory” is simplified and discussed in three dimensions: general educational context, policy content, and implementation suggestions. cross-national attraction is analysed in four main educational contexts: policy subject, policy context, policy objectives and policy characteristics. the complex root causes and influences behind the policy process are analysed through qualitative research methods. the social context and educational environment on which the policy is based becomes the focus of the analysis. educational policy participants include official and unofficial participants. official participants refer to the system of subjects consisting of relevant state organs and political parties. unofficial education policy subjects include interest groups, mass media, and citizens. policy objects are the educational and social problems and events to be dealt with by the policy and the affected members of society. educational policy environment refers to the various social and natural environments that influence educational policy decision-making, implementation and evaluation. fiso policy content is analysed. policies are characterised as reflections of discussions on actions, and policy transfer based on policy content takes the form of mimicry and inspiration, which partly corresponds to the decision-making and implementation phases of the theory of “four-stages theory” (phillips, 2015). education policy is a static textual representation and interpretation of the meaning of education policy consisting of various plans and strategies. educational policy is a dynamic process that focuses on the subject’s perceptions and practices in educational activities. in fiso policy, the static text is improvement model and the dynamic process is the improvement cycle. in educational policy borrowing, a foreign educational policy or practice is altered and adapted by a country, and then implemented and absorbed, which is a process of “internalisation” and “indigenisation” (phillips, 2006). the third part attempts to explore suggestions for improving china’s ethnic minority basic education, which is in line with “internalisation”, and provide inspiration integration and innovation of ethnic minority basic education. in summary, this study explores the possibility of transferring the effective empirical guidance of fiso policy to ethnic minority basic education in china in the light of china’s policy improvement model and realities, and examines the effective ways in which china can draw on fiso policy to improve education quality. the research questions are: what is the possibility of transferring fiso policy to ethnic minority basic education in china? what advantaged implications can china learn from fiso policy? www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 43 published by scholink inc. 2. “cross-national attraction” in the construction of education policy borrowing process at domestic level, current basic education system for ethnic minorities in china is not ideal, and there are many problems within the education model. at international level, fiso programme in victoria has become a potential education model because of its education support structure and implementation strategy. similarities in the fiso programme offer the possibility of policy transfer. it is possible, necessary and reasonable to adopt some of the ideas in the fiso framework to improve basic education schools in terms of the four dimensions of policy participants, policy context, policy objectives and policy characteristics. 2.1 policy participants: students, teachers and administrators educational policy participants are similar. the subjects of education policy are individuals, groups and organisations that are involved in the development, implementation, evaluation and monitoring of education policy (2019). both fiso policy and the corresponding basic education policy in china are formulated by national government and education department, and the implementation and evaluation subjects include the government, schools, communities, students etc (2021a). policy objects include social problems, social members, and target scope (goss, hunter, romanes, & parsonage, 2015). the goal of fiso policy is to improve backwardness and disorganisation in primary www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 44 published by scholink inc. and secondary schools, and students’ poor academic performance. compared with other schools, schools in ethnic minority basic education in china, suffer from educational resources shortage, backward hardware facilities, and insufficient software. this situation is similar to fiso policy in terms of school orientation and goals, providing possibilities for policy transfer. 2.2 policy context and environment: similar issues there are difficulties in australia’s basic education schools. teaching and learning outcomes are inadequate and pisa scores continue to decline. educational resources are unevenly distributed and the network is inadequate. the management and financial systems are inadequate and there is a waste of educational resources. therefore, australian basic education schools need special improvement policies to enhance educational efficiency and equity. in terms of policy content, the fiso policy is centred on the school improvement model and the improvement cycle as a pathway to provide theoretical guidance for school improvement (stone, walter, & peacock, 2017). similarly, in china, the implementation of educational policies faces prominent challenges, such as educational resources shortage, educational identity marginalisation, immature systems, cultural barriers to the teaching and learning process, and an overemphasis on explicit education and neglect of implicit education (xue & li, 2020). the disadvantage of education is reflected in many aspects. backward natural environment impairs ethnic minority basic education environment. most of the areas inhabited by ethnic minorities are remote, having difficult natural conditions and backward economies. these unfavourable factors have hindered the development of ethnic basic education, leading to difficulties such as educational inequity, weak infrastructure, and weak educational awareness. in some ethnic areas, the compulsory education coverage rate is less than 90 per cent, ethnic minorities have, on average, fewer years of schooling and a relatively high dropout rate in lower secondary schools. education fund in western ethnic minority areas is generally lower than that in eastern provinces. the objective drawbacks of basic education force ethnic schools to search for new ideas and methods for improvement, making learning from fiso policies possible and reasonable. there are dilemmas of hierarchy and diversity in ethnic minority basic education curriculum. firstly, unified national curriculum cannot satisfy the multicultural needs of basic education with local characteristics for ethnic minorities (ma, 2013). although china has proposed a three-tier curriculum management model at the national, local, and school levels in the basic education curriculum reform outline (trial), which supplements local and school-based curricula. however, too much emphasis has been placed on examination results and book knowledge, resulting in difficult curricula, single and boring teaching methods, and loss of curricular hierarchy and locality (hannum & wang, 2022). in terms of curriculum culture, the degree of transformation of national culture into classroom resources is low, and the design of the curriculum ignores the cultural kernel and lacks national characteristics. the choice of curriculum culture has errors such as monocentrism and simple superimposition of cultures, which hinders communication and transmission of culture. the above problems in curriculum design www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 45 published by scholink inc. and teaching practice are highly related to fiso’s field of teaching excellence, which can be referred to for solutions. the management of ethnic-minority schools is plagued by problems such as inadequate management systems and difficulties in teacher training, which require new ideas and theoretical guidance for school improvement. ethnic schools development in china mainly relies on external institutional and policy instruments for management and extensive investment of educational resources. it lacks intrinsic motivation and is difficult to have feedback influence (yang, 2015). ethnic school infrastructure is weak, regulations are backward, and lacks theoretical guidance (wan, 2017). school management emphasises administrative performance rather than humanistic care, and stresses academics over moral cultivation. the role of educational administrators as mediators of education is not evident. there are difficulties in building a bilingual teaching force. the supply of teachers in backward areas exceeds the demand, and there are also problems of insufficient talent reserves, high mobility, mismatch of subject specialisations, and homogeneous geographical and academic relationships (xue & li, 2020). intercultural teaching ability and awareness of cultural diversity are not strong, the education system focuses on subject content rather than cultural literacy, and the teacher community lacks professional knowledge and teaching method reserves, etc. (yang, 2015). the above problems existing in the school management system are related to the professional leadership field of fiso, which can be used for reference. community participation and family education in basic education for ethnic minorities are relatively absent. home-school co-operation lacks policy support, theoretical guidance and administrative supervision. schools lack resources like professional teachers and specialised funding to invest in home-school cooperation and family education (yang, 2015). the awareness of family participation in education is weak, and the role of parents in basic education in supervision, guidance and moral cultivation is neglected. home-school cooperation ignores ideological and moral education and mental health education. the form of education is unscientific, and the method of solving problems is too simple, lacking proper communication, guidance and accompaniment. these issues are related to the field of community participation in home-school cooperation and have reference value. basic education for ethnic minorities is culturally diverse, mainly in terms of classroom teaching and daily life, and is often accompanied by cultural conflicts and cultural adaptation disorders. the existence of ethnic minority students who either stick to their ethnic groups or blindly integrate into han chinese culture can easily lead to cultural discomfort, cognitive ambiguity and social difficulties for ethnic minority students, affecting their physical and mental health and their normal learning. this lack of campus culture and classroom atmosphere can be addressed by referring to fiso’s content on supporting a positive learning atmosphere. in addition, the practice of separating minority affairs under a system different from that of the han has actually led to “another han minority dichotomy” and a deep-rooted urban-rural divide in chinese society (ma, 2013). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 46 published by scholink inc. in terms of the education system, educational institutions for ethnic minorities and schools for mainland students, forming a “dual education system” based on ethnicity (ma, 2013). this has strengthend students’ ethnic identity (yang, 2015). however, ethnic boundaries were accordingly consolidated, which departed from the goal of national integration (leibold & yangbin, 2014). the limitations of the dual-track system are clear: it limits students’ openness to other cultures, creates boundaries between ethnic minorities and han chinese in school management and treatment, and challenges china’s goal of national integration. 2.3 policy objective: to enhance knowledge and improve capacity china’s ethnic minority school improvement policy is characterised by stability, prudence, speed, standardisation and quality (xue & li, 2020). basic education for ethnic minorities emphasises the pursuit of improved achievement based on educational equity, which is similar to the core content of fiso. china takes politicised approach and establishes a system of autonomy for all ethnic groups and formulated and implemented a series of policies in favour of ethnic minorities in administrative, economic, cultural and educational aspects. these favourable policies aim to achieve equality in national education (yang, 2015). as mentioned above, the development background and theoretical core of fiso framework are consistent with the requirements of china’s ethnic minority basic education to pursue educational equity, improve teaching and learning effectiveness, and students’ all-round development. the four core areas in the fiso improvement model are highly relevant to the problems that exist in china’s ethnic minority basic education. the cycle of gradual improvement is consistent with the implementation process of top-down and bottom-up feedback on the practice of ethnic minority basic education in china. it can categorise the problems in china and correspond to them, providing targeted ideas for solution (2020a). 2.4 policy features the policy model and implementation procedures emphasise human agency. the policy includes students, teachers, and administrators as the primary agents of school improvement. curriculum planning, assessment, and excellence in practice require the active participation of teachers and students. this interaction is critical to the accomplishment of the instructional mission and the achievement of instructional goals. this pursuit of excellence in teaching and learning maximises students’ test scores and improve academic standards, and consolidate learning skills steadily (skourdoumbis, 2018). teachers and school administrators are at the centre of the learning climate and professional leadership. enlightened, visionary and influential school management improves student identification and engagement. the empowerment of students contributes to democratic governance by improving the overall well-being of learners. decentralisation of education, decentralisation of leadership and participation rights of more subjects are all effective ways to optimise school power structure. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 47 published by scholink inc. second, the improved model in terms of policy content is closely related to the improvement cycle. the improved model provides a theoretical basis for optimising practice and provides theoretical guidance for teaching and management. the cycle runs through all aspects of model and provides practical feedback for model optimisation, demonstrating the relevance. this relevance is demonstrated in the form of educational activities like school monitoring, educational strategies, annual school plans and periodic reports, and supporting roles in other educational measures and regulations. the policy content includes static models and dynamic cycles that reflect school improvement developmental pattern, including its initiation, implementation and institutionalisation. other characteristics include diversity, immediate feedback and repetition. relevance means that improvement cycles in different areas of education are closely linked to educational practices and systems. diversity lies in the subject and duration of implementation by communities, schools and individual teachers. immediate feedback means that improvement depends on feedback and the results of improvement depend on implementation. repeatability means that the process of improvement is tortuous and ascending, which requires repeated trial and error, continuous feedback and adjustment of content improvement. the fiso policy elevates school improvement from the optimisation of individual practices to the building of a holistic environment. in terms of policy content, the theoretical framework of the improvement model emphasises not only teaching and learning practices intraditional sense, but also three other aspects, including social-emotional support, administration and community participation. it strengthens construction of the educational environment and the developmental vision of the participants, consolidates and enriches the path of school improvement, and innovates reform direction and content. this schooling environment is primarily driven by improvements in school leadership, which can provide sustained impetus to promote improvements in the school management system, innovations in the instructional system, and dual improvements in academic and social competencies of teachers and students (glen, blackberry, & kearney, 2017). such institutional optimisation, represented by distributed leadership practices, facilitates the building of trusting relationships between students, teachers and school leaders, and the guiding, mediating and catalytic roles of fiso policy documents to promote the maturation of schooling institutions and systems and the professional practice of teaching and learning for teachers and students (edwards-groves, grootenboer, & rönnerman, 2016). 3. “evaluating fiso policies” for the construction of education policy borrowing processes the victorian education system recognises that good schools focus on improving student achievement, engagement and wellbeing and has developed the fiso framework for improving student academic performance around these three core objectives. the fiso project is an evidence-based resource that will help schools implement their school improvement priorities. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 48 published by scholink inc. 3.1 improvement measures and improvement cycle as shown in figure 1, fiso improvement framework is centred around the four high-impact priorities of “excellence in teaching and learning”, “professional leadership”, “positive climate for learning”, and “community engagement in learning” (2019). within these four components, there are six improvement initiatives that serve as key directions, including building practice excellence, curriculum planning and assessment, building leadership teams, empowering students and building school pride, setting expectations and promoting inclusion, and building communities. figure 1. fiso policy improvement model the improvement cycle uses an evidence-based model to help schools identify steps and ideas for improvement, and it consists of four steps: evaluate and diagnose, prioritise and set goals, develop and plan, and implement and monitor (2019). the continuous improvement cycle is the practical process of the improvement model through which policy content is realised and implemented. this cycle is consistent with the components of the dynamic process of education policy, including decision-making and formulation, implementation, feedback and adjustment, monitoring and evaluation. figure 2. fiso policy improvement cycle www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 49 published by scholink inc. the improvement cycle consists of four main steps: the first step is “evaluate and diagnose”. this means that a comprehensive evaluation of the school is carried out to diagnose educational problems and identify students’ needs. the second step is “prioritise and set goals”. it dentifies key areas of improvement that will have the greatest impact on students’ learning well-being, prioritises improvement strategies, and sets appropriate desired goals. the third step is “develop and plan”. schools define school improvement strategies, analyse the objective situation and propose feasible implementation measures. the fourth step is the “implement and monitor”. the strategy needs to be updated in real time based on the improvement model. schools can monitor the impact of ongoing improvement plans on student learning by: collecting data, reviewing school-wide instructional practices, and adjusting annual implementation plans to improve student achievement. 3.2 key initiatives in the improvement measure 3.2.1 implementing excellence in teaching and learning “implementing excellence in teaching and learning” includes building on teachers’ practice excellence, implementing evidence-based high impact teaching strategies, developing curriculum planning and assessment, and evaluating impact on learning in multiple dimensions. there are two key elements to excellent teaching and learning: high quality teaching and effective feedback on teaching. teacher quality is the determining factor of good quality teaching. teachers are trained to improve teaching and develop the right school culture and values (bouchamma, april, & basque, 2019). in practice, teachers are encouraged to use appropriate pedagogical methods to help students participate actively in teaching and learning in order to improve the quality and effectiveness of teaching and learning. teachers’ professional learning is directed towards the learning outcomes of their students, which is in line with school improvement goal, and with teachers’ learning goals and teaching expectations aligned. this coherence bridges the gap between training and practice, and effective feedback helps participants to articulate their educational needs and optimise the educational process. fiso provides two main models of feedback. one is ‘mentoring’ model, whereby experts observe the teaching process and guide frontline teachers in small groups. this facilitates standardisation of teaching and learning processes and meets individualised educational needs (kraft, blazar, & hogan, 2018). the second is ‘peer observation’ model, which involves observing and reflecting on teacher-to-teacher and teacher-student interactions to optimise teaching and learning. other feedback methods include web-based data collection, student feedback questionnaires, analysis of teaching performance and one-to-one dialogue (2021b). effective professional learning styles are collaborative and reflective in the fiso framework (2019). four stages of exploration, organising, connecting and reflecting compose “professional learning cycle”. reflective assessment by teachers leads to more collective and active professional learning. through teacher professional learning, schools create an environment with well-established systems of collaboration, observation, practice modelling and feedback, with a continuous emphasis on teaching and learning to progressively achieve excellence in teaching and learning. curriculum, instruction, and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 50 published by scholink inc. assessment are the three fundamental processes of teaching and learning. to make school improvement effective, all three processes must simultaneously reflect corresponding changes in needs, clearing relationships between curriculum standards, learning objectives, learning activities, and assessment strategies. in instructional strategies, fiso framework states that teachers’ professional learning cover the adoption of high-impact instructional strategies and the revision of their instructional tools. evidence-based teaching strategies are supported by research data rather than subjective cases or untested theories, and have the advantages of significant application, wide application, and diverse application methods (selena, 2021). high-impact evidence-based instructional strategies include clarifying instructional goals, constructing curriculum frameworks, expressing teaching philosophies, cognitive teaching, cooperative learning, and differentiated instruction (2021c). the effectiveness of teaching strategies can be evaluated jointly by school leaders and teachers through the fiso improvement cycle to improve the curriculum, teaching methods and assessment approaches to ensure that teaching interventions are working effectively. in terms of curriculum planning, reasonable curriculum design is characterised by scientific content, theoretical support, clear classroom structure, appropriate length, appropriate level of difficulty, and meeting the educational needs of all parties (goss, hunter, romanes, & parsonage, 2015); rigorous teaching and learning processes and high levels of classroom engagement; instructional goals that focus on knowledge acquisition, competency development, and closely linked teaching methods. the correlation between course design and evaluation is important, which refers to the use of course content to optimise evaluation results and respond to feedback on content design. reliable lesson plans are characterised by rigorous and unique evaluation criteria, feedback based on classroom practice, student participation in evaluation, and collaborative freedom for evaluating teachers (heitink, van der kleij, veldkamp, schildkamp, & kippers, 2016). finally, fiso framework states that multidimensional assessment of teaching effectiveness covers not only knowledge acquisition, but also assessment of students’ skills, attitudes, motivation and psychological profile. it is important to consider assessment results in different contexts. schools and teachers use indicators of collaborative functioning, teamwork success, and subject matter skills to determine students’ growth in skills and abilities. in addition, there is a focus on instructional impact assessment. teachers use real-time classroom data and outcomes to identify issues at the heart of the teaching and learning process, collect and analyse evidence to assess the impact of teaching on learning outcomes, and adapt practice to better meet learning needs (2021d). 3.2.2 promoting professional leadership the second area of improvement is “promoting professional leadership”, which consists of four initiatives: building leadership teams, instructional and shared leadership, strategic resource management, and supporting vision, values and culture. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 51 published by scholink inc. the professional leadership team is one of the six core recommendations, which focuses on creating the school climate of mutual respect and diverse collaboration, scientific management systems, efficient information feedback, and shared leadership responsibility of all school positions for school development, curriculum development, shared values and instructional goals, the building of orderly learning environments, and community engagement (grissom, egalite, & lindsay, 2021). management philosophies, leadership behaviours and leadership styles of school leaders effect student learning outcomes. leadership teams are built to promote teacher welfare and student achievement (cann, riedel-prabhakar, & powell, 2021). professional and effective team composition maximises individual competencies and personality strengths to complement each other and improve leadership effectiveness. fiso framework states that leadership team is central to school improvement and should have in-depth understanding of school practices, be fully conversant with the school’s educational programme, including knowledge of curriculum, instruction, and assessment, establish school goals and means of improvement, and foster the culture of learning and improvement. instructional and shared leadership emphasise synergistic interdependence and joint action among school members, and decentralisation of the headmaster and empowerment of teachers. shared leadership emphasises the interaction of team members to influence leadership process, establish joint responsibility and achieve common goals. leaders are researchers of optimal teaching methods and use their expertise to guide the school’s instructional programme. and at the school-wide level, staff are encouraged to designate curriculum, instruction, and assessment strategies using data-driven assessment methods. leader power is effectively decentralised, fostering shared responsibility for effective teaching and learning at a school-wide level. strategic resource management means that all educational resources should serve the school and community. the scientific layout and efficient use of resources maximise profitability, promote specialisation in resource effectiveness and balance individual needs and group welfare (2021e). the education team excels at updating new learning resources in real time, constantly updating the school’s strategic plan and promoting innovative teaching and learning. finally, the vision, values and culture evolve with the needs of the community and students. the school’s vision, values, and culture focuses on student progress and articulates to the entire school community what it values and expects to achieve in the future. it seeks to garner support for the school’s core educational values, goals, and improvement plan. the school’s vision is to be rooted in the school’s daily practice, and in the case of basic education, the leadership team focuses on a favourable learning environment and growth and development, upholding the shared values of educational equity, reflective innovation and respect for human rights. by communicating and collaborating with students, teachers, the family community and other educational actors, the school renews school leadership culture and constructs shared values (2021f). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 52 published by scholink inc. 3.2.3 creating positive climate for learning the third area of improvement is creating a positive learning climate. it consists of four initiatives: empowering students and building school pride, setting expectations and promoting inclusion, health and well-being, and intellectual engagement and self-awareness. empowering students and building school pride is one of the six core recommendations. students’ voice, leadership and agency in the self-directed learning process are activated, leading to a positive school experience and becoming partners in school improvement. it empowers students to take ownership of their education, supports their active expression and effective communication, fully utilises their self-awareness as international learners and team leaders, encourages them to participate in teaching, management and community life, and builds a sense of pride and strong belief in their love of learning and school (2021g). active student organisations and open channels of expression are key manifestations of student empowermen. when students are given the opportunity to learn independently, express their wishes and organise their activities, they become more actively involved in teaching and learning and in life. setting expectations and promoting inclusion is one of the six core recommendations. expectations guide student behaviour. raising the school’s expectations of students means that the school demonstrates a positive attitude and strong belief in students’ academic abilities, career plans, and personal growth. it demonstrates an understanding and tolerance of students’ educational needs and personal dignity based on respect for students and their families, and uses this high level of expectation to promote instructional achievement and the collective good (2021h). inclusiveness in education emphasises the understanding and respect for physical and mental condition. it pays attention to the learning abilities and cultural backgrounds of different groups in curriculum design, teaching and life, and establishes a learning system and infrastructure that incorporates basic rights and special needs, and open and inclusive campus culture (2021i). there are conflicts between educational aspirations and inclusion. as a result of low inclusion, students are perceived to be educationally disadvantaged, then educational aspirations are lowered accordingly, ultimately leading to low educational achievement. student health and well-being are reflected in a supportive school environment that meets physical and emotional needs, and have positive and inclusive school culture (2021j). at school level, positive culture contributes to student well-being and self-efficacy. it includes student welfare policies, communication networks between teachers, student and parent welfare, shared leadership culture and systems for continuous assessment and improvement. finally, intellectual engagement and self-awareness emphasise planning skills, co-operation, critical and innovative thinking, classroom tasks and timely feedback with moderate difficulty. the development of self-awareness refers to cognitive thinking teaching and self-regulation skills to equip students with the ability to self-correct and take initiative. teachers are expected to guide individual growth, self-directed learning, and thinking skills (2021k). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 53 published by scholink inc. 3.2.4 community engagement in learning the fourth area of improvement is community engagement in learning, which includes building communities, parents and carers as partners, global citizenship, networks with schools, services and agencies. a growing body of research suggests that engaging all school community members, provides the necessary foundation for successful school improvement. the school community is an educational system in which schooling is at the centre and community participation is complementary. it is characterised by extensive collaboration, deep engagement and high degree of inclusiveness among education participants (2021l). schools promote education by connecting communities, families, businesses and other educational organisations, extending education from campus to community, creating a network of community collaboration and cohesion to ensure students’ physical and mental health and high quality educational outcomes (attree, 2011). the main forms of community engagement are mentoring and training of schools on family education, specialised liaison positions and feedback systems, and voting rights in community decision-making (salinas, epstein, & sanders, 2019). families are key partners in community engagement. parents provide learning opportunities at home and in the community and make connections between in-school and after-school learning. home-school partnerships help students engage in education in richer forms, improve academic achievement, extend educational timeframes, develop social skills, and enhance students’ well-being, achievement, and educational engagement (2021m). schools establish educational partnerships with other schools, companies, communities and educational services to support student wellbeing and educational engagement (2021n). collaboration between educational institutions facilitates the development of educational consensus among educational actors, evidence-based practice, positive social relationships, and facilitates resource flow. global citizenship refers to recognition of relationships between subjects in international affairs, emphasises responsibility and contribution to global development, and focuses on the development of students’ sense of innovation, universal values, peace consciousness, sustainability and human rights awareness (2021o). the multiple directions of education for global citizenship, whether it is fostering caring-based relationships, communicating the most basic human rights and duties, or realising the identity of the human community, are ultimately directed towards facilitating students’ survival and development in a globalised society. 4. “internalisation and enlightment” in the construction of education policy borrowing processes 4.1 improving teaching strategies and optimising curriculum designs china should focus on national unity education. national integration is promoted on the basis of cultural diversity protection. in accordance with the country’s demographic composition, historical and cultural traditions, regional economic and social environment and education, school layout is adjusted and improved, and educational resources distribution is optimised. primary and secondary schools, and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 54 published by scholink inc. kindergartens promote integration of ethnic minorities and han chinese. teaching subjects like history, politics and ideology and morals strengthen national knowledge, history and culture, and education in the spirit of unity. after-school activities, cultural and artistic performances, and study tours are used as supplementary means to help students feel the charms of different ethnic groups, enhance respect and understanding, and establish a sense of national unity and ethnic community. schools adhere to bilingual and multicultural teaching. respecting the freedom of ethnic schools to choose their own materials, the national universal curriculum is important, supplemented by curriculums with local characteristics. schools increase lectures that have content with national characteristics under the national curriculum, and ensure that the content fits learning background of ethnic minority students, teaching situation and demand. curriculum aims should meet educational needs, and teaching techniques should coordinate with local economy. integration should be enhanced. integrate ethnic knowledge with unit teaching and enrich teaching with local culture. ethnic culture thematic courses should be offered to promote the ethnic culture transmission, cultural integration, understanding and respect. communication should be enhanced among minority students to deepen their understanding of different ethnic groups and cultures (xue & li, 2020). in terms of curriculum design, year-round subject groups are set up to ensure scientific and comprehensive content, clear teaching sequence and evaluation criteria. expanding teaching modes and building online classrooms improve school quality. knowledge sources are enriched through synchronous and asynchronous education combination, including online live streaming, after-class recording and broadcasting. this improves teaching quality, fills regional gaps, and realises a new national model of basic education that is student-centred, links theory to practice, and combines academic assessment and quality education. incorporating fine traditions, characteristic ways of thinking and unique skills of ethnic minority cultures into teaching. transforming theoretical knowledge into life experience to attract students’ interest and improve teaching efficiency. in teaching placements, adequate internship hours and resources should be guaranteed. ensuring that teaching content is consistent with national policy, middle leadership is coordinated with frontline teaching, and teacher collaboration and administrative support are aligned. adopting evidence-based teaching methods. developing teachers’ high-impact instructional strategy knowledge, adopting differentiated instruction, small group work, goal orientation, cognitive teaching, and feedback on thinking to ensure that learning intentions are aligned with success criteria, and stable management is aligned with differentiated instruction (2021c). schools move classroom from teacher-centred to student-centred, harnessing student initiative and motivation, and increasing willingness to express and participate. using “peer observation” and “expert-guided practice” is guarantee for the successful evidence-based teaching. schools adopt modularised teaching to enhance practice and immersion in national culture. through field teaching, knowledge and skills are integrated, and national culture is learnt through practical skills, to realise subject knowledge integration. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 55 published by scholink inc. 4.2 improve leadership and optimise resource management government and schools optimise minority school environment. build school performance platform. use data to analyse the dynamic view of student performance to identify school strengths and potential areas for improvement. schools optimise monitoring mechanisms. governemnt supervises school teaching and learning by law, focusing on the holistic development of ethnic schools. schools implement hardware facilities, optimise software, and correct school culture of wastefulness and blind comparison. schools enrich evaluation methods. in addition to test scores, schools should design richer assessment indicators based on the cultural background and individual differences of ethnic minority students. evaluation methods with more humanistic characteristics should be adopted and diversified evaluation systems should be developed. schools optimise management system and give full play to the leading role of educators. through scientific selection and unified training, government deepen talent pool for minority school management. minority school leaders shall implement national basic education policy, and make clear the goals and values of running schools in pursuit of equity, cultural pluralism and unity. schools optimise teaching and learning in accordance with management regulations, strengthen staff management and encourage teachers to participate in curriculum design, school management and home-school co-operation. this can be done by promoting models like decentralised leadership, distributed leadership and direction setting to enhance teachers’ initiative and freedom of frontline teaching. establishing a special school improvement team responsible for integrating all functional departments of ethnic schools and external subjects, optimising the school improvement paradigm, and perfecting philosophy of running ethnic schools, teaching capacity, supervisory system and partnership. schools promote scientific management of educational resources, and strengthen the “localised” management system. schools take pursuit of quality and fairness in national basic education as the core. give full play to the autonomy of ethnic minority education policymaking, and introduce special and favourable policies that are in line with the situation of ethnic basic education. financial subsidies should be implemented to improve the teaching environment, distribution of materials and the welfare of teachers and students. make good use of information technology resources, update teaching software and hardware technology, design supporting teaching models, popularise online platforms and fill regional gaps. schools need to ensure the centrality of human resource management. optimise the structure of the teaching force. expand the proportion of ethnic-minority teachers and improve their ability to pass on culture. encourage han teachers to work in ethnic areas and attract teachers of all disciplines, so as to ensure the coordination between the people and the chinese and the soundness of the disciplines. improve the quality of teachers. carry out standardised teacher training to ensure that the training materials are diversified and scientific, and that the training system is long-lasting and reliable. strengthen teachers’ cross-cultural teaching ability and their understanding of the value claims and multiculturalism of ethnic minority education, and shoulder the responsibility of ethnic and cultural www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 56 published by scholink inc. exchanges. schools should strengthen the transfer training and improve the assessment mechanism. finally, improve teacher wellbeing. schools should provide policy and institutional support in teacher training, appointment and assessment. clear promotion channels and career opportunities stabilise the working environment and improve teaching initiative. 4.3 promoting community engagement fiso framework emphasises partnership between school community members and builds community engagement system. schools conduct community activities, use school sites and community facilities to expand educational positions through knowledge lectures, festivals, visits, extracurricular activities. schools use administrative means to develop a scientifically standardised evaluation system and indicators for community involvement. schools use platforms like internet, school newspaper and radio, and take the national language as the medium to implement education publicity into the community, leading teachers and community staff to promote education publicity, enrolment and answering questions, building foundation of home-school cooperation trust (2021l). school should strengthen home-school co-operation. try to build a mature home education service system. a home school co-operation department is set up, which is responsible for interfacing with ethnic minority families, communities, foundations and other out-of-school educational entities to form a collaborative network. schools should conduct regular teacher training to guide and improve teachers’ skills in home-school co-operation with scientific theories. at the same time, schools should give full play to the initiative of parents, respect their right to participate, and cultivate a sense of joint parenting. parents’ educational literacy and communication skills should be improved through school teaching and community talks, and parents should be encouraged to strengthen their accompaniment and education of their children. understanding and respect are promoted, and a stable and loving family atmosphere is created. 4.4 creating a positive atmosphere and promote students’ self-empowerment schools enhances of students’ well-being. schools start by localising the learning environment and focusing on the educational experience of the students. schools should carry out special activities, especially social-emotional classes, communication skills lectures, sexual health lectures and other forms of counselling. schools are expected to establish a scientific and reasonable discipline policy system, clarify the code of conduct, and establish good teacher-student relationships and peer friendships to enhance students’ sense of belonging and ownership. secondly, schools should endeavour to improve the construction of the learning environment. improve infrastructure construction. optimise the hardware facilities of ethnic basic schools and boarding schools, and upgrade bilingual teaching aids. consolidate the bilingual education system with unified standards and distinctive features. promote the construction of cultural symbiosis grounds and create a campus atmosphere in which ethnic cultures coexist and prosper (2021g). schools promote student participation and motivation. schools should improve all-round and diversified incentive mechanisms to give play to students’ initiative in participating in education. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 57 published by scholink inc. students’ willingness to express themselves and their ability to communicate are improved, and their rights to feedback, to speak, and to participate in teaching and organising activities are guaranteed. they are encouraged to participate in curriculum planning, independent learning, group work and communication and reflection. make use of platforms such as student organisations, headmasters’ mailboxes and psychological counselling to provide feedback to students in all aspects. schools can set up special school improvement teams to identify students with low participation through data and then actively provide targeted assistance, maintain close teacher-student contact, encourage students to integrate fun into teaching and campus life, and give priority to their participation in special learning groups, such as communication skills groups and learning methods groups (2021i). schools promote inclusiveness in teaching and learning. schools to ensure that staff have the skills to set expectations and promote inclusion so that they can measure pupil expectations and communicate effectively using consistent language and personalised standards. schools need to have high-impact teaching strategies and preventative behaviour strategies to respond to feedback and intervene in behaviour. at the same time, a task force should be formed to look at expectation setting and promotion of inclusion strategies and share experiences with other schools (2021i). 5. conclusion and discussion at the stage of education modernisation, to promote the balanced compulsory education development, it is necessary to improve ethnic minority basic education, promote modernised school system, and cultivate student literacy. fiso framework focuses on students’ skills and thinking qualities and encourages core literacy training, offering reference significance for china. based on ethnic minority basic education reality, this paper dialectically absorbs advanced school improvement experience in australian regions. it examines significance of fiso policy for school improvement in china’s ethnic minority basic education, and improvement measures that fit chinese situation through education policy transfer. fiso policy consists of a static improvement model and a dynamic improvement cycle. it offers innovative core improvement recommendations in the areas of curriculum design, instructional practices, student empowerment and participation, school leadership teams and community engagement. according to the theory of policy transfer and the logical system of education policy, it is reasonable and necessary for china to learn from the fiso policy transfer. the reasons lie in four aspects: policy participants, policy background, policy objectives and policy characteristics. chinese schools can optimise ethnic minority basic education schools in four areas: teaching and curriculum, leadership and management, community participation, and learning atmosphere. this research helps to improve school improvement theory in china, has positive impact on concrete practice and practical improvement of students’ achievements and teaching efficiency. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 58 published by scholink inc. disclosure of interest the authors did not receive support from any organization for the submitted work. the authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose. ethic approval approval was obtained from the ethics committee of beijing normal university. the procedures used in this study adhere to the tenets of the declaration of helsinki. references attree, p. (2011). the experience of community engagement for individuals: a rapid review of evidence. health and social care in the community, 19(3), 250-260. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2524.2010.00976.x bouchamma, y., april, d., & basque, m. (2019). principals’ leadership practices in guiding professional learning communities to institutionalization. international studies in educational administration, 47(1), 38-60. https://doi.org/10.3102/1430808 cann, r. f., riedel-prabhakar, r., & powell, d. (2021). a model of positive school leadership to improve teacher wellbeing. international journal of applied positive psychology, 6(2), 195-218. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41042-020-00045-5 dolowitz, d. p., & marsh, d. (2000). learning from abroad: the role of policy transfer in contemporary policy-making. governance, 13(1), 5. https://doi.org/10.1111/0952-1895.00121 dolowitz, d., & marsh, d. (1996). who learns what from whom: a review of the policy transfer literature. political studies, 44(2), 343-357. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9248.1996.tb00334.x edwards-groves, c., grootenboer, p., & rönnerman, k. (2016). facilitating a culture of relational trust in school-based action research: recognising the role of middle leaders. educational action research, 24(3), 369-386. https://doi.org/10.1080/09650792.2015.1131175 glen, m., blackberry, g., & kearney, j. (2017). leading school improvement, innovation and professional learning through action research : a policy and practice review. leading and managing, 23(1), 1. goss, p., hunter, j., romanes, d., & parsonage, h. (2015). targeted teaching: how better use of data can improve student learning. grattan institute, melbourne. retrieved from https://grattan.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/827-targetedteaching.pdf. grissom, j. a., egalite, a. j., & lindsay, g. a. (2021). “how principals affect students and schools: a systematic synthesis of two decades of research.” new york: the wallace foundation. available at retrieved from http://www.wallacefoundation.org/principalsynthesis hannum, e., & wang, f. (2022). fewer, better pathways for all? intersectional impacts of rural school consolidation in china’s minority regions. world development 151 (march): 105734 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2021.105734 https://doi.org/10.1111/0952-1895.00121 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 59 published by scholink inc. heitink, m., van der kleij, f. m., veldkamp, b. p., schildkamp, k., & kippers, w. b. (2016). a systematic review of prerequisites for implementing assessment for learning in. educational research review, 17, 50-62. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.edurev.2015.12.002 kraft, m., blazar, d., & hogan, d. (2018). the effect of teacher coaching on instruction and achievement: a meta-analysis of the causal evidence. review of educational research, 88(4), 547-588. https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654318759268 leibold, j., & yangbin, c. (2014). introduction: minority education in china: balancing unity and diversity in an era of critical pluralism. in minority education in china (pp. 1-24). hong kong university press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9789888268290-005 ma, r. (2013). a han vs. minorities dual structure of chinese society. china: an international journal, 11(2), 7-24. https://doi.org/10.1353/chn.2013.0017 phillips, d. (2006). comparative education and policy borrowing. tsinghua journal of education, 27(2). phillips, d. (2015). policy borrowing in education: frameworks for analysis. second international handbook on globalisation. education and policy research, 137-148. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9493-0_9 phillips, d., & ochs, k. (2003). processes of policy borrowing in education: some explanatory and analytical devices. comparative education, 39(4), 451-461. https://doi.org/10.1080/0305006032000162020 salinas, k., epstein, j., & sanders, m. (2019). measure of school, family and community partnerships. in school, family and community partnerships. corwin. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429493133 selena, k. (2021). what is evidence-based instruction? teach hub. retrieved from https://www.teachhub.com/teaching-strategies/2021/07/what-is-evidence-based-instruction/ skourdoumbis, a. (2018). national plan for school improvement and students first : the predictable nature of school education policy and the problem of student achievement. discourse, 39(4), 603. https://doi.org/10.1080/01596306.2017.1300136 stone, a., walter, m., & peacock, h. (2017). educational outcomes for aboriginal school students in tasmania : is the achievement gap closing? australian and international journal of rural education, 27(3), 90. https://doi.org/10.47381/aijre.v27i3.148 the department of education and training victoria. (2019). fiso fact sheet. retrieved from https://www.education.vic.gov.au/documents/about/educationstate/fisoedstatefactsheet.pdf the department of education and training victoria. (2020a). framework for improving student outcomes (fiso 2.0) frequently asked questions (faqs). melbourne. the department of education and training victoria. (2021a). curriculum planning and assessment implementation guide. retrieved from https://www.education.vic.gov.au/pal/fiso-curriculum-planning-and-assessment-implementationguide.pdf www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 60 published by scholink inc. the department of education and training victoria. (2021b). building practice excellence implementation guide. retrieved from https://www.education.vic.gov.au/pal/fiso-building-practice-excellence-implementation-guide.pd f the department of education and training victoria. (2021c). building leadership capabilities guide. the department of education and training victoria. (2021d). dimension: evaluating impact on learning. the department of education and training victoria. (2021e). dimension: strategic resource management. retrieved from https://www.education.vic.gov.au/school/teachers/management/improvement/pages/dimension2str ategic.aspx the department of education and training victoria. (2021f). dimension: vision values and culture. retrieved from https://www.education.vic.gov.au/school/teachers/management/improvement/pages/dimension2vis ion.aspx the department of education and training victoria. (2021g). empowering students and building school pride implementation guide. the department of education and training victoria. (2021h). dimension: setting expectations and promoting inclusion. the department of education and training victoria. (2021i). setting expectations and promoting inclusion implementation guide. the department of education and training victoria. (2021j). health and wellbeing implementation guide. the department of education and training victoria. (2021k). dimension: intellectual engagement and self-awareness. the department of education and training victoria. (2021l). building communities implementation guide. the department of education and training victoria. (2021m). dimension: parents and carers as partners. the department of education and training victoria. (2021n). dimension: networks with schools, services and agencies. the department of education and training victoria. (2021o). dimension: global citizenship. wan, m. (2017). cultural conflict and integration: china’s northwest ethnic minority education (m. lesourd, trans.). chinese education and society, 50(1), 1–3. https://doi.org/10.1080/10611932.2016.1262179 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 61 published by scholink inc. xue, e., & li, j. (2020). top-down education policy on the inclusion of ethnic minority population in china: a perspective of policy analysis. educational philosophy & theory, 52(3), 227-239. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2019.1629903 yang, m. (2015). trapped in politicization of ethnicity: the dilemma in china’s ethnic minority education. chinese education and society, 48(5), 327-331. https://doi.org/10.1080/10611932.2016.1171115 microsoft word fet-v3n3-p1.doc frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 1 original paper managing screening tests of hereditary diseases and challenges in their conduction in arab sector of israel sara gabaren1* 1 west university of timisoara, timisoara, romania * sara gabarin, phd student, west university of timisoara, timisoara, romania received: june 1, 2020 accepted: june 9, 2020 online published: june 11, 2020 doi:10.22158/fet.v3n3p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v3n3p1 abstract hereditary diseases are a known factor in the world to mortality and morbidity of infants. the frequency of these diseases characterizes specific population segments more than others. acknowledging the efficiency and profitability of performing screening tests, raises the question of arab women’s low responsiveness to perform the hereditary screening tests comparing to jewish women and in general. keywords genetic, screening tests, hereditary diseases, arab sector 1. introduction a woman living in israel enjoys a wide range of screening tests that she can have before and during her pregnancy. the perinatal screening tests, “which are considered as one them, imply that pregnant women go through tests that can help in identifying frequent genetic diseases or/and going through ultrasonography test that helps in allocating developmental malformations and disabilities as for example the down syndrome”. some of these tests are financed by the health maintenance organization and others require payment (romano-zalicha & shochat, 2011). the responsiveness of women in israel to screening tests is in constant increase. for example, between 2001 and 2011, the responsiveness to the nuchal translucency screening raised from 15.7% to 53.8% (romano-zalicha et al., 2011). however, the responsiveness in different population segments is not uniform. for example, 47.5% of jewish women in israel perform amniocentesis following recommendations of the specialists, however there are only 28.6% of the arab women who perform this type of test. it has to be mentioned that this low rate is considered as an improvement, since the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 2 published by scholink inc. reported responsiveness rate of arab women to amniocentesis in 2001 was only 19.2% (romano-zalicha et al., 2011). comparing to the low responsiveness there is the consideration of the high risk of lack of responsiveness. according to the ministry of health (2014), the arab sector faces an increased risk to hereditary morbidity, especially within bedouin villages and tribes where there is an increased cases of inbreeding. in these places, the range of having an infant with malformations and the range of infant mortality is 10 times higher than the range within the jewish sector. in 2011, the mortality data was 11.44 to 1000 live births. moreover, the frequency of hereditary disabilities of trisomy type (down syndrome, trisomy 13, trisomy 18) among muslims in israel is 12.16 to 1000 live births and among bedouins is 16.43 to 1000 live births (ministry of health, 2014). therefore, and as can be seen from statistics, the abovementioned population is considered as of high risk to genetic morbidity and as well as of low responsiveness to screening tests. women’s lack of responsiveness to hereditary screening tests leads to expenses that are costly for the health system in israel. while the cost of one screening test to beta-thalassemia disease is about 60$, the cost of locating one sick newborn is 63,000$ and the annual treatment of beta-thalassemia newborn child is about 40,000$. given that with proper treatment (blood transfusions and removal of iron) thalassemia patient may survive 50 years, which would save millions of dollars through one screening test to a single disease (koren et al., 2014). because of the profitability and ability of performing screening tests, the ministry of health tried to find out the reasons of the gaps in responsiveness. a survey was performed in 2010 on 768 women, religious ones and non-religious, giving birth in israel shows the reasons for not having hereditary tests. further, the survey showed another reasons which was mainly and only mentioned by arab women who took part in the survey. it seems that they had chosen not to take the tests by their own well (romano-zalicha et al., 2011). the choice of arab women not to perform the hereditary tests together with the low responsiveness to screening tests leads to the necessity to find out the factors influencing their decisions and recommend solutions for encouraging them to perform the tests and improve their responsiveness. the article will discuss the problem of israeli arab women’s responsiveness to the genetic perinatal screening tests. understanding both factors that weakness and strengthen the responsiveness of women to screening tests will allow building a model that will decrease their resistance to perform the tests and improve their responsiveness to screening tests. 2. hereditary morbidity in israel and in its arab sector the hereditary morbidity is a world health challenge. the global range of severe genetic morbidity or stillbirth due to hereditary morbidity is about 5%-7% of all live births (koren et al., 2014). however, the hereditary diseases may appear not as overt disease, but as carrying a defective gene (mendelian heredity morbidity), and its frequency changes according to the different ethnic and geographic groups. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 3 published by scholink inc. for example, while in the general population in the north area of israel the beta-thalassemia affected individuals are only 2.4% of the population, in some arab villages the average mounts to about 9% of the cases (koren et al., 2014). there are more mendelian diseases that characterize different sub-populations in the arab sector in israel, that its frequency is even higher. a genetic survey that was conducted on the bedouin population in the negev showed cases of 1:5 of carmi syndrome and 1:40 of hypoparathyroidism or mendelian genetic retardation (the ministry of health, 2014). in addition to high number of cases of hereditary morbidity, there is high risk to the morbidity expression, due to high cases of inbreeding within the arab sector. 25% of all marriages of muslim arabs and druze are marriage between relatives of first level, cousins. an additional 20% of all marriages are among more distant relatives. among cristian arabs, the frequency of inbreeding is lower (21% cousins’ marriage and 10% inbreeding of other classes), but it is still relatively high (zlotogora, 2014). 3. the screening tests in israel until the year 2017, there were (and still) several types of genetic screen tests offered to pregnant women and to women before pregnancy in israel. the first type is tests for hereditary diseases of mendelian type. since 2002, the instruction of the ministry of health is to include as part of the health backage the screening tests that show in specific population segments in frequency of 1:1000 or more live birth. these tests are offered to be performed by the woman once a life to check if she is carrying the gene, and in case of known family genetical diseases it is also possible to ask her spouse to go through the tests. in 2016 the screening tests procedure was updated and the recommendation to the performance of screening tests is based on 3 main criteria: • gravity—a disease that causes mortality in young age or great morbidity and suffer to consider preventing the birth of the sick embryo or diagnises and treats at an early age. • frequency/range—the chance of having an ill child is more than 1:15,000 or the carrying frequency to the diseases recessive gene is 1:60 and up. • diagnosis—possibility of having over 90% accuracy in diagnosy using existing tests. (ministry of health, 2016). there is also an acknowledgement that within specific population segments there are different cases of different diseases and some populations are in higher risk than others. for the bedouin population, for example, it means a free genetic test for carrying of possible 17 different diseases, e.g., carmi syndrome, congenital insensitivity to pain or hemolytic uremic syndrome (ministry of health, 2014). the second type of tests contains screening tests in full or partial participation to frequent chromosomal disorders. these tests are performed over each pregnancy and refer only to the current pregnancy. amniocentesis or chorionic villus sampling to diagnosy down syndrome is considered as the common test. there are also less intrusive tests, such as nuchal translucency, which is performed during the pregnancy’s first trimester. these tests are funded by the health maintenance organization for women www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 4 published by scholink inc. under the age of 35 and by the ministry of health for the amniocentesis or chorionic villus sampling for women over the age of 35 (ministry of health, 2013). the tests mentioned above are offered to all pregnant women in israel, based on the level of risk of the populations. however, there is a difference between the responsiveness of the different population segments and their performance of these tests. 4. non-performing screening tests: factors the responsiveness of arab women in israel to perform genetic screening tests is low. according to the ministry of health, there are several factors that play important role in causing arab women to not perform the screening tests: 4.1 arab women’s level of willingness to perform the tests the level of willingness of arab women to perform the triple test (screening test to risk of down syndrome) is significantly related to several factors, such as pregnancy planning; number of pregnancy; availability of awareness material, number of children (less or more than 3); adherearance to additional health insurance (p<0.05). it is worthy mentioning that the correlation between the triple test and the family income was not significant (p=0.07), which contradicts the claim that chorionic villus sampling, for example, was not performed due to cost considerations (romano-zalicha et al., 2014). it has to be mentioned that along the years the economic factor becomes less relevant. one of the reasons is that, by the instruction of the ministry of health, the basic tests basket to each pregnant woman includes free screening tests to every hereditary disease that its carrying frequency is over 1:60 in the discussed population. it is important to emphasize that these tests are aimed to diseases with mendelian heredity (driven from carrying gene by the parents) and not point mutations or trisomy. for the frequent trisomy, there are tests as amniocentesis, which are fully funded by the ministry of health after the age of 35 and before—in pregnancies declared in risk by screening tests as nuchal translucency or alpha fetoprotein (ministry of health, 2013). it means that the economic accessibility of screening tests is reasonable. for example, a hereditary test to cf is fully funded by the state, but only 11.7% of arab women performed the test. 4.2 religiousness level/status according to romano-zalicha et al. (2011), in a survey performed among women in israel about the lack of responsiveness to screening tests, the religiousness level was reported as one of the reasons to not perform the test. moreover, this survey had shown that there is a majority among the arab women questioned about their level of practicing their religion or the tradition level of impact on their lives, in comparison with the jewish women (87.6% vs. 62.1%). this is due to two possible explanations. one explanation is that some screening tests, such as amniocentesis or chorionic villus sampling are known as having a risk of miscarriage before the 24th week in 1%-2% of the cases. even though research examination of 42,716 women that performed amniocentesis and 8899 women that performed chorionic villus sampling had shown that the chance of miscarriage after performing these tests is lower than before performing (akolekar, beta, picciarelli, ogilvie, & d’antonio, 2015), the fear still www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 5 published by scholink inc. exists and it is interpreted as risk of miscarriage that is forbidden by religion. on the other side, the responsiveness to screening tests of nuchal translucency, that not endanger the fetus, is much higher among arab women than in jewish women (70.6% vs. 61%, p=0.01) (romano-zalicha et al., 2014). the other explanation is that diagnosis of malformation of fetus is one of the reasons recognized by the israeli law to perform intentional abortion in all pregnancy stages. however, according to the muslim law, abortion is allowed only if the pregnancy endangers the mother’s life, and some fatwas allow abortions in rare cases as long as the woman is still in her 120th day of pregnancy (zlotogora, 2014). 4.3 information gaps in some area such as gaza and saudi arabia there is awareness the benefit of going through screening tests before wedding. the young couples are fully aware of the need in hereditary tests and hereditary morbidity (cousens, gaff, metcalfe, & delatycki, 2010). however, in israel the the compulsory guide about conducting screening genetic tests is only by nurses in family health center during the first meeting in the first trimester at pregnancy, also there is very little information on the subject of advertising in the public (the ministry of health, 2014). there are also very few open publications on this subject and its meaning is that hereditary morbidity carrying couples marry without knowing. it is a phenomenon characterizing all women in israel and not only those of arab sector. according to romano—zalicha et al. (2014), there is a huge relation between getting the information brochure and performing screening tests that leads the arab women to go through the tests. namely, a better accessibility of information could improve the responsiveness of arab women to perform the tests. the information issue may also be referred to public media that may help increasing the awareness to hereditary morbidity. the diseases that are mediatized, as cystic fibrosis (cf) are shown in low frequency among arab population in israel. while the national average of carrying the gene cf is 1:45, it is 1:236 among the arab muslims in israel and less than 1:1000 among israeli druze (zlotogora, grotto, kaliner, & gamzu, 2015). it can be concluded that as long as the level of awareness of the population on its existence and number of cases is low, the level of willingness to perform the tests is low as well. facultative choice vs mandatory choice—this reason has to be taken with extreme caution. a common reason that rose in the survey in israel for not performing the screening tests among arab women was lack of will (romano-zalicha et al., 2014). while the world health organization notes that screening tests have to be performed voluntarily only, there are countries, such as saudi arabia, in which performing screening tests is mandatory by national law. in greek cyprus, performing screening tests was first mandatory by christian religious law and later by legislation, while lack of written certificate of performing genetic counseling is unequivocal obstacle to perform marriage ceremony by the church. in gaza strip, not performing screening tests may serve as a legitimate ground for divorce. it has to be mentioned that performing screening tests is not mandatory and it comes back to the couple who want to get marry or are already married. it is, at the end of the day, up to them whether to get marry or whether to perform the tests or not (cousens et al., 2010). the fact that in israel, performing the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 6 published by scholink inc. screening tests is not mandatory and it is just a recommendation, it increase the indifference of the patients towards the tests and this may have a negative impact on the health outcomes of the patients (the ministry of health, 2014). . 4. discussion low responsiveness to performing screening tests still existing amongs certain populations despite the world awareness of their importance. in israel, it refers to the arab women. it is agrreg among scholars that the arab population has the highest average of genetic morbidity (romano-zalicha et al., 2014; the ministry of health, 2013). national survey that examined the reasons for lack of responsiveness showed some common explanations (romano-zalicha et al., 2014), but there is a disagreement in the literature about the real influence of those factors. one common reason reported by the participant of the survey is the financial factor—the cost of performing the tests. according to romano-zalicha et al. (2014), the correlation between the income level of the arab women and performing the screening tests was not significant (p=0.07). in addition, according to the ministry of health, many tests that are common in arab population usually performed with full subsidization of the health maintenance organizations or the ministry of finance (the ministry of health, 2013; the ministry of health, 2016). another reason explanation is the level of religiousness. romano-zalicha et al. (2014) found that the arab women reported higher level of religiousness comparing to jewish women further, there is a faith in the public that performing of specific screen tests as chorionic villus sampling may increase the chance to have miscarriage. although it has been demonstrated in research that the risk is not higher than the risk of miscarriage without performing the test (akolekar et al., 2015), there is still a fear that may be accepted by religious resistance. another reason is information gaps existing among the arab population. in some countries in the world there is health promotion of hereditary screen tests to legal obligation to perform the screening as an exclusive condition to marriage (cousens et al., 2010). in israel, the first time arab women faces the issue is when they are already pregnant and visit the family health centres for pregnancy follow-up in the first trimester (the ministry of health, 2014). this shows that the lack of information about the existence of these tests had led to their low level of responsiveness (romano-zalicha et al., 2014). another factor is the woman’s will. this factor came as a significant factor in the survey of romano-zalicha et al. (2014) but without detailing the meaning of the answer “because it is their will” and without examining the correlation between this factor and other factors in regression exam. not much literature was found on this issue, although according to cousens et al. (2010), in countries in which not performing screening tests may be a ground for divorce (saudi arabia, gaza), women’s responsiveness to screening tests is higher. on the one hand, it is inappropriate to speak of coercion of tests in the national level, but on the other hand this issue of lack of patient’s will requires additional examination. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 7 published by scholink inc. 5. summary and recommendations performing screening tests for hereditary morbidity is an efficient way in health and economic aspects to reduce incidences of morbidity and mortality related to genetic defects. many diseases that are common among the arab population in israel have screening tests subsidized by the ministry of health. however, the responsiveness of arab women to the screening tests is 10% lower comparing to jewish women. examining the different factors influencing the arab women’s willingness to perform the screening tests showed several elements. some of these elements, as the economic, are already known to the health system and are responded by subsidization and the ministry of health’s participation in the tests’ cost based on relevant criteria. other factors, as information gaps, refer to gaps and faults in the systematic reference to the issue of screening tests. this refers to the importance of the written material and the minor reference of health workers to the question of hereditary screening tests excluding the time of pregnancy after the marriage. for this issue, there is a place to examine the source of the gaps in making the information accessible for arab women and jewish women and the possibility to raise the awareness to the existence and importance of screening tests among arab women, not only in a single meeting during the pregnancy follow-up. moreover, the literature showed the unique factor for the arab population in israel, namely, women just “do not want” to perform the test. this factor requires more profound examination to identify the sources, the reasons and the attitudes in the bases of this refusal. in summary, due to the world acknowledgement and as well as of the ministry of education of the importance in performing hereditary screening tests, the gaps in performing these screening tests point out the need in research and guiding in system level to improve arab women’s responsiveness to perform screening tests. references akolekar, r., beta, j., picciarelli, g., ogilvie, c., & d’antonio, f. (2015). procedure-related risk of miscarriage following amniocentesis and chorionic villus sampling: a systematic review and meta-analysis. ultrasound in obstetrics & gynecology, 45(1), 16-26. cousens, n. e., gaff, c. l., metcalfe, s. a., & delatycki, m. b. (2010). carrier screening for beta-thalassaemia: a review of international practice. european journal of human genetics, 18(10), 1077-1083. koren, a., profeta, l., zalman, l., palmor, h., levin, c., zamir, r. b., ... blondheim, o. (2014). prevention of β thalassemia in northern israel-a cost-benefit analysis. mediterranean journal of hematology and infectious diseases, 6(1). ministry of health. (2013). medical administration circular 25/2013: screening tests for the detection of women at risk of carrying a fetus with down syndrome (withdrawn on 01 january 2018). hebrew www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 3, 2020 8 published by scholink inc. ministry of health. (2014a). circular 24/2014: treatment procedure in pregnant women at the family health centers (withdrawn on january 3, 2018). hebrew ministry of health. (2014b). congenital malformations and genetic diseases among the negev bedouin. jerusalem: ministry of health. hebrew ministry of health. (2016). medical administration circular 11/2016: screening in the population for the detection of couples at risk for the birth of children with severe hereditary diseases (withdrawn on 01 january 2018). hebrew romano-zalicha, a., & shochat, t. (2011). summary report: use of genetic tests and imaging tests for prenatal diagnosis by pregnant women in israel. jerusalem: ministry of health. hebrew zlotogora, j. (2014). genetics and genomic medicine in israel. molecular genetics & genomic medicine, 2(2), 85-94. zlotogora, j., grotto, i., kaliner, e., & gamzu, r. (2015). the israeli national population program of genetic carrier screening for reproductive purposes. genetics in medicine, 18(2), 203-206. frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no.2, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 89 original paper i, you and the others, among otherness, diversity and education josé manuel salum tomé, phd.1 1 doctor of education, catholic university of temuco, chile received: march 26, 2023 accepted: april 11, 2023 online published: april 24, 2023 doi:10.22158/fet.v6n2p89 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v6n2p89 abstract when one thinks of the other and the other, they are not due to the sameness of power and hegemonies, and that this other is identified as a face, there remains the possibility of guiding behavior or ethics, along the paths of diversity, understood this is like the discovery of diversity and otherness in education, which are the most appropriate ways to understand that one’s own autonomy is in debt, under the figure of a hostage. humanity has embarked on a path that has no possible reserve and this consists of opening, via postmodernity, a type of thought that is capable of generating recognition scenarios for what is different, as a discovery that greatly benefits everyone. proposing that otherness is the basis on which diversity is built is already then an open path in education and to be followed that makes life have more meaning through the ethical recognition of the other and of the other who will accompany me in a path of history keywords otherness, diversity, education, human rights, recognition, inclusion 1. introduction from the early writings of descartes, locke, and kant to contemporary discussions of mind and brain, philosophers have provided strong support for the reality of bounded being. in many ways the hallmark of western philosophy was its presumption of dualism: mind and world, subject and object, self and other. furthermore, the field of philosophy is also nourished by the dispute and while the individualist vision of human functioning has been dominant, there are significant escapees, several of whom have become textual companions in developing proposals for the relational being. my conviction for existentialism led me to the work of maurice merleau-ponty (1970) who, although he placed individual consciousness at the center of his thoughts, also postulated a consciousness deeply inhabited by the other. from the above, the perception we have of the other contains in itself an awareness of being www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 90 published by scholink inc. perceived by the other. when we observe the other during a conversation, for example, we are also aware of being observed and both forms of awareness are inextricable. or, in the same vein, the awareness of touching another person embodies in itself the awareness of being touched by another. the work of martin heidegger (1962) is closely related. as for merleau-ponty, much of heidegger’s analysis deals with the phenomenological world of consciousness, and at the same time the latter attempted to subvert the traditional subject/object dichotomy, in which conscious subjects are contrasted with a world apart from external objects. . for heidegger consciousness is always consciousness of something. if all objects of consciousness are removed, there is no consciousness; if all consciousness is removed the objects cease to exist. thus, subject and object are fundamentally coexistent and the insertion of hyphens between the words of their fundamental concept, being in the world, works as a visual illustration of the conceptual break with the traditional binary model. although coming from the terrain of american pragmatism, the work of john dewey and arthur bentley is consistent with heidegger’s (1949) innovation of breaking the binary model. in their view, there is a mutually constitutive relationship between the person and the object (mind and world) and both agreed to replace the traditional interaction view (independent objects in a causal relationship with experience) by the concept of transaction. another very important school of thought is the one that emanates from sociological and political theory and whose work is especially important for its critique of liberal individualism, both in terms of its influence on cultural life and its suitability as an orientation to civil society and society. policy. regarding the data of daily life, the book habits of the heart by robert bellah (1989) and colleagues is fundamental in its significance. the book reveals in detail the insidious implications of individualist ideology for human relationships. in addition, it includes the initiatives of the community movement led by amitai etzioni (1993) and his colleagues. here the emphasis is placed on the obligations we have to the community as opposed to the claims of individual rights. on the other hand, the work of the political theorist michael sandel (1996) and the philosopher alasdair macintyre (1987) adds an important conceptual dimension to this movement as both focus attention on the individual’s deep location in relationships and hit on the idea of the gravely flawed carefree free agent. all these works have been sources of incalculable value for me, although i express some discontent with the value of the favored community as an alternative to individualism. there is not only the problem of determining the limits of what constitutes one’s community, but there are additional complications resulting from the very establishment of those limits. educational communities are also bounded entities and create the same types of conflicts that attend the public as essentially separate. in the case of community commitments such as religious and political the consequences can be disastrous. at the same time there is an important difference that separates this work from all previous theories (except wittgenstein). all those philosophers have worked in a tradition dedicated to establishing foundations, that is, foundations of reason, truth, human nature, ethical value . fundamentals that are www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 91 published by scholink inc. sometimes called first philosophies. in contrast, this writing has no such aspirations, and while the form of the writing may sometimes suggest otherwise, my goal is not to articulate what human nature simply is or should be. in fact, neither do i claim to be true or precise in traditional terms, but i hope to offer an attractive construction of the world, an inviting vision, or an entity of understanding, all materialized or embodied in relevant actions. the basis is not a series of marching orders but an invitation to dance. 2. the pedagogy of alterity: a way of enabling and understanding the educational experience of the present since its inception, pedagogy has been defined as the discipline that, conceptualizes, applies and experiences knowledge related to the teaching of specific knowledge in different cultures. it refers both to the teaching processes of the exhibition of sciences, as well as to the exercise of knowledge, within the culture (lópez, barragán and aguirre, 1990). that is to say, pedagogy is specifically in charge of the methods and theories for the understanding of the educational matter, of the forms of teaching in educational practices, it is what allows one to reflect on the various realities in which the human being is being built as a subject. in continuous training. during a good part of the 20th century, different perspectives regarding pedagogy and its teaching methods were created and developed; so much so that pedagogical models such as the developmental, behavioral, social or traditional appear to be able to give a satisfactory explanation to a portion of that educational reality, because, pedagogy has built, from its history, a series of models, as ideal representations of the real world of education, to theoretically explain its doing, that is, to understand what exists. but these models are dynamic, they transform and can, at a certain moment, be imagined to be poured into the real world (gonzález, 1999, p. 48). and indeed they have become reality in such a way that, in many cases, they have served for societies to take advantage of these models and can become fundamental axes of learning and teaching for the transformation of a context for the common good. of all human beings. this transformation can be mediated by a relatively new form of teaching, the pedagogy of otherness. this educational perspective relies heavily on epistemological constructions of philosophy, and little by little it has been generating a wide debate, especially in chile. this pedagogy has very clear claims regarding academic work as such, while what it seeks is the recovery of the word of the other, that voice that has been silenced for a long time, for ideological, political reasons, for the eternal conflict between the power and the knowledge that is gestated within the classroom, which prevents any human being from being able to manifest their logos, their thought, their power in expression. the conception of alterity is manifested by an ethical relationship insofar as, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 92 published by scholink inc. it is a responsible relationship with the other, and the educator is someone who is passionate about the word, about the transmission of the word, about the reception and hospitality, about the donation ( mélich, 2002, p. 51). the discourse of alterity in essence offers the possibility that voices, thoughts, argumentative constructions and conceptual clarity intermingle within the classroom. this pedagogy is the bearer of the promethean dream, of knowledge that no longer belongs to a single individual, but belongs to many men. the word of the other is spilled and drawn with the subjectivities of the others, to create free people committed to change and transformation. thus, the incurable melancholy with which students move has its roots in the almost general complacency of thinkers or educators in the direction of negativity and suspicion, in the silence that they offer as the only answer to the question that students ask and ask themselves. about the meaning of life, in the lack of an alternative they find in the face of the nihilism of the time, in the inability to grasp the nature of reality that is theirs, in the pessimism that surrounds them when they express enthusiasm, passion, desires. when they overflow with life, they want to impose castration, submission, and obedience on them. they are supposed to train free men, but they make slaves ( onfray, 1999, p. 53). to understand a specific pedagogical model, two aspects must be taken into account: didactics and the curriculum. in this sense, these two concepts could be defined to provide clarity and lay the foundations of the various conceptions of educational work in a good part of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century. because, didactics is constituted from the teaching-educational process that takes place in the school institution. this process relates the world of life with the world of the school based on the goals that a society sets for itself to form a type of man, to which the school responds from its didactic strategies, it is much more than just means of teaching (onfray, 1999, p. 48). didactics is the discourse through which teaching and the most appropriate ways to transmit knowledge have been thought of; and in turn, for the understanding of the different conceptions that the world has as a whole. said conception then corresponds to those forms in which whoever has knowledge projects their knowledge to others through strategies that help to understand and explain phenomena, not from mere theoretical conceptualization, because that is the task that pedagogy, but as the discourse that is directed more specifically towards educational action as such. meanwhile, the other fundamental component in this educational triad is the curriculum, the one that is constituted as the predominant course in the construction of procedures and plans that are intended to register. therefore, everything that happens at school is its main guide that is built on educational activities (...) it is the bridge between the real world and the world of the school; he makes possible the relationships between the past of humanity, to bring it to the present of the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 93 published by scholink inc. educational act and project the future of the communities; thus, he establishes a multitude of relationships between the old and the new, between the known and the unknown, what was and what will be, between everyday knowledge and scientific knowledge. the meaning of the educational organization is to curricularize the experience of man in the world of life, in such a way that it acquires a formative meaning with a specific orientation (onfray, 1999, p. 50). all of the above allows configuring a solid formation in the human being so that he can understand the context that he inhabits, and in turn, understand the epistemological diversity that accompanies it. with the above, it is possible to begin to configure the different perspectives that have been established in terms of educational practices, the different discourses and the specific claims that accompany each of the pedagogical models that have wanted to provide answers and satisfy the needs in the field. educational. therefore, it is urgent to talk about the forms of teaching that have had a vast influence throughout the 20th century, and have allowed to configure part of the educational tradition. in the first instance, the traditional model, emphasizes the formation of the character of the students, through religious and moral teaching. it is concentrated in content already elaborated, and what the student does is learn it from the teacher. in this model, the method and the content, in a certain way, are focused on the imitation and emulation of the good example, and whose closest incarnation is found in the teacher (onfray, 1999, p. 122). this type of pedagogical vision is still put into practice in societies that, despite the great advances and the apparent change in the mentality of its citizens, still fully trust that this method is very effective in order to learn the contents of a course. just by the mere repetition of what the teacher says. in this model, what prevails in the didactic part is the process where the strategies start from; moral and intellectual legacy of humanity, under objectives imposed by tradition; the contents are encyclopedic; the methods are broadcasters ; in the forms, the teaching process prevails over the learning process, the work of the teacher over that of the student; the means are the blackboard and chalk; and the evaluation is rote and quantitative (onfray, 1999, p. 53). all this didactic vision remains in many places, but the new tools and processes for understanding the world do not allow knowledge to be encoded in mere data or dates, or that learning means repeating any number of names of countries or politicians, without that this has a relevant repercussion in the social context that each one inhabits. we must reformulate the ways of understanding knowledge, and know that it is always necessary to put it into practice so that it continues to be valid and equally useful. the behavioral pedagogical model has a very close relationship with certain characteristics of the traditional model; however, it has its essential particularities because, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 94 published by scholink inc. it was developed in the highest phase of capitalism, with the aim of meticulous shaping of the individual’s “productive” conduct. it is based on the setting and control of the achievement of "instructional" objectives. the parceled transmission of technical knowledge is made, through an experimental training that uses the “educational technology”. they identify intellectual development with learning (onfray, 1999, p. 122). when talking about educational technology here, it refers to the processes that are made effective for the teacher through planning and control; it is a purely mechanical method that seeks to make knowledge feasible for the growth and improvement of the means of production imposed by the state of chile. 3. otherness and diversity it is important to clarify that a culture and a pedagogy in human rights require, urgently and unavoidably, that we focus our attention on two fundamental themes: otherness and diversity. this look is not something fortuitous, an academic occurrence, but is the result of a long conceptual journey in human rights education, in education for tolerance and non-discrimination, in multicultural education and, above all, in a critical look at the reality that we have to live on a daily basis. from now on i must point out that, although recently our societies have begun to move along the path of recognition of the other/other as a legitimate other/other and of the existence of cultural and social diversity, the challenge that remains to be ahead is complex and the obstacles to overcome are not minor. multireligious character that defines our society has been ignored. unfortunately, education, from the homogenization process, has historically been in charge of reproducing discrimination and intolerance. it seems that only now education has decidedly addressed the issue and has sought ways to gradually amend this situation, since today it incorporates respect for social, cultural and religious diversity and the recognition of the inviolability as part of public policies. of human dignity. insisting on the thesis raised, it is my opinion that in the homogenization and concealment, in the invisibility of the other/other and in the ignorance of diversity, not only a fundamental right enshrined in the universal declaration of human rights is violated, which textually states that “all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights, and endowed with reason and conscience, they must behave fraternally towards one another”, but also makes it difficult and why not say it impossible to build a democratic, tolerant and non-discriminatory society. in short, alterity and diversity are necessary conditions to build a culture and a democratic, inclusive and respectful coexistence of people’s rights. the mission of education is to deliver knowledge, contribute to the development of attitudes and, above all, reinforce in students those social skills that allow them to relate as citizens of the same humanity in the recognition of the other/other as legitimate other/other. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 95 published by scholink inc. 4. otherness the relationship of alterity, especially referring to culture and the pedagogy of human rights, requires crossing philosophical, epistemological and educational borders that require research in a highly complex field. i will only try to give some brushstrokes, with the good understanding that concepts will remain hinted at and open to dialogue and reflection. first of all, and based on the thought of emmanuel levinas (2000), i will point out that recognizing the other/other as a legitimate other/other is an ethical position and not an ontological one. for levinas, after auschwitz the philosophical concern —i would add, also the pedagogical one— cannot be remitted to the “ways of being”, “to the understanding of being”, but to ethics, that is to say, to the relationship of being with the other/other, with the responsibility with the other/other, to the encounter with the other/other. responsibility at levinas is: “the essential, first, fundamental structure of subjectivity, since it is in ethical terms that i describe subjectivity. ethics here does not come as a supplement to a previous existential base; it is in ethics understood as responsibility, where the very knot of the subjective is tied (...) responsibility, as responsibility towards the other/other, as. well, as a responsibility for what is not my business or does not even concern me; or that precisely concerns me, is addressed by me. like face”. levinas’s response, in my opinion, a central element in his position must be rescued: what it is to be a man. for him, being a man means not being, living in a human way, communicating, going out of his way for the other other/other. he even maintains that responsibility reaches the level of being responsible for the responsibility of the other/other, it is up to me... since the responsibility towards the other/other is part of the essence of the subject, it is something that cannot be waived. the self is “hostage” of the other/other. as levinas (2000) makes clear: “responsibility is not a simple attribute of subjectivity as if it already existed in itself, before the ethical relationship. subjectivity is not a for itself; it is initially for the other. the other is not close to me simply in space, or close as a relative, but essentially approaches me insofar as i feel responsible for him. as we pointed out, responsibility is linked to the other/other. the question is who is that other/other? in terms of hans georg gadamer (1976), the philosopher of modern hermeneutics, the knowledge of the other/ other refers to the other/other not as an “instrument”, as someone who can be used for one’s own purposes, who can become visible or invisible . arbitrarily. the other/other is not the “analog” either, which is considered as different, but always with reference to myself, a reflection of myself. for gadamer (1976), the knowledge of the other/other is that of “opening”, when one allows oneself to speak for the other/other. it implies “the recognition that i may be willing to allow myself to assert itself. something against me, even if there is no one else who is going to assert it against me”. the general tendency has been to reduce the other/other to the same thing, or to use it for certain ends or purposes in many cases in ignorance of the other/other or hiding the true intentions of the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 96 published by scholink inc. relationship. reducing the other/other to myself is not only violence, but domination, it is exercising an undue and arbitrary power over the other/other. it is, ultimately, annihilating diversity by subsuming it to homogeneity. for levinas, the direct relationship with the other/other does not mean thematizing it, considering it a knowable object or someone to whom i communicate knowledge. if you want to preserve the other/other, you cannot reduce it to an object of knowledge or be experienced from an “ egological ” position. in short, alterity and diversity are necessary conditions to build a culture and a democratic, inclusive and respectful coexistence of people’s rights. 5. diversity diversity is part of the transformation process that the discourse of modernity is undergoing and that some have called the discourse of postmodernity, which is the “announcement of a new era, after modernity.” there are those who consider that the discourse of modernity; characterized as a unifying and totalizing hegemonic discourse, typical of enlightenment and instrumental reason, begins to run out. others, in a more open position, perceive the current time as a seminal time, in which great cultural transformations are taking place. in this context, josé joaquín brunner identifies neo-community ideologies within modernity that respond to the experience of communities made up of autonomous individuals (or whose liberation is postulated) and thus differ from the structures of traditional communities, which are characterized by being hierarchical, with traditional forms of domination, whose legitimacy rested on the sanctity of inherited powers. the prevailing rationality in neo-community ideologies is communicative rather than instrumental: it seeks to build identities and integrate the individual into an association that mobilizes its own resources to realize its value. says brunner (1992); “frequently these ideologies are linked to social groups ‘disinherited’ by modernization, whose rights they proclaim and whose condition they seek to transform or liberate. but at the same time, these ideologies reach expressions that appeal to various groups that are at the center of modernity: communities of life, generational and gender groups, de-professionalization movements, certain religious movements, therapeutic communities, “counter cultures”. “of diverse nature in the fields of health, food, the use of appropriate technologies, “communication” of knowledge”. in short, we are witnessing the emergence of a wide variety of identities that some have defined as “post-materialist” and which include, for example, environmental groups, the elderly, groups that fight for tolerance and non-discrimination, rights defense groups: women, indigenous, homosexuals and lesbians, among others. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 97 published by scholink inc. diversity presupposes questioning conformism, social asymmetries and, also, injustices. in this sense, the message of diversity is not neutral. assuming diversity as a relationship means, for now, accepting inter and multiculturalism as a new paradigm of social organization where concepts such as social responsibility, active citizenship, empowerment, participation citizenship and deliberative democracy are redefined and invigorated. diversity occurs in the most diverse fields: social, cultural, philosophical, religious, moral and political diversity, which is sometimes defined as plurality, is a factual fact of every society in which there is a mismatched variety of beliefs, convictions, feelings and points of view about issues that are important as the origin and purpose of human life; the relationship of man with a possible divinity; the idea of a good life and the necessary means to achieve it; organization and distribution of power. now, as i have pointed out, historically there have been serious attempts to deny diversity, to hinder its growth and expressiveness, to stigmatize it as a phenomenon that could jeopardize the survival of a unitary social project. sometimes it is usually hidden, made invisible, even combated and eliminated. totalitarian, authoritarian and dictatorial regimes have been characterized precisely by these anti-diversity behaviors . think, for example, of nazi racism that used the physical elimination of all those who did not agree with the criteria of the “superior race”; in the military dictatorships of latin america that prescribed, with the use of force and the violation of fundamental rights, all political manifestations that did not conform to the security project; in the regimes of the countries that prohibited, concealed and sanctioned those cultural manifestations that moved away from the official canons. all these attempts to suppress diversity have been accompanied by severe violations of human dignity and human rights. the diversity of different cultural and social groups (with discontinuous times but which are simultaneously present, the existence of a culture integrated by diverse traditions) is and has been a characteristic of the latin american world. multiethnicity, multireligiousness, multiculturalism and multiclass have been and still are present in the history of latin america . however, the tendency has been to deny diversity: to homogenize it, fragment it, marginalize it, disseminate it, make it invisible . in the name of order, of national unity, of “modernizing” and “civilizing” desires, not only has diversity been denied and rejected, but it has also been fought and censored. one of the most severe manifestations of the denial of diversity is and has been that of discrimination, built on prejudices and irrational stereotypes that have been installed in the culture, in attitudes and behaviors in a very profound way. historical reasons of the most different nature have led to certain groups of people being intensely threatened or violated in their rights and have been subjected to very severe discrimination in an institutionalized and systematic manner. this is the case for women, people of color, jews, certain minority religious groups, gays and lesbians, the disabled, the poor, youth, and the elderly. this situation has originated (and why not say it, has required) the elaboration of a series of international instruments tending to prohibit and eradicate www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 98 published by scholink inc. systematic discrimination. in this regard, special measures have been adopted with the sole purpose of accelerating the de facto equality of these groups (positive action). 6. otherness, condition of diversity it could be said that alterity is a necessary condition, although not a sufficient one, for the diversity relationship. there is no possibility of relating to diversity if there is no capacity, firstly, to recognize the other/other as a legitimate other/other, and secondly, if there is no responsibility, assumption, apprehension of the other/other as face. in the invisibility, in the concealment, in the silencing of the other/other, the relationship of diversity is impracticable. in the same way, if the other/other becomes an equal, if it is subsumed into the same, if it is anagolized, if it is instrumentalized... the diversity relationship is distorted, it becomes a deceitful relationship, devoid of opportunities for development and growth. this happens, for example, when the different is folklorized, when there are no opportunities for diversity to manifest itself in its fullness; when the diverse is hierarchical, establishing levels of superiority. that is, when it is said: i accept diversity, but there are diverse and diverse! now, the relationship of diversity with the responsibility of the other/other is due, in my opinion, to understanding how a relationship with the other/other is a plural: a we-us, a you-you, a they-them. it is the face in plural9. consequently, in my opinion, we will always be related to others/others, with a multiplicity of others/others. in an open society, like the one we want to build, we will always be in the presence of many others/others. it is a relationship that is assigned to us, embraces us, embraces us, understands us. we cannot, even if we would like to, unless we get into a barrel, a ghetto, a tunnel of self-solitude, of self-exclusion, do without diversity. it is imposed on us. therefore, we will have to live with it. but this coexistence cannot be one of imposition, but of commitment; it cannot be an obligation, but a bond; it cannot be an inevitable fatalism, nor can it be an approximation as an object of knowledge that is expressed in the phrase: how beautiful is diversity! levinas alluded. a responsibility without reciprocity. a responsibility with the others/others that enriches me and us, but that is not conditioned to this enrichment. a responsibility with the others/others, despite the fact that sometimes they are distant from my own identity. it is the search for approximations, for communication, even if it means breaking some of my own identity schemes. in a responsibility with a breakdown, with a breakdown of my identity, but without abandoning it. i would like to return to what was stated in the introduction and point out that from the perspective of the cultural and pedagogical implantation of a single-national model, education has historically been characterized by having transmitted a scheme of meanings and symbolic representations that correspond to the culture of the culturally dominant groups in society. in this way, the diverse character that makes up our society has been ignored. this ignorance has been charged, in a notorious way, by the disqualification and devaluation of any cultural manifestation that moves away from the homogenizing nucleus, in which all kinds of prejudices have been engendered that have resulted in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 99 published by scholink inc. discrimination deeply installed in the national being of our countries. the amount of prejudice that has been raised against all those who deviate from the dominant culture is unknown to no one. however, it should be noted that from public policies, i think, for the first time, a frontal criticism of the reproductive nature of education regarding inequalities, inequity, and social injustices has been made. it has been verified that discrimination, ethnocentrism, marginalization and homogenization have been predominant characteristics of the educational service. however, the road ahead is long. the question is how this discourse becomes a consistent educational practice, in a culture in a pedagogy of diversity and otherness. without wishing to simplify, i think that human rights education has a very important proactive role to play in this regard. for now, it is essential that you identify and point out that diversity is a right enshrined in multiple national and international instruments. it requires linking this right with another series of social, cultural, economic and political rights and showing the tensions that the validity of these rights has in a society that promotes homogenization for the purpose of domination. certainly, human rights education based on the recognition of the other/other and on the respect and promotion of social, cultural and religious diversity is a long road, but not impossible. in short, alterity and diversity are necessary conditions to build a culture and a democratic, inclusive and respectful coexistence of people’s rights. the mission of social education is to deliver knowledge, contribute to the development of attitudes and, above all, reinforce in students those social skills that allow them to relate as citizens of the same humanity in recognition of diversity. 7. conclusion the educational and pedagogical tradition has bequeathed us many things, some of which it is necessary to forget and others that it is peremptory to maintain. therefore, the question arises as to whether a conception of training anchored and established in presuppositions from long ago could still be preserved, or whether the dynamics of society as a whole provide the essential characteristics for the activation of another way of conceiving reality. due to the above, it is possible that the pedagogy of alterity could become, over time, a proposal that favorably stimulates teaching and learning practices, thanks to its conception centered on dialogue and thought, with its assumptions. conceptual and epistemological that offer diverse variants in front of the formative task, leaving aside the perpetuation of an activity that is energized in most cases by an incessant tension between power and knowledge, forgetting the word and experience as firm builders of a change of perspective for our own educational daily life. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 100 published by scholink inc. references arellano, a. (2005). education in weak and uncertain times. barcelona: anthrophos. barcena, f. (2001). the mute sphinx. learning pain after auschwitz. barcelona: anthrophos . barcena, f., & melich, j. (2000). education as an ethical event. birth, narration and hospitality. barcelona: paidos. brunner, j. j. (1992). “cartographies of modernity”, editorial dolmen. the liberty of the moderns, p. 49. this work was published in estudios públicos, no. 46, santiago, chile, p. 56-57. gadamer, h. g. (1976). the hermeneutic circle and the problem of prejudices. theory. university of chile. gonzález, e. (1999). contemporary pedagogical currents. medellin: university of antioquia. larrosa, j. (2003). the experience of reading. literature studies and training. mexico: fund of economic culture. levinas, e. (1991). ethics and infinity. madrid: the raft of the jellyfish. levinas, e. (2002). ethics and infinity, rógar graphics, sa madrid, spain, second edition. lópez, p., barragán, b., & aguirre, y. (1990). pedagogy module. medellin: funlam. magendzo, k. a. (2003). manual of tolerance and non-discrimination. ideas foundation, editorial lom. magendzo, k. a. (2004). from views and messages to human rights education. editorial lom. magendzo, k. a., & toledo, m. i. (2004). bullying among students. editorial lom. melich, j. (2002). philosophy of finiteness. barcelona: herder. not, l. (1983). the pedagogies of knowledge. mexico: fund of economic culture. onfray, m. (1999). the desire to be a volcano. buenos aires: profile books. skliar, c., & larrosa, j. (2009). experience and otherness in education. santa fe: homo sapiens editions. squella, a. (2000). plurality, pluralism and tolerance in today’s society. in pluralism, society and democracy: the wealth of diversity (p. 447). felipe herrera foundation collection, santiago de chile. microsoft word fet-v1n2-p191 frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 191 original paper effects of advance organizers on students’ achievement in biology in secondary schools in kilifi county, kenya kevin k. omondi1*, fred n. keraro2 & zephania o. anditi2 1 egerton, kenya 2 department of curriculum, instruction and education management, egerton university, egerton, njoro, kenya * kevin k. omondi, p.o box 536, egerton, kenya received: august 29, 2018 accepted: october 2, 2018 online published: october 12, 2018 doi:10.22158/fet.v1n2p191 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v1n2p191 abstract this study investigated the effects of using advance organizers on students’ achievement in biology in secondary schools in kilifi county. solomon four, non-equivalent control group design was used in this study. the study targeted all secondary school students in kilifi county. the accessible population consisted of all form two students in kilifi county. purposive sampling was used to select four co-educational secondary schools in kilifi county. the four schools were randomly assigned to experimental groups (e1) and (e2) and control groups c1 and c2. a total of 156 students participated in the study. data was collected using biology achievement test (bat). the reliability of bat was estimated using kuder-richardson (k-r) 20 and cronbach’s coefficient. this yielded a reliability coefficient of 0.82 and 0.79 respectively. bat was validated by experts in science education from egerton university. the data collected was analyzed using mean, one-way anova and t-test. the level of significance was 0.05. the findings of this study show that there was statistically significant difference in achievement between learners in favour of those taught using advance organizers compared to those taught using conventional teaching methods. the findings also indicate that there was no statistically significant gender difference in achievement. keywords achievement, advance organizers, conventional teaching method www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 192 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction united nations educational, scientific and cultural organization (unesco) (2017) argues that science should equip learners with knowledge and skills that would ensure sustainability of societies. scientific skills gained from learning biology are vital for economic growth in any society. according to the republic of kenya (rok, 2012a), courses like medicine require strong background in biology. emerging issues such as hiv/aids, drug abuse and environmental pollution which have an impact on human lives have been incorporated in biology (kenya literature bureau [klb], 2012). apart from inculcating environmental conservation skills, biology also enables learners to acquire problem solving skills, interpersonal skills, project and time management skills and sharpening of one’s scientific thinking (kenya institute of education [kie], 2006). biological knowledge can be used to find solutions to four key societal needs: sustainable food production, ecosystem restoration, optimized biofuel production and improvement in human health (the national academy of sciences [nas], 2009).  biology as a science is, therefore, an important subject that would contribute towards the realization of kenya’s vision 2030. thus, biology has a role to play in contributing towards the country’s social economic development. for kenya to realize her vision 2030, the country must adopt a better science, technology and innovation (sti) dissemination strategy (republic of kenya [rok], 2012a). despite the benefits that accrue from studying biology, students in kenyan secondary schools have continued to perform dismally at kenya certificate of secondary education (kcse) examination (rok, 2012b). rotich and mutisya (2013), contend that the persistent state of low academic performance in national examination in sciences has been a major concern to all stakeholders. performance of biology in 2017 kcse exams was so dismal leading to low numbers of students admitted into biological science-based careers in universities in kenya. only 18% of the candidates scored at least a grade of c+ in the subject which is the minimum grade required for admission to various biological science courses (knec, 2018). this poor performance in biology is also exhibited by other african countries (trends in international mathematics, and science study [timss], 2011). for instance, the kcse biology examination results for 2014 and 2015 indicated that students had low mean scores of 31.83% and 34.80%, respectively (knec, 2015, 2016). this poor achievement can be attributed to inappropriate teaching strategies, abstractness of science, unqualified science teachers and lack of enough teaching-learning resources (keraro, okere, & anditi, 2013). the teaching strategies employed currently do not help the learners to answer questions which approach the curriculum topics from various angles and perspectives (knec, 2018). gender disparity in biology achievement exists in kenyan secondary schools. forum for african women educationalists [fawe] (2007) contends that girls’ achievement in biology in kenya is below average. fawe (2009) points out that poor achievement among female students is attributed to cultural practices and teaching methods which do not take into account individual needs of the girls. males attain higher scores in sciences than females at kcse level (knec, 2016). the teaching strategies used in most kenyan secondary schools are www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 193 published by scholink inc. expository because most schools do not have science laboratories and those that have, are inadequately equipped and in most cases poorly maintained (tsuma, 1998). this poor performance prompted investigation of an alternative teaching method other than conventional methods which are widely practiced. this alternative teaching method is the use of advance organizers. unesco (2017) argues that performance in stem subjects can be improved by a more engaging instructional strategy. advance organizers is a strategy that would improve students’ achievement. advance organizers are instructional strategies that enable learners’ to connect new information to already known material and also construct their own ideas. after his research to promote meaningful learning over rote learning, ausubel (1960) formulated the subsumption theory. this theory stresses meaningful learning by linking the prior knowledge of students with new information that is presented in the school setting. according to ausubel, the best way of facilitating retention is to introduce the appropriate subsumers and make them part of a learner’s cognitive structure prior to the actual presentation of the learning tasks. the introduced subsumer thus becomes the advance organizers or anchoring foci for the reception of new material (ausubel, 1978). a primary process in learning is subsumption in which new material is related to relevant ideas in the existing cognitive structures (kearsley, 2000). mayer (2010) contends that advance organizers are presented material that introduce learners to what they will be learning thus allowing the learners to utilize the relevant prior knowledge. an advance organizer is an organizational frame work that teachers present to students prior to teaching new content to prepare them for what they are about to learn (githua & nyabwa, 2008). ausubel (1968) argues that advance organizers are relevant introductory materials presented in advance in any format of text, graphics or hypermedia. chuang and liu (2014) argue that with the emergence of multimedia technology, multimedia have served as supportive instructional interventional components in multimedia learning environment, new and different forms of information are available for use as advance organizers. studies have shown that advance organizers have led to improved students’ achievement (omotade, 2016; nazimuddin, 2015; mshenga, 2013; montanero & lucero, 2012; agnihotri & sharma, 2013; babu & reddy, 2013). studies have also demonstrated that advance organizers are associated with improved learning (tamir, 1992; dexter & hughes, 2011; dexter, park, & hughes, 2011). maryam, moenikia and zahed-babelan (2010) argue that advance organizers are effective ways to facilitate the task because they can provide an overview of a new topic and visually represent links between the concepts to be learned. a study by atomatofa (2013) revealed that advance lead to improved students’ achievement and retention than those taught using conventional teaching methods. advance organizers are cognitive bridges, which teachers use to help learners make a link between what they know and what is to be learnt (novak, 1980). novak further argues that advance organizers may include analogy, metaphor, model, graphics, concept maps, diagrams, pictures as well as hierarchical structures. some researchers and developers of advance organizers have explored the use of advance organizers with educational computer software (kenny, 1993). according to chun and plass (1996) the use of advance organizers aids in overall comprehension. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 194 published by scholink inc. there are two broad categories of advance organizers namely expository and comparative advance organizers. kirkman and shaw (1997) argue that expository advance organizers provide a conceptual frame work for unfamiliar material while comparative organizers are used for recall and when the knowledge to be acquired is familiar. according to woolfolk, winnie, perry and shapka (2010) expository organizers provide new knowledge that students will need to understand the incoming information. melrose (2013) contends that advance organizers such as charts, diagrams or other visual tools created by teachers can be used for organizing and representing consensually validated knowledge into their teaching practice. ausubel (1968) argues that those organizers which are used in the activation of existing schemas are called comparative organizers. he argues that comparative organizers integrate new ideas with basically similar concepts in the cognitive structure. in this study, a well designed computer simulation, a flip chart and pamphlets on gaseous exchange were used to help relate what learners already knew and the new content. expository advance organizers are used whenever the new material is totally unfamiliar while comparative organizers are used when the material to be learned is not entirely new (bajt, 2004; keraro & shihusa, 2009). according to chiu and lee (2009), a pre-class video viewing of the lecture content and hands on laboratory activities in class enhanced the learning of high-school students’ basic image processing. a study by kang sook-hi (1997) found that advance organizers made a significant difference in facilitating learning in a computer simulation environment. computer simulation provides visual representation of facts. this study also investigated whether there are gender differences in biology achievement when students are taught using advance organizers. 1.1 purpose of the study the purpose of this study was to determine the effects of advance organizers on students’ achievement in biology in secondary schools in kilifi county, kenya. 1.2 objectives of the study the study was guided by the following objectives. to: i. determine the effects of advance organizers on students’ achievement in learning biology. ii. determine whether there is any gender difference in achievement in biology when students are taught using advance organizers. 1.3 hypotheses of the study ho1 there is no statistically significant difference in achievement between students taught using advance organizers and those taught using conventional teaching methods. ho2 there is no statistically significant gender difference in achievement in biology when students are taught using advance organizers. 1.4 conceptual framework the conceptual framework that guided this study was based on the subsumption theory of meaningful learning. the subsumption theory of meaningful learning is of the view that learners require subsumers to link new knowledge with previous knowledge. this conceptual framework is based on the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 195 published by scholink inc. presumption that learners benefit and enjoy the lesson more when they are allowed to link prior knowledge with new knowledge. this study had three independent variables namely the use of advance organizer, conventional teaching methods and gender. these variables were perceived as factors which are likely to influence the dependent variables of the study comprising of students’ achievement and attitude. figure 1. conceptualization of relationship between teaching and learning outcomes this framework shows advance organizers as an intervention in the teaching and learning of biology. learning outcomes are also influenced by intervening variables such as teacher training and experiences which determines the effective methods of teaching to be employed. the teacher characteristics were controlled by involving qualified biology teachers with a teaching experience of a minimum of two years. the effects of teaching methods on students’ achievement was studied. students’ gender may also affect their achievement and this was addressed by the choice of co-educational schools. 2. research methodology solomon four, non-equivalent control-group design was used in this study. non-equivalent control-group design is used when research participants are not randomly assigned to the experimental and control groups (gall m., gall j., & borg, 2007). solomon four, non-equivalent control-group design was used as shown in figure 2. group pre-test treatment post test e1 o1 x o2 e2 — x o3 c1 — o5 c2 — — o6 figure 2. solomon iv, non-equivalent control-group design x is experimental treatment where students were taught using advance organizers. o1 and o4 were pre-test while o2, o3, o5 and o6 were post-test. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 196 published by scholink inc. group e1 is the experimental group which received the pre-test, the treatment x and the post-test. group e2 received treatment x and a post test, but did not receive pre-test. group c1 is the control group which received pre-test followed by control condition and post-test. group c2 is the control group which received post-test only. groups c1 and c2 were taught using the conventional methods. 2.1 target and accessible population the target population comprised all secondary school students in kilifi county who are about 37529 in 120 secondary schools. the study focused on county co-educational secondary school students. the accessible population was all form two (second grade) students in secondary schools kilifi county. 2.2 sampling procedure and sample size purposive sampling was used to select the four schools out of the ten co-educational secondary schools in kilifi county. purposive sampling was used because the study required individuals with particular characteristics (mugenda o. & mugenda a., 1999). not all schools had all the required characteristics for the study. the characteristics required of the schools included science laboratory, approximately same number of boys and girls. other characteristics are computer laboratory for viewing computer simulations and a qualified biology teacher with a minimum of two years of teaching experience. a total of 156 form two students in the sample schools participated in this study. 2.3 instrumentation 2.3.1 biology achievement test (bat) data was collected using biology achievement test (bat) which consisted of 51 multiple choice test items and 14 free response items. bat consisted of section a and b. section a items were multiple choice items while those of section b were free response. maximum score for the bat was 100marks. bat was validated by three experts in science education and four secondary school biology teachers. bat was pilot tested on form two students in two randomly selected schools in kwale county. kwale county schools were identified for piloting because students in that county have similar characteristics to those found in kilifi county. reliability of section a of bat comprising multiple choice items was estimated using k-r 20. this yielded a reliability coefficient of 0.82. the reliability of section b of bat was estimated using cronbach’s coefficient alpha. reliability coefficient obtained was 0.79. 2.4 advance organizers instructional module advance organizer teaching module for use by teachers of the experimental groups was developed by the researcher. this module was used to teach gaseous exchange to form two students. the advance organizers that was used included computer simulations, handouts and charts. the computer simulations were shown for ten minutes. before the start of each lesson learners were exposed to an advance organizer. teachers were inducted on how to employ advance organizers in the teaching of biology lessons. students were expected to observe gaseous exchange structures, features of gaseous www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 197 published by scholink inc. exchange surfaces and mechanism of gaseous exchange. students were then asked to present what they observed. 2.5 data collection bat was administered as pre-test to two groups; one experimental and one control group before the treatment. after the pre-tests, the experimental groups were subjected to the treatment. students in the experimental group were taught using advance organizers. the students in the control group were taught using conventional teaching methods. all groups were taught by their regular teachers. all simulation lessons were carried out in the schools’ computer laboratories and all the requirements were provided by the schools. the intervention took a period of four weeks. the post-test was administered to all students after the intervention. 2.6 data analysis pre-test scores were analyzed using the t-test to assess homogeneity of the groups before treatment. post test scores for the four groups were analyzed using one-way analysis of variance (anova) to test for any significant difference in achievement between the experimental and control groups at 0.05 level of significance. a t-test was also used to test the gender difference in students’ achievement. all the tests were computed at 0.05 alpha level of significance. 3. results 3.1 pre-test results 3.1.1 pre-test performance between experimental and control groups the mean scores for the two groups were compared using independent t-test statistic to establish if any statistical difference existed in their performance. the results of the t-test are shown in table 1. table 1. bat pre-test mean scores and independent t-test results maximum scores=100 marks learning method n mean sd df t-test p-value e1 39 29.54 5.26 72 0.862 0.392 c1 35 29.29 5.24 results in table 1 show that the differences between the mean scores of groups e1 and c1 were not statistically significant at df=72, t=0.862, p˃0.05. the results in table 1 show that the groups exhibited comparable characteristics and were therefore suitable for the study. the p-value of 0.392 is greater than 0.05. this indicates that the two groups were homogeneous and therefore suitable for the study. 3.2 comparison of students pre-test bat scores by gender pre-test bat scores for male and female students were compared to find out if the groups are comparable. the results were tabulated in table 2. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 198 published by scholink inc. table 2. pre-test mean scores by gender on bat and independent t-test results gender n mean sd df t-test p-value male 35 29.91 5.29 71 1.82 0.0730 female 39 29.38 5.08 the results in table 2 show that the groups were homogeneous and could be studied. table 2 show that male students had a slightly higher mean score in the pre-test scores (29.91) than girls (29.38). independent t-test was computed to find out whether statistically significant gender differences existed. the results in table 2 indicate that there are no statistically significant differences between male and female students in pre-test scores; t(71)=1.82, p˃0.05. this indicates that male and female students had the same level of achievement in biology before treatment. 3.3 post-test results 3.3.1 effects of advance organizers on students achievement objective one of the study was to determine the effects of advance organizers on students’ achievement towards learning biology. this was achieved by comparing post test results for students taught using advance organizers and those taught using conventional teaching methods. the post test scores were analyzed using mean scores, standard deviation and one-way anova to compare effects of the two teaching approaches on students’ achievement. the post-test mean scores for all the groups are presented in table 3. table 3. bat post-test mean scores of the four groups maximum scores=100 marks gender n mean sd e1 39 52.42 8.3298 e2 47 50.21 7.9288 c1 35 38.03 7.7781 c2 35 39.29 4.0408 total 156 the results in table 3 show that post-test mean scores for experimental groups (e1=52.42 and e2=50.21) were higher than those of control groups (c1=38.03 and c2=39.29). further analysis was done using one-way analysis of variance (anova), to determine whether the difference in the mean scores was statistically significant at 0.05 level of significance. this was done to test h01 of the study, which sought to establish if there was any statistically significant difference in achievement between students exposed to advance organizers and those taught using conventional methods. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 199 published by scholink inc. one way anova results for the four groups are presented in table 4. table 4. analysis of variance (anova) results of the post-test scores sum of squares df. mean of square f p-value between groups 6469.1349 3 2071.9958 38.69 0.000* within groups 8328.174 152 53.5548 total 14797.3089 155 the calculated value of f(3,152)=38.69, p˂0.05 presented in table 4 show that there is a statistically significant difference between the mean scores of the experimental groups and control groups. scheffe’s post hoc test of multiple comparison was used to determine groups means with significant differences. sheffe’s post hoc was preferred because the group sizes were unequal (kleinbaum, kupper, muller, & nizam, 1998). the results are presented in table 5. table 5. sheffe’s post hoc comparisons of the bat post-test scores for the four groups learning method learning method mean difference p-value e1 e2 2.21 0.915 c1 14.39 0.0001* c2 13.13 0.0001* e2 e1 -2.21 0.915 c1 11.91 0.0001* c2 10.92 0.0001* c1 e1 -14.39 0.0001* e2 -11.91 0.0001* c2 -1.26 0.74 c2 e1 -13.13 0.0001* e2 -10.92 0.0001* c1 0.0001* 0.74 * mean statistically significant at alpha (α)=0.05 level. p˂0.05. results in table 5 reveal that there was statistically significant mean score difference between experimental and control groups since the p-value is less than 0.05. the results show that statistically significant differences existed between groups: e1 and c1, e1 and c2, e2 and c1 and e2 and c2. the results also indicate that there is no statistically significant mean score difference between the two experimental groups. the same case applies to control groups. this implies that the difference in mean for e1 and e2 is statistically insignificant since their p-values of 0.217 are more than 0.05. the results show that there is www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 200 published by scholink inc. no significant difference when one treatment group is compared with another treatment group. the same scenario is witnessed for c1 and c2. significant differences exists when a treatment group is compared to a control group. cohen’s d was used to accompany the reporting of one-way anova and t-test. cohen’s d statistic is a type of effect size. as an effect size it is used to represent the magnitude of differences between two or more groups on a given variable (salkind, 2010). cohen’s d was used to determine the standardized difference between the mean scores of the control and treatments groups. according to cohen (1988) cohen’s d is used to establish the size of difference between the means. cohen further argues that cohen’s d is suitable for establishing the extent to which a null hypothesis is false. this is done to determine how large the effect size of treatment was. the rule of thumb for effect sizes includes; d=0.2 small, d=0.5 medium and d=0.8 large (cohen, 1988). post-test results for the groups e1 and c1 were analyzed using cohen’s d. the results from this analysis was cohen’s d=(38.03-52.42/8.0587=1.786. the value of d obtained is 1.786 which is greater than 0.8. this implies that the effect size of advance organizers is larger. post-test scores for groups e2 and c2 were also analyzed using cohen’s d to establish the effect size of treatment of groups that were only exposed to post-test only. cohen’s d result was d=939.29-50.21/6.293=1.735. the value of d is greater than 0.8. 3.4 effects of advance organizers on students’ achievement by gender objective two sought to determine whether there was gender difference in achievement in biology when students are taught using advance organizers. to achieve this, the post bat mean scores were analyzed using independent t-test on the basis of gender. post bat scores were analyzed using independent t-test to compare means obtained by male and female students exposed to advance organizers. the results are presented as in table 6. table 6. independent t-test results of the post-test bat by gender for students subjected to advance organizers gender n mean std. dev t-value df p-value male 41 51.46 7.99 0.29 84 0.387 female 45 50.97 7.85 table 6 shows post-test bat mean scores for boys and girls exposed to advance organizers. the table shows that boys had a slightly higher mean score of 51.46 while girls had 50.97. the standard deviation for boys was slightly higher (7.99) than girls (7.85). the results as shown in table 6 indicate that there was no statistically significant gender difference in achievement in biology (t (84)=0.29; p˃0.05). this is because the p-value is greater than 0.05. this implies that both male and female students had equal achievement. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 201 published by scholink inc. 4. discussion the results obtained from the study indicate that students taught using advance organizers achieved higher scores than those taught using conventional methods. it can be argued that advance organizers enhance students’ retention of biology concepts, therefore making them to score highly. according to the findings of this study, hypothesis one (h1) was rejected. h1 sought to establish if there was a statistically significant difference in biology achievement between students who are taught biology using advance organizers and those taught using conventional methods was rejected. the findings of this study concur with that of muiruri (2016) on effects of advance organizers teaching strategy on primary school pupils’ achievement in poetry in nakuru north sub county which found out that advance organizers have positive effects on students’ achievement. a study by korur, toker and eryilmaz (2016) revealed that the use of online advance organizers increases students’ achievement scores. the findings of this study are also in agreement with those of kapri (2017) and muiruri, wambugu and wamukuru (2016) who established that advance organizers improved students’ achievement. student centered and participatory strategies improve students’ achievement towards biology. the findings of this study further concur with the findings of the study by wachanga, arimba and mbugua (2013) on the effects of advance organizers teaching approach on secondary school students’ achievement in chemistry in maara district in kenya. objective two sought to determine whether there was any gender difference in achievement in biology when students are taught using advance organizers. the findings indicate that there is no statistically significant gender difference in achievement for students taught using advance organizers. this implies that the performance of both boys and girls was comparable. this is consistent with the findings of wachanga et al. (2013) that gender has no significant effect on achievement when students are taught using advance organizers. a study by githua and nyabwa (2008) on the effects of advance organizers strategy during instruction on secondary school students’ mathematics achievement established that the use of advance organizers improved male and female students equally. advance organizers can be used to reduce gender disparity in biology achievement at kcse level. this finding is also in agreement with the findings of akinbobola (2008) who observed that both the male and the female students do well in science if exposed to similar conditions. the findings of this study are also in agreement with that of omotade (2016) that male and female students taught using advance organizers did not differ significantly in achievement.  5. conclusions findings in this study indicate that: (i) the use of advance organizers in teaching biology leads to higher student achievement in biology compared to the conventional teaching methods. advance organizers can be used to address the challenge of poor performance. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 202 published by scholink inc. (ii) this study also revealed that the use of advance organizers reduces gender parity in biology achievement. advance organizers could therefore be used to address the challenges of gender parity towards learning biology. this study revealed that gender does not affect achievement in biology when advance organizers are used. 6. implications of the findings the findings of this study show that the use of advance organizers in teaching leads to improved performance in biology. this makes advance organizers a suitable method of instruction. it is therefore essential that teachers employ advance organizers in classroom instruction. this study has shown that the use of advance organizers leads to an improvement in performance for both male and female students. references agnihotri, k., & sharma, r. 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(2013). effects of advance organizers teaching approach on secondary school students’ achievement in chemistry in maara district, kenya. international journal of social science and interdisciplinary research, 2(6), june 2013. woolfolk, a. e., winnie, p. h., perry, n. e., & shapka, c. (2010). educational psychology (4th ed.). toronto: pearson. frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 76 original paper research on the integration of the analects of confucius and ideological and political education in universities peifeng xu1 1 jiangsu university, zhenjiang, jiangsu, china received: june 2, 2025 accepted: june 19, 2025 online published: june 30, 2025 doi:10.22158/fet.v8n1p76 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v8n1p76 abstract the confucian classic the analects of confucius is a work that has influenced chinese thought and culture for thousands of years, and its many core ideas such as “benevolence” “righteousness” and “propriety” have inherent compatibility with the core values of chinese socialism. this article takes the core connotation of the analects of confucius as the theoretical basis, explores its modern value and the pathway of integration with ideological and political education in universities, proposes the “three in one” application model which refers to integration into the ideological and political curriculum system, integration into cultural practice, and integration into campus environment. this will aim to provide a new idea of traditional cultural empowerment for ideological and political education, and give reference and guidance for the innovation and development of ideological and political education in universities. keywords the analects of confucius, integration, ideological and political education 1. introduction the confucian classic the analects of confucius (《论语》) is a compilation of confucius’ words, deeds, and thoughts recorded by his disciples and later scholars. it is a work that has influenced chinese thought and culture for thousands of years. its content is profound and extensive, and as a confucian classic, it has long been highly regarded. its philosophical ideas, moral concepts, and attitudes towards life have exerted a wide and profound impact on the cultural and intellectual history of china. it is an extremely precious spiritual wealth in human heritage. mr. nan huaijin (南怀瑾), a renowned scholar, once said, “as for the value of confucianism and the book of the analects of confucius, regardless of the era or region, as long as the original meaning of the text is not misinterpreted, it will always have an indestructible immortal value. for young learners, if they can study diligently, think carefully, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 77 published by scholink inc. distinguish clearly, and apply it in a comprehensive manner in their actions, its value will surely be self-proven.” many ideas contained in the analects of confucius, such as “benevolence” (仁), “righteousness” (义) and “propriety” (礼) and so on, have inherent compatibility with the core values of chinese socialism, and they are undoubtedly a kind of rich spiritual nourishment that contemporary college students should assimilate. in the new historical period, it is quite necessary to study the ideological essence of the analects of confucius comprehensively, excavate its rich ideological connotations intensively, and integrate them into current ideological and political education in universities, which not only helps us scientifically understand the spiritual essence of traditional moral education in a modern sense, but also helps improve the effectiveness and quality of current ideological and political education in universities, effectively inherit and promote excellent traditional chinese culture, thereby enhancing the ideological quality and moral level of college students, guiding them to establish correct worldviews, outlooks on life, and values. 2. the essence of thoughts in the analects of confucius and its modern educational value 2.1 taking “benevolence” as the foundation the concept of “benevolence” is one of the core ideas in the analects of confucius, which embodies confucius’ basic views and moral requirements on the relationship between people. “benevolence” is the highest moral realm in confucius’ moral cultivation that integrates various beautiful qualities such as kindheartedness, filial piety and fraternal duty, loyalty and forgiveness, courtesy, courage, sincerity and honesty, etc. in confucius’ view, “benevolence” is not only an external behavioral norm, but also an internal moral quality and spiritual pursuit. confucius once said, “if a superior man abandon benevolence, how can he fulfil the requirements of that name? the superior man does not, even for the space of a single meal, act contrary to benevolence. in moments of haste, he cleaves to it. in seasons of danger, he cleaves to it.” (君子去仁，恶乎成名？君子无终食之间违仁，造次必于是，颠沛必于是) confucius once praised yan hui (颜回) that, “he never go against benevolence in his heart for a long time.” (其心三月不违仁) yan hui was called as “another sage” (复圣) in later generations and was one of confucius’ proudest disciples. confucius’ high praise for yan hui also indicates his moral requirement of putting benevolence first. the concept of “benevolence” or “benevolent person” in confucius’ mind roughly includes the following aspects: the first one is “benevolent person loves others” (仁者爱人), which means loving others, that is, loving the general members of human society, and promoting it from kinship to all mankind; the second is “loyalty and forgiveness” (忠恕), which emphasizes loyalty and trustworthiness towards people and things, treating others sincerely, being tolerant and understanding, and not holding grudges against others; the third is that, “when you want to establish yourself, help others establish themselves; and when you want to develop yourself, help others develop as well” (己欲立而立人，己欲达而达人) and “one should not impose on others what he himself does not desire” (己所不欲，勿施于人), that is to say, one should use one’s own likes and dislikes as the criterion for choosing, extend oneself to others, and not impose one’s own unwilling www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 78 published by scholink inc. things on others; the fourth principle is “ to achieve the realm of benevolence and virtue by restraining personal desires and returning to propriety” (克己复礼为仁), to achieve the integration and unity of benevolence and propriety by “not looking at what is contrary to propriety, not listening to what is contrary to propriety, not speaking what is contrary to propriety, or not doing what is contrary to propriety” (非礼勿视，非礼勿听，非礼勿言，非礼勿动), to be benevolent in one’s heart, and to speak and act in accordance with propriety. it can be seen that the connotation of benevolence is very rich, including love, respect, understanding, and help for others, as well as cultivation and improvement of one’s own inner self. the “friendliness” in the core values of chinese socialism emphasizes treating others with kindness and caring for others, which is highly compatible with the confucian concept of “benevolence” in terms of people-oriented thinking. at the same time, the confucian concept of “benevolence” not only focuses on personal cultivation, reflecting respect and care for people, but also embodies responsibility and love for the family and the country. the “patriotism” in the core values of chinese socialism reflects a deep affection and sense of responsibility for the motherland, which echoes the confucian patriotism. 2.2 taking “righteousness” as the quality “righteousness”, representing morality and justice, is a highly summarized concept of moral behavior in confucianism. it is explained in “the doctrine of the mean” (《中庸》) in the book of rites (《礼 记》),which states that, “the principle of righteousness refers to dealing with things in a reasonable and rational manner” (义者，宜也). the analects of confucius states, “a gentleman regards righteousness as his quality” (君子以义为质). prioritizing righteousness over profit, valuing righteousness and belittling profit, and even giving up profit to pursuing righteousness is a moral code of conduct advocated by confucianism. the analects of confucius insists that one’s behavior and actions should be based on righteousness, opposes the idea of “living in groups all day long and not speaking of righteousness” (群居终日，言不及义), and advocates “practicing righteousness to achieve one’s moral goal” (行义以达其道). the analects of confucius states, “a gentleman values righteousness above all else”(君子以义为上), “a gentleman who has courage but lacks righteousness will become a rebellion, and a petty person who has courage but lacks righteousness will become a robber” (君子有勇而无义为 乱，小人有勇而无义为盗). “courage” only has true value and becomes a virtue of a gentleman under the guidance of “righteousness”. the analects of confucius states, “a gentleman deals with the affairs in the world without specifying what must be done or not be done, only considering what is in accordance with righteousness” (君子之于天下也，无适也，无莫也，义之与比). confucius believed that a gentleman may not follow dogmatic rules, but must meet the requirements of “righteousness” and take “righteousness” as the principle of action, doing what he should do and what he shouldn’t do. confucius also said, “in the eating of coarse rice and the drinking of water, the using of one’s elbow for a pillow, joy is to be found. wealth and the rank attained through immoral means have as much to do with me as passing clouds.” (饭疏食饮水，曲肱而枕之，乐亦在其中矣。不义而富且贵，于我如浮 云 ) it is highly advocated to pursuing benevolence and virtue, being content with poverty, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 79 published by scholink inc. underestimating the wealth and prosperity that come from injustice, and not being tempted by materialism, environment, and vanity. the confucian concept of “righteousness” represents the moral principles of justice, fairness, and reasonableness, and serves as the standard for judging the legitimacy of behavior. the “justice” in the core values of chinese socialism means fairness and justice, which is consistent with the confucian concept of “righteousness” in terms of justice. at the same time, the confucian concept of “righteousness” emphasizes the responsibility and obligation of individuals to society and others. the “dedication” in the core values of chinese socialism requires people to take their work seriously and responsibly, pursue excellence, which is actually a manifestation of fulfilling personal responsibilities and obligations, and has similarities with the confucian concept of “righteousness” in terms of responsibility. advocating the concept of righteousness in ideological and political education in universities can help cultivate young students’ sense of justice and responsibility. 2.3 taking “propriety” as the form “propriety”, as a social norm and code of conduct, provides clear guidance for people’s daily behavior. the analects of confucius states, “a gentleman regards righteousness as his quality, and perform it in the form of propriety” (君子义以为质，礼以行之). “propriety” is the norm for a gentleman to practice virtue, which is a moral requirement and norm based on the internal consciousness of “benevolence” and “righteousness” to externally constrain his own behavior. it is a manifestation of the content of benevolence and righteousness, or a specific regulation based on benevolence and righteousness. benevolence and righteousness are the core of propriety, and propriety is the manifestation of benevolence and righteousness. the cultivation of “propriety” is to restrain one’s bad habits and indulgence. “do not look at what is contrary to propriety, not listen to what is contrary to propriety, not speak what is contrary to propriety, or not do what is contrary to propriety” (非礼勿视，非礼勿听，非 礼勿言，非礼勿动), that is to say, one should restrain his behavior and make it conform to the norm of propriety. if there is no restraint, one may go to extremes. the ideal personality of confucius is a person who is fundamentally based on inner “benevolence” and “righteousness”, and whose external behavior fully conforms to “propriety”. one should adhere to norms in their internal moral cultivation, life attitude, and external speech and behavior, with benevolence and righteousness as the core and civilized behavior and elegant demeanor as their appearance, in order to achieve the organic unity of internal beauty and external beauty. the confucian concept of “propriety” is a set of norms that regulate individual and social behavior, aimed at maintaining social order and promoting interpersonal harmony. the “harmony” in the core values of chinese socialism represents the coordinated development of all aspects of society, where people and nature coexist harmoniously, and is consistent with the confucian goal of “propriety” in maintaining social order and harmony. at the same time, the “civilization” in the core values of chinese socialism represents social progress and cultural prosperity, and is closely related to the confucian “propriety” in the inheritance and development of civilization. emphasizing the importance of propriety in ideological and political education in universities can help guide students form good behavioral habits and social propriety, thereby enhancing their personal www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 80 published by scholink inc. qualities and social adaptability. by cultivating students’ awareness of social propriety, they can treat others with courtesy and respect both inside and outside the campus, creating a harmonious and friendly campus atmosphere. 3. the challenges of ideological and political education in universities currently with the rapid development of society and the continuous updating of information technology, the ideological concepts and values of college students are undergoing profound changes, and the ideological and political education in universities is also facing severe challenges currently. on the one hand, the ideological and political education courses still mainly adopt traditional theoretical teaching methods, with relatively outdated contents and a lack of sense of the times and less relevance to reality. the traditional cramming teaching method ignores the subject status of students, and students often passively receive knowledge, unable to deeply understand and experience the connotation and value of ideological and political education, and unable to enlighten their hearts effectively. on the other hand, contemporary college students are living in an era of information explosion, where they are exposed to increasingly diverse information and cultures. this diverse input of information has had a significant impact on the values and ideological concepts of college students. nowadays quite a number of teenagers underestimate our own national culture and abandon the excellent essence of traditional culture, worship western ideas and culture, uphold individualism and advocate the expression of individuality, which leads to the emergence of self-centered egoism, the pursuit of comfort and pleasure, the lack of life goals and collective concepts. lack of social responsibility and self-centered egoism have become common problems among some contemporary college students. a large proportion of students believe that the purpose of learning is “to have a good future” and “to earn more money and live a good life”. the issue of values orientation among teenagers is not only influenced by the modern society’s technological, materialistic, and utilitarian adult world, but also by school education, in which the phenomenon of emphasizing intelligence over morality, emphasizing science and engineering over humanities, emphasizing textbooks over practice, emphasizing material functionality over humanistic qualities is still quite common. many experts on chinese issues believe that the moral and personality problems of chinese teenagers are the inevitable result of denying traditional value education. to fundamentally solve the problem, it is necessary to return to traditional value education. famous scholar zhang rulun pointed out, “traditional education is an inward oriented education, in which teachers work inward to enrich and improve their inner selves and enhance their personality. modern education, based on the requirements of modern economic development, no longer focuses on the comprehensive development and improvement of individuals themselves, nor does it care about the cultivation and improvement of personality. instead, it only trains professionals who meet the needs of social and economic development, using people as tools to cultivate them. this leads to a decline in students’ comprehensive quality, narrow knowledge, lack of moral ideals and judgment abilities, and lack of humanistic www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 81 published by scholink inc. education and care.” in this sense, it surely has profound practical and historical significance that we devote to critically inheriting history and tradition, excavating the reasonable components of traditional education, grasping the ideological essence of the analects of confucius, excavating its rich ideological connotations, and integrating it into current ideological and political education in universities, according to the current situation of moral education in contemporary universities and the aim of the cultivation of students’ sound personality. 4. the selection of content from the analects of confucius which is suitable for integration with ideological and political education 4.1 the sentiment of taking the world as one’s own responsibility we should try to promote the sentiment of taking the world as one’s own responsibility and enhance the sense of historical mission and social responsibility of contemporary college students to contribute to the great rejuvenation of the chinese nation. the analects of confucius states, “ambitious people must have lofty aspirations and strong willpower, because they shoulder significant missions and the road to struggle is long. isn’t it significant to take the realization of benevolence as one’s own responsibility? struggling for a lifetime and dying, isn’t the road still long?” (士不可以不弘毅，任重而道远。仁以为 己任，不亦重乎？死而后已，不亦远乎？) this sense of responsibility and patriotism towards the world has influenced a large number of patriotic scholars such as gu yanwu and lin zexu. today, in such a new era of reform, opening up, and modernization construction, college students should shoulder the heavy responsibility of building a strong country and enriching the people. therefore, college students must carry forward the patriotic tradition and mission consciousness of confucianism, cultivate a high degree of patriotism and a strong sense of social responsibility. they should turn patriotism into practical actions, strive to study hard and aspire to become useful talents for the country and society, and work hard to actively participate in the socialist construction, and ultimately contribute their greatest strength to the great rejuvenation of the chinese nation. 4.2 the value concept of valuing righteousness over profit we should promote the value concept of valuing righteousness over profit, cultivate the spirit of valuing righteousness over profit and sacrificing one’s life for righteousness among contemporary college students, and try to establish a correct view of righteousness and profit, and a noble value of life. efforts should be made to promote the noble and righteous spirit of confucianism, taking the emphasis on righteousness over profit as the basic value orientation, improving the spiritual realm and moral sentiment of contemporary college students, maintaining their own integrity, not being influenced by external things, achieving the goal of “never being corrupted by neither riches nor honors, shaken by neither poverty nor adversity, faltered by neither threats nor force” (富贵不能淫，贫贱不能移，威武 不能屈). it is highly advocated to do not compromise or humiliate oneself for material desires, do not lose one’s personality for the sake of money or material benefits, do not bow down to social ugliness, be willing to live in poverty, be willing to contribute, work hard, and become a person with noble www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 82 published by scholink inc. morality, free from low-level interests, and beneficial to the people. the “righteousness” referred to here mainly refers to the interests of the country and the people. we should consciously cultivate the ideological consciousness of prioritizing social interests among contemporary students, and put the interests of the country and the people above everything else. 4.3 the enterprising spirit of self-improvement we should promote the enterprising concept of self-improvement and guide contemporary college students to establish lofty life ideals and good moral behavior. the spirit of perseverance and self-improvement is an indispensable spiritual driving force and intellectual source for a nation. for the country and the nation, this spirit of self-improvement values the overall value of society and others, emphasizes the restraint of personal selfishness for the greater good of the country and the nation, and values the grand aspirations and virtues of the nation. for the individual subject, this spirit of self-improvement can enable individuals to reach the lofty realm of selflessness and fearlessness. it is the spiritual driving force for individuals to achieve great things. only with the spirit of self-improvement can a person not be defeated by difficulties and setbacks, and can they firmly and persistently maintain enterprising spirit in the bumpy life process, tirelessly strive to pursue established goals, and ultimately succeed. 4.4 the intercourse concept of emulating and trying to equal the wise we should promote the intercourse concept of emulating and trying to equal the wise and persisting in regular self-reflection, and promote the formation of good moral qualities among contemporary college students, and cultivate a sense of harmonious coexistence among contemporary college students. the analects of confucius states, “when we see a man of virtue and talent, we should think of equaling them; when we see a man of a contrary character, we should turn inwards and examine ourselves” (见 贤思齐焉，见不贤而内自省也). confucius advocated that friends should share common ideals and pursuits, and live in groups to learn from each other, promote emotional integration, and enhance unity. confucius’ disciple zengzi inherited confucius’ ideas and advocated to “make friends through academic exchange and sharing, and cultivate benevolence and virtue through mutual help among friends” (以文会友，以友辅仁), that is to say, one can use the exchange and sharing of knowledge and learning as a means or a way to make friends, and use mutual assistance to cultivate benevolence and virtue as the purpose of making friends. one should gather friends with rich knowledge and moral qualities, and friends can improve each other by active discussion and communication. this is not only beneficial for improving academic level, but also for enhancing moral cultivation, and is exactly the correct way to make friends. we should encourage contemporary college students to learn from the virtuous, reflect on their shortcomings, make beneficial friends, be good at listening to criticism from others, bravely admit their mistakes, and be willing to live in groups and coexist harmoniously. this has significant practical significance for building a harmonious campus and society. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 83 published by scholink inc. 5. exploration of pathways for integrating the analects of confucius into ideological and political education in universities 5.1 integration into the ideological and political curriculum system it is helpful to integrate the essence of the analects of confucius with the ideological and political curriculum system in universities, which not only can enrich the teaching content of ideological and political courses, but also deepen college students’ understanding of traditional culture and modern social values. the selected reading content of the analects of confucius can be carefully designed and arranged. based on the template of ideological and political education and the actual needs of students, we can select representative and inspiring classical sentences and chapters, and make them be cleverly integrated and connected with the relevant content of ideological and political courses. by guiding students to deeply study and think about these contents, it can help them understand the core ideas of benevolence, righteousness and propriety contained in the analects of confucius, and then internalize these ideas into their own values and behavioral norms. we can use the way of case teaching, carefully select classical cases from the analects of confucius, such as “confucius and his disciples discuss doctrine” (孔子与弟子论道), “the joy of yan hui” (颜回之乐), etc. and combine them with practical problems in modern society to guide students to conduct in-depth analysis and discussion. integrating the essence of the analects of confucius with ideological and political education in universities can help continuously improve the pertinence and effectiveness of ideological and political courses, enhance the theoretical depth and cultural heritage of ideological and political courses, and help college students better understand and grasp the core values of socialism with chinese characteristics and social moral norms. 5.2 integration into cultural practice we can carry out many rich and diverse campus cultural activities, actively inherit and promote the profound values of the analects of confucius, and try to shape students’ spiritual qualities and personalities unconsciously, and guide them to form correct moral concepts and life pursuits. we can organize cultural activities such as book clubs and lectures on the analects of confucius to provide students with a platform for systematic learning and in-depth communication. we also can hold speech competitions, essay contests, confucian classic recitation conferences, “analects culture festival” and other activities with the theme of the analects of confucius to further stimulate students’ interest and creativity in learning, and continuously deepen their understanding and application of the ideas of the analects of confucius in the process of cultural practice. immersive cultural experience activities can be carried out, where college students can compose and perform classical scenes from the analects of confucius, such as “confucius travels around various states” (孔子周游列国), “zilu asks for directions” (子路问津), “yan hui is content with poverty and happy to pursue virtues” (颜回安贫乐 道 ), etc. through immersive role-playing, it is helpful for college students to gain a deeper understanding of the values contained in the analects of confucius, and thus guide them to adhere to their ideals in the face of material temptations. we can establish confucian cultural college student www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 84 published by scholink inc. association, carry out traditional rituals such as coming of age ceremony, restore traditional skills such as rites (礼), music (乐), archery (射), carriage-driving (御), calligraphy (书), and mathematics (数), carry out volunteer community service programs, traditional culture teaching and other practical activities, and guide college students to deepen their understanding of the ideological and spiritual connotations of the analects of confucius in the process of cultural practice. through embodied experience and innovative expression of cultural activities, it is helpful for college students to transform the analects of confucius from classical texts into the life experience, so as to internalize it in their hearts and externalize it in actions, and achieve the effect of “nourishing things silently” in ideological and political education. 5.3 integration into campus environment we can integrate the essence of thoughts from the analects of confucius into campus cultural development and daily management to achieve a deep fusion of the two. in terms of campus cultural development, thematic cultural walls about the analects of confucius can be created in high-traffic areas such as teaching buildings, libraries, and student communities. relevant slogans, sculptures, and bulletin boards can also be set up, with the content presented through artistic forms like calligraphy and seal carving. in this way, daily learning and life scenes are transformed into cultural and educational fields, classical quotes and stories from the analects of confucius are presented to college students, and they can feel the influence of traditional culture through being immersed in it. buildings on campus can be named after core concepts from the analects of confucius, such as “shendu building” (慎独楼), which means that don’t relax your demands on yourself in places where others can’t see or hear, or “sanxing hall” (三省堂), which means that one may reflect on oneself multiple times a day. in this way, value identification can be conveyed through the dialogue between traditional educational concepts and modern general education. by incorporating educational design and integrating cultural elements into campus landscapes, traditional cultural memories can be revitalized within spatial narratives, creating an immersive educational ecosystem rooted in the essence of the analects of confucius. in terms of daily student management, the core ideas of the analects of confucius can be incorporated into students’ behavioral norms and moral standards, guiding them to practice these values in their daily lives and fostering a positive moral ethos and campus atmosphere. 6. conclusion the essence of confucian thought contained in the analects of confucius is the core component of excellent traditional chinese culture. by utilizing the “three in one” application model of integration into the ideological and political curriculum system, integration into cultural practice, and integration into campus environment, it is helpful to achieve the deep integration of the ideological essence of the analects of confucius with ideological and political education in universities. it can be confirmed with certainty that it can not only enhance the cultural depth of ideological and political education in universities, but also activate the contemporary value of excellent traditional culture. while it does www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 85 published by scholink inc. contain some negative and passive elements, the essence of confucian thought, such as the enterprising spirit of positive progress and self-improvement, a strong sense of historical mission, the lifelong pursuit of serving the state and achieving great accomplishments, has various inspirations for contemporary ideological and political education in universities, and is of great significance for the moral cultivation and personality improvement of contemporary students. this is also precisely indispensable in the construction of modern moral personality today. only a modern ideal personality built on such a foundation can possess chinese characteristics. references li, j. h. (2024). research on the integration of confucian rites into moral education for college students. xi’an university of technology, master’s thesis, may 2024. nan, h. j. (2005). unique insights into the analects of confucius. shanghai: fudan university press. song, y. y. (2023). a study on the enlightenment of humanistic thought in the analects of confucius on ideological and political education in colleges and universities. lanzhou jiaotong university, master’s thesis, april 2023. zhang, c., & c, q. f. (2024). research on the path of integrating the thought of “propriety” in the analects of confucius into ideological and political courses in colleges and universities. teaching and educating (higher education forum), 12, 79-82. zhang, r. l. (2007). the significance of the analects of confucius for modern education. wen wei po daily, september 9. frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no.4, 2022 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 1 original paper serious games for public safety: how gamified education can teach ontarians emergency preparedness annie n. le1 1 annie le, toronto metropolitan university, toronto, canada received: october 20, 2022 accepted: november 15, 2022 online published: november 29, 2022 doi:10.22158/fet.v5n34p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v5n4p1 abstract according to the canadian emergencies act, a national emergency is an urgent, critical situation that threatens the health and safety of canadians (department of justice of canada, 2022). emergencies can also take on many forms: pandemics, natural disasters, civil unrest, or armed conflict. currently, the provincial emergency response plan implemented by the chief of emergency management ontario is the framework that keeps ontarians safe, allowing for organizations and municipalities to organize disaster relief, send out emergency alerts, and educate ontario residents on emergency preparedness (perp, 2019). this paper explores how serious games can prepare the public for emergencies based on response frameworks currently in use in metropolitan ontario, canada (cities such as toronto, ottawa, and hamilton). this example was selected because it represents modern urban settings that require response plans and provides a framework that can be used to elaborate on. this paper will present the positive features of serious game applications concerning public safety and emergency management education. case studies of serious game applications currently used for public health and safety purposes will be examined. serious games may be a useful instrument for public safety education to enhance existing emergency preparedness and public safety education frameworks. keywords serious games, public safety, emergency preparedness, education, metropolitan, gamified learning 1. introduction serious games are video games with applications other than enjoyment. their primary purpose is to further training in fields such as healthcare, education, policing, finance, disaster management, and more (chandross & decourcy, 2018). they can target different demographics, from children to adults, from professional personnel to the general population. serious games can carry significant value over traditional educational methods such as classroom instruction, reading texts, and memorization www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 4, 2022 2 published by scholink inc. (chandross & decourcy, 2018). emergency preparedness, as a topic, is frequently presented through traditional forms of instruction, most often in brochures or classroom instruction formats, which can be challenging when it comes to attracting the attention of the public. using serious games to teach the general public emergency preparedness can turn the learning process into a more enjoyable activity, encouraging the average person to effectively learn and retain the information necessary to prepare themselves for emergencies. even though emergency management in ontario is a shared responsibility that includes municipal, provincial, and federal governments, as well as individuals and families, the chief of emergency management ontario oversees emergency management programs for provincial organizations and municipalities in ontario. the educational content offered by ontario on emergency preparedness (or even at the federal level through the minister of public safety and emergency preparedness) stops at lists on online websites, pdfs, and printable guides. with the incompleteness of ontario’s public safety educational content at hand, serious games can contribute greatly to rounding out and enhancing this current system. 2. literature review 2.1 how ontario tackles emergency preparedness education as of now, the provincial emergency response plan, implemented by the chief of emergency management ontario, is the emergency response guideline that keeps ontarians safe, allowing for organizations and municipalities to organize disaster relief, send out emergency alerts, and educates ontario residents on emergency preparedness (perp, 2019). the chief emo is also responsible for implementing the provincial emergency response plan (perp), as well as running the overall provincial emergency response organization (provincial ero). in other words, emergencies in ontario are managed by emergency management ontario (led by the chief emo), with further delegations to municipalities or ministries. emo provides resources, guidelines, and even staff for municipalities to develop and implement emergency management programs, as well as materials to educate the public in these communities about emergency preparedness. when it comes to educating the public, and educating residents on how to keep themselves and their loved ones safe in the face of emergencies, emo takes the lead in providing the resources needed for organizations to build programs for this purpose. emo covers this on its main online platform through very limited avenues. emergency management resources are provided through a list of to-dos, such as developing a plan, building an emergency kit, and how to stay informed. instruction paragraphs explaining how one should make a family communication plan, an evacuation plan, as well as building an emergency kit are featured on the platform. the only non-text resource featured is an emergency kit bingo game, which is a checklist of items in one’s emergency kit (emo, 2022). although this is a good first start when it comes to the provincial effort to keep the public informed through more engaging means, it does not do much when nestled into a long, wordy online guide. the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 4, 2022 3 published by scholink inc. search for more in-depth and engaging public safety education materials at the municipality level was unfruitful: since the emo oversees municipalities and further delegates emergency preparedness to cities, most city websites on emergency preparedness were a repeat of emo’s content. an examination of the official websites for the three largest cities in ontario-toronto, ottawa, and hamilton confirmed the suspicion that emo’s efforts in public safety promotion stop at wordy online guidelines, and provide nothing interactive to the public (city of hamilton; city of ottawa; city of toronto). according to emo, materials available to promote emergency preparedness within the community include lesson plans, to-do lists, posters, as well as infographics (2022). in terms of keeping the public informed, alert ready is employed, a mobile alert system that sends notifications of emergencies to residents’ mobile phones (alert ready, 2022). it is also important to note that these alerts are meant to inform the public of the status of the emergency, and contain little to no instruction on how to prepare for or tackle these emergencies themselves. this incompleteness may be reflected in the canadian population’s low levels of emergency preparedness, where only 47% of canadians have a home emergency supply kit, and a smaller percentage of ontarians indicate possessing alternative resources in the home in case of emergencies (government of canada, 2014). this is despite 81% of ottawa residents, 62% of toronto residents, and 58% of hamilton residents indicating that extended power outages were among the most common emergencies to occur within their community (government of canada, 2016). table 1. precautionary measures taken in case of emergency, by province (government of canada, 2014) canadians whose household has an alternative heat source canadians whose household has a backup generator canadians whose household has an alternative water source canadians whose household has other emergency precautions employed in the home ontario 46 20 44 22 quebec 48 22 38 20 nova scotia 57 36 55 28 further considering what the federal government offers the public in terms of emergency preparedness education also yields limited results. public safety canada, led by the minister of public safety and the minister of emergency preparedness, offers similar materials to emo when it comes to educational materials: checklists, brochures, and word paragraphs. there may be a gap to be filled with more interactive and up-to-date learning materials for the public. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 4, 2022 4 published by scholink inc. 2.2 serious games as a learning tool to see how serious games can enhance ontario’s existing public safety education framework, a close look into what constitutes a serious game is necessary to understand why they are great educational tools specifically for the nature of emergency preparedness. there exists literature already examining the benefits of serious games as an educational tool on their own. this paper will focus on these benefits and show the educational link between them and public safety or emergency preparedness education. according to chandross and decourcy, educational games are games in non-entertainment contexts (2022). in other words, they can be used to train professional personnel in different fields: military, healthcare, finance, policing, etc. they can also be incorporated into educating the average person on different skill sets: how to manage one’s health, how to navigate the legal system, and even how to prepare for disasters (tsekleves et al., 2014). in addition to games being an enjoyable activity, games often demand from players focus and decision-making mindsets that are also present in learning pursuits (tsekleves et al., 2014). educational environments often require teamwork, socializing, and decision-making, as well as the focus needed for information retention (chandross & decourcy, 2018). according to chandross, games offer similar things, in addition to providing a high-engagement environment that improves upon traditional education formats (reading and memorizing or classroom instruction) (2018). in addition, according to adachi et al., problem-solving is the core of game design: games usually feature problems that players can solve with existing resources (2013). according to tsekleves et al., serious games also provide great avenues to turn any learning experience into collaborative work, since their digital nature easily allows players to engage with each other and interact without being physically in one room (2014). in terms of education, public safety is a topic that targets audiences of all demographics, as an emergency directly influences all demographics, requiring everyone who lives on its path to know how to prepare for it. according to chandross and decourcy, traditional classroom instruction, or the “cookie cutter approach” to learning does not provide a large enough learning experience to engage and cater to all learning types (2018). games, on the other hand, are customizable and can be designed to suit a wide variety of learners (chandross & decourcy, 2018). it can also provide real-time feedback to the learner based on gameplay progress, allowing such an environment to be further tailored to the individual learner (chandross & decourcy, 2018). through story plots and possible customization, games can also maximize the feeling of relevance and the ability for a player to relate to the topic of discussion, which has been shown to greatly enhance the learning process (fuchslocher et al., 2010). in addition, immersive serious games can provide simulative scenarios that mimic emergencies and disasters, training learners to make good decisions and experience situations of disasters that would be impossible, too costly, or too dangerous to arrange for in real life (chittaro, 2015). according to emergency management ontario, the core competencies of emergency preparedness surround having specific solutions for specific emergency types, working together as a household and as a community, as well as being resourceful (2022). games are great tools to promote problem-solving, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 4, 2022 5 published by scholink inc. collaboration, as well as thinking outside of the box (chandross & decourcy, 2018). in addition to being an excellent educational tool on its own, serious games can also hit the checkmark as a tool for public safety and emergency preparedness education. 2.2.1 case studies of serious games in public health and safety an example of a government public safety promotion game is ready kids!, a for-kids version of ready!, a platform belonging to the u.s department of homeland security (ready campaign). developed as part of the national strategy for youth preparedness education program, the game was part of the department’s realization that even though children make up about 25% of the population of the united states, emergency preparedness education programs do not cater to this demographic (ready campaign). ready kids! provides emergency preparedness content to children in game form with story-driven games about recognizing signs of wildfire, tornadoes, tsunamis, and more (ready campaign). we can see that ready kids! is part of the us government’s effort to extend public safety education to children. its counterpart ready!, provides similar traditional public safety education content similar to emergency management ontario. even though it can be argued that gamified learning, in this case, should also be extended to meet the adult populations as the benefits of serious games are not constricted to age, ready kids! is a great start to encourage younger populations to learn how to prepare themselves for emergencies. another noteworthy serious game application is balance, a health game developed by alberto fuchslocher, to teach teenagers to self-manage diabetes. although not specifically a government game application, balance still does a great job at demonstrating how games can be used for serious learning contexts. in addition, the educational benefits of balance’s game design have definite potential when it comes to educating the public on preparing for medical emergencies or pandemics. balance is a platformer that teaches teens and children to manage diabetes by reinforcing good food and insulin intake choices (fuchslocher et al., 2010). in balance, the main character has to travel through game levels and get through obstacles to rescue their friends. with each challenging level, the player has to get through, they also have to maintain optimal blood sugar levels by eating certain foods at certain times, as well as taking insulin. if the player neglects this or makes poor choices, the main character will slow down and become impossible to control (fuchslocher et al., 2010). diabetes patients, as part of diabetes management, must have the right balance of food intake and insulin (fuchslocher et al., 2010). by incorporating exactly these challenges, and reinforcing these habits in a young player, balance teaches players the self-care skills of managing diabetes through an enjoyable game-playing experience. not only is there a clear reward (when good food choices are made, the player’s score goes up) and consequence system, but the game also resembles real-life rewards and consequences when it comes to diabetes mellitus, greatly enhancing the gameplay experience, according to the youth groups the game was tested amongst (fuchslocher et al., 2010). this paper also looks at trillion games, a game application developed by the eu research project to help involve citizens in community peacekeeping and crime prevention (sorace et al., 2018). trillion www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 4, 2022 6 published by scholink inc. games contain two separate curricula or levels: one dedicated to law enforcement officers, and the other for citizens, both to acquaint these two groups with the concept of community policing (sorace et al., 2018). the games also teach both groups to interact with each other through a trillion platform (a real-life crime-reporting platform), which citizen players are encouraged to download and use after the game (sorace et al., 2018). the serious game’s version for citizens puts heavy emphasis on awareness and communication. its scenarios are designed to train the average citizen to discern whether or not a situation warrants attention, and encourages them to connect with law enforcement agencies, as well as the rest of their community (sorace et al., 2018). in terms of gameplay, trillion games for citizens allows players to collect items, encounter characters and events and require actions, and also encourages collaboration of players. in short, the levels go through a series of to-report-or-not-to-report (on the trillion platform) scenarios (sorace et al., 2018). after every level, a reflection session ensues and assesses the player’s performance, evaluating their actions to steer them toward what is the “preferred behaviour” in each scenario (sorace et al., 2018). the goal of the game for citizens is to firstly increase their knowledge of public safety, as well as strengthen their trust and connection with government agencies. 3. result among what is offered by emergency management ontario in terms of public safety education or emergency preparedness education, there is still a lack of engaging educational content, or materials that transcend the traditional reading, memorizing, or classroom instruction formats. when dealing with public safety, an important topic that is directly relevant to all, a flexible, engaging education along with a solid promotion system is key. it is paramount that people feel enthusiastic about educating themselves on emergency preparedness so that learning becomes consistent and manageable. the above case studies show that using serious games to promote public health and safety is possible, and that gamified learning might allow for the education of these topics to be more successful and efficient. 4. conclusion serious games provide a fun and interactive experience that retains participants (due to the activity being enjoyable) and caters to a wider demographic than traditional education does (chandross & decourcy, 2018). leveraging the existing framework offered by emergency management ontario, serious games can integrate into the existing system without any elaborate adjustments or replacement. guidelines about building an emergency survival kit can be incorporated into simple click-and-drag games where the player collects existing things in a home environment into an emergency kit. similarly, the ability to recognize signs of natural disasters can be taught with similar gameplay, where players click on elements in a game scene to identify tornado or blizzard signatures or wildfires. planning and following through emergency routes are intimately similar to what a platformer game can look like. in cases of dealing with medical emergencies, such as the national emergency event of covid-19, players can be taught www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 4, 2022 7 published by scholink inc. emergency management protocols through roleplaying patients and family members, practicing safety habits, and seeking help when needed. these are simple game scenarios as well as game design structures, and more intricate gameplay such as immersive vr of training emergency scenarios can be brought into the conversation to deal with more complex emergency preparedness training. however, these are great simple avenues for ontario to start incorporating serious games into its existing public safety education system. references adachi, p. j. c., & willoughby, t. (2013, january 24). more than just fun and games: the longitudinal relationships between strategic video games, self-reported problem solving skills, and academic grades journal of youth and adolescence. springerlink. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-013-9913-9 alert types. alert ready emergency alert system (pelmorex corp). (n.d.). retrieved august 2, 2022, from https://www.alertready.ca/alert-types/ are games effective learning tools? a review of educational games jstor. (n.d.). retrieved august 2, 2022, from https://www.jstor.org/stable/26388380 be prepared for an emergency. ontario.ca. (n.d.). retrieved august 2, 2022, from https://www.ontario.ca/page/be-prepared-emergency cain, p. (2021, march 29). improve amber alerts or risk alienating public, expert warns. ctvnews. retrieved august 2, 2022, from https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/improve-amber-alerts-or-risk-alienating-public-expert-warns-1.53 66734?cache=yes%3fclipid%3d104056 canada, department of justice. (2022, february 25). canada’s emergencies act. canada.ca. retrieved august 2, 2022, from https://www.canada.ca/en/department-justice/news/2022/02/canadas-emergencies-act.html chandross, d., & decourcy, e. (2018). [pdf] serious games in online learning: semantic scholar. undefined. retrieved august 2, 2022, from https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/serious-games-in-online-learning-chandross -decourcy/21c5e257cade16daea62a93229ed34d7422b9823 chittaro, l., & sioni, r. (2015, may 15). serious games for emergency preparedness: evaluation of an interactive vs. a non-interactive simulation of a terror attack. computers in human behavior. retrieved august 2, 2022, from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/s0747563215002757?casa_token=eowx5zfl6-g aaaaa%3agc9p_0lq8uinudrolq03krgtza1iunssehgp_la7c67verdqqselwpym0kciwz lbywststt6s07s city of hamilton. (n.d.). emergency preparedness. city of hamilton, ontario, canada. retrieved august 2, 2022, from https://www.hamilton.ca/emergency-services/emergency-preparedness https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-013-9913-9 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 4, 2022 8 published by scholink inc. emergencies preparedness ottawa. (2022, june 27). emergency preparedness. city of ottawa. retrieved august 2, 2022, from https://ottawa.ca/en/health-and-public-safety/emergency-preparedness city of toronto. (2021, february 2). emergency preparedness. city of toronto. retrieved august 2, 2022, from https://www.toronto.ca/community-people/public-safety-alerts/emergency-preparedness/ emergency management program resources. ontario.ca. (n.d.). retrieved august 2, 2022, from https://www.ontario.ca/page/emergency-management-program-resources#section-0 fuchslocher, a., niesenhaus, j., & krämer, n. (2010, december 21). serious games for health: an empirical study of the game “balance” for teenagers with diabetes mellitus. entertainment computing. retrieved august 2, 2022, from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/s1875952110000194?casa_token=awlegvswlb eaaaaa%3angf94qwvrjgsifc65v3rll-pcnitjxpoapa2nblhlalj30ylgwfkdcrno7pu9p xlj3kwegkwps7f government of canada, s. c. (2016, march 23). emergency preparedness in canada, 2014. government of canada, statistics canada. retrieved october 31, 2022, from https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/85-002-x/2015001/article/14234-eng.htm government of canada, s. c. (2016, october 13). fact sheet community of hamilton (cma), ontario. retrieved october 31, 2022, from https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/85-002-x/2016001/article/14638/s3/s3_9-eng.htm government of canada, s. c. (2016, october 13). fact sheet community of ottawa–gatineau (cma), quebec. retrieved october 31, 2022, from https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/85-002-x/2016001/article/14638/s2/s2_12-eng.htm government of canada, s. c. (2016, october 13). fact sheet: community of toronto (cma), ontario. retrieved october 31, 2022, from https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/85-002-x/2016001/article/14638/s3/s3_8-eng.htm learning from serious games? arguments, evidence, and research suggestions. (n.d.). retrieved august 2, 2022, from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/285706510_learning_from_serious_games_arguments_ evidence_and_research_suggestions sorace, s., quercia, e., la mattina, e., patrikakis, c. z., bacon, l., loukas, g., & mackinnon, l. (2018, april). serious games: an attractive approach to improve awareness. springerlink. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89294-8_1 tsekleves, e., cosmas, j., & aggoun, a. (2014, october 24). benefits, barriers and guideline recommendations for the implementation of serious games in education for stakeholders and policymakers. british educational research association. retrieved august 2, 2022, from https://bera-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/bjet.12223 welcome to ready kids! welcome to ready kids! | ready.gov. (n.d.). retrieved august 2, 2022, from https://www.ready.gov/kids https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89294-8_1 microsoft word fet-v2n2-p74 frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 74 original paper making it rain: using remotely accessible instruments in nanotechnology to enhance high school science courses ashley min1, jared ashcroft1*, joel monroy1, vanessa wolf1, christina lee1, josée horton1, robert ehrmann2 & brandon rodriguez3 1 pasadena city college, pasadena, usa 2 pennsylvania state university, university park, usa 3 nasa education, jet propulsion laboratory, pasadena, usa * jared ashcroft, pasadena city college, pasadena, usa received: march 18, 2019 accepted: march 29, 2019 online published: april 2, 2019 doi:10.22158/fet.v2n2p74 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v2n2p74 abstract the remotely accessible instruments in nanotechnology (rain) network is a conglomerate of nineteen community colleges, four-year universities and high school sites that aims to enhance stem learning by bringing advanced technologies to k-12 education. rain provides free remote access to instruments such as scanning electron, atomic force and transmission electron microscopes, as well as energy dispersive and infrared spectroscopy. the following is a variety of experiments and an empirical formula lab that can be performed in a high school physical science or chemistry classroom that utilizes the rain network. keywords remote instrumentation, chemistry, scanning electron microscope 1. introduction with the advancement in electronics, students have become dependent, and in many instances, addicted to their technology (kardefelt-winther, 2017). this technological evolution opens the door for educators to infuse novel technologies into their curriculum. currently, virtual labs (hovardas, 2017) and interactive science simulations (moore, 2014) have shown positive impact on student learning. the next phase in technology inclusion in education is to move from contrived virtual labs and simulations to using web-based streaming remote instrumentation, which allow students to image and analyze laboratory specimens in ways previously inaccessible in the high school science classroom. this is the goal of the remotely accessible instruments in nanotechnology (rain) network. not to use www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 75 published by scholink inc. technology for technology sake, but to provide an interactive community, wherein students can obtain experimental data remotely over the internet, while interacting with scientist across the country. the rain network aims to provide educational sustenance to scholars across the globe. previous rain studies have highlighted the impact access to technology can have in classrooms where resources may be limited and connections to science careers may be sparse (ashcroft, 2018). thus, the aim of the rain network is to supply all educational levels free access to advanced technologies in every socioeconomic academic community (figure 1). students in urban los angeles to rural new mexico can be afforded the same access to complex, and interesting scientific tools, needing nothing more than an internet connection. figure 1. bringing rain to your class the rain network consists of nineteen sites (figure 2), ranging from four year, tier 1 research institutions, such as stanford university, to technical colleges like northcentral tech and even cattaraugus-allegany-erie-wyoming board of cooperative educational services (caboces), a high school program in upstate new york. the mission of rain is to lower the barrier-to-entry for instructors to deliver authentic and relevant educational activities for students interested in stem education. one focus of rain is to bring technology to institutions in communities with substantial underrepresented student populations, specifically african-american and latino communities, where access to our instruments could be the path for many to see a science education where it did not seem possible before. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 76 published by scholink inc. an empirical formula lab that can utilize the rain network to enhance a classic high school chemistry experiment is communicated. student and teacher feedback will be presented, extolling the positive influence rain had on their educational experience. finally, high school educators are given examples of rain used in other science disciplines through science education literature, as well as from the rain network library. students are also extended an invitation to utilize the rain network on an individual basis for science fair experiments. figure 2. rain sites across the united states 2. getting started the most compelling advantage of rain is how easily it can be implemented in high school science classrooms. rain scientists have performed dial-ins to over 100 academic sites, including twenty-seven k-12 classrooms (5-10th grades). in each instance, the teacher had a computer, projector and connection to the internet, the only necessities needed to implement rain. in all but one classroom, students also had access to computers for their own use, which can allow students to control the instruments themselves. in total, the rain experience can be performed in under an hour, thirty minutes dedicated to teacher preparation ahead of the remote session plus thirty minutes of in class time. imagine being a high school student, live-imaging the gap between nanostructures in a butterfly wing or the setae on a gecko’s foot. with facile implementation, little time commitment and no cost, the benefit of exploring using the rain network is vast. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 77 published by scholink inc. a rain session can easily be set up by going to the nano4me website at http://nano4me.org/remoteaccess. under the heading “getting ready for remote access” a step-by-step sequence of events to get started is described. the only software that must be downloaded onto your computer is “zoom”, an online meeting space similar to skype, that also allows for teachers and students to remotely control the instrument. zoom and all sessions are freely available at https://zoom.us/. out of the 27 remote sessions to k-12 classrooms, only one had connection problems. this was not the fault of technical issues, but of one rain site miscommunicating time zones with the high school teacher. since rain has sites across the country, it is imperative that you communicate directly with the rain site you choose to set up the remote session. in every instance in which the test session was performed, the rain session commenced smoothly. 3. updating classic empirical formula experiments in chemistry empirical formulas are the simplest positive integer ratios of atoms in a compound. performing empirical formula calculation are beneficial in helping students understand mass to mole conversions, as well as molar ratios. there are several classic empirical formula labs that have been utilized in assisting students understanding of this topic. the rain network was utilized to enhance the experience students have when performing these experiments. two different empirical formulas were investigated using magnesium and iron oxidations. each oxidation reaction was done in lab, followed by empirical formula determinations using mass differentiations and elemental mass percent obtained via rain’s scanning electron microscope (sem) with energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (eds) technology. when a magnesium ribbon is oxidized by oxygen, magnesium oxide forms (reaction 1). this reaction has been used in chemistry laboratories to study empirical formulas by differentiating the mass of magnesium before and after oxidation. 2 mg(s) + o2(g)  2 mgo(s) (rxn 1) a detailed explanation, safety precautions and sample calculations of the experiment can be found (nguyen, 2012). to better engage students with this experiment, the rain network was used to image and perform elemental analysis of the magnesium before and after oxidation (figure 3), allowing students to visualize a concept that would otherwise be purely theoretical. students connected to the rain network and after sem imaging of the samples, used eds to determine the percent mass of each element in the sample. eds is an analytical technique based on the unique atomic structure of an element and the elements interaction with x-rays that lead to a distinctive electromagnetic emission spectrum, allowing for elemental analysis, including elemental mass percent. one benefit of rain is that during the analysis of samples, students may interact with scientist running the instrument, many of whom have doctorates in chemistry, allowing for an explanation on eds. this is an ideal scenario, where students can be reintroduced to quantum theory topics, discuss electron excitation and emission, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 78 published by scholink inc. and the theory behind how eds works. therefore, students not only learn the theory behind the mechanisms of this chemical phenomenon but they also learn the theory behind the technology. during one lab, as a student was observing the magnesium oxide product, the question was asked “how do we know the product is magnesium oxide?” she was looking at the ashy product and trying to justify the conclusion that indeed the product is mgo. as science teachers, it is imperative that correct scientific analysis is followed. even though this is a well-known, characterized reaction, it will be the first-time students are performing it. good research practice teaches that verifying results with multiple experiments or characterization methods is essential for development of accurate conclusions. using rain elemental analysis not only allows for the percent mass to be determined, but also allows students to visually confirm that it is actually oxygen that combines with magnesium in this process. in figure 3, the magnesium image has a crosshair in the middle. this is the point at which analysis occurs (it is possible to analyze over the entire image). in the image of mgo, it clearly shows that indeed oxygen has been combined with magnesium to form the mgo product. it was also possible to see that in the product some nitrogen was present (asterisk on eds spectrum). formation of magnesium nitride (mg3n2) is a common outcome in this reaction and the eds provides a method of analyzing this side product that occurs in this process. using the percent mass values, the empirical value obtained through mass differences can also be confirmed using proper mass percent to gram to mole conversions. figure 3. sem image of top magnesium ribbon bottom magnesium oxide www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 79 published by scholink inc. the magnesium oxide empirical formula experiment is used in chemistry classes due to how successful the reaction works in giving the correct 1:1 molar ratio of magnesium to oxygen. a second empirical formula reaction was performed using steel wool (iron) to react with oxygen to form an iron oxide (ashcroft, 2018; reaction 2). 4 fe(s) + 3 o2(g)  2 fe2o3(s) (rxn 2) in this experiment, the mass of steel wool is determined, then washed in acetone, dried, followed by dipping into 0.1 m acetic acid and dried again. the reaction is performed in a test tube inverted in water and as oxygen is consumed, the iron oxide (rust) forms, with water displacement into the test tube. at completion of the reaction, the mass of the oxidized steel wool is determined and by subtracting original steel wool mass, the oxygen content in the iron oxide is determined. finally, the empirical formula is calculated using mass to mole conversions and molar ratios. in this case, the masses will not lead to the 2:3 molar ratio of iron to oxygen due to oxygen being the limiting reagent. though obtaining the correct answer should not be the overall goal of an experiment (going through the scientific method should be), this particular empirical formula determination is not satisfactory to students and teachers because of the non-sensical answer achieved. when the elemental analysis is used from the rain network it is possible to image iron that has been completely oxidized by the oxygen, giving the correct mass percent 69.5% iron and 30.5% oxygen that leads to the correct empirical formula of fe2o3. in this case, the rain network has provided data that can assist in formulating a conclusion to an experiment that was not possible before. it also allows for a discussion about comparing the two reactions and why one gave the correct empirical formula and the other did not. students were assessed for these labs using the following prompt: write a mini-lab report that consists of a concise abstract, shows complete calculations of empirical formulas and has a conclusion that makes a conclusive statement about the empirical formulas determined and use your data to compare and contrast the two oxidation reactions that were used to determine empirical formulas. the following rubric consists of two components. a summative assessment assessing if students successfully calculated the empirical formula and a formative assessment that assesses students understanding of the two experiments based on their conclusion: 4-exceeds criteria 3-meets criteria 2-progressing to criteria 1-below expectations empirical formula calculations students correctly determine empirical formula using reaction masses and sem analysis. students can correctly determine empirical formula using either reaction masses or sem analysis. students are able to determine moles of magnesium and oxygen but cannot relate to empirical formula. students are unable to perform any calculations to determine empirical www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 80 published by scholink inc. formulas. analysis/ conclusion students write a conclusive statement and discuss the two methods of determining empirical formula for both magnesium and iron, emphasizing that eds is preferred for iron oxide analysis due to oxygen being the limiting reagent, whereas in the magnesium oxide reaction both eds and mass analysis are effective due to magnesium being the limiting reagent. nitrogen as mg3n2 side product is also discussed. students write a conclusive statement and discuss that both methods in the magnesium oxidation give valid results and that the eds analysis confirms results from the mass analysis. no comparison to the iron experiment or mentioning that oxygen is the limiting reagent in the iron reaction. also, nitrogen as mg3n2 side product not discussed. students write a conclusive statement, but there is no comparison of the two experiments or discussion about benefits of eds analysis. no mention that the oxygen is the limiting reagent when reacted with iron or that nitrogen as mg3n2 side product forms in the magnesium oxidation. students do not write a conclusive statement. when performed in a high school chemistry class 80% of students were able to correctly perform empirical formula calculations after the experiment and achieved a 3 or 4 on the calculation assessment. however, when assessing the analysis and conclusion, only 6 out of 29 students were able to achieve a 4, with over half of them achieving only a 1 or 2 score. the experiment was performed before discussion on limiting reactant. therefore, for better results on the analysis assessment, having the limiting reactant discussion before performing this experiment is ideal. 4. classroom setup the experimental set-up for the empirical formula with rain can be done in various ways. if a teacher wants to use rain as a “demo”, students can perform the two oxidation reactions as the teacher connects with rain using zoom. connecting to rain is easy and takes less than five minutes. for most efficient time, perform the magnesium oxidation first, a reaction that took high school students about thirty minutes to complete, and then set up the iron oxidation. student samples can be sent directly to rain for imaging. however, for the empirical formula experiment each rain site will have samples prepared using the lab procedures. having students image their own sample is preferred and rain encourages the students to send their samples and arrange a one-on-one experience. this is the most impactful aspect of rain. how often do high school science students have an opportunity to talk science experimentation with professors at universities? the iron oxidation takes twenty minutes. during the twenty-minute wait, the remote session can take place, having the rain scientist give a short description on sem/eds theory, imaging the sample and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 81 published by scholink inc. performing the elemental analysis. this method does not allow students to control the instrument but is very efficient for collecting the data and giving students a glimpse into electron microscopy, a tool very few high school students have contact with. a second option is to have students rotate through stations. zoom can be logged into through multiple computers. if four computers are available, students can be performing the two experiments and rotate through the rain component. if four groups of two students are at each computer, it will allow for the rain technician to help students manipulate the instrument themselves. this is an ideal situation where students can be manipulating the instrument, while having a web-based question and answer session with the rain scientist. there is no limit on the amount of time rain will work with a class. it can be a quick twenty-minute demo, or a two-hour session aimed at working with individual students. it is up to the teacher to tell rain how they prefer to use the resource. all that is required from the teacher is to download zoom, attend a test session, which can be as little as five minutes or if the teacher wants to do a detailed plan with rain up to an hour and lastly log into zoom during the in-class remote. at this point, rain scientist will discuss all aspects of using sem/eds for experimentation, allowing for teacher input to be added at any time. seeing the excitement on students faces when they get to visualize microscopic images that they never have before is a payoff for what can amount to twenty minutes of in-class time. 5. teacher feedback the rain network has performed hundreds of remote sessions, but recently a study was performed to analyze its effect on students’ interest in science in k-12 education using various problem-based activities and rain at k-12 schools consisting of predominately underrepresented student populations (rodriguez, 2018). twenty-seven teachers were surveyed in the study. out of the twenty-seven, all of them felt the remote portion of the lab increased student engagement, twenty-five felt the remote access greatly contributed to the comprehension of the lab and twenty-two were very likely to use the remote access lessons in the future. twenty-four of the teachers also said they would very likely recommend the remote access activities to colleagues. figure 4 quantifies the value in using rain, where a five corresponds to positive impact. the value after the bar correlates to the average teacher response. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 82 published by scholink inc. figure 4. quantifying the impact of rain from teacher survey (n=27) the study also assessed the biggest obstacles in student success in stem according to teachers. interestingly, access to technology at school was not a hindrance to student’s success, showing the feasibility of implementing rain in classrooms organically. of the biggest obstacles, exposure to real-life content was the highest obstacle described by teachers in teaching stem. access to remote technology and bringing the real-life content through innovative active learning activities to the high school classroom can alleviate this problem. the rain network is currently working on experiments that will use active learning in conjunction with rain that will be provided as a freely available open education resource when completed. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 83 published by scholink inc. figure 5. biggest obstacles for student success in stem from teacher survey (n-27) several teachers gave feedback on using rain in their classrooms: high school chemistry teacher: “great learning opportunity! i want to try rain on my own now. high school physical science teacher: “this activity gave me an understanding of my students understanding of chemical reactions. this will be a great way to start my next unit on chemical reactions.” middle school teacher: “thanks you so much! the presentations, labs and remote work with the scientist using the scanning electron microscope were so engaging and educational. thank you for inspiring students?” 6. student feedback positive feedback from teachers was a desirable aspect of rain, but more importantly has been the amount of interest seen by students when performing rain in the classroom. a year-long study on using rain in the k-12 classroom was performed and students were asked a series of questions about the interest and effectiveness of rain. charts a and b in figure 6 show that students enjoyed the rain sessions, while having a positive impact on their interest in science and that they would like to have more rain labs. these studies were performed in schools with majority underrepresented populations and it was noteworthy that the rain experience showed positive impact across all student www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 84 published by scholink inc. demographics. in fact, after the rain session a 2.5-fold increase was seen from students in passion for science and interest in pursuing a career in science (rodriguez, 2018). figure 6. a. student enjoyment using rain b. students desire for more rain labs more applicable to the empirical formula labs, when the data is sorted solely for high school students whom were asked if the remote session helped them understand the lab (figure 7), almost 70% of students felt that using the remote access did indeed help in the understanding the experiment, with only a total of 18 students (7%) feeling like the rain session did not help. though this data is subjective, it should not be discounted that students have been actively engaged, enjoyed and felt these rain sessions have enhanced their learning experience. we asked students for comments after the experience. after reading several “this is cool” or “i enjoyed this experience”, two are apropos based on being from schools exclusively of underrepresented student populations that are from low socioeconomic areas as to why rain is a powerful educational tool: 10th grade physical science student: “actually got to see through a microscope. i learned what a microscope is useful for. didn’t know before.” 11th grade chemistry student: “i enjoyed connecting with scientist from other schools. it was great meeting college students who are interested in science.” www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 85 published by scholink inc. figure 7. increased understanding of empirical formula lab using remote access 7. rain extensions there are several rain labs available on the nano4me site, encompassing basic science principles, interdisciplinary and nano-based labs. there are also several published rain labs, including using mars as a platform to teach about mineral identification (rodriguez, 2018) and studying oxygen generation in space (ashcroft, 2018). furthermore, these labs come included with suggestions for implementation and differentiation for an array of grade levels or educational background. the empirical formula experiment is aimed at introducing the rain network to teachers and students. students can contact the rain network and utilize our instruments for science fair projects on an individual basis. during these sessions they may even talk with our scientist about their project. this would be a valuable resource in their research endeavors. teachers can also inquire about joining the nanotechnology professional development partnership (npdp) at nano4me.org/workshops, a web-based streaming service provided for educators interested in implementing rain, specifically nanotechnology-based experiments, into their high school curriculum. 8. conclusion people communicate differently today. with facebook, twitter, instagram, fortnite, and many more, students have become reliant and addicted to their technology. as teachers we need to progress in how we implement technology in our classrooms. if the most advanced technology students have access to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 86 published by scholink inc. in school is their cell phones, we will struggle keeping students interests. the rain network is a cost-effective method to bring advanced technologies to all high school classrooms. this is most important in providing technology to schools from low socioeconomic schools, many of which contain majority underrepresented students, where students do not have the opportunity to experience complex science experimentation due to low funding and no access to scientific resources. using the remote instrumentation in conjunction with scientific experimentation can keep students engaged in science. allowing students to work on their own rain experiments or science fair projects will assist in developing a sense of ownership, leading to an increase in passion for the sciences and a higher likelihood of pursuing a science education. acknowledgement vanessa wolf and christina lee are supported by build poder, funded by national institute of general medical sciences of the national institutes of health under award number rl5gm118975. ashley min, joel monroy and josée horton are supported by the early career undergraduate research experience (ecure) funded by the national science foundation advanced technical education under award number 1601813. references kardefelt-winther, d. (2017). how does the time children spend using technology impact their mental well-being, social relationships and physical activity? an evidence-focused literature review. in innocenti discussion papers (no. 2017-02). unicef office of research—innocenti, florence. hovardas, t., xenofontos, n. a., & zacharia, z. c. (2017). using virtual labs in an inquiry context: the effect of a hypothesis formulation tool and an experimental design tool on students’ learning. optimizing stem education with advanced icts and simulations, 58-83. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-5225-2528-8.ch003 moore, e. b., chamberlain, j. m., parson, r., & perkins, k. k. (2014). phet interactive simulations: transformative tools for teaching chemistry. journal of chemical education, 91(8), 1191-1197. https://doi.org/10.1021/ed4005084 ashcroft, j. m., cakmak, a. o., bautista, e., wolf, v., blatti, j., davis, d., … ehrmann, r. k. (2018). it’s raining: remotely accessible instruments in nanotechnology to promote student success. current issues in emerging elearning, 4(1), 63-99. rodriguez, b., wolf, v., bautista, e., timberlake, s., shiffley, j., smith, j., … ashcroft, j. (2018). bridging the gap between “rocks for jocks” and the mars sample return program: using nasa resources and remote access to promote geology. science scope, 41(8), 48-57. https://doi.org/10.2505/4/ss18_041_08_48 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 2, 2019 87 published by scholink inc. ashcroft, j. m., min, a., bojanini, i., hacopian, m., schroeder, k., cakmak, a. o., & rodriguez, b. (2018). cultivating mars: a problem-based learning lab designing an oxygen-rich environment on the red planet. journal of laboratory chemical education, 6(1), 4-11. nguyen, d., nooruddin, f., & backa, n. (2012). determining empirical formula of magnessium oxide and the chemical formula of a hydrate. marked by teachers. http://www.markedbyteachers.com/as-and-a-level/science/determining-the-empirical-formula-ofmagnesium-oxide-and-the-chemical-formula-of-a-hydrate.html. 2012 rodriguez, b., jaramillo, v., wolf, v., bautista, e., portillo, j., brouke, a., … ashcroft, j. m. (2018). contextualizing technology in the classroom via remote access: using space exploration themes and scanning electron microscopy as tools to promote engagement in multidisciplinary geology/chemistry experiments. journal of technology and science education, 8(1), 86-95. https://doi.org/10.3926/jotse.341 frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no.2, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 107 original paper connotation and practice path of how intelligent technology improving the education level of the elderly xia wenjing 1* 1 zhejiang open university, zhejiang provience, hangzhou 310012, zhejiang, china * xia wenjing, corresponding author received: march 28, 2023 accepted: may 18, 2023 online published: may 26, 2023 doi:10.22158/fet.v6n2p107 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v6n2p107 fund this work was supported by the project of zhejiang province association for higher education “research on the construction of media information literacy cultivation system for the elderly for common prosperity” (kt2022414). abstract with the development of technology, the educational ability of the elderly will be greatly improved. the improvement of the education ability of the elderly emphasizes the connotation construction and quality improvement on the basis of quantity. the value of intelligent technology to enhance the education ability of the elderly is mainly reflected in the ability of carrying, updating and sharing resources, the utilization ability of quality teachers, the supporting service ability of learning space, and the systematic evaluation ability of education for the elderly. high quality to realize elderly education development, the school management, teachers’ teaching and students learning three levels to build the intelligent technology can assign elderly education ability model, and put forward should be from the logical dimension, ethical dimension, quality dimension and evaluation degree consider intelligent technology can assign elderly education ability promotion path. keywords intelligent technology, education for the elderly, high quality 1. introduction new technologies in the digital age are emerging in an endless stream. intelligence and digitalization make the society operate more efficiently, but they also bring an insurmountable “digital divide” to many elderly people. how the elderly adapt to, who will help the elderly, this is placed in front of the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 108 published by scholink inc. society will solve a problem. the essence of this problem is that the media information literacy of the elderly is not enough to cope with the development needs of the current digital society, and it is difficult to deal with various problems in the digital life situation. the key to solve this dilemma is to help the elderly to cross the “digital divide” by carrying out education for the elderly (oecd, 2021). this paper first explains the core essence of elderly education ability promotion and intelligent technology can assign the elderly education ability of fit, then indicates the intelligent technology can assign the elderly education ability promotion value, finally from the school management, teachers teaching and students learning three aspects to build intelligent technology can assign elderly education ability promotion model, and put forward intelligent technology can assign the elderly education ability promotion should follow the four dimensions, namely, logic, ethics, quality and evaluation degree, in order to realize the elderly education high quality development to provide useful reference. 2. the core of the education ability of the elderly the improvement of the education ability of the elderly includes two major elements, one is the education for the elderly, and the other is the improvement of the ability. in 2002, the world congress on aging adopted the world health organization’s “active aging” proposal of the initiative in the—policy framework for active aging (active aging: a policy framework). since then, education for the elderly has gradually been paid great attention by the research community, and its research results have been emerging, actively promoting the sustainable development of education for the elderly. as an important link in the construction of lifelong education system, education for the elderly is the key issue that needs to be directly regarded and focused on in the development of education modernization. it has the following characteristics: take the elderly as the object, to improve the quality of life and life quality of the elderly as the purpose, follow the physical and mental development characteristics of the elderly, take to help the elderly “learning, music, for” teaching means, so as to meet the diversified and personalized needs of the elderly. in addition, ability refers to the effectiveness reflected in completing a goal or task, which is mainly divided into high-level ability and low-level ability (jamy li, 2015). among them, high-level ability not only pays attention to the increase of quantity, but also emphasizes the improvement of quality, which is in line with the concept of high-quality development of education for the elderly in the new era. therefore, it can be inferred that the improvement of education ability for the elderly pays attention to the connotative construction and emphasizes the increase from “quantity” to “quality”, which belongs to the category of high-level ability, and refers to the effectiveness of education for the elderly to achieve the goals set by it. in other words, the elderly education ability promotion is the elderly group lifelong learning demand oriented, learning service satisfaction for the purpose, is the transformation and upgrading of traditional elderly education, is the high quality development concept application in the field of elderly education and deepening, the final aim is to meet the needs of aging group lifelong learning and actively respond with an aging population. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 109 published by scholink inc. 3. intelligent technology enables the connotation of improving the education ability for the elderly (1) improve the capacity of carrying, updating and sharing of resources due to the limitations of various factors, the traditional education for the elderly has its insufficient resource carrying capacity and the process of resource regeneration is relatively slow. its educational resources have lagged behind the development requirements of the intelligent era, and it is difficult to achieve a compatible state. in addition, the sharing mechanism of traditional educational resources for the elderly is not perfect, and the lack of network platform support, which is an important bottleneck restricting the sharing of educational resources for the elderly. under the background of the intelligent era, intelligent technology enables education for the elderly, which can realize the bearing, updating and comprehensive sharing of high-quality education resources for the elderly to the greatest extent, and then form an intelligent resource system with clear modules, substantial content and unique characteristics, so as to promote the fair and balanced development of education for the elderly. the current emerging intelligent cloud computing, big data, resource database and other intelligent technologies, the important role in the education of the elderly is mainly reflected in the “improvement of the resource carrying capacity and communication capacity”. the first is as the carrier and update tool of educational resources for the elderly. with the characteristics of its large reserve of resource information, intelligent technology can accommodate the knowledge and skills needed for education and teaching for the elderly, and integrate them into a number of systematic and organized modular databases, which can improve the convenience of resource acquisition. in addition, the learning career of the elderly will continue after retirement. the learning resources for the elderly cannot be used for a long time. they need to keep up with the social development, keep pace with the times and constantly innovate. in the era of rapid updating of knowledge and skills, intelligent technology provides teaching resources in line with the education of the times, and constantly updates the data database in time, so as to promote the elderly to keep pace with the development of the times through the constantly updated information resources. second, it is an effective means for the comprehensive sharing of educational resources for the elderly. with its unique development advantages, intelligent technology can build a resource sharing system, smooth the data resource sharing channel, so that all the elderly can share high-quality education resources. (2) improve the ability to use high-quality teachers high-quality teachers is the key to boost the high-quality development of education for the elderly and to meet the diversified learning needs of the elderly. with its unique advantages, intelligent technology can effectively integrate the resources of education teachers for the elderly, maximize the utilization rate of teachers, and alleviate the dilemma of insufficient source of teachers. the construction of the national education teacher database for the elderly is an important embodiment. although some provinces and cities have set up local education teachers for the elderly, the national education teachers for the elderly has not been established, which is not conducive to the sharing of education teacher www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 110 published by scholink inc. resources for the elderly among regions. the establishment of the national elderly education teachers library must leave the strong support of intelligent technology, it needs powerful cyberspace and data mining, screening and other intelligent technology to collect, integration of high quality elderly education teachers, and then according to its professional differences and different classification, and continuously update teachers’ personal information, in order to accurately meet the actual demand of elderly education for teachers. in other words, the national education teacher database for the elderly established through intelligent technology is a process of integrating, classifying and updating “scholars, talented and powerful people” in different fields and majors, and accurately matching and docking with the education for the elderly (kapetanaki andrianthi et al., 2022). to sum up, based on intelligent technology can effectively build a high level, high level and professional national elderly education teachers, realize the elderly education quality teachers resource sharing and accurate docking, improve the use of elderly education quality teachers ability, drive elderly education sustainable and healthy development, to implement the national strategy actively coping with an ageing population. (3) improve the support and service ability of the learning space learning space, to support the construction of the service system, aims to provide students with more comfortable, more convenient, more intelligent support services. intelligent technology application in elderly education makes elderly education broke through the limitation of time and space, through the “online and offline, entity + virtual” learning space, for the elderly created with intelligent, human nature, universal ubiquitous learning space, which helps to enhance the personalized learning of the elderly, promote the elderly cognition, skills, emotion, and the all-round development of body and mind. on the one hand, the intelligent technology connects the “physical + virtual” learning space, making the virtual space become an effective platform for the knowledge production and communication of the elderly. with the support of intelligent technology, education for the elderly, the enable the elderly to conduct exercises and practical operation in the virtual space, provide greater fault tolerance for their learning, and eliminate some psychological burden of the elderly. for example, when using smart phones to pay, the elderly have the fear of being afraid of making mistakes or being cheated, while the virtual learning space can help the elderly overcome the “technology phobia” and solve their worries about the use of smart phones. (nish yu, 2022) on the other hand, intelligent technology connects the “online + offline” learning space, which has become an important way for the innovation and development of education for the elderly. through modern intelligent technology, it can be effectively realized as follows: first, it can build an all-round, full-scene and whole-process seamless learning environment in the form of learning space; second, it creates multi-dimensional and zero-time learning service to promote accurate, open and shared personalized learning. in a word, making full use of modern intelligent technology can achieve the expansion and integration of “online + offline” learning space, form a distributed place containing different attributes, different functions and other spatial factors, provide effective and convenient material field for the learning of the elderly, and then meet the multi-level learning needs of the elderly. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 111 published by scholink inc. (4) improve the systematic evaluation ability of education for the elderly the traditional evaluation of education for the elderly is in a static and localized state, and has not yet formed a dynamic and systematic evaluation, and even the evaluation link is missing in the whole teaching syllabus. however, intelligent technology enables the education for the elderly to create unique technical advantages for improving the evaluation of the elderly education system, contributes to the construction of a systematic comprehensive evaluation system of education for the elderly, and promotes the evaluation of education for the elderly to present a more scientific, more real, more objective and more dynamic trend. block chain technology, for example, as a kind of distributed accounting technology, can with its marks and tampering, tracking the information of the elderly, obtain and interpret the elderly “dynamic + static + recessive, recessive” data, fully present the elderly learning process and results of learning transcripts, for the elderly draw comprehensive evaluation report, and timely feedback to the elderly, so as to realize the development of the elderly learning evaluation. in addition, the intelligent agent as a kind of active service way actively complete some operation program, with autonomy, personalized and intelligent, and intelligent situation awareness, automatic data collection, mining and analysis, to identify in the elderly education, the elderly learning process detailed data systematic, dynamic evaluation, and help elderly education teachers to further grasp the elderly students learning status, progress, etc., optimize the learning path, realize the facilitation of elderly education and personalized management. in short, the relevant intelligent technology can construct a dynamic comprehensive evaluation system for the elderly, improve the systematic evaluation ability of education for the elderly, so as to change the imperfect or even missing evaluation link of traditional education for the elderly, and provide evaluation means for creating high-quality education for the elderly. 4. intelligent technology enables the practical path to improve the education ability of the elderly (1) improve the school management ability from the management level of schools for the elderly, enrollment, asset management, campus monitoring and other aspects can be taken as an important entry point for empowerment. first of all, the process of college enrollment for the elderly requires the intervention of intelligent technology, which plays an indispensable practical role in ensuring the process of smooth online registration for the elderly. apply 5g key technologies to university websites for the elderly to give them faster access speed and a more optimized user experience. in other words, as one of the important key technologies of 5g, the minimalist carrier technology is more compatible, which can effectively improve the network throughput rate, reduce the interference between signals, and improve the user data rate and energy utilization rate. in addition, database, code programming and other technologies can be integrated and applied to the elderly education registration website, improve the system rate of the elderly education website, and provide the optimal experience and convenience for online registration www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 112 published by scholink inc. for the elderly. secondly, intelligent technology builds a smart asset management model for the elderly schools. in order to realize the monitoring and data statistics of the circulation and use of all assets in their life cycle, achieve scientific, sustainable and efficient management standards, and improve the quality level of asset management, an intelligent asset management mode can be built by relying on intelligent technology. for example, the remote asset management system for the education for the elderly should be established to quickly integrate and process asset information, and timely supervise and check the circulation of assets. in case of abnormal changes, the system will immediately generate relevant information and issue warnings, so as to avoid the loss or improper use of education assets for the elderly. finally, the intelligent technology supports the elderly campus monitoring. with management cloud, digital cloud and security cloud as the service platform, artificial intelligence, 5g high-speed network as the support, software and hardware integration as the means, and highly integrated as the goal, we will actively build a 5g smart campus for the elderly. in the practical application process, the efficient introduction of face recognition, one-button alarm, intelligent bracelet and other intelligent equipment, the establishment of intelligent security monitoring system and intelligent security system covering the whole school, and the construction of a credible, controllable, traceable elderly university network security system. (2) improve teachers’ teaching ability from the perspective of teacher teaching, the transformation of teachers ‘teaching role, the diversity of teachers’ teaching means and the convenience of teachers’ teaching management can be taken as an important starting point of empowerment. first, educational robots and intelligent mentors are used to help change the role of educational teachers for the elderly. on the one hand, educational robots, as an important tool to promote the development of education, can also be applied in the field of education for the elderly. on the other hand, an important application in the field of education is the intelligent tutor, which can adopt natural language processing and speech recognition technologies, and make special plans for students according to their interests, habits and learning needs. this is reflected in the practice field of education for the elderly, which is manifested as: combining intelligent mentors and data mining technology, collecting and analyzing the relevant data of the elderly, and analyzing the development rules and learning characteristics of the elderly more deeply and micro with big data to form a professional report. this makes the elderly education teachers develop from the physical educator to the dual role of the integration of virtual and real. secondly, intelligent technology helps teachers to modernize their teaching means. with the support of intelligent technology, the education teachers for the elderly can transform the traditional static teaching into the modern dynamic teaching by means of distance teaching, online teaching, multimedia teaching and experiential teaching. in addition, the application of intelligent teaching means will also www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 113 published by scholink inc. promote the upgrading of teachers’ teaching means. on the basis of enriching the modern teaching means of teachers, intelligent technology can help the elderly education teachers to master the ability to collect and analyze all-round and process big data, and then realize the update and upgrade of teaching means. finally, intelligent technology enables teachers to facilitate teaching management. build and improve the intelligent educational administration system and intelligent governance system to help teachers in classroom preparation, teaching plan formulation, problem research and teaching data sorting, so as to solve the problems of mechanization, low efficiency and insufficient participation in the traditional classroom teaching for the elderly. in addition, intelligent technologies such as learning data mining are introduced to clearly, intuitively and accurately present and connect the actual needs of the elderly, saving the steps and time of data collection and integration. thus, should use big data technology to improve teachers’ teaching management results for the purpose of accompanying data collection, integrated management and data resources open sharing, crisscross, three-dimensional interactive information circulation network, for the elderly education teachers accurately elderly teaching work to provide reliable data technical support. (3) improve students’ learning ability intelligent technology is applied to the learning level of students, and can be seamlessly integrated from three aspects: personalized learning, experiential learning, and emotional and resource needs. first of all, adaptive learning technology helps the elderly students to personalized learning. on the one hand, the nature of adaptive learning techniques is personalization, which can provide learners with learning support in line with their individual characteristics. in the field of elderly education, the elderly students are recommended based on their correlation, width, depth, learning style and different learning resources for the subject and object relationship between the remote or online elderly students and the platform, and the similarity of resource usage. secondly, virtual reality (vr) and augmented reality (ar) help elderly students with experiential learning. virtual technology is used to create intelligent, simulated, dynamic and multi-dimensional teaching situations for the elderly, so as to present knowledge more intuitively and comprehensively, increase the interest of the classroom, dilute the boredom of knowledge, and strengthen the sense of interaction and immersion of the elderly in learning. finally, emotional computing technology and intelligent perception technology can recommend or design accurate and most appropriate learning resources for elderly students on the basis of identifying and satisfying their emotions and emotions. on the one hand, emotion computing technology is a computer system that can perceive, recognize and understand human emotional states and make intelligent, sensitive and friendly responses to different emotions. in the field of education for the elderly, based on meaningful emotional data and the needs of the elderly as the main guidance, the algorithm to detect and understand the emotions of the elderly, should be used to obtain and analyze the emotional state of the elderly, and make the most appropriate feedback on their emotional changes, so www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 114 published by scholink inc. as to enhance the learning experience of the elderly in the real teaching environment. on the other hand, intelligent perception technology is based on physiological information recognition, natural language understanding and dynamic image processing, “human-centered intelligent information processing and control technology. applied in the field of elderly education is embodied in: can rely on learners social characteristics perception, identification technology and various portable sensor acquisition and analysis of the elderly physiological signal, learning style and preferences, understand the elderly learning progress, cognitive and emotional state, provide elderly students with related education resources supply and accurate learning path planning services. 5. conclusion in the future, education for the elderly cannot be separated from the development environment of the intelligent era. only relying on traditional ways will only delay the development process of education for the elderly and make it difficult to adapt to the pace of rapid social development. especially with the rapid development of the intelligent era and the in-depth expansion of intelligent technology in the field of education, education for the elderly only follows the pace of the intelligent era to promote the qualitative improvement of their own ability. in order to effectively improve the basic ability and development ability of education for the elderly, actively explore the model of intelligent technology to improve the education ability of the elderly from the three aspects of school management, teacher teaching and students’ learning, which will promote the high-quality development of education for the elderly. looking forward to the future, the application research of intelligent technology in the field of education for the elderly will continue to deepen, and the topic of intelligent technology and education for the elderly will also become a new focus of attention. at the same time, more professional researchers are needed to devote themselves to it and make due contributions to the high-quality development of education for the elderly in china. reference jamy, l. (2015). the benefit of being physically present: a survey of experimental works comparing copresent robots, telepressent robots and virtual agents. international journal of human-computer studies, 77, 23-37. kapetanaki, a., krouska, a., troussas, c., & sgouropoulou, c. (2022). exploiting augmented reality technology in special education: a systematic review. computers, (10). https://doi.org/10.3390/computers11100143 nish, y. (2022). research on the construction of digital resources for the elderly education under the background of smart pension. adult education in china, 11, 37-40. oecd. (2021). oecd digital education outlook2021: pushing the frontiers with artificial intelligence. blockchain and robots, oecd publishing, paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/589b283f-en frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 1 original paper effects of concept mapping teaching approach on secondary school students’ achievement in biology in kitui county, kenya benedict m. mwambua1*, fred n. keraro1 & patriciah wambugu1 1 department of curriculum, instruction and educational management, egerton university, egerton, njoro, kenya * corresponding author: fred n. keraro e-mail: fkeraro@egerton.ac.ke received: december 9, 2024 accepted: december 22, 2024 online published: january 4, 2025 doi:10.22158/fet.v8n1p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v8n1p1 abstract this study investigated the impact of the concept mapping teaching approach (cmta) on biology achievement among year four students in selected secondary schools in kitui county, kenya. the solomon four non-equivalent control group design was used. the target population included all secondary school biology students, while the accessible population comprised form four students from co-educational secondary schools in the county. a purposive sample of four secondary co-educational sub county schools was selected. two schools were randomly assigned as experimental groups and the remaining two schools served as control groups. the study sample comprised 173 form four biology students. biology achievement test (bat) was used to collect data. the bat was validated by five experts. the reliability of bat was estimated using cronbach’s alpha coefficient formula. this yielded a reliability coefficient of 0.78. one-way anova, ancova and t-tests were used to analyze data at 0.05 level of significance. results indicated that students exposed to cmta showed significant improvements in their biology performance. additionally, the study findings indicate that ctma bridged the gender disparity in achievement. keywords concept mapping teaching approach (cmta), biology achievement, secondary school student, learning biology www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 2 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction science is a vital vehicle for industrial and technological development. science, technology & innovations (st&i) is key in industrialization, economic growth and achievement of sustainable development goals (sdgs) (republic of kenya, 2021). kenya is among the african nations that aim to accomplish the seventeen sdgs by 2030, as per the united nations summit that took place in new york in 2015. in addition, kenya aspires to transform the economy as per its overall objective, “transform kenya into a newly industrializing, middle income country that can provide high quality of life to all its citizens by the year 2030 in a clean and secure environment” (republic of kenya, 2021). biology, as a cornerstone of life sciences, plays a vital role in addressing some of humanity’s most pressing challenges, aligned with sdgs like eradicating extreme poverty, mitigating hunger through food security and enhanced nutrition and ensuring healthy lives for all. here is how biology contributes to these goals. biological knowledge forms the basis of agriculture, which is a major contributor to kenya’s economic growth. biological knowledge has been employed by researchers to produce fast maturing crop varieties and animal breeds that are both resistant to diseases and high yielding facilitating the feeding of ever increasing world’s population. the student with an interest to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (stem), need to achieve a quality grade in biology at kenya certificate of secondary education (kcse) examination. kcse results between 2017 to 2022 indicate poor achievement in biology (knec, 2022). biology results at kcse for the sampled years (2017-2022) demonstrate poor performance as they range between 23.26% and 29.50% (knec, 2022). low achievement would mean that learners may not have acquired basic understanding of biological concepts and skills. this could signal that mastery of biological concepts presents major challenges to secondary school students. this low achievement in biology has raised serious concerns among education officers, parents, schools’ board of managements (bom) and school sponsors (knec, 2017). this prevailing poor performance has been partly blamed on the use of unproductive teaching approaches by biology teachers, with majority settling on the application of conventional teaching methods (ctm). available data indicates that implementing various teaching approaches that engage learners can improve both academic performance and the desire to learn the subject (ajaja, 2013; smith, 2010; kinchin, 2011; ongowo, keraro & okere, 2011; o’neill & mcmahon, 2005; stanisavljević & stanisavljević, 2014). to realize excellent performance of this core science subject, it is imperative that those biology teachers use leaner-centered active learning strategies. this is because learner-centered strategies have been found to enhance learning (ministry of education, 2012). additionally, it has been established that the commonly applied method is the chalk and talk method (abogonye, 2015). this study also took into account the gender disparities in biology achievement. according to the kenya national examination council (knec) (2021), girls achieved lower grades in kcse biology examinations compared to boys. gender stereotyping is the cause of gender inequality (unesco, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 3 published by scholink inc. 2021). this study investigated the impact of using concept mapping in bridging the gender disparity in achievement in biology. concept maps are the graphical tools used by learners to visually represent concepts and their interrelationships. they consist of at least two concepts connected by a linking word forming a proposition (novak, 1984). this approach integrates multiple diagrams to justify, yet explain the relationship between two concepts and another by showing clearly the link between the superordinate concept and the subordinate one, thus helping to improve the understanding of the concepts. the procedural concept is made seamless by introducing these through pyramids that help arrange concepts in hierarchical order. ongowo, keraro, and okere, (2011) found that the use of concept mapping in the teaching of biology enhanced learners’ attitude towards the subject and thus equally improving achievement. their finding suggests that the use of a more interactive approach, students’ engagement can be enhanced and thus improve their achievement. a study by enebechi and nzewi, (2021), has shown that the use of cmta is able to enhance students’ achievement. this study also showed that, the use of cmta is capable of bridging the gender disparity in achievement. 1.1 the purpose of the study the purpose of this study was to analyze how the concept mapping teaching approach (cmta) impacted on the academic achievement of high school biology students in kitui county, kenya. 1.2 objectives of the study the specific objectives that guided this study were to: i. examine if there exists a statistically significant difference in students’ performance in biology between the students taught using cmta compared to those taught using ctm. ii. investigate if there is a gender difference in achievement in biology when concept mapping teaching approach (cmta) is used. 1.3 hypotheses of the study hypotheses tested were: h01: there is no statistically significant difference in achievement in biology between students who were taught using cmta and those who taught using ctm h02: there is no statistically significant gender difference in achievement in biology when instructed using cmta. 1.4 conceptual framework constructivist learning theory served as the foundation for the study’s conceptual framework. in this study the concept mapping teaching approach is considered an effective intervention during the teaching-learning process on the topic of support and movement in animals as shown in figure 1. figure 1 provides a graphical representation of the study’s conceptual framework. the left side of the figure displays the independent variables, the central section is dedicated to the intervening variables and the right side is designated for the dependent variables. the independent variables included www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 4 published by scholink inc. concept mapping teaching approach (cmta) and conventional teaching methods (ctm). achievement in biology is the dependent variables in this study. figure 1. conceptual framework for determining the effect of employing cmta on secondary schools students’ achievement in biology however, there were two more variables: the classroom environment and the characteristics of the teacher. these were intervening variables which needed to be checked. for this study, teacher characteristics included teacher qualifications and teachers’ work experience. to control on these, all the teachers involved had at least a diploma in education qualification and a minimum of at least three years teaching experience. for the learners’ academic ability, sub–county schools were used because they enroll students with comparable academic abilities based on their kenya certificate of primary education examination (kcpe) results. in this study, gender served as a confounding variable that could affect how an independent and dependent variable were related to one another, githae, keraro and wachanga (2015). to control for this variable, the researcher used co-educational institutions where students of both gender share a classroom. gender as a variable also formed part of the study. 2. research methodology the research design used for this study was the solomon iv non-equivalent control group approach. this design is adequate for studies that are not pure experiments. secondary school classes were treated as one large unit; this disallowed teacher to divide them into respective parts for use with research purposes (gall, gall, & borg, 2015). the solomon four non-equivalent control group design: teacher characteristics • qualification • experience classroom environment ▪ school type ▪ learners’ academic abilities students’ gender • boys • girls intervening variables learners’ outcome • learners’ scores on bat dependent variables teaching methods • cmta • ctm independent variables www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 5 published by scholink inc. figure 2. solomon four, non-equivalent control group design where: o1 and o3 were pre-tests: o2, o4, o5 and o6 were post-tests. dotted lines signified that students existed as intact groups hence no randomization of students were done. dash (-) implied no pre-test was carried out in groups iii and iv. x was the treatment which represented learners that were taught using concept mapping teaching approach (cmta). c was the control condition which implied teaching support and movement in animals using lecture method. group i took the pretest as a member of the experimental group, received the therapy (x) and then completed a post-test. group ii served as the control group, which took a pre-test, experienced the control condition (c) and subsequently took a post-test. group iii was another experimental group that received therapy x and a post-test, but no pre-test. group iv functioned as a second control group and was administered only the post-test. the lecture method was employed to instruct groups ii and iv. 2.1 target population and accessible population the study’s target group was all kitui county secondary school biology students with an average age of 18 years. form four biology students from sub-county co-educational schools were the accessible population. 2.2 sample size and sampling procedures the study sample had 173 students. purposive sampling was used to select the schools that participated in the study. purposive sampling is referred to as the process of selecting cases that manifest the phenomenon of interest (mugenda & mugenda, 2013). this is because not all sub-county schools had all the requirements for the research. the requisites for the schools were a science laboratory that can adequately cater for science experiments, almost equal numbers of boys and girls in a class and tutors of biology subjects with teaching experience of at least three years and a minimum qualification of a diploma in secondary education. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 6 published by scholink inc. 2.3 instrumentation data was collected using the biology achievement test (bat). the bat had 25 items drawn from the topic support and movement in animals. the test items were short answer items. the scores for the test items ranged from 1 to 4 marks. these scores totaled 60 marks, which were then converted to a percentage out of 100%. all items adapted an open-ended format. bat was validated by five research experts in science education. a pilot test was carried out at two kitui county sub county schools, separate from those included in the main study. the pilot study results were used to estimate the reliability of the bat. cronbach’s coefficient alpha formula was used to estimate the reliability because the test items were not dichotomously scored. the bat achieved a reliability coefficient of 0.78, which is above the threshold of 0.70 (mugenda & mugenda, 2003). 2.4 data collection procedures bat was administered as a pre-test to two groups; one experimental group and one control group before the treatment. thereafter, experimental groups were taught using cmta while the control groups were taught using the ctm. all groups were taught by their regular teachers. after four weeks of the intervention, all four group categories received a post-test bat. 2.5 data analysis procedure pre-test scores were analysed using the t-test to test the homogeneity of the groups before treatment. to test hypothesis one, the post-test scores for the four groups were analysed using a one-way anova. a t-test was employed to test hypotheses two. all tests were checked for significance at a 0.05 alpha level of significance. 3. results 3.1 pre-test results the pre-test was very significant in making sure that the control and experimental groups were equivalent. an independent sample t-test was done to determine if there was a significant difference in the averages of the scores for the two groups. the results of the t-test are shown in table 1. pre-test bat scores for boys and girls were compared to find out if the groups were comparable. table 1. pre-test mean scores on bat and independent samples t-test results group 1, n=36; group 2, n=44; boys =38 girls=42 variable group mean sd df t-value p-value method of instruction group 1 group ii 16.47 16.84 5.02 5.09 78 0.2936 0.7698 gender boys 17.10 5.93 0.6489 0.5183 girls 16.29 5.09 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 7 published by scholink inc. the results in table 1 indicate that at a 0.05 significance level, the difference between the mean scores of groups i and ii was not statistically significant, with t(78)=0.2936, p=0.7698, and p>0.05. therefore, the two groups were comparable and appropriate for use in the study. 3.2 post -test results 3.2.1 the impact of cmta on students’ biology performance ho1 aimed at determining whether there was a significant difference in achievement in biology between students who were taught using cmta and those who taught using ctm. the impact of cmta on students’ biology performance was assessed by analyzing the post-test bat mean scores. table 2 shows the mean scores for the four groups. table 2. students’ post-test bat mean scores for four groups group n mean sd group i group ii group iii group iv 36 44 47 46 30.055 22.022 30.127 23.279 8.042 7.283 8.940 7.159 according to the results in table 2, the experimental groups i (m=30.055, sd=8.042) and iii (m=30.127, sd=8.940) had higher mean scores compared to the control groups ii (m=22.022, sd=7.283) and iv (m=23.279, sd=7.159). this demonstrates that in the bat post-test, experimental groups outperformed control groups. an anova was conducted to assess if there were statistically significant differences in the group mean scores. the results are presented in table 3. table 3. results of post-test bat anova scale sum of squares df mean squares f-ratio p-value between treatment within treatment total 2329.0552 10528.8176 12857.8728 3 169 172 776.3517 62.3007 f=12.4613 0.000* the results in table 3 indicate that with f (3, 169)=12.4613 and p=0.000*, there was a statistically significant difference between groups at the 0.05 level. due to this, it was necessary to identify where the differences between the group means existed using the post hoc pairwise multiple comparisons test. since it may be applied to any combination of statistical tests, the bonferroni test was thought to be the most suitable option when conducting multiple comparisons (howel, 2002). table 4 presents the results. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 8 published by scholink inc. table 4. pairwise post-hoc multiple comparisons test results for post-test bat mean scores across the four groups group (i) group (j) mean difference(i-j) p-value group i group i group i group ii group ii group iii group ii group iii group iv group iii group iv group iv 8.032 0.0721 6.4251 8.1049 1.6077 6.4972 0.000* 1 0.0019 0.000* 0.769 0.000* table 4 results show that group pairs i and ii (p=0.000*), i and iv (p=0.0019), ii & iii (p=0.000*) and iii & iv (p=0.000*) differed significantly from one another. nonetheless, there was no statistically significant difference between group ii & iv (p=0.769) and group i & iii (p=1). additionally, it was noted that there was a statistically significant difference in favor of the experimental groups between the mean scores of the control and experimental groups. it can be, therefore, argued that this variation was occasioned by the use of cmta in the intervention. 3.3 achievement levels of male and female students exposed to cmta h02 of the study stated that there is no significant gender difference in achievement in biology between students exposed to cmta. this hypothesis was tested by analyzing the mean scores obtained by boys and girls in the post-test bat after they had been subjected to cmta. the t-test was used to test whether there was a statistically significant difference between the mean scores of the male and female students. the results are presented in table 5. table 5. t-test results of post-test bat mean scores for male and female students exposed to cmta gender mean sd df t-value p-value boys 30.36 11.27 76 -0.302 0.3816 girls 29.79 7.19 results in table 5 show that the mean score of the male students was slightly higher (m=30.36, sd=11.27) than that of female students (m=29.79, sd=7.19). however, there was no statistically significant difference between the two means at the 0.05 level: t(76)=-0.302, p>0.05. this would suggest that both the male and female students equally benefited from the implementation of cmta. therefore, hypothesis two of the study is accepted. the results of the study establish that there is no statistically significant gender variance in achievement when students are exposed to cmta. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 9 published by scholink inc. 4. discussion the results of this study indicate that the experimental groups exposed to the concept mapping teaching strategy had significantly better achievement compared to the control groups, the null hypothesis (h01) was rejected. the study’s results depicted that the students taught using cmta registered better bat scores compared to students instructed by ctm. the findings also support a study reported by keraro, wachanga and orora (2007). their study concludes that form two secondary school students who were instructed using cooperative concept mapping performed better than students instructed conventional methods. the results also agrees with wambugu (2011), who revealed that experiential cooperative concept mapping did enhance the achievement of a secondary school students in physics. the current findings also concur with githae, keraro and wachanga (2015) which revealed that collaborative concept mapping teaching approach in a secondary school enhances achievement in biology. objective two sought to investigate if the application of concept mapping teaching approach (cmta) among boys and girls elicits a difference in biology attainment. the results of the study have established that there is no statistically significant gender difference in achievement when students are exposed to cmta. the same results also indicate that students who were taught using cmta scored far above those taught using ctm. the study’s findings are consistent with the works by ayimbila and akantagriwon (2021), which examined the effects of incorporating concept mapping into instructional strategies and using discussion webs for biology students. their research explored how these methods influenced students’ academic performance while learning and teaching genetic concepts. the findings of this research align with okoronka’s (2020) study, which suggested that the concept mapping strategy has the potential to enhance learner performance by improving conceptual understanding and comprehension, without any gender bias. concept maps, according to izci and akkoc (2023), are found to be very effective in enhancing academic achievement and therefore should be used in the education process. conclusions of this study also buttress wanjala, whose study in (2023) investigated the effects of advanced organizer concept mapping teaching technique on academic achievement and physics learning and motivation of secondary school students in rongai sub-county in kenya. according to wanjala, teaching secondary school students by using an organizer concept mapping raises their level of achievement. the findings of this study corroborate with those of ogonnaya, okechukwu and ugama (2016) which found out that the concept mapping approach is superior to the conventional approach in fostering both achievement and retention in basic science. results obtained from this study concur with those of woldeamanuel, abate and berhane (2020) which found out that students taught using concept mapping had higher scores in achievement test than those taught using conventional teaching methods. the findings of this study further agrees with those of tete and cornelia (2020), in their study, they observed that concept mapping enhanced students’ achievement in social studies. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 10 published by scholink inc. 5. conclusions the findings of this study indicate that: i. the use of cmta for instruction in biology enhances students’ learning. ii. the use of cmta eradicates gender disparities in students’ achievement. 6. implications of the findings the results suggest that cmta boosts biology performance, and hence it is a more superior instructional strategy than ctm. this approach would improve kcse performance among girls, addressing their historically lower scores compared to boys. this makes cmta a more effective teaching method that reduces rote memorization and enhances cognitive learning. references abogonye, a. (2015). effect of two modes of concept mapping on students’ achievement in biology (unpublished med degree in biology project). university of nigeria, nsukka. ajaja, o. p. (2013). which strategy best suits biology teaching? lecturing, concept mapping, cooperative learning or learning cycle? electronic journal of science education, 17(1), 1-37. ayimbila, e. a., & akantagriwon, d. (2021). effect of concept mapping instructional strategy accompanied by discussion web on students' academic achievement in the concept of genetics. journal of education and practice, 5(3), 1-16. https://doi.org/10.47941/jep.668 enebechi, r. i., & nzewi, m. u. (2021). effects of concept mapping as instructional scaffolding on students achievement in biology. international journal of education, 2(1). gall, m., gall, j. p., & borg, w. r. (2015). educational research: an introduction (8th ed.). boston, ma: pearson. githae, k., & wachanga. (2015). effects of collaborative concept mapping teaching approach on secondary school students’ achievement in biology in nakuru north sub-county, kenya. global research journal of education, 3(5), 321-328. howel, d. c. (2002). statistical methods for psychology (5th ed.) izci, e., & akkoc, e. a. (2023). the impact of concept maps on academic achievement: a meta-analysis. heliyon 0(2023)23290. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e23290 kenya institute of education [kie]. (2006). teacher’s handbook for secondary biology. nairobi: kie. kenya national examination council. (2017). 2016 kcse examination report. knec, nairobi. kenya national examination council. (2021). 2020 kcse examination report. knec, nairobi. kenya national examination council. (2022). monitoring learner achievement among form two students’ in selected counties in kenya: a midline study. knec, nairobi. keraro, f. n., wachanga, s. w., & orora, w. (2007). effects of cooperative concept mapping teaching approach on secondary school students motivation in biology in gucha district, https://doi.org/10.47941/jep.668 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 11 published by scholink inc. kenya. international journal of science and mathematics education, 5(1), 111-124. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10763-005-9026-3 kinchin, i. m. (2000). concept mapping in biology. journal of biological education, 34(2), 61-68. https://doi.org/10.1080/00219266.2000.9655687 mugenda, o. m., & mugenda, a. g. (2013). research methods: quantitative and qualitative approaches. nairobi: acts press. novak, j. d., & gowin, b. d. (1984). learning how to learn. new york: cambridge university press. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9781139173469 ogonnaya, p. u., okechukwu, o. g. s., & ugama, a. j. o. (2016). effects of concept mapping instruction approach on students’ achievement in basic science mapping. journal of education and practice, 7(8), 2016 okoronka, a. u. (2020). effects of concept mapping instructional strategy and gender on secondary students achievement in difficult physics concepts in yola, nigeria. gombe journal of education (gomje), 2(1). ongowo, r. o., keraro, f. n., & okere, m. o. (2011) concept mapping: an interactive teaching strategy that enhances active learning and students’ achievement in biology. journal of education & pedagogy, iii(2), 1-12. o’neill, g., & mcmahon, t. (2005). student-centred learning: what does it mean for students and lecturers? in g. o’neill, s. moore, & b. mcmullin (eds.), emerging issues in the practice of university learning and teaching. dublin: aishe. muraya, d. n., & kimamo, g. (2011). effects of cooperative learning approach on biology mean achievement scores of secondary school students’ in machakos district, kenya. educational research and reviews, 6(12), 726-745. republic of kenya. (2021). science technology and innovations ecosystem in kenya. nairobi: government printer. smith, c.g. (2010). the project method in biology. school science and mathematics, 35, 83-88. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1949-8594.1935.tb12790.x stanisavljević, j., & stanisavljević, l. (2014). the application of concept maps in teaching invertebrate zoology. in d. krüger, & m. ekborg (eds.), powerful tools for learning in biology (chapter 13, pp. 197-211). berlin: freie univerzität berlin. tete, b. s., & cornelia, b. n. (2020). effect of concept-mapping technique on students’ academic performance in social studies in rivers state, nigeria. european journal of research in social sciences, 8(1), 84-91. unesco. (2021). unlocking the potential of girls in stem in kenya: report of an assessment to document the impact of unesco/gok stem mentorship programme. unesco. nairobi, kenya. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 12 published by scholink inc. wambugu, p. w. (2011). effects of experiential cooperative concept mapping instructional approach on secondary school students achievement and motivation in physics in nyeri county, kenya (phd thesis). egerton university. wanjala, j. n. (2023). effects of advance organizer concept mapping teaching strategy on secondary school students’ achievement and motivation to learn physics in rongai sub-county, kenya (unpublished master’s thesis). egerton univesity. woldeamanuel, y. w., abate, n. t., & berhane, d. e. (2020). effectiveness of concept mapping based teaching methods on grade eight students’ conceptual understanding of photosynthesis at ewket fana primary school, bahir dar, ethiopia yenenesh work. eurasia journal of mathematics, science and technology education, 16(12), em1918. https://doi.org/10.29333/ejmste/9276 frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 77 original paper perceptions from educators of implementing science of teaching reading curriculum: preparing teachers to be dyslexia therapists carol klages, ph.d., dyslexia therapist1 1 college of education and health professions, university of houston-victoria, usa received: august 10, 2024 accepted: september 15, 2024 online published: october 17, 2024 doi:10.22158/fet.v7n2p77 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v7n2p77 abstract teachers enter the educational field with a commitment to helping students learn. their students are the direct recipients of educators who actively participate in professional development opportunities. opportunities for professional development in how to evaluate learning to read curriculum are not as common as needed. using the connections: og in 3d®, a structured literacy curriculum, in-service educators who were working toward becoming a certified dyslexia therapist were given surveys to determine their perceptions of such professional development. keywords curriculum, evaluation, teachers, professional, development 1. introduction teachers enter the educational field with a commitment to helping students learn. their students are the direct recipients of educators who actively participate in professional development opportunities. teachers spend their careers modeling life-long learning. while teachers might acquire current information and instructional strategies on their own, teachers rely on professional development through outside agencies as well. teachers are assigned specific professional development by their school district, school administrator, or instructional coaches to learn new curriculum materials and practices. adopting a new curriculum is a significant process for teachers and students because teachers learn how to implement the curriculum, and students have opportunities to gain experience, current information, and ways of learning. a new curriculum can transform classrooms, students, and schools. in the realm of learning to read, research has been done to determine that learning to read curriculum should follow the science of teaching reading. opportunities for professional development abound in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 78 published by scholink inc. preparing educators to teach students to read, but do these opportunities focus training on the science of teaching read research? connections: og in 3d® is a structured literacy curriculum that systematically provides instructional strategies and materials that teachers use to teach any age student to read, even those with learning differences such as dyslexia. it is important to note such an important curriculum should not just be handed out on the first day of school to any teacher. for any curriculum to be beneficial, those who implement it must be skilled in how to use it correctly, purposefully, and effectively. 2. method 2.1 review of literature professional development (pd) designed for educators is identified as a selection of focused preparation, formal preparation, and specialized professional learning that is meant to provide professional knowledge to teachers, and administrators to expand knowledge, ability, expertise, and efficacy (ed glossary, 2013). professional development consists of workshops, professional learning communities, professional book clubs, and content specific training such as history museum tours. while teachers can search for professional development on their own to fulfill licensing requirements or certification requirements, most pd is chosen by school districts and local campuses. the use of professional development has been part of the culture of schools for a substantial number of years and has evolved since. according to bayar (2014), in the past, professional development has focused on teacher professionalism rather than evolving their instructional strategies of promoting student learning. in a survey of more than 8,000 teachers nationwide, thirty-nine percent state they engage collaboratively in pd weekly (rand, 2023). pd has grown to be a process of individual educators or educator groups engaging in either a formal or informal experience within a school setting (marcelo, 2009). according to lichtman (2017), a gap exists between the needs of k-12 schools and what teachers are taught to do during training opportunities. a study conducted by burke (2013), included four public school teachers and four university staff who provided their notes from pd, reflections from pd, observations, and questionnaires to determine how effective the pd was in terms of implementing innovative instructional strategies. it was determined that educators who are afforded more learning opportunities at their campuses were better able to initiate new strategies into classroom practice. burke (2013) also determined that educators who are given opportunities to practice various strategies and then reflect on the success of the strategies were more likely to continue to implement the information and materials that were learned in pd. they were also more likely to be receptive to feedback and coaching related to the new materials and information. when educators are encouraged to be actively engaged in their own learning, they are apt to work collaboratively with others towards a common goal (stewart, 2014). in addition, pd is more successful when teachers have a connection to a community of practice or work along with others toward the same purpose. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 79 published by scholink inc. a community of practice for educators who teach in public schools is the science of teaching reading. this commonality has become the standard of reading instruction nationwide in the last few years. the science of teaching reading is researched-based instructional practices and materials for effective teaching of students to read. years of research and evidence compiled determines what is important and what works in reading instruction (jiban, 2024). based on this plethora of research, effective reading instruction consists of the five pillars: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension (national reading panel, 2000). phonemic awareness is necessary to understanding an alphabetic language (wagner, torgesen, & rashotte, 1994). phonemic awareness is recognizing that spoken words consist of distinct parts of sound that meld together to make words. by identifying the point to which children develop phonemic awareness, researchers can detect who would learn to read easily and who would have difficulty (share, jorm, maclean, & matthews, 1984). phonemic awareness is important in learning to read. the second pillar of effective reading instruction is phonics. phonics is a relationship between letters and sounds from a spoken language that follow a specific set of rules. phonics is the combining of graphemes (letters and letter combinations) with phonemes (smallest unit of sound). instructional strategies should highlight the way spellings are related to speech sounds in a methodical manner (snow, burns, & griffin, 1998). according to foorman et al., (1998), phonics may not be consistent in its rules, however it is consistent enough to aid young readers in decoding unknown words. the third pillar of effective reading instruction is fluency. fluency is comprehension based on automatic word recognition, reading words accurately, inflection, and expression (moats & tolman, 2009). regardless of reading silently or aloud, fluency is significant because it permits the reader to concentrate mental attention on comprehension rather than word pronunciation (perfetti, 1985, 1988; pikulski & chard, 2005). a reader’s fluency should continually progress as he/she reads more complex texts. fluency is based on effective and efficient reading instruction. kilpatrick (2019) explains that the crucial element to fluency is a reader’s sight word vocabulary. without a sight word vocabulary, reading is effortful and often incorrect. the fourth component in effectual reading instruction is vocabulary. to communicate with others, students must have a working vocabulary. vocabulary comprises four types: listening, speaking, reading, and writing (learning point, 2004). relevant instructional strategies for improving student comprehension are long-term vocabulary instruction that is ongoing (beck, perfetti, & mckeown, 1982) as well as teaching vocabulary terms prior to a reading assignment. (brett, rothlein, & hurley, 1996; wixson, 1986). scarborough (2001) claims scope and depth as vital during vocabulary study. scope affects reading understanding while depth affects fluency (tannenbaum, torgeson, & wagner, 2006). vocabulary knowledge is vital to becoming a successful reader. the final pillar of effective reading instruction is comprehension. understanding what one reads is comprehension. gough and tunmer (1986) describe reading comprehension as decoding or word recognition, in addition to language comprehension. the skills a reader needs, word reading, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 80 published by scholink inc. vocabulary, syntax, background knowledge, inferencing, and attention, for comprehension must be taught (kilpatrick, 2015). the national reading panel (nrp) (2000) states that all the five pillars of effective reading instruction should be taught. the nrp also states that effective reading instruction is done in a systematic and explicit manner. as most schools rely on a curriculum that includes all the 5 components to meet the reading needs of their students and the teaching needs for their teachers, this research investigation used the connections: og in 3-d® (connections: og in 3-d) (frierson & scholtens, 2014) curriculum. connections: og in 3-d® is a learning to read curriculum designed with the five pillars of effective reading instruction in a systematic, explicit teaching approach. this curriculum is a structured literacy curriculum that encompasses the entire structure of the english language (klages & scholtens, 2020). each lesson provides direct, explicit instruction that is cumulative and sequential. this curriculum follows a scope and sequence process that includes the alphabetic principle with the order of rate of use; simplest to most complex. each concept is taught from the most concrete to abstract, via hands-on lessons using 3-d resources. 3-d resources developed from the orton-gillingham method of teaching reading which is a multisensory approach (gillingham & stillman, 1960, 1997). students can physically hold a 3-d object which promotes understanding and manipulation of sounds, letters, and words that they are reading. for illustration, a 3-d object used in this literacy curriculum would be an actual banana or a plastic banana that would represent the consonant sound /b/ sound in the word. the student can hold this banana, smell the banana, even taste the banana to internalize the sound the letter “b” makes. of course, eating the banana is only with parent permission. the curriculum connections: og in 3-d® was created on the philosophy and content of a multisensory structured language methodology. however, connections: og in 3-d®, moves beyond other orton-gillingham curriculums because it includes phonemic objects such as the banana mentioned above in the review of literature. as the reader is holding the object which represents the sound, he/she is learning, the student can “feel” the sound, supporting connections to the brain to recall the sound (klages & scholtens, 2020). additionally, connections: og in 3-d® curriculum incorporated visual, auditory, tactile, and kinesthetic learning opportunities while, also utilizing sounds, smells, and tastes which are senses often forgotten in other multisensory learning to read curriculums. connections: og in 3-d® teaches readers to pay attention to sound, spelling, meaning, and etymology along with phoneme-grapheme relationship and orthographic mapping. readers are taught to be aware that the english language is morphophonemic because layers of etymology and morphology are included. nonsense and real words, phrases, sentences, and connected texts are included to apply sound to symbol knowledge, spelling rules and patterns, grammar, and comprehension in each lesson. to guarantee automaticity, repeated distributive practice and checkpoints for mastery are designed within each lesson. cognitive energy is used to promote higher level comprehension as students learn syntax and semantics with the curriculum materials. connections: og in 3-d® created its name from the connectivity of the neural pathways in the brain that form a reader’s orthography, phonology, and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 81 published by scholink inc. semantics abilities based on seidenberg’s (2017) research. the foundation of effective reading instruction is “connected” and works together to produce reading success. 2.2 purpose of the investigation the purpose of this investigation is to identify the perceptions of in-service educators while learning a new, comprehensive reading curriculum to use in the upcoming school year. the learning to read curriculum is from the apple group connections: og in 3d® (frierson & scholtens, 2014) that reflects science-based reading research. 2.2.1 research design this research investigation is qualitative in design. a qualitative investigation collects, codes, and analyzes survey data to understand personal experiences (jansen, 2010). for this investigation, the word survey denotes the examination of specific people through lens of its members as practicing educators. this investigation utilizes a survey of in-service educators and their perceptions of utilizing a new learning to read curriculum (groves et al, 2004). the use of qualitative data requires some method to understand the data. for this investigation, open coding allowed unorganized data to be systematically ordered (punch, 2013). a code is a term or brief phrase that gives description to what is happening within the data collected. for this investigation, open codes were determined after examining the survey responses. a code was attached to the response (groves, 2004). this investigation used the same survey questions three times throughout the first training year. the participants were surveyed at the completion of year one of their dyslexia training course which involved learning, applying and evaluating the connections: og in 3-d® curriculum. this curriculum a learning to read curriculum designed with the five pillars of effective reading instruction in a systematic, explicit teaching approach. the survey was taken prior to the start of training, during the training or the end of the first year, and finally at the end of training, which was at the completion of the training or year two. the same survey questions/statements were given each time. what the in-service educators or participants responded to each survey question/statement was collected, analyzed, coded, and categorized for organization and understanding. 2.2.2 participants the participants in this investigation are all certified in-service educators within the state where they teach, each working to obtain training specific to becoming a certified dyslexia therapist. each participant agreed to a two-year commitment to complete the program. participants are from the following states: arkansas, missouri, and texas. a total of seventeen participants in this investigation began in the fall of 2017. as certified teachers, the range of grade levels taught was kindergarten to twelfth grade. only two participants voluntarily attended as the rest of the group were sent by a school/district administrator. all participants were females with a minimum of two years teaching experience apart from the participant who had a child at home that showed characteristics of dyslexia. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 82 published by scholink inc. 2.2.3 context of the investigation all participants had a minimum of seven days of hands-on training with the connections: og in 3-d® curriculum prior to the beginning of the certified dyslexia therapist program. this training was face to face with all participants working together. participants spent time listening to lectures about the science of teaching reading and oroton-gillingham multisensory teaching research, practicing teaching reading lessons from the curriculum, small group discussions and practice. the seventeen participants spent two years training how to become certified dyslexia therapists by attending face to face classes, completing required readings, pre and posttests, homework assignments, presentations as well as engaging in a practicum with at least two students who showed the characteristics of dyslexia. this practicum required initial screening of k-12 students, analyzing the screener results, applying the connections: og in 3-d® curriculum, recording video tapes of teaching, writing lesson plan, and taking formative and summative assessments. successful completion of these requirements as well as a final exam leads to the title of certified dyslexia therapist. connections: og in 3-d® curriculum is an accredited plus program by the international dyslexia association. all potential therapists had to complete a notebook with the results of screeners, lesson plans, video tapes of lessons, and analysis of student work. in addition to application of curriculum, the potential therapists had class assignments to complete such as, reading reflections, oral presentations, surveys, written reflections, and discussion group dialogues. for this investigation, a pre-survey was given prior to the beginning of the training, after the first year of the two-year training period, and at the completion of the two-year training. all required work for the in-service teachers was collected in a case study notebook. the surveys were only one aspect of the training. for this research investigation, the survey responses are the only elements analyzed. 2.2.4 data sources three data sources were identified as useful pieces of information to analyze within the context of the in-service teachers’ experiences. each participant was given survey questions before starting the program, during the program, and at the end of the program that were evaluated to identify patterns. a checklist was used to determine completion of all items required in the case study. the participant was to identify one or two students and conduct a screener with them to determine if they had a learning difference in reading. the participant used the connections: og in 3-d® curriculum to teach reading to the identified student (s). all lesson plans, testing data, student work, progress monitoring, and student biography (s) were collected within the case study. in addition, participant completion of program was noted along with identifying current employment status. only survey responses were analyzed for this research investigation and participant responses are provided as they were originally written. the following questions were used: before the training what do you wish you knew before you started? did you explain to the child why you were using multisensory methods? www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 83 published by scholink inc. how did you explain the orton-gillingham approach used in connections: og in 3-d®? during the training what are you glad you knew before you started? was it hard to fit a lesson into one day? were you surprised that the lessons went slower or faster than expected? after the training what was the most difficult challenge you faced? have you had any parent reactions yet? teacher reactions? 3. result in qualitative research, one priority prior to coding the data is to recognize what information is significant, locate that information, and organize that information in a manner that makes it easy to provide understanding (groves et all, 2004). the cohort group began training in connections: og in 3-d® curriculum in the summer of 2017. a total of seventeen participants began the program and eleven completed the program. two participants requested to move to the next year’s program, three did not finish the program. important to note, one of the participants did not have a case study on file for the apple group because she used it as a graduate course assignment. eleven participants of this cohort successfully completed the training earning the certified dyslexia therapist license. since the participant had training related to the science of teaching reading as well as multisensory teaching, the survey question asked, “did you explain to the child why you were using multisensory methods? how did you explain the orton-gillingham approach used in connections: og in 3-d® curriculum?” the participants had one week of training with the curriculum and related research prior to beginning their work with a student (s). all eleven participants stated that explaining connections: og in 3-d® curriculum to the student was important. students understand what they are to learn, how they will learn it, and demonstrate their skills. the in-service educators mostly provided comments of positivity: his brain works differently than other people’s brains i used a brain mold with stickers to show the rewiring of the brain i talked about how the brain remembers touch and hold objects to learn better most did not seem to care the younger did not seem interested while all did state they explained the curriculum to the student, two identified their students did not seem interested. it is not known why the students were not interested other than the participants’ perceptions. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 84 published by scholink inc. the before, during and after the training survey questions of the thirteen participants were analyzed. the first survey question given asked what they (participants) wished they knew prior to the beginning of the connections: og in 3-d® training. four categories of responses emerged: teacher-focused concerns versus student-focused concerns, and content-knowledge concerns versus application concerns. eleven responses to the question were teacher-focused concerns: the patience i needed organization skills clear understanding of the science of teaching reading stronger foundation in phonics and reading skills while it is important that participants, who are classroom teachers, want to focus on the teaching of reading for their students, most of the participants indicated their concerns regarding their confidence. since all but two participants were practicing educators, the level of confidence is low for a group who works with k-12 students on a regular basis. it is not known if the lack of confidence developed due to a new curriculum, connections: og in 3-d®, to learn or the actual topic of teaching students to read. the two comments directed to student concerns were a desire to know earlier when the student was having problems with reading and knowledge of student organizational skills. these concerns were specific to two of the participants’ prior experiences with a specific student rather than students in general. the next pattern that emerged was that of content-knowledge of reading curriculum versus application skills of reading curriculum. seven participants addressed the need for more content knowledge prior to the curriculum training. five of the participants commented on the desire for more application skills for teaching reading. some of the responses from the survey: i wish i knew the materials better so i would not be nervous some teaching of reading background knowledge blending dyslexia laws in our state another survey question posed before beginning the training, participants were asked what they were happy they already knew. again, the patterns of teacher-focused concerns versus student-focused concerns, and content-knowledge concerns versus application concerns were discovered. of the thirteen responses, seven of those were teacher-focused versus six student-focused responses. some of the teacher-focused comments made were: i’m glad i had a positive reading background i’m glad i have some knowledge of teaching kids i am glad i know the importance of hands-on in addition to teacher and student focused statements, content knowledge and application knowledge were identified within the responses. six of the participants made comments that were teacher-focused, such as, “i am glad i knew this curriculum was successful.” this statement is also considered to be www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 85 published by scholink inc. application-focused as a curriculum provides the information or content to teach as well as how to teach the content which is application focused. three of the responses were application-based. an example of this responses is, “i’m glad i have some knowledge of teachings kids.” there were five responses to this question that did not fit into any category. below are these responses: i’m glad i know i will get support. i’m glad i knew a dyslexia therapist. i already knew students. i’m glad i have done research on a student’s academic background. i was able to teach the older sister, so i had a student relationship already. the participants had to complete a case study using the connections: og in 3-d® curriculum. the survey questions related to applying the curriculum were analyzed. part of the case study is to teach reading lessons from the curriculum and reflect on the delivery. the survey questions posed were done while the participant was working with the student (s). this information was collected for the case study. the question posed at this point “was it hard to fit a lesson into one day?” all thirteen responded with yes. based upon fidelity, the connections: og in 3-d® curriculum should be used for a minimum of forty-five minutes to an hour. as such, not one participant was able to complete a lesson in the designated school day. some of the responses from this question were: even though i did not complete a lesson in an hour, there was improvement my student said, “you’ve got to listen to me read” the curriculum is influential in teaching students to read it takes longer than expected it moves slower than i thought rarely able to do more lesson in an hour connections: og in 3-d® lessons are not designed to be completed in one hour of teaching. as such, no one completed any lessons in one hour or designated school time. the lessons were divided up based upon student mastery. yet, the participants added comments that the time spent on the lessons was not as important as the learning to read. student growth surpasses time taught teaching this curriculum. another application-based survey question was “what was the most difficult challenge you faced?” only one participant stated she had no challenges at all. the rest of the responses were categorized as a teacher challenge or a student challenge. seven of the responses were identified as teacher-related challenges and two student-related challenges. teacher-related challenges were based on curriculum concerns such as: confidence in my knowledge with the curriculum specific lessons: vccv and vcv staying upbeat when a student is stuck in one lesson working with ed (emotional differences) students who need to learn to read www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 86 published by scholink inc. blending working with too many students at one time two responses were student related. the participants stated that they faced challenges with discipline and the child’s self-esteem. although, both challenges do have an element of teacher input. the last responses were beyond the control of the participant as it related to the amount of time spent working with students which neither teacher nor student had input. the survey question posed about student learning while using the curriculum were all affirmative. not one participant stated stagnation or loss of reading ability. all thirteen participants saw reading growth with their student (s). the final survey question was given at the end of the training when case studies were due. this question was “have you had any parent reactions yet? teacher reactions?” all participants responded to at least one of the given questions. eleven participants responded they had some type of positive reaction from the parent or parents of the student. some of the parent responses were: our son isn’t the same. he actually does his homework now. he wants to come to school. he doesn’t cry every night. who’s to blame for this? who do we need to thank? my son went from the 12% to the 85% parent said she could see a difference after two months five participants shared comments from their fellow teachers regarding how the curriculum affected them. some of those responses were: several teachers came to see me, and they went to the principal because they wanted the training. it’s too much for a classroom several teachers have stopped by my classroom to watch a lesson the supervising administrator complimented the work and the curriculum eleven participants submitted a completed case study in their path to being a certified dyslexia therapist. as such, eleven of the original seventeen participants earned the certified dyslexia therapist accreditation from the apple group. the apple group makes a point to stay abreast with these eleven therapists. eight of the therapists stayed active in teaching students to learn to read. one retired and then worked with the apple group parttime. one participant works as a dyslexia advocate for the state of arkansas while another one has moved to indonesia and trains teachers there using the connections: og in 3-d® curriculum. 4. discussion the purpose of this investigation was to identify the perceptions of in-service educators while they learn a new, comprehensive reading curriculum as a pathway for a dyslexia therapist certification. based on the prior knowledge and experiences of these participants, they have a sense of efficacy in their knowledge of teaching students. they understand the importance of learning to read. this www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 87 published by scholink inc. understanding is demonstrated in the survey question of what they already knew before coming to training. previous positive knowledge does set the expectations for learning a new curriculum. stated previously, educators are more likely to utilize strategies and ideas that they see are successful. examples of this continued use of connections: og in 3-d® curriculum is tied to the survey responses from the educators who felt confident in their new knowledge of this learning to read curriculum. several educators mentioned that their colleagues want the training, as well as the concept of continued support. all these factors contribute to the successful use of the curriculum for the future. an important element of professional development is the idea of one actively engaging in one’s own learning. each of the participants demonstrated this idea by completing the three surveys (pre, during, and post). statements such as: i’m glad i had a positive reading background i’m glad i have some knowledge of teaching kids i am glad i know the importance of hands-on recognizing one’s own learning is important because the next step leads to identifying what one does not yet know. a community of practice was established based upon the survey questions related to parent and other teacher reactions to the curriculum. this community of practice was further cemented when all participants responded to the survey that the curriculum does work. the science of teaching reading can be applied using the correct curriculum. in this case, connections: og in 3-d® was the curriculum learned, applied, and evaluated. other educators watched the curriculum in action, then asked administrators to be a part of it. one educator learning something new and useful has a positive influence on educators around them. within the community of practice, it is important to include parents or guardians. in this case, not one parent or guardian had a negative response or reaction to his/her child learning with this curriculum. 4.1 future research while this investigation into the perceptions of educators learning, applying and evaluating a learning to read curriculum was based upon the three surveys that were given, entire case studies were required and completed. within these case studies, much more data is waiting to be discovered. future investigations could look to how educators apply a new curriculum in a reading classroom as the participants had to actively participate with teaching lessons from the curriculum. additional requirements for the case study such as book reports, presentations, and group discussions can be analyzed and evaluated for educator perceptions and applications. this cohort worked together prior to the covid pandemic, so all interactions were done in face to face at the apple group headquarters in jonesboro, arkansas. after the pandemic, all trainings and interactions are completed through synchronous and asynchronous applications. future investigations could address the differences in survey responses between face-to-face cohorts and the virtual cohorts. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 88 published by scholink inc. this group of participants completed their training in 2019. other new groups of educators have completed their certified dyslexia therapist training while others are in the process of completing theirs. thus, additional investigations can be organized to see these later group perceptions of the curriculum. as most of the participants in this survey shared positive perceptions of the curriculum, future research could be completed to determine if the curriculum is still active in the various classrooms. references bayar, a. 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(2006). relationships between word knowledge and reading comprehension in third-grade children. scientific studies of reading, 10(4), 381-398. https://doi.org/10.1207/s1532799xssr1004_3 wagner, r., torgesen, j., & rashotte, c. (1994). development of reading-related phonological processing abilities: new evidence of bi-directional causality from a latent variable longitudinal study. developmental psychology, 30(1), 73-87. https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.30.1.73 wixson, k. (1986). vocabulary instruction and children’s comprehension of basal stories. reading research quarterly, 21(3), 317-329. https://doi.org/10.2307/747712 frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 56 original paper exploring the impact of teaching french as an enrichment program to primary school students of municipal corporation of delhi for academic session 2023-24 dr. deepika mehta1 1 french program coordinator & researcher for mcd schools, delhi, india received: february 1, 2025 accepted: february 19, 2025 online published: march 3, 2025 doi:10.22158/fet.v8n1p56 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v8n1p56 abstract students of the primary schools run by municipal corporation of delhi (mcd) lack resources to avail enrichment programs like learning foreign languages and cultures as they come from economically weaker part of the community. this lack motivated to design josuman french enrichment program for mcd school students to teach french language in the mother tongue of the students following recent nep 2020 regulations. the impact of the program was analyzed after teaching it in 80 schools of three mcd zones, east, south and central delhi for the complete academic year of 2023-24 to the interested students of 4th and 5th classes. the feedback from the school heads and class teachers was collected to analyze change in the affective attributes of the french program students. the weekly observational data and class exam results were collected from the french program teachers to analyze change in cognitive attributes of their students. the results of the study proved that students learnt to speak and write in french. there has been increase in the interest level and enthusiasm in learners. the impact of the french program has been so positive that more mcd schools have requested to include this enrichment program for their students. keywords french language, primary schools, mcd, french students, enrichment program 1. introduction context: education is of prime importance to the municipal corporation of delhi (mcd) and provides free and compulsory education to children from the working community and economically poor sections of delhi up to the age of 14 years. the mcd education department encourages their students to learn new skills and gain knowledge beyond basic classroom learning. “josuman french” is an enrichment program www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 57 published by scholink inc. supported by the department of education to teach french language to 4th and 5th class students in their schools in delhi. this french program is uniquely designed in accordance with the national education policy, nep 2020, in the native language of the students. therefore, the language of instruction is hindi by french teachers. the goal of the french program is to teach the french language as a tool to enrich young children with an interest in learning a new language and a new culture that is unfamiliar to them. the program uses a communicative approach through singing, recitation, role play, art and writing activities in the classroom. the teaching is student-centered and motivates the active participation of students in speaking, writing and reading in french. the purpose of study is to investigate the teaching effectiveness of the josuman french curriculum in the academic session 2023-24 in primary schools in three different zones of mcd, delhi. about mcd schools: in delhi, there is a multi management system for school education. there are schools, managed by municipal corporation of delhi (mcd), new delhi municipal corporation (ndmc), the directorate of education & delhi cantonment board (dcb). number of schools are being managed by private organizations, trusts etc. but mcd and directorate of education have the major share of student population particularly at elementary level. mcd has the responsibility of imparting primary education only. (retrieved from https://drn.delhi.gov.in/drn/educational-scenario-district, new delhi, 20.05.2023). the education department of mcd works for the welfare and child intellectual development by providing free elementary education. the children enrolled in mcd schools are from labour section, economically weaker section (ews) and the students’ full attendance is a big challenge for the schools to maintain inspite mid meals and basic education is given in stress free environment. this lack of attendance by students at elementary level can make them lose interest in studying further and fall into wrong directions. therefore, enrichment courses/programs can instill interest in children to learn new skills. there has been many enrichment theories have been proposed, developed, and studied in the field of only gifted education and enrichment during the last few decades. there hasn’t been much research in field of using foreign languages as an enrichment programs in indian context in the mother tongue of the learner. lot more exploration and studies are required. as per cambridge dictionary, the word ‘enrichment’ means the act or process of improving the quality or power of something by adding something else. (https://dictionary.cambridge. org/dictionary/english /enrichment # google_vignette, delhi, 4/4/24) in child education, enrichment based classes fill up gaps in child’s curriculum and allow them to dive deeper into topics they are interested in. these classes are known for offering children more than what they can learn in school, as lessons are generally less structured and open for children to be more creative and natural. the educational principles of rabindra nath tagore emphasized on education through enrichment based courses. he preferred education to flourish in natural surroundings by giving child freedom and creativity. he favored discussion, activity or learning by doing method. he emphasized on joyful www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 58 published by scholink inc. creative teaching techniques in a free and universal manner. tagore encouraged students to be creative and express themselves through art forms such as music, dance, drama, and painting. (retrieved from: https://www.ripublication .com/ijbamspl17/ijbamv7n2spl_14.pdf, 10.04.24, delhi). there is lot of research required in indian school education context on studying the impact of enrichment courses. about the program: josuman french enrichment program is an effort to revive some tagore’s principles by teaching french as foreign language in the mother tongue of the student through various creative activities to engage every student in the class. no foreign language subject has been initiated in any mcd primary schools before. with the approval of additional commissioner and education director, smt. alka r. sharma, french program started in 2019 as the pioneer program to teach french to grade 4 and 5 students. the aim was to teach french language in such a unique manner which can bring emotional as well as cognitive enhancement in the students. the study was intended to find answers to the following questions: 1) what changes have been in the affective attributes in the students learning french through josuman program? 2) what changes have been cognitive attributes in the students learning french through josuman program? 3) what have been the observations of the principals of mcd schools? 4) what have been the observations of teachers of mcd schools? the objective of the study is to measure the effectiveness of teaching french enrichment program to elementary level students in their mother tongue. theoretical literature: conceptual background of josuman french program: the conceptual design of the program is based on the paradigm of constructivism, which isn’t new, but it’s one of the big ideas for today’s education to promote student-centered active learning curriculum where teacher becomes a facilitator & main focus is on the student. in this program, the french language learning follows constructivism’s central idea which states that “human learning gets constructed, as learners build new knowledge upon the foundation of previous understanding or learning.” there have been previous studies with significant attention to the affective domain in language learning and the role of foreign language in emotional development of learners. the previous studies also indicate that at emotional level, language learners experience a variety of both negative and positive emotions such as enjoyment and pride as discussed by goetz et al. (2008), fear as discussed by ellis (1994), and anxiety discussed by horwitz & cope (1986). emotional experiences matter in relevance to the learning of a foreign language since students mostly come with previous positive or negative experiences; sometimes the new learning environment is very different from previous ones, and they may have a diversity of motives for engaging in foreign language learning. the interplay of all these variables in one emotional event during classroom instruction may have different meanings for individual students and cause diverse effects on students’ www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 59 published by scholink inc. motivation (do & schallert, 2004). garret and young (2009) explored the emotional reactions originated during a portuguese as a foreign language course for a period of eight weeks. garret and young (2009) described 255 positive emotional experiences and 69 negative ones. positive and negative experiences were mainly produced because of the teachers’ voices, social relations, cultural learning and language awareness. therefore, the design of the instructional material of josuman french enrichment program is based on the concept of constructivism which is connected to the student’s previous knowledge in his mother tongue, hindi to learn french language. through learning french, students gain enriched personality. 2. methodology this study was conducted in the primary schools of municipal corporation of delhi covering 80 schools of three zones, the east delhi zone, central delhi and south delhi zones. there was one french teacher in one school to teach 25 to 45 students and total count of students was 3500. to analyze the effectiveness of the french program the data was collected from three groups: french teachers, school principals and school teachers of classes 4 and 5 with the help of questionnaires. separate online questionnaires were shared with respective groups. the feedback from the school heads and class teachers was collected to analyze change in the affective attributes of the french program students. the weekly observational data and class exam results were collected from the french program teachers to analyze change in cognitive attributes of their students. questionnaire for school principal of mcd primary schools included following questions: • in your opinion, is josuman french program effective for your students? • in your opinion, did your students enjoy learning french from josuman french teacher? • did your students showed interest in learning french? • can your students speak french now? • describe your overall experience about the french program in your school in few words. • how did you find teaching behavior of josuman french teacher? • would you like the french program to continue in the school? questionnaire for school teachers of mcd primary schools included following questions: • in your opinion, is josuman french program effective for your students? • in your opinion, did your students enjoy learning french from josuman french teacher? • did your students showed interest in learning french? • can your students speak french now? • describe your overall experience about the french program in your school in few words. • describe your experience about french teacher who taught in your school. • how did you find teaching behavior of josuman french teacher? • would you like the french program to continue in the school? www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 60 published by scholink inc. questionnaire for french teachers of the program included questions based on their classroom observations and final exam results of their students which were analyzed on bloom’s taxonomy on its six levels: • knowledge. remembering basic french knowledge learnt during the whole academic session in the classroom. • comprehension: this included students’ ability to grasp the meaning of french words by translating in hindi. ability to grasp the meaning of french words/phrases. • application: this refers to the ability to use learned material in new and concrete situations. demonstrating correct pronunciation of words/phrases. applying rules, methods, concepts as explained in the class. requires higher level of understanding than comprehension through role playing & group presentation. • analysis: this refers to the ability to break down material into its component parts so that its organizational structure may be understood. learning outcomes here represent a higher intellectual level than comprehension and application because they require an understanding of both the content and the structural form of the material. • synthesis: this refers to the ability to put parts together to form a new whole. this may involve the production of unique communication (theme or speech) learning outcomes in this area stress creative behaviors, with major emphasis on the formulation of new patterns by the students. • evaluation: evaluation is concerned with the ability to judge the value of french for the student. 3. results figure 1. count of knowledge based on the responses of the french teachers of 80 schools together, it showed that 40% of the total schools students could retain 100% the french vocabulary learnt in the class. they remembered everything. 50 % of the total students could recollect only 50% during their final exams and only 10% could not remember anything. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 61 published by scholink inc. figure 2. count of comprehension 50% teachers stated that all students were able to comprehend the meaning of french vocabulary in their mother tongue. 35% teachers stated that 50% students were capable to comprehend. 12 teachers stated that only few students or none were capable. figure 3. count of application 50% teachers stated that all were able to apply their learning concepts into actions during classroom activities. 30% teachers stated that only half of the class was able to participate. 20% teachers stated that low or no participation by their students was recorded. figure 4. count of analysis www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 62 published by scholink inc. 50% of the teachers stated that all students were able to analyze and make corrections of their mistakes in oral and written french vocabulary. 35% teachers stated only 50% of their class was able to analyze and self-correct themselves and others in the classroom practice. there were 15% of schools where students were not able to do analysis. figure 5. count of synthesis 40% of the teachers stated that all their students were able to communicate freely. they could introduce themselves in french. other 35% teachers started that 50% of their class was able to participate freely in french. 25% teachers stated that very few students were able to communicate in french. following affective attributes changes were observed by the french teachers: 1). 45 % of the total schools, all students demonstrated self-reliance in working independently’ in french class and 55% of schools only 50% of class could work independently. 2). in 55% of schools all the students showed commitment in french class and rest the 45% of schools, only 50% of students were committed. 3). in 50% of the schools, all students showed good teamwork and collectivism. in 45% of schools, only 50% of students showed teamwork. 4). problem solving attitude was shown by all the students if 40% of schools and in 60% schools, 50% students showed problem solving attitude. 5). high interest level in learning french language was shown by all the students of 85% of schools. in 15% of schools only 50% of the students showed interest. 6). all the students of 60% schools participated in class discussion with the french teacher, whereas in 40% of schools, only 50% of students showed participation. the responses of the school heads and school teachers were positive. all found the french program very effective for their students and they all want this french program to be taught again in their schools. all agreed that their students showed high level of interest in learning french. they stated that all their students enjoyed learning french from josuman french teacher and all were able to speak in french language. the class teachers found this program motivational for their students. the teachers stated that their students wanted to learn with great enthusiasm. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 63 published by scholink inc. 4. discussion & conclusion based on the responses from all the respondents, it can be concluded that teaching josuman french enrichment program to elementary level students in their mother tongue was highly effective in the primary schools of municipal corporation of delhi. the students were observed on daily basis by their school teachers and they stated that their students were very excited to learn and sing french poems. the students were able to speak in french language. the students became highly motivated to learn new language without any external pressure. this motivation gave confidence to these students to learn and participate in class activities. more research is required to explore the effectiveness in more depth. the changes in the affective attributes of the students were prominent in their active participation in discussion with the french teacher. the high level of interest was observed in all the students in learning french. the changes in the cognitive attributes of the students were prominent in remembering french vocabulary in more than 50% of the total students. the students were able to correct themselves. they were able to freely communicate in french in class. references a. m. 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(1991). meta-analyses and review of research on pull-out programs in gifted education. gifted child quarterly, 35(2), 92-98. https://doi.org/10.1177/001698629103500208 frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 67 original paper research on the construction of collaborative education system for innovation and entrepreneurship of computer science college students under the background of internet plus xunbing wang1 1 school of computer science and communication engineering, jiangsu university, zhenjiang, china received: june 7, 2025 accepted: june 23, 2025 online published: july 6, 2025 doi:10.22158/fet.v8n1p67 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v8n1p67 abstract under the background of “internet plus”, computer science students face both opportunities and challenges in innovation and entrepreneurship. this paper analyzes the impact of “internet plus” on the innovation and entrepreneurship of computer science students, explores the current situation and problems of the collaborative education system within universities, between universities and enterprises, and between universities and society, and proposes a “full integration and collaboration” method and approach for the innovation and entrepreneurship education of computer science students. it constructs a collaborative education system for innovation and entrepreneurship of computer science students under the background of “internet plus”. in the future, it is necessary to deepen cooperation and promote the development of the collaborative education system towards intelligence, internationalization, and ecological orientation to adapt to the demand for innovative and entrepreneurial talents in the era. keywords “internet plus”, computer science, innovation and entrepreneurship, collaborative education 1. introduction at a time when “internet plus” is deeply reshaping the socio-economic structure and industrial development paradigm, computer technology, as the core driving force, has opened up vast development space for innovation and entrepreneurship activities. computer science students, leveraging their professional knowledge advantages, are gradually becoming an important force in the field of innovation and entrepreneurship. however, current computer science innovation and entrepreneurship education in universities faces issues such as an imperfect system, lack of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 68 published by scholink inc. collaborative mechanisms, and weak practical teaching. building a collaborative education system for computer science students’ innovation and entrepreneurship under the “internet plus” background not only helps enrich the theoretical system of university innovation and entrepreneurship education, innovate collaborative education models for computer science majors, and provide new theoretical perspectives and support; it can also effectively integrate university, enterprise, and social resources, effectively enhance the innovation and entrepreneurship abilities of university students, provide practical guidance for university education reform, promote the deep integration of industry, academia, and research, and have important theoretical and practical value for cultivating high-quality innovation and entrepreneurship talents that meet the needs of the times. 2. the relationship between “internet plus” and innovation and entrepreneurship of computer science college students 2.1 the connotation and characteristics of internet plus the essence of “internet plus” is the deep integration of the internet with traditional industries, promoting industrial upgrading and economic development through technological and model innovation. its core characteristics include openness, sharing, innovation, and integration. openness is reflected in the internet platform breaking the boundaries of physical space, achieving borderless connectivity; sharing is manifested in the efficient allocation and full utilization of resources; innovation is embodied in the continuous emergence and widespread application of new technologies; integration emphasizes the deep interweaving and collaborative development of the internet and traditional industries. 2.2 the impact of internet plus on innovation and entrepreneurship of computer science students in the era of vigorous development of the digital economy, the deep penetration of the “internet plus” technological paradigm brings a complex situation where opportunities and challenges coexist for computer science students’ innovation and entrepreneurship. from the perspective of opportunities, firstly, the digital ecosystem built by “internet plus” breaks the constraints of traditional physical space. leveraging the openness and globalization characteristics of online platforms, it provides convenient channels for student entrepreneurs to access global resources and connect with international markets. secondly, cutting-edge technology clusters represented by big data, artificial intelligence, and cloud computing not only provide strong technical support for innovation and entrepreneurship projects but also drive the expansion and innovation of technology application scenarios. furthermore, the industrial upgrading and consumption pattern changes driven by “internet plus” have given rise to emerging market demands such as intelligent services and digital content creation, opening up vast entrepreneurial tracks for computer science students. however, the innovation and entrepreneurship practices in the “internet plus” era also face many challenges. on the one hand, the high openness and low entry threshold of the internet market have intensified market competition, requiring computer science student entrepreneurs to face the pressure of homogenization competition from around the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 69 published by scholink inc. world. on the other hand, the field of computer technology is showing an exponential iteration speed, requiring entrepreneurs to establish a continuous learning mechanism to dynamically adapt to new trends in technological development. additionally, the market environment in the “internet plus” era sets higher demands on business model innovation, as traditional business models struggle to meet user demands in the digital economy. computer science student entrepreneurs urgently need to build innovative and sustainable business model systems to enhance the market competitiveness and commercial value of their projects. 2.3 characteristics and advantages of innovation and entrepreneurship for computer science students computer science students’ innovative and entrepreneurial activities have distinct characteristics and significant advantages. in terms of characteristics, firstly, projects often take technological innovation as the core driving force, focusing on frontier technology areas such as software development, algorithm optimization, and system construction, promoting project development through technological innovation; secondly, due to the complexity and systematic nature of computer science projects, team collaboration becomes a key element, requiring efficient division of labor and close cooperation among members, placing high demands on students’ team collaboration skills; thirdly, projects are deeply integrated with internet platforms, fully relying on the dissemination and interactivity of the internet, with a strong internet attribute. in terms of advantages, the systematic curriculum and practical training in computer science majors provide students with a solid foundation in professional knowledge, enabling them to quickly grasp and flexibly apply emerging technologies; this group maintains a high sensitivity to new technologies and trends, with the ability to quickly transform cutting-edge technologies into practical applications; in addition, the innovative and critical thinking cultivated during computer science education provides strong support for breaking through traditional frameworks and proposing novel solutions in innovative and entrepreneurial activities. 3. analysis of the current status of the collaborative education system for innovation and entrepreneurship among computer science students 3.1 current situation of collaborative education within universities currently, universities have initially established a framework for collaborative innovation and entrepreneurship education among computer science students, but the collaborative efficiency remains to be improved. there is a clear gap between the school of computer science, as the core entity imparting professional knowledge, and the school of innovation and entrepreneurship, responsible for developing innovation and entrepreneurship courses and organizing related activities, in terms of educational resource integration and alignment of educational objectives. from a theoretical perspective, this fragmented state stems from deep-seated contradictions in multiple aspects: firstly, the lack of an information exchange mechanism between departments makes it difficult to effectively share key information such as teaching plans and practical arrangements, hindering the systematic advancement of collaborative education efforts. secondly, the lack of organic integration between the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 70 published by scholink inc. professional curriculum system and innovation and entrepreneurship course modules fails to establish a complete educational chain from theoretical knowledge to practical innovation, making it difficult for students to develop the ability framework for knowledge transfer and comprehensive application. thirdly, the demand for interdisciplinary knowledge integration in innovation and entrepreneurship education conflicts with the inherent pattern of decentralized and specialized faculty in universities. teachers from various disciplines lack institutional guarantees and incentive mechanisms for collaborative teaching, making it difficult to unite educational efforts. 3.2 current status of collaborative education between universities and enterprises driven by the policy of industry-education integration, the modes of computer-related innovation and entrepreneurship education conducted by universities and enterprises in collaboration are becoming increasingly diversified. however, there are still significant deficiencies in the depth and sustainability of cooperation. taking the joint construction of internship bases by universities and enterprises as an example, most collaborations only remain at the level of short-term internships for college students, failing to establish a long-term mechanism for deep integration of industry, academia, and research. upon further investigation, the main reasons involve practical dilemmas in three dimensions: firstly, the cooperation model lacks strategic planning, with most projects being primarily one-time and temporary activities. a deep cooperation mechanism based on technological research and development and achievement transformation has not yet been established. secondly, enterprises have insufficient motivation to participate. due to the imbalance between short-term investment and long-term benefits, enterprises often participate in a passive manner in response to policy requirements, lacking the inherent motivation to actively integrate into the university education system. thirdly, there are institutional defects in the cooperation mechanism. both universities and enterprises lack clear norms in key areas such as the definition of rights and responsibilities, benefit allocation, and risk sharing, leading to frequent issues such as resource mismatch and goal deviation during the cooperation process. 3.3 current status of collaborative education between universities and society with the increasing participation of social forces in the field of higher education, cooperation between universities and social organizations in computer-related innovation and entrepreneurship education has gradually begun to unfold, but the overall collaborative efficiency has not yet been fully unleashed. taking the joint construction of innovation and entrepreneurship bases by universities and entrepreneurial incubators as an example, the breadth and depth of resource integration still need to be expanded. upon analysis, the crux of this issue lies in the following: firstly, there is an obstruction in policy implementation. the innovation and entrepreneurship support policies issued by the government, due to the lack of supporting implementation details and supervision mechanisms, make it difficult for policy dividends to be effectively transformed into educational resources during their implementation in universities and social organizations. secondly, there is a lack of a systematic framework for social resource integration. universities, industry associations, financial institutions, incubation platforms, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 71 published by scholink inc. and other entities have not yet formed a collaborative network that facilitates resource complementarity and advantage overlay. lastly, there are cognitive biases among various parties regarding educational goals. universities emphasize the long-term effectiveness and academic nature of talent cultivation, while social organizations pay more attention to the commercial value and short-term benefits of projects. this difference in goals severely restricts the in-depth development of collaborative education efforts. 4. research on the construction of collaborative education system for innovation and entrepreneurship of computer science college students under the background of “internet plus” 4.1 innovative entrepreneurial education method of “full integration and collaboration” 4.1.1 integration of in-class and out-of-class activities universities should fully leverage the main channel role of classroom teaching, organically integrate professional courses with innovation and entrepreneurship courses, and build a talent cultivation curriculum system that promotes the deep integration of computer-related professional education and innovation and entrepreneurship education. vigorously promote the application of the “three classrooms” to help college students cultivate the mindset of creativity to innovation, and then the practical action ability from innovation to entrepreneurship. among them, the “first classroom” is the specialized classroom teaching, which helps college students build a basic knowledge framework through general innovation and entrepreneurship courses; the “second classroom” includes community classrooms and distinguished teacher classrooms, aiming to explore and cultivate college students’ interest in innovation and entrepreneurship, and fully utilize college students’ autonomy and practicality through the methods of “competition-based teaching, integration of teaching and competition, and competition-driven learning”; the “third classroom” is the online classroom based on “internet plus”, which forms an online open course resource library by integrating demonstration courses, excellent cases, and advanced teaching resources to effectively supplement extracurricular innovation and entrepreneurship knowledge. at the same time, improve the credit recognition rules for extracurricular learning in the “third classroom”, recognize the learning achievements of extracurricular learning resources and practical courses, and quantify them into corresponding course credits to achieve mutual recognition and interchangeability of in-class and extracurricular credits. in the practical application of the “three classrooms”, enhance innovation and entrepreneurship knowledge ability through “integration of teaching and innovation”, cultivate innovation and entrepreneurship application ability through “integration of competition and innovation”, and enhance innovation and entrepreneurship practical ability through “integration of production and innovation”. 4.1.2 integration of mentors and counselors clarify the division of labor among teachers and fully leverage the role functions of mentors and counselors. innovation and entrepreneurship mentors include both on-campus and off-campus mentors. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 72 published by scholink inc. on the one hand, strengthen the sense of responsibility of on-campus mentors, select specialized course instructors to form a fixed team of innovation and entrepreneurship mentors, and increase the proportion of full-time innovation and entrepreneurship teachers. on the other hand, optimize the appointment standards for off-campus mentors, selecting practical talents who have met the required working years in excellent enterprises, possess solid professional qualities, excel in comprehensive abilities, and have successful entrepreneurial experience. as life mentors and intimate friends in college students’ learning and life, counselors have a comprehensive, in-depth, and objective understanding of students’ various situations. by integrating the strength of counselors on the basis of the mentor system, personalized training programs can be formulated based on students’ personality traits, family backgrounds, and other factors. with mentors and counselors as the main body, leading experts in computer science, well-known alumni, and other forces are united to form a faculty team that integrates professional and entrepreneurial knowledge. by enhancing the level of teachers, strengthening the professionalization and informatization literacy of the teaching team, leveraging the guiding role of leading experts in macro-level discipline and professional guidance, and utilizing the advantages of well-known alumni in sharing entrepreneurial experience, college students can systematically and intuitively understand innovation and entrepreneurship culture, knowledge, thinking, vision, and experience, thereby shaping their innovation and entrepreneurship abilities. 4.1.3 integration of on-campus and off-campus activities the deep integration of industry, academia, and research is a crucial path for promoting the development of universities and enterprises. universities should fully leverage their platform construction advantages, effectively utilize enterprise resources, establish entrepreneurial training bases that cater to different computer-related majors, provide systematic innovation and entrepreneurship training for university students and new employees of enterprises, help university students master innovation and entrepreneurship knowledge, assist new employees in quickly adapting to internal mechanisms of enterprises, and provide internship and practical opportunities for university students. build a comprehensive platform for industry, academia, and research between universities and enterprises to achieve system interconnection and resource sharing. enterprise production and operation data can provide support for innovation and entrepreneurship scientific research in universities, while university research results can guide enterprise production, forming a complete closed loop of innovation and entrepreneurship education system, and building a new pattern of co-construction, sharing, and co-governance inside and outside the university. in the context of deep integration of industry, academia, and research, the goals of universities and enterprises gradually converge. cultivating innovation and entrepreneurship talents is not only related to the effectiveness of university education but also directly affects the quality and efficiency of enterprise production. in addition, deep integration of industry, academia, and research can obtain financial support from national and local governments, attract more talents to participate, and provide strong human and financial support for the development of innovation and entrepreneurship education. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 73 published by scholink inc. 4.2 “whole-staff integration and collaboration” approach to innovation and entrepreneurship education 4.2.1 collaborative education between the party branch and the innovation and entrepreneurship team party building work plays an important leading role in ideological and political education in universities. it is necessary to strengthen the guidance of party building work, create a good atmosphere for mass entrepreneurship and innovation education, and build a high-quality ecosystem for mass entrepreneurship and innovation. leveraging new media platforms such as “two micros and one terminal” to publicize and report successful entrepreneurial cases of advanced party members in universities, fully utilizing the exemplary role of party members, and stimulating students’ enthusiasm for innovation and entrepreneurship through the power of role models, forming a good entrepreneurial atmosphere. inviting successful party members who are entrepreneurs to return to campus to give lectures, share entrepreneurial experiences, and integrate them into the teaching process, providing internship opportunities, and realizing the feedback of party members who are entrepreneurs to education. strengthen the overall planning of party building work, improve the mass entrepreneurship and innovation education system, explore the new model of “internet plus party building plus mass entrepreneurship and innovation”. unite the strength of party branches and mass entrepreneurship and innovation institutions, participate in mass entrepreneurship and innovation competitions through joint teams of party branches, integrate the guidance services of party members into the daily work of mass entrepreneurship and innovation teams, and open up the “last mile” of services for innovation and entrepreneurship. 4.2.2 collaborative management between mentors and dual-innovation teams universities should focus on building a team of dual-innovation and entrepreneurship mentors who possess both innovative and entrepreneurial awareness and rich entrepreneurial experience, achieving collaborative management and complementary advantages between on-campus and off-campus mentors. on the one hand, we should build an on-campus dual-innovation and entrepreneurship mentor team, vigorously cultivating and introducing innovative and entrepreneurial teaching resources. on the other hand, we should build an off-campus dual-innovation and entrepreneurship mentor team, hiring successful entrepreneurial alumni, professional and technical personnel from enterprises and institutions, corporate executives, and other talents with rich entrepreneurial experience to serve as off-campus mentors. we should strengthen the dual-mentor responsibility system, clarifying that on-campus mentors are responsible for teaching and academic competitions, while off-campus mentors are responsible for practical training and project implementation. mentors should follow up on teaching, competitions, practical training, and project progress throughout the entire process, promptly identifying problems and providing targeted guidance to help dual-innovation and entrepreneurship teams deeply analyze issues and develop effective solutions. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 74 published by scholink inc. 4.2.3 collaborative services between colleges and dual-innovation teams the focus of collaborative services in colleges lies in the selection of collaborative partners and modes. collaborative partners encompass governments, enterprises, institutions, research institutions, venture capital firms, etc. when selecting collaborative partners, colleges need to comprehensively consider factors such as educational philosophy, regional location, financial technology, and equipment conditions to ensure good cooperation outcomes. by rigorously screening collaborative partners, colleges can enhance the sense of learning and satisfaction of students in practical training, internships, and projects, thereby attracting more students to join the innovation and entrepreneurship teams. in terms of collaborative mode selection, emphasis is placed on the interconnectivity of course systems across colleges. the innovation and entrepreneurship services in universities are driven by collaboration among multiple colleges, and the interdisciplinary integration of different colleges is a key focus for innovation and entrepreneurship teams. colleges should combine their own characteristics, integrate the development advantages of different disciplines, share entrepreneurial resources, and cultivate more composite entrepreneurial talents. 5. conclusion and outlook 5.1 research conclusion this study is based on the technological transformation and educational demands in the era of “internet plus”, systematically exploring the construction path of the collaborative education system for innovation and entrepreneurship among computer science students. through multi-dimensional analysis of the current situation, it is found that there are issues such as fragmented collaboration mechanisms and disconnected curriculum systems within universities. school-enterprise cooperation faces the dilemma of insufficient depth and lack of motivation, and school-community collaboration is constrained by policy implementation obstacles and inefficient resource integration. the study proposes a “full integration and collaboration” approach for cultivating innovation and entrepreneurship among college students, as well as the development of a network collaborative innovation learning guidance platform. this collaborative education system integrates professional educational resources from universities, practical resources from enterprises, and social service resources, forming a multi-party collaborative innovation talent cultivation ecosystem. it has important theoretical value and practical guidance significance for enhancing the innovation and entrepreneurship abilities of computer science students and promoting the supply of high-quality talents in the era of “internet plus”. 5.2 future outlook in the context of accelerated iteration of new technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data, and blockchain, the “internet plus” innovation and entrepreneurship education ecosystem will undergo profound changes. on the one hand, the application of new technologies will give rise to more diversified innovation and entrepreneurship scenarios, injecting new development momentum into the collaborative education system; on the other hand, the adjustment of industrial structure and changes in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 8, no. 1, 2025 75 published by scholink inc. talent demand brought about by technological development also pose higher requirements for the existing education model. future research can be deepened in the following directions: first, constructing a dynamic evaluation model for collaborative education based on big data and artificial intelligence, through a quantitative indicator system and intelligent analysis technology, to achieve precise monitoring and optimization of the education process and its effects; second, exploring the application paths of new technologies such as the metaverse and virtual simulation in innovation and entrepreneurship practical teaching, innovating practical teaching models; third, studying the cross-border collaborative education mechanism in the context of the global digital economy, expanding the vision of international talent cultivation. universities need to continuously deepen strategic cooperation with enterprises and social organizations, promoting the collaborative education system towards intelligent, international, and ecological development, to adapt to the dynamic demand for innovation and entrepreneurship talents in the “internet plus” era, providing solid talent support for the national innovation-driven development strategy. acknowledgement this paper was supported by jiangsu province higher education teaching reform research project under (no. 2024gzjx039). references hou, x. m. et al. (2015). research on innovation and entrepreneurship paths for computer major students in higher vocational colleges. journal of hebei technical college of engineering, 3, 58-61. hu, h. j. et al. (2019). exploration of innovation and entrepreneurship for computer major students in the context of new engineering. journal of chifeng university (natural science edition), 35(11), 44-46. ma, l. l., & wang, j. t. (2020). research on the cultivation system of innovation and practical ability for computer major students. journal of higher education, 33, 64-67. xu, x., & huang, y. (2024). research on the factors influencing college students’ entrepreneurial intentions based on innovation and entrepreneurship education. jiangsu higher education, 7, 107-114. yao, w., & li, b. l. (2018). exploration and practice of promoting innovation and entrepreneurship education for college students through workshop mode taking computer science majors as an example. computer knowledge and technology, 14(29), 149-150+153. frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no.1, 2022 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 29 original paper a model for enhancing the science workforce steven b. oppenheimer1 1 department of biology and center for cancer and developmental biology, california state university, northridge, northridge, ca 91325 -8303, usa received: january 17, 2022 accepted: february 10, 2022 online published: february 19, 2022 doi:10.22158/fet.v5n1p29 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v5n1p29 abstract this mini-review will focus on a us presidential award/national science foundation/ aaas recognized program that offers research experiences for all interested students. the quality of the research experiences will be documented by citations of student (208 students) co-authored peer reviewed papers and evidence will be presented that students are turned on to research by the method of oppenheimer mentoring, that will be described. the career outcomes of the students will be detailed and it will be shown that this program is a model for enhancing the science workforce. 1. introduction many students want research experiences but can’t get them, resulting in a science workforce deficit. here 50 years of open door policy for research experiences will be described including quality of the research experiences, student co-authorships, student career outcomes and the effect of research experiences on students. the issue of professor ability to handle many new students is discussed. all students and trainers receive college credit and steve oppenheimer receives workload teaching credit for working with so many students. 2. main body how can a single professor serve many new undergraduates in research? here’s the answer edited from oppenheimer, s., nature 519: 158 [90]. handling so many undergraduates/oppenheimer program all new undergraduates are trained by peer undergraduates or pre-masters students (not ph.d. students or postdocs), experienced in the research, helping to insure that the newcomers immediately feel comfortable in the research setting. i, steve oppenheimer, regularly check all of the newcomers and liven it up with jokes and encouragement. the burden of heavy course loads is mitigated by an open www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 30 published by scholink inc. door policy that allows students to pursue their research during off hours and vacation times. this part of the program is very important for its success. hiring and promotion. edited from oppenheimer, s., nature 554: 31 [91] i suggest that skills in mentoring should be made a condition for hiring faculty members and that mentoring success be included as a criterion for tenure and promotion. this is done on our campus and may be a reason why our campus was listed as an up and coming research university by the nature index. and that’s with no ph.d. students [94]. obviously, many years of academic policy can’t be changed overnight but the white house, nsf and aaas think that our model is on the right track to change things for the better. a specific example of student mentoring specific example of motivation putatively causing a specific career outcome. an hispanic alum named celina barba simic. the documented career success of many hundreds of students mentored by steve oppenheimer played a key role in the u.s. presidential award as noted by the nsf presidential award peer review panel. the evidence presented is mostly correlation and does not provide any clarity on causal relationships. serendipity has provided an example that gets more into possible causal relationships. this is about one student, of several, who made a donation to the university of student scholarship(s) in honor of steve oppenheimer. but in this case an astute reporter (93) unraveled how motivation by steve oppenheimer led to her acceptance to stanford university medical school (and is now a co-director of emergency medicine at a large los angeles hospital). here is some of her story in her own words. her daughters asked, mom, how did you become a doctor…in unraveling 20 years worth of layers she remembered dr. oppenheimer. she decided to make the gift to the university because she said dr. oppenheimer changed the trajectory of her life. it began when she took oppenheimer’s undergraduate embryology course. after that she worked in oppenheimer’s research lab. she said being in dr. o’s lab as an undergraduate was awesome. he encouraged every person that walked into the lab to do everything they wanted to do and helped them find ways to do it. she said oppenheimer’s encouragement made a profound impact on her life…he gave me the confidence to apply to medical school. he gave me the study skills, research skills and knowledge base to succeed. he said you’re the best and you can become a doctor if you want to be one. he gave me the confidence to apply to medical school he changed the trajectory of my life. it’s hard to assign causality to motivational strategies. but this story comes close. boundless enthusiasm one item that caught the eye of a nsf panel reviewer on the presidential award panel: he (oppenheimer) calls his students professors and doctors. i’m going to try doing that. it’s a motivational gimmick that is both inspirational and transformative that reflects his boundless enthusiasm (89). i will now summarize some of the research done by undergraduates and pre-masters students over a 50 year period, listing number of student co-authors on each component of this program. numbers refer to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 31 published by scholink inc. citation on the reference list. if no students are listed next to a citation, no students co-authored it. these listings help document the quality of student co-authored peer-reviewed papers in this program. 3. sea urchin embryo we examined the molecular basis of adhesive interactions in the sea urchin embryo, an nih model system. 5 (1 student), 6 (3 students), 9 (3 students), 10 (3 students), 11, 12 (2 students), 16 (1 student), 19 (3 students), 20 (1 student), 21 (2 students), 22 (2 students), 25 (2 students), 28, 29, 30, 31 (2 students), 32 (3 students), 35 (1 student), 38 (6 students), 40, 42 (4 students), 43 (7 students), 44 (3 students), 49 (2 students), 50, 51 (5 students), 53 (4 students), 54 (13 students), 55 (7 students), 56 (1 student). 57 (5 students), 58 (3 students), 67, 69, 73 (1 student), 75, 79 (3 students), 81 (2 students), 83 (1 student), 84 (3 students), 85, 86, 87 (1 student). as can be seen (5, 9, 10, 12, 20, 21, 22, 25, 32, 35, 66, 67, 69, 70, 71, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 83, 84, 85, 87) were in nature, science, zygote, experimental cell research, cryobiology, biochemica biophysica acta, journals that are known for high quality papers and usually good impact factors. the student co-authored research helped show that specific carbohydrates were involved in sea urchin embryo cellular interactions, a finding that helped lead to election as fellow aaas and a us presidential award for mentoring. 4. cancer and assays the area of cancer is exciting for students and we made discoveries on cancer clumps vs single cells, cancer cell adhesiveness, cancer cell protease and cancer cell surfaces. 7 (2 students), 8 (1 student), 13 (2 students), 14, 15 (1 student), 17 (2 students), 18 (7 students), 23 (17 students), 24 (13 students), 26 (1 student), 33 (2 students), 34 (1 student), 36 (1 student), 39 (3 students), 41 (2 students), 45 (18 students), 47 (10 students), 52 (3 students), 59 (3 students) 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66 (4 students), 68, 70 (3 students), 71 (4 students), 72 (3 students), 74, m75, 76 (3 students), 77 (1 student), 78, 82, 87 (1 student), 88, 89. 46 (7 students), 48. 5. who writes the student co-authored papers? i do for some of them. the students and i do most of them. the students do for others. our biggest paper with 10,000 downloads was totally student written (7). the writer, haike ghazarian, is now a ph.d. working in industry. i am reprinting this paper below as it is for non-profit education purposes and it is a masterpiece. this paper is an example of the high level of student co-authorships that reflects their training and why this program is a model for enhancing the science workforce. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 32 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 33 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 34 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 35 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 36 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 37 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 38 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 39 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 40 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 41 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 42 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 43 published by scholink inc. data (93) # student co-authored full length peer-reviewed papers: 60 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 44 published by scholink inc. # student co-authors: 208 average # students on these papers: 3.5 career outcomes of some lab alumni (who reported their careers to steve) (93) ph.d.s: 52 m.d./m.d.-ph.d.s: 62 dentists: 33 pharmacists: 17 scientists in research and education: 97 lawyers: 2 actual data on career outcomes of some lab alumni updated to 2021. this is only a fraction of career outcomes as it includes only those who reported to steve. this indicates enhanced science workforce in this little sample and correlates with lab mentoring that may or not be causative. the celina barba simic story in this paper suggests causation. * names are some of those who continued to complete a masters degree with steve. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 45 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 46 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 47 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 48 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 49 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 50 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 51 published by scholink inc. 6. pre-college as career objectives are often decided before students enter college, we have published a pre-college journal for 25 years that showcases research by hundreds of pre-college students and their teachers [1]. in addition, we have developed a pre-college research poster symposium that gives hundreds of students the opportunity to showcase their research. advanced college undergraduates review the posters and congratulate the youngsters who receive medals and certificates. all participating students receive medals and certificates for great efforts. this is not like a science fair where only a few kids are “winners.” all poster presenters here are “winners” and this is the pre-college component to help improve the science workforce at an early age [1]. here is a commentary i wrote for nsta reports october 2019 read by hundreds of thousands of nsta members that explains our pre-college program. the value of recognizing the efforts of all science students by steve oppenheimer. current education research (2) has shown that precollege science experiences substantially increase the number of students choosing a science major in college. however, science fairs usually select a relatively small number of winners from hundreds of participants, leaving most with little to show for their efforts, which can diminish those students’ future interest. about 35 years ago, i established a research training program for k-12 teachers. after training many teachers in our labs, i developed the journal of student research abstracts (jsra) to showcase and reward participating students with published abstracts in a free online journal. all students, not just the high achievers, should be encouraged to do precollege science research, as by the time they reach college, they often have decided on careers. the united states needs more research scientists, so we should encourage many more students, not just high achievers, to fall in love with science. teachers across los angeles and across the u.s.a. submit abstracts on behalf of their middle and high school students to jsra. journal editors and teachers rigorously review abstracts, and students have the opportunity to correct any problems. although this research is conducted by students, scientific rigor is expected. abstracts document the use of appropriate controls, sufficient replications, and adequate numbers of samples. accepted abstracts are published in the journal, and student authors receive a print copy of the journal containing their published research. (jsra is available online at http://bit.ly/2kke0et.) one teacher said their students dance with joy upon seeing their work in print. center for cancer and developmental biology pre-college research poster symposium, which also recognizes hundreds of middle and high school student scientists each year. the posters often are based on the reviewed project abstracts submitted to jsra, and a cadre of advanced senior level university students trained in research science evaluate them. students conduct their research at their schools and homes, and present their reviewed research in poster form at the symposium, held at california state university, northridge (csun), where they receive medals and certificates recognizing their efforts. this really inspires them to continue in science. former students who contributed to the journal and participated in the symposium have reported that their siblings “fight” to become involved. students have been admitted to a spectrum of higher learning institutions, including the california state university system, university of california system, drexel university, oxford, pepperdine, stanford, harvard, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 52 published by scholink inc. penn state, and the university of tokyo. thousands of good precollege science experiences exist that can motivate students to choose science careers. just having a great science teacher can spark students’ interest. our journal and poster symposium recognize thousands of kids for their research work. a reward like a published abstract or a medal and certificate may be the first and often only recognition from a university many of these students receive. following the most recent symposium, csun vice provost matt cahn noted, “this is one of those transformative opportunities that we hope all students have.” how often do hundreds of students receive university and parental recognition for science research work? the pride that families take in their children’s science work provides an extra push for them to choose a science career. these programs are replicable by teachers, schools, and school districts if they wish to encourage many more students to contemplate future science careers. i also suggest that science educators consider urging their middle and high school students to submit research abstracts to jsra. (author’s note i would like to thank andrew weiss, elizabeth altman, mindy berman, alvalyn lundgren, and helen chun for their work on jsra. i have been fortunate to have support from csun leadership and staff in launching and running the symposium and the journal). steve oppenheimer, professor emeritus, csun, has received several awards, including the presidential award for excellence in science, mathematics, and engineering mentoring and a csu system trustees outstanding professor award. he is an american association for the advancement of science fellow and serves as director of csun’s center for cancer and developmental biology. he was editor of elsevier’s international journal acta histochemica, affiliated with the international federation of societies for histochemistry and cytochemistry. he has taught, conducted research, and worked with middle and high school students and teachers at csun for 48 years . 7. conclusions this mini-review documents student co-authors and career outcomes and suggests that this open research program is a model for enhancing the science workforce. the white house and nsf honored steve oppenheimer with a us presidential award for this work, as did the aaas in electing steve as a fellow. the aaas fellow designation is a valued research honor that suggests that the student co-authored papers are of high quality. steve’s mentoring program uses advanced undergraduates to help train the newcomers so the job of offering research experiences to large numbers of students is feasible and easy to accomplish as long as motivation and enthusiasm abound. the example of a student, mentored by steve, who is a stanford m.d. and co-director of a major hospital’s emergency department, provides evidence that this mentoring program can indeed serve as a model for enhancing the science workforce. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 1, 2022 53 published by scholink inc. acknowlegements thank you to carolyn oppenheimer for expert insertion of data into this manuscript. the dean, chair, provost and president provided 50 years of great support for these programs. references [1] oppenheimer, berman, s. m., chun, h., lundgren, a., tanaka, s., antoniou, a., miller, t., & zem, g. (2020). applied science research for all part 1 pre-college level. american journal of applied scientific research, 6, 72-75. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajasr.20200604.11 [2] dou, r., hazari, z., dabney, k., sonnert, g., & sadler, p. (2019). early informal stem experiences identity: the importance of talking science. sci. edu. https://doi.org/10.1002/sce.21499 [3] oppenheimer, s. (2020). covid-19 pandemic, glycobiology, glycan shields, vaccine strategies, heparin sulfate: a mini review. american journal of applied scientific research, 6(2), 46-48. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajasr.20200602.14 [4] oppenheimer, s. (2020). cell clusters in cancer metastasis: a mini review. american journal of applied scientific research, 6(2), 43-45. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajasr.20200602.13 [5] smith, t., & oppenheimer, s. b. (2013). involvement of l-rhamnose in sea urchin gastrulation: a live embryo assay. zygote. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0967199413000452 [6] singh, s., karabidian, e., kandel, a., metzenberg, s., carroll, jr. e., & oppenheimer, s. b. (2013). a role for polyglucans in a model sea urchin embryo cellular interaction. zygote. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0967199413000038 [7] ghazarian, h., idoni, b., & oppenheimer, s. (2011). a glycobiology review: carbohydrates, lectins, and implications in cancer therapeutics. acta histochemica, 113, 236-247. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acthis.2010.02.004 [8] dreyfuss, j., & oppenheimer, s. (2010). cyclodextrins and cellular interactions. in e. bilensoy (ed.), cyclodextrins in pharmaceutics, cosmetics, and biomedicine, current and future industrial applications (chapter 15, pp. 287-295). john wiley and sons, hoboken, n.j.. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470926819.ch15 [9] idoni, b., ghazarian, h., metzenberg, s., hutchins-carroll, v., oppenheimer, s., & carroll jr., e. (2010). use of specific glycosidases to probe cellular interactions in the sea urchin embryo. experimental cell research, 316, 2204-2211. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.yexcr.2010.04.026 [10] alvarez, m., nnoli, j., carroll, e. j., jr., hutchins-carroll, v., razinia, z., & oppenheimer, s. b. 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[93] oppenheimer, s. et al., (2020). applied science research for all part 2 college level. american journal of applied scientific research, 7(1), 1-7. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajasr.20210701.11 [94] oppenheimer, s. (2016). university on the rise without ph.d. students. nature, 538, 171. https://doi.org/10.1038/538171b https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.63.4.1395 https://doi.org/10.11648/j.her.20190402.14 https://doi.org/10.1038/519158c https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-01311-y https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajasr.20210701.11 https://doi.org/10.1038/538171b frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no.4, 2022 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 18 original paper oral didactics in an actional approach: manifesting emotions and involving the limbic system in a face-to-face and in a hybrid context euphrosyne a. efthimiadou1* 1 department of aeronautical sciences, hellenic air force academy, dekeleia, greece * euphrosyne a. efthimiadou, e-mail : efrosin13@yahoo.com received: november 11, 2022 accepted: december 3, 2022 online published: december 16, 2022 doi:10.22158/fet.v5n4p18 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v5n4p18 abstract in oral didactics, the nature of the interactions which are established among the members of the group grant a cognitive, socio-affective and behavioral dimension in order to implement collaborative tasks, linking conviviality and pragmatism. in collaborative distance learning, teachers and learners are able to share experiences as well as new it tools, while multimodal and open approaches can facilitate exchanges among the participants who put pragmatic learning modes into practice. as a result, the promotion of new training requirements through the adoption of good educational practices, cultivates the knowledge of an action-centred creative potential. therefore, acting and co-acting in a group’s face-to-face or even in a hybrid context becomes a new challenge for oral learning, since digital media can also condition the sensations but also the behavior of users, a fact which has consequences on the biological and neurological rhythm and psychological life of people involved in the learning process. keywords actional approach, manifestation of emotions, creative interaction, procedural memory and limbic system, hybrid context 1. introduction in language didactics, the actional approach is defined as a multidimensional and holistic one aimed at cultivating not only the physical and emotional aspect but also the mental and psychological state of the participants in the pedagogical process. more specifically, in oral didactics, the nature of the interactions which are established among the members of the group grant a cognitive, socio-affective and behavioral dimension, in order to implement collaborative tasks, linking conviviality and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 4, 2022 19 published by scholink inc. pragmatism. in this aspect, it would be interesting, on the one hand, to reflect on the manifestation of emotions triggered by verbal expression while assessing the contribution of memory. on the other hand, we will look at the dimension of verbal creativity and the functioning of the limbic system, in order to develop the dynamics of exchanges in interaction not only in a face-to-face but also in a hybrid context. 2. perform creative tasks in a constructive interactional approach during oral interactions, inferential processes can, on the one hand, be denoted with emotion and, on the other hand, make a syllogism of cause and effect by going as far as explaining the established situation. because verbal behaviors alternate with non-verbal traits such as signs and gestures, since kinesics but also proxemics occupy a primordial place in the interactional framework, where the people involved act in a specific context. according to chatar-moumni (2013), “most models developed in cognitive psychology and neurobiology, but also in sociology (von scheve 2009), to explain emotional processes integrate several components, the three main ones being cognitive evaluation processes, peripheral physiological responses and behavioral expression (scherer, 2000)”. in this perspective, the behavior of a person becomes a stimulus for the other members of the group so that an interdependence takes place through the pedagogical process, where conscious or unconscious actions determining their behavior are exercised. moreover, “cicurel defines didactic interaction as ‘a finalized dialogue whose goal is learning’ (cicurel, 1993a, p. 95): this means that all the verbal exchanges that take place in it -with a few exceptionsare motivated by this goal.” (bigot, conversing in language class: myth or reality? http://cediscor.revues.org/362). furthermore, all communication generates inferences concerning not only the understanding and restitution of a message broadcast in a given context but also reflecting the thoughts, emotions or cultural substrates of the interlocutors. during oral interactions, inferential processes can, on the one hand, be denoted with emotion and, on the other hand, make a syllogism of cause and effect by going as far as explaining the established situation. on the other hand, verbal behaviors alternate with non-verbal traits such as signs and gestures, since kinesics but also proxemics occupy a primordial place in the interactional framework where the characters act in a specific context. in addition, it is important to take into consideration the implicit context in interpersonal exchanges, which could manifest cultural misunderstandings or even become a source of blockage, which denotes the psychological difficulties related to misunderstandings during the pedagogical process. according to collès (2013), “other implicit, on the contrary, tropes, come from the transgression of certain conversational norms. this transgression may have linguistic or psychological reasons. (...) in my opinion, many verbal misunderstandings stem from a misinterpretation of the implicit content of the message.” (collès, 2013, p. 82). to establish communication, it is necessary to use transactional strategies, integrating sensory channels in the reception of information, reflection through analysis, analogy and the affective factor in the processing of the message sent and verbal expression but also action and emotion in the emission of the http://cediscor.revues.org/362 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 4, 2022 20 published by scholink inc. data collected. in verbal interactions, gestures are considered essential in the evocation of signs because the unspoken elements include meaning in communication. to the pauses and silences the mimicry and in general, the bodily expression of the speakers is added. in this way, physical traits remain associated with psychological components, since people’s reactions are connoted and nuanced by more or less positive, negative or even neutral feelings. all these components belong to different domains: psychological components (speaker’s intentions, self-image), physical components (phonatory apparatus, body), pragmatic components (ability to understand the situation, ability to adapt), discursive and linguistic components (discursive behaviors required such as knowing how to argue for example), linguistic components (level of mastery of grammar rules, lexicon), prosodic components (inflection, tone, tonality, intonation, accent, modulation), metalinguistic components (ability to control one’s speech, to reformulate it, to explain it), interactive components. when acquiring a second language, a constructive interactional approach based on group impact can spark creativity. on the one hand, an apprenticeship, which cultivates imitation, makes it possible to serve as a springboard to go through the technique of transfer to alternative choices while distancing itself from the initial form. on the other hand, the transition to combinatorial structures leads to divergent elaborations. finally, the practice of the verbal game technique leads to a creative interactional approach sometimes characterized by original formulas. according to muller, “new ideas are also born from the combination of several responses. after the presentation of the theoretical and methodological framework, the analysis of the data will be conducted in three stages: the identification of clues by the learners, the use of analogy and the combination of ideas.” (muller, 2009, p. 89). it is in the professorial action that the transmission of verbal or non-verbal data highlights the actional approach, in order to acquire a creative competence in action. a constructive interactional approach can spark participants’ creativity. in this respect, the transmission of verbal or non-verbal data highlights the creative skill that is put into action. the incentive to act verbally or not ensures the dynamic presence of the participants, who cultivate their skills but also give an active meaning in the pedagogical process. “since learners become social actors, strategies must be used that propose divergent communication situations both orally and in writing in as authentic and motivating a way as possible. thus, we manage to achieve a double perspective: a) to liberate the cognitive and affective world of the person, b) to decode and decipher his reactions and production skills reveal at the same time the personal obsessions and the socio-cultural status of the learners.” (efthimiadou, 2013). 3. verbal expression of emotions and different memories what is decisive for the positive engagement of the learner in the act of learning is the setting in motion through active participation and personal involvement, which will determine his investment in action by creating fruitful exchanges with his partners. moreover, as bogaards (1991) notes, “other situational www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 4, 2022 21 published by scholink inc. and personal, physical and psychological factors play their role, not only in the how of the process, but also in its determination and modalities.” (bogaards, 1991, pp. 50-51). the different memories play a preponderant role not only in the reception of data from the environment, but also in the processing and retrieval of information, because they depend on the encoding and storage of cognitive, socio-affective and metacognitive decision-making in any learning situation. sensory memory remains dependent on the amygdala of the brain, in order to examine very quickly and approximately the signals perceived by the natural environment. this storage of information binds to emotional memorization by the hippocampus, which makes learning more effective. on the other hand, short-term memory associates the cognitive aspect with the affective one. as efthimiadou, notes: “in the process of memorization, short-term memory activates mental operations by maintaining, but also by processing the information retained by the reception of sensory data. (...) short-term memory retrieves the data recorded by long-term memory to proceed to the analysis of information related to sensory memory.” (efthimiadou, 2018, p. 122). working memory (or short-term memory) is used to manipulate and retain information while performing a task or activity. working memory or active memory serves to activate all the information stored in our brain in order to perform one or more simultaneous tasks. if we take into consideration the different places of long-term memory, for declarative or explicit memory, personal memories can be recalled consciously. we can distinguish the semantic memory capable of memorizing the notions of procedural memory related to motor skills and cognitive skills cultivating the know-how in learning episodic memory, which allows us to remember the events of our lives as well as our emotions. on the one hand, episodic memory, or autobiographical memory, makes it possible to remember past moments (autobiographical events) and to predict the next day. this form of memory is linked to our past, our history, our identity because it allows us to remember the events of our lives as well as our emotions. on the other hand, semantic memory is the memory of knowledge, words, concepts and definitive knowledge. it concerns personal data but also general data accessible to our conscience. semantic memory is able to memorize the notions of procedural memory related to motor skills and cognitive skills, cultivating the know-how in learning. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 4, 2022 22 published by scholink inc. subsequently, emotional conditioning is part of implicit memory. associative learning is the basis of this form of memory. this is the link that can be created between an emotion and a situation, event, or object. long-term memory goes from storing to retrieving stored data to elaborate feedback from the release. it is important to note that "there are interactions between the working memory system and those of long-term memory. they allow the memorization of certain events and, thus, to recall old memories in the face of certain present situations, in order to better adapt. (https://www.inserm.fr/dossier/memoire/). interactions occur between explicit and implicit memory because the complex set of activations and deactivations remains closely linked to explicit memory and implicit memory tasks. it is essential to take into account the mental states of people interacting, in order to decode their behavioral reaction and to predict their conduct but also their regulation during interpersonal exchanges. as a result, “the emotional dimension appears central in the design of current machines, and it is partly linked to memory: both with human memory, in particular the unconscious memory at work in recognition phenomena, and with its computer modeling, which includes machine learning techniques.” (ganascia, 2016, p. 153). in this sense, the memorization of experiences in life becomes profound if we live each situation in a state of strong emotion. as eustache (2016) points out, “the importance of the event, perceived from the outset, the element of surprise and the emotional charge lead to memorizing the context of learning: where we were, what we were doing at the time it happened, what we felt, how we reacted.” (eustache, 2016, p. 21). 4. limbic system and digital media the limbic system is a collection of structures involved in processing emotion and memory, including the hippocampus, the amygdala, and the hypothalamus. the term limbus, latin ‘border’ has been used in modern neuroscience to indicate a progressively increasing number of regions dedicated to a wide range of functions. “the hypothalamus, the anterior thalamic nucleus, the cingulate gyrus, the hippocampus and their interconnections, constitute a harmonious mechanism which may elaborate the functions of central emotion as well as participate in the emotional expression.” (papez, 1937). “according to papez, ‘emotion may arise in two ways: as a result of psychic activity and as consequence of hypothalamic activity’. the psychic activity enters the circuit (later named after papez) through the hippocampus while visceral and somatic perceptions enter the circuit through the hypothalamus.” (catani & thiebaut de schotten, 2012). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 4, 2022 23 published by scholink inc. cross-section through the brain showing the limbic system and all related structures. image credit: corbac40/shutterstock, https://www.news-medical.net/health/limbic-system-and-behavior.aspx the nature of the stimulation shapes the connections among neurons that create the neuronal networks necessary for thought and behavior. with this in mind, digital media can condition our sensations but also our behavior by exerting an influence on our perceptions and thoughts, which has consequences on the biological and neurological rhythm and psychological life of users. indeed, we find ourselves immersed in different media environments, always particular, frequently overlapped and superimposed on each other, which penetrate into us -into our “thought”far beyond the only “information” that we draw from it punctually (citton, 2016). because the technocratic invasion manages to penetrate our human life and to modify our way of learning, informing, thinking, acting and even reacting by external stimuli, which invade the areas of our brain and our sensitivity. the participation of the limbic system focuses attention on the message through its emotional component and facilitates the development of procedural memory. for his part, cortillon (2014) highlights the functioning of procedural memory and the limbic system to adopt good learning strategies while pointing out that michel paradis focuses on the importance of the proper functioning of the limbic system that controls emotions, desires and is at the source of motivation: “speech is immersed in a matrix of behavioral patterns regulated by the limbic system.” (cortillon, 2014, p. 126). at the basis of each intentionally produced utterance, we therefore find the participation of the limbic system that focuses attention on the message thanks to its emotional component and facilitates the development of procedural memory. certainly, the information received, exploited and decoded contribute to bring meaning to the situations put in context because the operations of decoding and encoding information are linked and highlight the cognitive aspect but also the affective dimension in the development and management of the tasks to be performed. in collaborative distance learning, the trainer encourages learners to work together to complete certain collaborative tasks. in this context, learners are invited to help each other overcome their difficulties. this collaborative approach has positive effects on learners while cultivating the notion of solidarity. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 4, 2022 24 published by scholink inc. teachers and learners manage to exchange experiences and share tasks without neglecting that the learner himself has the opportunity to self-assess by devoting personal time to self-study. certainly, new it tools and multimodal and open approaches can facilitate exchanges among subjects to put into practice pragmatic ways of learning and ensure new training requirements through the adoption of good educational practices cultivating a knowledge focused on creative potential. the adoption of tactics to accomplish strategic experiential training encourages the class group to assume its responsibilities to interact in an atmosphere of collaboration and mental fulfillment. as efthimiadou points out, “hot and cold cognition are associated and remain complementary in the interrelations between trainees and both their virtual and physical environment. with the use of collaborative online tasks, participants become actors and co-actors by cultivating their cognitive, socio-affective and transversal skills. however, the manifestation of anxiety associated with the lack of self-confidence leads to a discrepancy in action while at the same time risking of disruption. it is therefore necessary to become aware of the mental states of the participants, in order to engage and readapt them in hybrid learning context.” (efthimiadou, 2021, p. 5). therefore, acting and co-acting in a group face-to-face or even in the context of blended learning becomes a new challenge for oral learning, in order to take a reflective look at one’s progress while allowing to better manage one’s potential. 5. discussion the actional perspective places the learner at the heart of his/her learning by carrying out more or less complex tasks while allowing to exploit his/her hidden resources in order to lead to the quest for cognitive but also affective resources. what must characterize the interpersonal relationships of the members of a group is strategic cooperation and effective contribution in the execution of micro or macro-tasks. bearing that in mind, the implementation of collaborative and interactive training makes it possible to arouse the creativity of the participants and to cultivate the creative slope, which is put into action while using self-paced learning to maximize training efficiency. in carrying out actional tasks, it is essential to cultivate a willingness to learn, since deadlocks can be overcome if a climate of balance and negotiation is established that promotes positive values such as the courage to undertake, the enthusiasm to intervene and the desire to gain transferable experience in both convergent and divergent fields. “this stimulation of the person also involves the construction and exploitation of new schemes, which broadens the prospects for training. certainly, the pedagogical relationship is established not only on perception and the socio-affective dimension but also on behavioral values.” (efthimiadou, 2011, p. 166). thus, in a reciprocal relationship, the attitude adopted by each individual becomes a stimulus for the others because an interdependence is realized under the impulse of the subjects in their mutual exchanges. for this reason, it is essential to cultivate the willingness to learn, since deadlocks can be overcome if we establish a climate of balance and negotiation that promotes positive values such as the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 4, 2022 25 published by scholink inc. courage to undertake, the enthusiasm to intervene and the desire to acquire experiences transferable to other areas. ultimately, the trainer’s contribution proves to be essential to implement an actional pedagogy where participants will be able to optimize their expectations through the adoption of an interactive project pedagogy and the implementation of online collaborative tasks. as a result, the promotion of new training requirements through the adoption of good educational practices, cultivates the knowledge of an action-centred creative potential. therefore, acting and co-acting in a group’s face-to-face or even in a hybrid context becomes a new challenge for oral learning, since digital media can also condition the sensations but also the behavior of users, a fact which has consequences on the biological and neurological rhythm and psychological life of people involved in the learning process. references bigot, v. (1996). converser en classe de langue : mythe ou réalité ? les carnets du cediscor [en ligne], 4 | 1996, mis en ligne le 22 juillet 2009, consulté le 19 mars 2022. https://doi.org/10.4000/cediscor.362 bogaards, p. (1991). aptitude et affectivité dans l’apprentissage des langues étrangères. paris: hatier-didier. catani, μ., & thiebaut de schotten, μ. (2012, november 1st). limbic system. atlas of human brain. https://doi.org/10.1093/med/9780199541164.003.0009 connections. (2012). oxford, 2012; online edn, oxford academic, 1 nov. 2012. https://doi.org/10.1093/med/9780199541164.003.0130 chatar-moumni, n. (2013). l’expression verbale des émotions : présentation. langue française, 180, 3-11. https://doi.org/10.3917/lf.180.0003 cicurel, f. (1993). marques et traces de la position de l’autre dans les discours d’enseignement des langues. les carnets du cediscor 2. paris: presses de la sorbonne nouvelle. https://doi.org/10.4000/cediscor.582 citton, y. (2016). préface. humanités numériques et études de media comparés. https://doi.org/10.1016/b978-0-323-28665-7.09984-2 côté, r. (2003). apprendre-formation expérientielle stratégique. québec: presses de l’université du québec. collès, l. (2013). passage des frontières. etudes de didactiques du français et de l’interculturel. presses universitaires de louvain : louvain-la-neuve. cortillon, j. (2014). mémoire procédurale et mémoire déclarative: implications didactiques. in m-. j. de man, & s. de vriendt (eds.), du son au sens (pp. 125-133). mons, belgique: éditions du cipa. efthimiadou, e. (2021). hot and cold cognition in hybrid communication. frontiers in education technology, 4(3), 1-7. https://doi.org/10.22158/fet.v4n3p1 https://doi.org/10.4000/cediscor.362 https://doi.org/10.1093/med/9780199541164.003.0009 https://doi.org/10.3917/lf.180.0003 https://doi.org/10.4000/cediscor.582 https://doi.org/10.1016/b978-0-323-28665-7.09984-2 https://doi.org/10.22158/fet.v4n3p1 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 4, 2022 26 published by scholink inc. efthimiadou, e. (2018). mémoire sensorielle vs mémoire affective et émotionnelle. de la représentation mentale à l’imagination créatrice. in f. berdal-masuy (eds.), emotissage—les émotions dans l’apprentissage des langues (pp. 119-128). belgique: presses universitaires de louvain. efthimiadou, e. 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(29/01/2019). inserm. la science pour la santé. from science to health. dossier réalisé en collaboration avec francis eustache, directeur de l’unité 1077 inserm/ephe/unicaen, neuropsychologie et imagerie de la mémoire humaine. retrieved from https://www.inserm.fr/dossier/memoire/ muller c. (2009). la créativité dans des commentaires de photographies en classe de français langue étrangère. synergies europe, 4, 89-104. papez, j. w. (1937). a proposed mechanism of emotion. archives of neurology & psychiatry, 38(4), 725-743. https://doi.org/10.1001/archneurpsyc.1937.02260220069003 https://doi.org/10.1001/archneurpsyc.1937.02260220069003 frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no.4, 2021 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 37 original paper the effects of self-regulated learning strategies on computer programming achievement in teacher education gary cheng1 1 department of mathematics and information technology, the education university of hong kong, tai po, new territories, hong kong received: october 24, 2021 accepted: november 12, 2021 online published: november 23, 2021 doi:10.22158/fet.v4n4p37 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v4n4p37 abstract this study investigates the effects of student use of self-regulated learning (srl) strategies on their computer programming achievement. ninety-six students from undergraduate teacher training programmes offered by a hong kong university voluntarily participated in the study. sixty-six of them were first-year students enrolling on an introductory java programming course, while 30 were second-year students enrolling on an advanced java programming course. the srl strategies adopted by participants were measured by the motivated strategies for learning questionnaire (mslq) and were exemplified from the reflective writing of their electronic portfolios. their achievement in computer programming was evaluated using continuous and end of course assessments. the findings of this study suggest that higher-order cognitive strategies (i.e. elaboration, organization, critical thinking), metacognitive control strategies (i.e. self-regulation) and resource management strategies (i.e. time and study environment management, help seeking) are likely to facilitate a prolonged achievement of computer programming for both novices and non-novices. they can provide insights into designing adequate srl strategy training to support student learning in computer programming. keywords self-regulated learning strategies, computer programming, electronic portfolio, teacher education 1. introduction computer programming is generally regarded as the process of designing and executing a sequence of instructions for a computer to accomplish a specific task. it has been around in schools and universities for half a century. papert (1980) pointed out that computer programming can equip students with the ability to decompose a problem into sub-problems, to plan and design solutions to the sub-problems, as well as to detect and debug errors while implementing the solutions. aho (2012) noted that computer www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 38 published by scholink inc. programming can engage students in the thought process of how to formulate problems in ways that can be tackled by computational steps and methods. over the last decade, computer programming has gained renewed attention among educational researchers because it is considered a key element to implementing the computational thinking concepts that are helpful to students (resnick et al., 2009; lye & koh, 2014). more importantly, it is believed that computer programming can foster the development of twenty-first century skills such as creativity, critical thinking and problem solving (lye & koh, 2014; pardamean & evelin, 2014; scherer, 2016). nevertheless, computer programming remains something of a challenge for novices. previous research has indicated that computer programming is one of the most difficult and challenging areas in computing education (mcgettrick et al., 2005; robin, 2019). this is evidenced by the high failure rates of introductory programming courses at university level, with nearly one-third of enrolled students failing to pass the courses (bennedsen & caspersen, 2007, 2019; watson & li, 2014). research and analysis have been undertaken to gain understanding of potential causes behind the poor performance of novices in computer programming, with focuses on the settings of teaching and learning (palumbo, 1990; scherer, siddiq, & viveros, 2020; watson & li, 2014) and the characteristics of students (saeed, yang, & sinnappan, 2009; shaw, 2012; zacharis, 2010). on the other hand, there has been evidence showing that learning strategy is the leading causal attribution to achievement outcomes on computer programming (hawi, 2010). there has been therefore a call for more research into exploring student strategies for computer programming in higher education (watson & li, 2014). self-regulated learning (srl) is a promising approach to facilitate student learning in computer programming. it refers to an “active, constructivist process whereby learners set goals for their learning and attempt to monitor, regulate and control their cognition, motivation and behaviour, guided and constrained by their goals and contextual features in the environment” (pintrich, 2000, p. 453). there is a substantial body of evidence showing the importance and benefits of srl strategies on student learning in some subject areas like language and science (akyol, sungur, & tekkaya, 2010; cheng & chau, 2013; sun & wang; zheng et al., 2020) but very limited in some other areas like computer programming. to fill this gap, this study aimed to explore the effects of student use of srl strategies on their achievement in different types of programming assessment. it was also designed to identify whether there is difference in the use of srl strategies between novices and non-novices. given the growing importance of computer programming in this digital age, the findings of this study will be of great interest and relevant to researchers and practitioners in computer programming education. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 39 published by scholink inc. 2. related research 2.1 the importance of srl strategies for academic achievement srl refers to a constructivist learning process where students are actively engaged to acquire knowledge and skills through setting goals, choosing strategies, sustaining motivation, monitoring and assessing progress, making attributions about outcomes (zimmerman, 2000). the cyclical nature of srl can enable students to evaluate their prior efforts towards the learning goal they pursue, and to regulate their subsequent efforts to achieve a better learning outcome. research has shown that srl is not a fixed trait but can be constantly developed through the training and practice of relevant strategies (bellhäuser, lösch, winter, & schmitz, 2016; teng & zhang, 2020). research has also shown that deployment of appropriate srl strategies is significantly connected with knowledge acquisition and academic achievement in different subject areas like mathematics (wang & sperling, 2020), science (zheng et al., 2020) and language (sun & wang, 2020). according to pintrich (1999), srl strategies can be characterized as “strategies that students use to regulate their cognition (i.e., use of various cognitive and metacognitive strategies) as well as the use of resource management strategies that students use to control their learning” (p. 459). three types of srl strategies are associated with the regulation of student learning, including cognitive, metacognitive control, and resource management strategies. students can adopt cognitive strategies to rehearse, organize, elaborate and critically think about the ideas and knowledge to be learned. they can also employ metacognitive control strategies to plan, monitor and regulate their own learning for the achievement of goals. furthermore, they can use resource management strategies to manage and control resources directly related to their learning such as study environment, time, effort and external assistance (pintrich, smith, garcia, & mckeachie, 1993). research has revealed that students can benefit academically from appropriate use of srl strategies. this is especially obvious in the case of online learning where self-management strategies (e.g., time management, metacognition and effort regulation) are the key to success (broadbent & poon, 2015; kizilcec, pérez-sanagustín, & maldonado, 2017). the use of srl strategies can also play a major role in differentiating high and low achieving students in different learning tasks. performance on learning tasks for the acquisition of knowledge tended to relate more to cognitive strategies like elaboration (greene, yu, & copeland, 2014), but that for the understanding of knowledge tended to rely more on metacognitive strategies like monitoring (greene, copeland, deekens, & yu, 2018). therefore, provision of adequate support in srl strategy deployment for academically at-risk students would possibly help them to improve their academic achievement (winters, greene, & costich, 2008; zimmerman, 2001). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 40 published by scholink inc. 2.2 research into srl strategies and computer programming computer programming is widely known as a difficult and challenging skill to learn and master for novices (qian & lehman, 2017; robin, 2019). it was consistently reported that approximately one-third of students failed to pass their introductory programming courses in higher education worldwide (bennedsen & caspersen, 2007, 2019; watson & li, 2014). despite the work done by some previous studies on the possible factors influencing learning success in computer programming such as the internal characteristics of students (e.g. cheng, 2019; seyal, mey, matusin, siau, & rahman, 2015), more research is still needed to better understand what strategies and behaviours should be adopted by students with regard to the study of computer programming (watson & li, 2014). some research has been undertaken to examine the srl strategies used in different learning phases and environments. for example, pedrosa, cravino, morgado and barreira (2016) analyzed 401 individual weekly reflective entries collected from 97 undergraduate students for 10 weeks to identify their use of srl strategies in different learning phases. they found that students were more inclined to use organizing and planning strategies in early phases and then shifted to strategies about the application and transformation of theoretical knowledge into hands-on programming in later phases. çakıroğlu and öztürk (2017) examined how students develop their srl strategies for computer programming in a flipped classroom with problem-based activities. data of srl strategies were gathered from 30 undergraduates through an observation form, interviews and online learning logs. they found that students adopted task strategies, monitoring and help seeking more frequently in the face-to-face settings than in the home sessions, suggesting that students tended to take an active role in learning programming and seek help from their teacher and peers in the classroom environment. some other research has concerned with the impact of srl strategies on computer programming. for example, bergin, reilly and traynor (2005) conducted a study on 35 undergraduates to examine the relationship between their srl strategies and programming performance. they found that students who adopted more metacognitive and resource management strategies could perform better in introductory programming, but cognitive strategies like rehearsal, elaboration and organization did not seem to relate to programming performance. cigdem (2015) carried out a similar study on 267 students from a military vocational college, but no significant correlation between their srl strategies and programming achievement was identified. likewise, song, hong and oh (2021) explored the relationship between the srl strategies and programming performance of 105 undergraduates and reported no significant correlation. despite the documented benefits of srl strategies for academic achievement in some subject areas (e.g. sun & wang, 2020; wang & sperling, 2020; zheng et al., 2020), there have been limited studies and inconclusive findings about the impact of srl strategies on learning achievement in computer programming. to date little has been known about which srl strategies are effective for students to accomplish different types of programming assessment. further investigation is thus warranted to shed light on this research issue. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 41 published by scholink inc. 3. purpose of the study this study is part of a funded project, namely “tracking students’ use of self-regulated learning strategies for computer programming in teacher education”. the purpose of the study was twofold: 1) to collect and analyze student reflection on their use of srl strategies specific to computer programming in teacher education through electronic portfolio (eportfolio) construction; and 2) to explore the relationship between the use of srl strategies and the achievement in computer programming. specifically, this study was guided by the following key research question: which srl strategies correlate positively with computer programming achievement for novices and non-novices? this research question hypothesized that some srl strategies would lead to better learning outcomes of students in computer programming while others would not. in this study, the hypothesis was evaluated by measuring the correlation between students’ srl strategy use and their achievement in computer programming. it was also examined by identifying the differences in the use of srl strategies between high and low achieving students at both novice and non-novice levels. 4. research method 4.1 participants a total of 66 first year university students (28 females and 38 males) and 30 second year university students (10 females and 20 males) gave their written consent to participate in this study. the first-year students were enrolled on an introductory java programming course, while the second-year students were enrolled on an advanced java programming course with the prerequisite of passing the introductory java programming course. both courses spanned over 13 weeks with 3 hours each week and they were offered by a hong kong university in the academic year 2018/19. all participants studied the bachelor of education (honours) programme in primary or secondary education with specialization in mathematics or information technology. the ages of the first-year participants were between 17 and 22 years old (m=20.1, sd=1.86) and those of the second-year participants were between 19 and 24 years old (m=20.6, sd=1.35). at the outset of the study, all first-year participants reported that they had no prior experience in computer programming. 4.2 measures 4.2.1 measurement of use of srl strategies the motivated strategies for learning questionnaire (mslq) was used to evaluate participants’ use of srl strategies (pintrich, smith, garcia, & mckeechie, 1991). the mslq is an 81-item, self-report instrument made up of two sections, comprising motivational orientations and use of learning strategies. the motivation section contains 31 items assessing students’ goals and value beliefs, their beliefs about their skills to succeed, as well as their test anxiety in a course. the learning strategies section includes 50 items concerning students’ use of cognitive, metacognitive control and resources management strategies. since its development in early 1990s, the mslq has been widely adopted to evaluate students’ motivation (chen, wang, & lin, 2015; sung, hwang, & yen, 2015; yilmaz, 2017) and use of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 42 published by scholink inc. srl strategies (alario-hoyos, estévez-ayres, pérez-sanagustín, delgado kloos, & fernández-panadero, 2017; broadbent, 2017; cheng & chau, 2013; song et al., 2021) in a wide range of educational settings. in this study, participants rated themselves on each item of the mslq using a seven-point likert scale ranging from 1 (not at all true of me) to 7 (very true of me). since this study was concerned with students’ srl strategies but not their motivational orientations, only the learning strategies section was used to examine their use of cognitive and metacognitive control strategies (rehearsal, elaboration, organization, critical thinking, and metacognitive self-regulation), as well as resource management strategies (time and study environment, effort regulation, peer learning, and help seeking). table 1 presents details of the learning strategies section. table 1. learning strategies section in mslq scale subscales no. of items cognitive strategies rehearsal elaboration organization critical thinking 4 6 4 5 metacognitive control strategies metacognitive self-regulation 12 resource management strategies time & study environment management effort regulation peer learning help seeking 8 4 3 4 4.2.2 identification of srl strategies specific to computer programming student reflection on their strategies to learn computer programming was retrieved from their eportfolio for analysis. using open coding based on grounded theory (charmaz, 2006), student use of srl strategies specific to computer programming was identified. the srl strategies for computer programming was initially based on the previous work of a general srl strategy model (pintrich et al., 1991). during the open coding process, a set of srl strategies specific to computer programming and their examples can be built from student reflection. two experienced researchers from the research team were involved in the coding process and they independently analyzed student reflection at sentence level. discrepancies in the identification results between the two researchers were discussed to reach consensus on the method of analysis. a sample coded segment of student reflection is illustrated in figure 1. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 43 published by scholink inc. figure 1. a sample coded segment of student reflection 4.2.3 measurement of computer programming achievement two types of individual assessment were applied to the introductory and advanced java programming courses to measure student achievement in computer programming. the first was continuous assessment (ca, constituting 70% of the course grade) where students were asked to complete practical hands-on class exercises throughout the course. the second was end of course assessment (ea, constituting 30% of the course grade) where students were required to take a final written examination. both ca and ea were designed and marked by an experienced teacher in computer programming. 4.3 procedure one main objective of this study was to collect and analyze student reflection on the use of srl strategies specific to computer programming through eportfolio practice. to develop an eportfolio, students were asked to create a tri-weekly showcase to document three important components of srl on their preferred online platforms (e.g. mahara, google sites and microsoft sway). the three components included goal setting (i.e. listing specific learning goals in computer programming), artifact showcasing (i.e. selecting programming artifacts to demonstrate the progress or achievement towards the goals) and reflective writing (i.e. reflecting on the strategies adopted to achieve the goals and considering how to make improvements). the length of the reflective writing was around 200 words. prior to the study, all students attended a technical training workshop to understand different phases of eportfolio development. they were particularly trained and instructed to: 1) identify specific learning goals in the goal setting phase; 2) collect a set of learning products that demonstrate their programming ability in the artifact collection phase; 3) choose learning products that clearly indicate their programming achievement towards the intended goals in the artifact selection phase; and 4) make connections between learning goals, artifacts and strategies in the reflective writing phase. figure 2 shows the development process of an eportfolio. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 44 published by scholink inc. figure 2. the development process of an eportfolio at the commencement of the study, the learning strategies section of mslq was administered to the participants to evaluate their use of srl strategies. the participants then started to learn java programming, attempt assessment tasks, and develop their eportfolios. the course teacher would mark the assessments and the research team would analyse the results of mslq and annotate student reflection on eportfolios. at the end of the course, the participants were divided into two different groups based on a median split of different types of assessment scores. those with a score higher than the median were assigned to a high achieving group (hg), while the remaining were assigned to a low achieving group (lg). figure 3 illustrates the procedure of this study, while table 2 summarizes the descriptive statistics of assessment scores attained by the two achieving groups at different levels of programming courses. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 45 published by scholink inc. figure 3. the procedure of this study 5. results 5.1 correlation between srl strategies use and assessment scores the internal consistency reliability among various subscales in the learning strategies section of the mslq was evaluated by cronbach’s alpha coefficient (), ranging from 0.80 to 0.92 for each subscale. since all the computed coefficients are above an acceptable level (0.70), no subscales need to be removed (nunnally & bernstein, 1994). the result suggests that the items in each subscale measured the same underlying construct of learning strategies. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 46 published by scholink inc. table 2. descriptive statistics of assessment scores attained by hg and lg in different programming courses level of programming course group median split no. of participants assessment score (full score = 100) male female m sd introductory hg on ca >=78.3 14 19 86.5 5.2 lg on ca <78.3 24 9 68.0 11.1 advanced hg on ca >=83.6 10 5 89.1 2.6 lg on ca <83.6 10 5 73.6 13.5 introductory hg on ea >=57 16 17 72.0 9.5 lg on ea <57 22 11 40.6 10.1 advanced hg on ea >=41.8 12 3 61.3 16.2 lg on ea <41.8 8 7 33.3 6.4 tables 3 and 4 present the correlation coefficients among learning strategies scales and the ca score in the introductory and advanced programming courses, respectively. as shown in the two tables, the four subscales of cognitive strategies (i.e. rehearsal, elaboration, organization, and critical thinking) were significantly positively correlated with the ca score in both the introductory and advanced programming courses (r≥0.38, p<0.01). the results indicate that novices and non-novices who reported more frequent use of cognitive strategies would attain higher ca scores in computer programming. in addition, it is found that the ca score was also significantly positively correlated with three other subscales including metacognitive self-regulation (r=0.40, p<0.05), effort regulation (r=0.47, p<0.01), and help seeking (r=0.47, p<0.01) but only in the advanced programming course. this suggests that non-novices were more likely to use metacognitive control strategies and resource management strategies to help improve their performance in ca. the correlation coefficients among learning strategies scales and the ea score in the introductory and advanced programming courses are shown in tables 5 and 6, respectively. six subscales (i.e. elaboration, organization, critical thinking, metacognitive self-regulation, time and study environment, and help seeking) across three types of strategies were significantly positively correlated with the ea score in the two courses (r≥0.44, p<0.01). the results indicate that both novices and non-novices who reported more frequent use of cognitive, metacognitive control and resource management strategies would attain higher ea scores in computer programming. moreover, the ea score was also significantly positively correlated with rehearsal (r=0.72, p<0.05), effort regulation (r=0.51, p<0.05), and peer learning (r=0.49, p<0.01) in the advanced programming course only. this suggests that non-novices were likely to adopt more diverse strategies to help improve their performance in ea. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 47 published by scholink inc. table 3. correlation between srl strategies use and the ca score in introductory programming 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1. rehearsal -0.61** 0.54** 0.43** 0.37** 0.34** 0.47** 0.58** 0.45** 0.38** 2. elaboration -0.81** 0.78** 0.62** 0.57** 0.37** 0.34** 0.59** 0.59** 3. organization -0.77** 0.76** 0.61** 0.35** 0.35** 0.67** 0.53** 4. critical thinking -0.75** 0.64** 0.32** 0.26** 0.68** 0.41** 5. metacognitive self-regulation -0.65** 0.35** 0.26* 0.75** 0.24 6. time & study environment management -0.33** 0.27* 0.63** 0.11 7. effort regulation -0.60** 0.45** 0.17 8. peer learning -0.33** 0.22 9. help seeking -0.00 10. ca score - *p<0.05, **p<0.01 table 4. correlation between srl strategies use and the ca score in advanced programming 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1. rehearsal -0.90** 0.90** 0.86** 0.71** 0.68** 0.68** 0.73** 0.80** 0.55** 2. elaboration -0.97** 0.96** 0.86** 0.81** 0.73** 0.73** 0.91** 0.59** 3. organization -0.96** 0.86** 0.82** 0.79** 0.73** 0.93** 0.58** 4. critical thinking -0.85** 0.81** 0.78** 0.67** 0.91** 0.61** 5. metacognitive self-regulation -0.95** 0.84** 0.82** 0.96** 0.40* 6. time & study environment management -0.77** 0.80** 0.93** 0.29 7. effort regulation -0.74** 0.86** 0.47** 8. peer learning -0.79** 0.27 9. help seeking -0.47** 10. ca score - *p<0.05, **p<0.01 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 48 published by scholink inc. table 5. correlation between srl strategies use and the ea score in introductory programming 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1. rehearsal -0.61** 0.54** 0.43** 0.37** 0.34** 0.47** 0.58** 0.45** 0.07 2. elaboration -0.81** 0.78** 0.62** 0.57** 0.37** 0.34** 0.59** 0.50** 3. organization -0.77** 0.76** 0.61** 0.35** 0.35** 0.67** 0.53** 4. critical thinking -0.75** 0.64** 0.32** 0.26* 0.68** 0.62** 5. metacognitive self-regulation -0.65** 0.35** 0.26* 0.75** 0.61** 6. time & study environment management -0.33** 0.27* 0.63** 0.44** 7. effort regulation -0.60** 0.45** 0.10 8. peer learning -0.33** -0.03 9. help seeking -0.50** 10. ea score - *p<0.05, **p<0.01 table 6. correlation between srl strategies use and the ea score in advanced programming 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1. rehearsal -0.90** 0.90** 0.86** 0.71** 0.68** 0.68** 0.73** 0.80** 0.72** 2. elaboration -0.97** 0.96** 0.86** 0.81** 0.73** 0.73** 0.91** 0.80** 3. organization -0.96** 0.86** 0.82** 0.79** 0.73** 0.93** 0.77** 4. critical thinking -0.85** 0.81** 0.78** 0.67** 0.91** 0.80** 5. metacognitive self-regulation -0.95** 0.84** 0.82** 0.86** 0.74** 6. time & study environment management -0.77** 0.80** 0.93** 0.69** 7. effort regulation -0.74** 0.86** 0.51** 8. peer learning -0.79** 0.49** 9. help seeking -0.78** 10. ea score - *p<0.05, **p<0.01 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 49 published by scholink inc. 5.2 self-reported use of srl strategies this section sought to identify the differences in the self-reported use of srl strategies between the high and low achieving groups in the introductory and advanced programming courses. an independent samples t-test was used to examine if there was statistically significant difference in each subscale between the two groups classified based on different types of assessment. tables 7 and 8 present the statistical results based on ca and ea, respectively. table 7 shows statistically significant differences in the use of cognitive strategies only between the high and low achieving groups classified based on ca. the high achieving groups in both programming courses reported more frequent use of cognitive strategies associated with rehearsal (introductory level: t=2.98, p<0.01; advanced level: t=4.35, p<0.001), elaboration (introductory level: t=6.08, p<0.001; advanced level: t=3.06, p<0.01), organization (introductory level: t=4.42, p<0.001; advanced level: t=3.00, p<0.01) and critical thinking (introductory level: t=3.20, p<0.01; advanced level: t=3.41, p<0.01). the four cognitive strategies tended to be effective for improving student performance in ca at both novice and non-novice levels. on the other hand, table 8 shows statistically significant differences in the use of not only cognitive strategies but also metacognitive control and resource management strategies between the high and low achieving groups classified based on ea. the high achieving groups in both courses reported more frequent use of the strategies associated with elaboration (introductory level: t=4.42, p<0.001; advanced level: t=5.09, p<0.001), organization (introductory level: t=4.87, p<0.001; advanced level: t=5.02, p<0.001), critical thinking (introductory level: t=6.57, p<0.001; advanced level: t=5.82, p<0.001), metacognitive self-regulation (introductory level: t=5.11, p<0.001; advanced level: t=5.56, p<0.001), time and study environment management (introductory level: t=5.18, p<0.001; advanced level: t=5.73, p<0.001), and help seeking (introductory level: t=4.71, p<0.001; advanced level: t=5.96, p<0.001). the six cognitive, metacognitive control, and resource management strategies appeared to be helpful in enhancing student performance in ea at both novice and non-novice levels. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 50 published by scholink inc. table 7. means, standard deviations and t-test values of learning strategies scales for hg and lg classified by ca subscales introductory programming advanced programming lg (n = 33) hg (n = 33) t-value lg (n = 15) hg (n = 15) t-value m sd m sd m sd m sd rehearsal 4.25 0.83 4.88 0.88 2.98** 3.26 0.82 4.58 0.85 4.35*** elaboration 4.41 0.78 5.52 0.70 6.08*** 3.22 1.15 4.40 0.95 3.06** organization 4.42 0.70 5.23 0.78 4.42*** 3.20 1.15 4.36 0.95 3.00** critical thinking 4.65 0.84 5.30 0.81 3.20** 3.29 1.06 4.47 0.83 3.41** metacognitive self-regulation 4.63 0.80 4.82 0.77 1.00 3.70 0.95 4.18 1.04 1.32 time & study environment management 4.80 0.86 4.92 0.60 0.65 3.77 0.86 4.12 0.97 1.03 effort regulation 4.33 0.65 4.46 0.94 0.65 3.46 1.13 4.06 0.84 1.66 peer learning 4.25 0.88 4.33 1.05 0.34 3.88 0.72 4.22 0.89 1.13 help seeking 4.86 0.82 4.93 0.78 0.38 3.44 1.05 4.21 0.96 2.08 **p<0.01, ***p<0.001 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 51 published by scholink inc. table 8. means, standard deviations and t-test values of learning strategies scales for hg and lg classified by ea subscales introductory programming advanced programming lg (n = 33) hg (n = 33) t-value lg (n = 15) hg (n = 15) t-value m sd m sd m sd m sd rehearsal 4.44 0.82 4.69 0.98 1.12 3.47 0.72 4.37 1.18 2.51 elaboration 4.52 0.82 5.41 0.80 4.42*** 3.00 0.80 4.62 0.96 5.09*** organization 4.39 0.66 5.26 0.78 4.87*** 2.98 0.79 4.59 0.96 5.02*** critical thinking 4.42 0.69 5.53 0.68 6.57*** 3.08 0.71 4.69 0.80 5.82*** metacognitive self-regulation 4.31 0.53 5.14 0.78 5.11*** 3.22 0.56 4.65 0.83 5.56*** time & study environment management 4.46 0.71 5.26 0.53 5.18*** 3.28 0.43 4.60 0.79 5.73*** effort regulation 4.36 0.67 4.44 0.92 0.42 3.22 0.88 4.31 0.87 3.42** peer learning 4.27 0.68 4.31 1.19 0.18 3.77 0.55 4.33 0.94 2.01 help seeking 4.49 0.67 5.30 0.71 4.71*** 3.03 0.57 4.60 0.84 5.96*** **p<0.01, ***p<0.001 6. discussion 6.1 cognitive strategies the results of this study indicate that student use of cognitive strategies (see tables 3 to 6) was correlated significantly with their performance in both continuous and end of course assessments. the results also indicate that students in different achieving groups adopted cognitive strategies at different levels for different types of assessment (see tables 7 and 8). in continuous assessment, small practical exercises were designed with each focusing on a particular programming topic like conditionals, arrays or strings. students could simply use rudimentary cognitive strategies like rehearsal or rote memorization to complete this kind of simple assessment tasks. for example, the reflective writing of high achieving students show that they often read the lecture notes multiple times in order to find the answers to the exercises. this can be seen as a way of processing the information to be learned at a surface level and can be effective for simple tasks (aukrust, 2011). however, rehearsal strategies may not be effective for end of course assessment. in end of course assessment, students were required to attend a written examination covering a wide range of topics and abstract concepts in computer www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 52 published by scholink inc. programming. deep understanding of the programming knowledge developed by higher-order cognitive strategies seems to play a more critical role in this kind of assessment. as can be seen from tables 7 and 8, higher-order cognitive strategies like elaboration, organization and critical thinking can contribute to both continuous and end of course assessments. according to the reflection of high achieving students, the elaboration strategies like using analogies could help them to explain the ideas of programming by making comparison with something that are well understood in our daily life. high achieving students also reflected that the organization strategies like outlining and clustering could help them to summarize key learning topics and group similar programming concepts together. the critical thinking strategies would help students to make critical evaluation with respect to the standard of excellence (pintrich et al., 1991). this is exemplified by the reflection of high achieving students that emphasizes on comparing the actual output of their program with that of manual processing to determine whether their program works properly. all the elaboration, organization and critical thinking strategies can potentially facilitate students to store the information to be learned in their long-term memory (aukrust, 2011). 6.2 metacognitive control strategies as evident from tables 3 to 6, student use of metacognitive control strategies tended to be significantly correlated with their performance in end of course assessment. a related result can be found from tables 7 and 8 that there was statistically significant difference in metacognitive control strategies between the two achieving groups for end of course assessment only. metacognitive control strategies are concerned with controlling and regulating one’s own cognition such as planning, monitoring and regulating (pintrich et al., 1991), and the strategies can have positive impact on the academic performance of students (duncan & mckeachie, 2005). for instance, high achieving students demonstrated in their reflective writing that they were inclined to plan their participation in class exercises (i.e. planning), track their own attention during lectures (i.e. monitoring), and practise more on difficult programming concepts (i.e. regulating). the importance of metacognitive control strategies is particularly obvious in end of course assessment. this can be in part attributed to the fact that the scope of end of course assessment was not just limited to a specific topic or concept. to achieve a good performance in end of course assessment, students needed to concentrate well and sustain their efforts towards learning over the entire course period. the results are consistent with those of greene et al. (2018) that metacognitive control strategies can contribute to deep understanding of concepts. 6.3 resource management strategies resource management strategies tended to be associated more with student performance in end of course assessment than in continuous assessment (see tables 3 to 6). moreover, statistically significant difference in resource management strategies is found between the two achieving groups for end of course assessment only (see table 7 and 8). high and low achievers in the two courses adopted resource management strategies for continuous assessment at nearly the same level but for end of course assessment at different levels. time and study environment management strategies and help www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 53 published by scholink inc. seeking strategies were commonly used for end of course assessment by high achieving students in both courses. time and study environment management strategies pertain to effectively managing time and appropriately choosing a place for study. the strategies were least relevant to continuous assessment where students were often asked to do exercises during the class, but they were particularly relevant to end of course assessment because it required students to study and review course materials outside the class. the reflection of high achieving students suggests that scheduling a regular time to study in the library every week is very helpful in studying the programming course. in addition to time and study environment management strategies, help seeking strategies were apparently related to end of course assessment. the strategies specifically refer to the ways of looking for assistance from peers, teachers or other sources, which could be useful for solving the problems arising from the wide coverage of concepts with a high level of difficulty in end of course assessment. in this study, it can be observed from student reflection that one typical source of assistance was through watching the instructional videos on computer programming available on online video sharing and social media platforms. a worthy point to note in respect to resource management strategies is that the high achieving group in the advanced programming course appeared to use more different strategies for end of course assessment than those in the introductory programming course. for example, a significant difference in the deployment of effort regulation strategies for end of course assessment is found between the two groups in the advanced programming course but not in the introductory programming course. this suggests that the maintenance of persistence towards study in the face of difficulty plays a more significant role in learning advanced programming knowledge and skills. based on the results reported and discussed above, it is argued that the development of computer programming ability of novices and non-novices would require a number of srl strategies supportive of deep understanding and sustained learning. some of the results indicate that students’ use of advanced cognitive strategies, metacognitive control strategies and resource management strategies are likely to be positive predictors of their overall programming achievement. 7. concluding remarks this study aimed to investigate a research issue about the effects of self-regulated learning (srl) strategies on computer programming achievement in teacher education. the relationship between students’ self-reported use of srl strategies and their computer programming achievement were explored. the learning strategies section of the motivated strategies for learning questionnaire (mslq) was administered to 66 first year university students from an introductory java programming course and 30 second year university students from an advanced java programming course in an attempt to evaluate their use of srl strategies, while their computer programming achievement was measured by their performance in continuous assessment (i.e. hands-on class exercises) and end of course assessment (i.e. written examination). all participating students were engaged in developing an www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 54 published by scholink inc. electronic portfolio (eportfolio) to support their reflection on the use of srl strategies specific to computer programming for further analysis. the results of this study indicate that all cognitive strategies were significantly positively correlated with student performance in continuous assessment, while advanced cognitive strategies, metacognitive control strategies and resource management strategies were significantly positively correlated with student performance in end of course assessment. furthermore, the results reveal statistically significant differences in the self-reported use of the cognitive, metacognitive control and resource management strategies between high and low achievers at different programming levels. both findings suggest that higher-order cognitive skills (i.e. elaboration, organization, critical thinking), metacognitive control strategies (i.e. self-regulation) and resource management strategies (i.e. time and study environment management, help seeking) are likely to facilitate a more prolonged achievement of computer programming. there are two limitations in this study that could be addressed by future research. the first is the limited number of participants and the second is the self-reported data on strategy use. they may affect the generalization of the findings of this study to other contexts. as long as the limitations are recognized, this study can contribute to stimulating more discussion and advancing further research on the nature and role of srl strategies in the pedagogy of computer programming within various contexts. future research can also be directed at identifying strategy deployment by multiple sources of data for triangulation and exploring the impact of srl strategy training on computer programming achievement. acknowledgement this research is financially supported by the general research fund of the research grants council of hong kong (no. 18601118). references aho, a. v. 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may19, 2023 online published: june 12, 2023 doi:10.22158/fet.v6n2p142 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v6n2p142 abstract to solve the problem that model may not be convergent owing to datasets with small sample sizes results from the secrecy of labs, a fire detection method for lab fire detection based on cnn (convolutional neural network) and transfer leaning is proposed. experiments of transfer learning were conducted with configuration of super parameters and a small lab fire dataset, whose pre-trained models are googlenet, resnet and mobilenet trained with imagenet dataset. we analyze and assess the loss function curve and the performances of the above models. result shows that moblienet model is chosen to be the optimum model for fire detection, providing a reference to lab fire detection with small sample size datasets. different from artificial fire surveillance, the proposed method based on cnn and transfer learning realize real-time, autonomy and efficient fire detection. keywords cnn, transfer learning, indoor fire detection, lab safety 1. introduction laboratory fires are characterized by an initial small range that gradually expands before suddenly spreading, often resulting in incalculable losses once detected. the presence of flammable and explosive chemicals in laboratories can further accelerate the fire’s spread, posing a significant safety threat to laboratory personnel and expensive experimental equipment (wilbraham, 1979; gray, 2003; dupuy & maréchal, 2011). while many laboratories currently use camera-equipped monitoring methods to detect potential danger, human intervention is still necessary. this cannot guarantee the prompt identification and response to laboratory fires. artificial intelligence and deep learning technology has made remarkable progress in recent years, leading to the rapid development and widespread use of image classification and recognition technology. facial recognition and augmented virtual reality are now deployed on mainstream portable www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 143 published by scholink inc. devices, while license plate recognition and assisted driving are applied in the commercial field and promote the construction of smart cities (raji & fried, 2021; du, ibrahim, shehata, & badawy, 2012; silva, khan, & han, 2018). in comparison to traditional image recognition technologies, deep learning-based image classification and recognition technology effectively achieve fire detection and emergency response by continuously training and learning from sample data, dynamically optimizing models and collaborating with laboratory alarm systems. among various deep learning algorithms, convolutional neural network (cnn) excels in reducing model complexity, making it widely used in image classification and recognition technology (alzubaidi et al., 2021; kaur et al., 2022; chauhan, ghanshala, & joshi, 2018). however, massive amounts of data are required for deep learning leading to issues related to personal privacy or business secrets. to address this problem, transfer learning is often employed (weiss, khoshgoftaar, & wang, 2016; torrey & shavlik, 2010; zhuang et al., 2020). in this paper, we use transfer learning and cnn to achieve real-time and reliable fire detection in laboratories. 2. correlation theory 2.1 cnn architecture before the emergence of cnn, deep learning faced obstacles such as long training time or low accuracy in image processing. it became necessary to reduce the dimensionality of data while preserving image features leading to the development of cnn. as a subclass of deep learning, cnn is widely used in image classification and recognition. traditional neural networks used fully connected layers in their hidden layer with neurons linked between layers. cnn also has input, hidden, and output layers, while the hidden layer incorporates convolutional and pooling layers to preserve image features while reducing data dimensions. compared to traditional neural networks, cnn can process images directly. the structure of a cnn is shown in figure 1. convolution layers pooling layers ··· output layerinput layer fully connected layer softmax convolution kernels images pooling area hidden layer figure 1. cnn architecture the input layer of cnn can process grayscale or rgb color images. convolutional layers emulate the human visual cortex and can extract complex image features more effectively. humans observe an image through pupils with initiating preliminary processing such as edge detection in the cerebral www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 144 published by scholink inc. cortex. then, the observed image is identified. figure 2 shows an example of the working principle of convolutional layers. b g r 3x33x33x3 3x33x33x3 8x8x3 6x6x2 feature map 1 feature map 2 6x6x3x2 input layer convolution layer step length= 1 numbers = 2 size = 3x3 bias = 0 figure 2. principle of convolution layers the convolutional layer utilizes convolution kernels that slide sequentially over image pixels to perform spatial filtering on the image. a convolution kernel represents a spatial filter of size w h cf f f  with weights denoted by w h cf f f w , where wf and hf are non-negative, odd numbers frequently set equal to each other. for a specific channel cf , the central element of the spatial filter represents the current pixel weight of the original image and other elements represent the weight of adjacent pixels. the output is the sum of values from different image features that pass through the spatial filter from various channels. in the pixel coordinate system, the intensity of the image pixel point pixelu,v is represented by  ,f u v . if both wf and hf are odd numbers, the output intensity  conv ,g u v , which operated by a square spatial filter of size w h cf f f  , is shown in equation (1), where b is the offset.              w h c w h 1 /2 1 /2 conv w h 1 /2 1 /2 , [ ] [ 1 / 2 1 / 2] f f f i f j f g u v f u+i,v+ j i f , j f b               m (1) if u+i or v+ j exceeds the boundary of the image, various filling methods can replace the ineffective pixel intensities. additionally, the step size used by the spatial filter determines the pixel spacing for each sliding of the convolution kernel. the number of output channels with an image or feature map passing through a convolutional layer equals to the number of convolution kernels in that www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 145 published by scholink inc. layer. assuming that a convolutional layer is composed of convolution kernels of size f f , a step size s , and a fill of p , the output size n n is given in equation (2).  2 / 1n w f p s    (2) the pooling layer significantly decreases the dimensionality of image data and prevents overfitting. unlike standard sampling typically applied to one-dimensional sequences, the pooling layer samples high-dimensional image inputs or feature maps. the most commonly methods include maximum pooling and average pooling. for maximum pooling, if the pooling region is n n and  ,f u v represents the input with one channel, the maximum pooling result on  ,u v is given in equation (3) assuming n is odd.        poll , max{ , }, 1 / 2 , 1 / 2g u v f u i v j n i j n        (3) the output layer consists of a fully connected layer, an activation function, and others. if m categories need to be recognized and classified, the number of fully connected layer neurons directly is m with each neuron being connected to a neuron in the previous layer. the input-output relationship of neurons is expressed as y = wx+b , where the weight w and bias b create a linear component. besides, the activation function provides the nonlinear transformation. the common activation functions include the sigmoid and relu functions. the output layer often employs the softmax function, allowing for more intuitive judgment of image categories. by combining convolutional and pooling layers with different dimensions and numbers, various cnn architectures have been developed to apply to different scenes with varying objectives. 2.2 cnn model 2.2.1 googlenet in 2014, google collaborated with several universities to propose googlenet, a cnn architecture that won the first position in imagenet’s image classification challenge (szegedy et al., 2015). in comparison to the previous year’s champion zfnet network and 2014’s vgg network, googlenet achieved significantly higher accuracy and notably lower error probability. googlenet is a 22-level cnn that implements multiple 1x1 convolution kernels and global average pooling. the 1x1 convolution kernels decreases the network’s complexity while deepening its depth. figure 3 illustrates the principle of reducing the computation in 1x1 convolution kernels. moreover, googlenet employs global average pooling to convert 7x7 feature maps to 1x1 size. this technique reduces the number of parameters to 0 in the layer and enhances the accuracy. additionally, googlenet proposed the inception module that uses 1x1, 3x3, and 5x5 convolutional layers alongside 3x3 maximum pooling layers. after stacking, the module can adapt to image features of different scales. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 146 published by scholink inc. 14x14x480 14x14x48 number = 48 14x14x480 14x14x16 1x1 kernel number = 16 14x14x48 number = 48 5x5 kernel computaion = (14*14*48)*(5*5*480) = 112.9m computaion = (14*14*16)*48 + (14*14*48)*(5*5*16) = 5.3m figure 3. principle of reducing the computation in 1x1 convolution kernels googlenet trained on the imagenet dataset can classify and recognize over 1000 objects, including animals, numbers, stationery. further trained on the place365 dataset, googlenet can classify and recognize 365 locations, such as fields, trails, banquet halls, and many others. 2.2.2 resnet since the inception of the first cnn, alexnet, at the imagenet contest in 2012, the error rate has decreased progressively every year by increasing the number of network layers in deep learning. however, research has revealed that the performance of the network might diminish with endless layer incrementation leading to an increased error rate. this phenomenon is known as gradient vanishing or exploding. while adding layers increases the network’s parameter number and enables deeper feature identification, neural networks use gradient descent for model performance optimization via backpropagation partial differential multiplication. therefore, as the layer number increases, the gradient will exponentially increase resulting in a gradient explosion when the product is greater than 1. conversely, the gradient can disappear. researchers from microsoft in 2015 proposed the residual network (resnet) (he et al., 2016). resnet implements skip connection technology linking directly to the active layer, which effectively addresses the issue of vanishing or exploding gradients. when vanishing or exploding gradients in a middle layer, the weights of that layer are set to zero ensuring consistent input and output while preventing a degradation in performance of the entire network. unlike traditional convolutional networks, where it is difficult for a large number of layers within a dashed line to remain unchanged, resnet makes it easier to keep the output value unchanged. to illustrate this difference, figure 4 shows the comparison. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 147 published by scholink inc. convolution layer activation function convolution layer convolution layer activation function convolution layer activation function activation function  f x    g f x x x x x x  f x figure 4. comparison of conventional cnn and resnet 2.2.3 mobilenet with the continuous development of cnn, the performance improvement has been achieved by increasing the number of layers. however, researchers have realized that although complex neural networks can improve performance but increase model complexity. as a result, the multiplication and addition operations of massive model parameters requires strong computing power in reality. to address this challenge, some researchers have shifted their research focus to small-scale cnn models which can maintain good model performance while avoiding the need for strong computing power. google’s mobilenet is a compact and efficient cnn model that uses depth-wise separable convolution to construct lightweight neural networks (howard et al., 2017; sandler et al., 2018). in traditional convolutions, the kernel is applied uniformly across all the input image channels. however, depth-wise separable convolution performs convolution separately on each channel as shown in figure 5. to avoid compromising the effectiveness of the model, pointwise convolution is introduced. pointwise convolution is a 1x1 convolution kernel for dimensionality enhancement. unlike traditional convolution, depth-wise separable convolution achieves faster model convergence with fewer parameters. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 148 published by scholink inc. b g r 3x3 3x33x3 feature map 1 feature map 2 depth-wise separable convolution feature map 3 1x1 1x1 1x1 1x1 1x1 1x1 1x1 1x1 1x1 1x1 1x1 1x1 feature map a feature map b feature map c feature map d pointwise convolution figure 5. principle of depth-wise separable convolution 2.3 transfer learning in practical applications of neural networks, it is common to encounter problems that lack relevant, large datasets for sufficient training neural network models. moreover, the training process requires large amounts of computational resources and time. to address these issues, researchers have introduced transfer learning. transfer learning uses pre-trained neural networks to train models for new tasks like human use experiences to solve new tasks in life. figure 6 shows the comparison between traditional machine learning and transfer learning. the source domain refers to the sample and label set of the original network, while the target domain is ones in the new network. the process of transfer learning typically consists of three steps: 1). selecting a pre-trained model correlated with the target domain features. for instance, if a neural network model can classify and recognize sunglasses, retraining on corresponding datasets can help the model acquire knowledge about backpacks to classify and recognize them. 2). fine-tuning the pre-trained model by adjusting the model layer structure for specific applications. in some cases, certain layers are frozen to keep the parameters unchanged during training. for example, the fully connected layer of the original model composed of 1000 neurons can be replaced with a fully connected layer composed of 10 neurons to recognize 10 new objects. 3). train and validate the new model by monitoring the training process, adjusting hyperparameters and evaluating model performance after convergence. in fact, training an initial cnn model is rare. instead, transfer learning is commonly used in different but relevant fields to solve new problems. it also extracts sample features in a relatively short time on small training datasets while enabling efficient classification and recognition. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 149 published by scholink inc. dataset 2dataset 1 task 1 task 2 dataset 2dataset 1 task 1 task 2information traditional ml transfer learning figure 6. comparison of conventional machine learning and transfer learning 3. experimental preparation 3.1 experimental environment this paper uses laboratory fire and non-fire images as samples to conduct transfer learning on three specific cnns: googlenet, resnet18, and mobilenet-v2, which are pre-trained models. the goal is to identify whether there is a fire in the laboratory and to evaluate the performance of the three models. the experimental steps are shown in figure 7. dataset preparation data pre-processing affine transformation denoising model selction training validation figure 7. procedure of experiments the hardware processor used in our paper is the amd r5-3600. the software configuration operating system is windows 10 64-bit, and the software is matlab 2021b. the learning models in this research are based on the deep learning toolbox, the deep learning toolbox for googlenet network (version 21.2.1), resnet-18 network (version 21.2.0) and mobilenet-v2 network (version 21.2.0) frameworks. all these models were trained preliminarily on imagenet. the dataset in our paper consists of 1510 actual laboratory fire and non-fire images sourced with noise from the internet. wherein, 755 images are related to fires, while the others non-fires. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 150 published by scholink inc. 3.2 data preprocessing in real-world scenarios, image acquisition devices often capture images with random noise due to non-ideal environmental factors such as lighting and temperature. this noise can impact image pixels while affecting image quality and even making it difficult to distinguish the image. therefore, denoising the images is a crucial first step. additionally, since the input layer size in cnn models often differs from the original image size, it is necessary to perform an affine transformation to adjust its size, which is necessary before proceeding with subsequent model training. 3.3 gaussian filtering denoising gaussian filter denoising refers to using gaussian kernels for image spatial filtering, which applies a weighted average to the noise of surrounding pixels and reduces the impact. equation (4) shows the probability density function  ,g x y of a two-dimensional gaussian distribution with a mean of zero, where 2 represents the variance.    2 2 2/2 2, / 2      x y g x y e (4) the weight  ,w i j of gaussian filtering is similar to the expression of  ,g x y but needs to be normalized. the gaussian kernel weight  ,w i j of size    2 1 * 2 1 n n is shown in equation (5).           2 2 2 2 2 2 22 2 2 22 0 0 / 2 , / 2                 i n j n i n j nn n i i e w i j e (5) it can be observed that the weight value is solely determined by the standard deviation  . since the weight decreases as one moves farther from the center, a    2 1 * 2 1n n  size filter is typically used where    denotes the round function and usually 2n     . in contrast to mean filtering which assigns equal weight to each pixel, gaussian filtering results in a smoother and softer filtered image, which better preserves edge features. the peak signal-to-noise ratio (psnr) is a widely utilized method to assess image quality. in this paper, a 5x5 gaussian filter with 1  was employed. figure 8 shows raw and processed images along with their respective psnr values. from both subjective and objective perspectives of evaluations, the image quality experienced significant enhancements following gaussian denoising. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 151 published by scholink inc. images with noise （psnr=20.1db） images after denoising （psnr=26.4db） figure 8. comparison of images w/ and w/o noise 3.3.1 bilinear interpolation during affine transformations, such as zooming in or out, the coordinates of pixels in the transformed image are typically non-integer, as they are obtained by backward mapping the pixel coordinates from the original image. for instance, to scale down a 5x5 image with a pixel coordinate  , ,0 4,0 4f u v u v    to 3x3. the corresponding pixel coordinate of [1,1] in the original image results in a non-integer coordinate. rounding fractional values, also known as nearest-neighbor interpolation, is the most common method to tackle the aforementioned challenges. however, it may substantially alter the original image by distorting vital information. bilinear interpolation is a type of image affine transformation that utilizes adjacent four pixel points on the two-dimensional image to determine the value of transformed pixels. bilinear interpolation attempts to preserve image characteristics as much as possible. assuming the corresponding non-integer coordinates in the original image is  ,u v , the value after bilinear interpolation is shown in equation (6).  ˆ , (1)((1) [ , ] [ 1, ]) ((1) [ , 1] [ 1, 1])       f i j b a f i j af i j b a f i j af i j (6) where  ,i j ,  1,i j ,  , 1i j , and  1, 1 i j are four adjacent pixel points of  ,u v , a u i  and b v j  . as the input layer sizes of googlenet, resnet, and mobilenet are 224x224x3 images, this paper utilizes bilinear interpolation to transform all laboratory fire and non-fire images to adapt to the above dimensions. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 152 published by scholink inc. 3.4 model training to enable transfer learning for laboratory fire detection, fine-tuning googlenet, resnet, and mobilenet was executed. the modification is replacing the full connection layer and softmax function located at the neural network’s end, with a new full connection layer which consists of two neurons and the corresponding softmax function. the rest of the neural network structure remained the same. the dataset was divided into training and validation sets, where the images in the training set were used for model training, and those in the validation set were utilized for evaluating model performance during and after training. in this paper, the training set was randomly chosen and comprise of 80% of the labeled (fire or non-fire) images from the dataset, while the remaining 20% formed the validation set. the cross entropy loss function was used for all models. continuous training was applied to adjust the model parameter values until the function value approached zero. for binary classification, the equation of the cross entropy loss function is expressed in equation (7), where n denotes the number of samples, iy is the sample label (0 denotes no fire, while 1 denotes fire), ip represents the predicted probability value, and  log  is a logarithmic function.        1 1 *log 1 *log 1       n i i i i i l y p y p n (7) next, the hyperparameters involved in model training were set. the learning rate for the model was set to 0.0001. while keeping the number of training rounds (epochs) constant, the maximum epochs was set to 10. the model optimizer was used to locate optimal parameter solutions. in this paper, the mini-batch stochastic gradient descent with momentum (msgd) method was applied with a momentum proportion of 0.9 and a small batch size of 128. the training set was shuffled before each batch division round. to prevent overfitting, the l2-norm regularization technique was utilized by adding a norm penalty term. 3.5 evaluating indicator the rate and performance of model convergence are essential factors to consider. the rate of convergence may be evaluated by examining changes in the training and validation losses. during the training process, observing the changes in these two losses can facilitate early detection of underfitting or overfitting problems. adjusting the hyperparameters of the model and beginning a new training process can help improve experimental efficiency. model performance is indicated by metrics such as accuracy, precision, recall, and the f1 score. to analyze these metrics, it is common to establish a confusion matrix, which employs rows to represent the actual sample classifications and columns to show the predicted classifications. the matrix’s values represent the number of samples that conform to both the row and column traits. for binary classification, the confusion matrix can be presented using the four elements: tp , tn , fn and fp , as shown in table 1. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 153 published by scholink inc. table 1. confusion matrix 1 predicted 0 predicted 1 actual tp fn 0 actual fp tn accuracy is the ratio of the number of correct predictions to the total number of samples and equals    tp+tn / tp+fp+fn +tn . the precision rate denotes  tp / tp+fp . additionally, the recall rate is defined as  tp / tp+fn , which represents the proportion of correctly predicted positive samples in the total number of actual positive samples. generally, a higher value for these indicators indicates better model performance. moreover, the evaluation metric introduced to assess the overall model performance is the f1 score, which combines both accuracy and recall indicators, and is determined by    2* *precision recall precision re+ / call . 4. experimental results and analysis based on the above-mentioned experimental environment, dataset, data preprocessing and model training settings, this paper conducted transfer learning to detect laboratory fires using googlenet, resnet, and mobilenet models. the models were iteratively optimized to achieve convergence. the loss curves of training and verification based on the three models are presented in figure 9 and 10. both the training and validation loss gradually decline with the continuous increase in model iteration and ultimately reach stability, which indicates that the final convergence results met expectations without overfitting or underfitting. furthermore, the training and validation loss curves in googlenet and resnet have a faster decline rate compared to mobilenet. after approximately 20 iterations, the training and validation losses of googlenet approach zero and those of resnet and mobilenet only converge to zero after approximately 30 iterations. additionally, the curve changes of mobilenet are more stable than those of googlenet and resnet without significant fluctuations. based on these observations, it can be inferred that the googlenet model is suitable as the primary model for laboratory fire detection. mobilenet may be used as the suboptimal model due to its slower convergence rate. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 154 published by scholink inc. figure 9. training loss figure 10. validation loss in addition to monitoring changes in training and validation losses, the confusion matrix was constructed for the three models to provide evaluations of performance. the 2x2 confusion matrixes is shown in figure 11, 12, and 13, respectively. the right part in matrixes indicates the proportion of each element after row normalization, which reflects the probabilities of correct and incorrect predictions based on the actual samples. likewise, the lower part in matrixes displayed represents the proportion of each element after column normalization, which shows the probability of actual correctness and error in the predicted samples. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 155 published by scholink inc. figure 11. confusion matrix of googlenet figure 12. confusion matrix of resnet figure 13. confusion matrix of mobilenet www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 156 published by scholink inc. this paper evaluated the accuracy rate, recall rate, and f1 score of three models. table 2 presents the results showing that mobilenet outperformed googlenet and resnet with the highest scores in accuracy, precision, recall, and f1. although there is a slight difference for the three models, the variation is insignificant especially between googlenet and mobilenet. based on these results, mobilenet can serve as the ideal model and googlenet can be considered a secondary choice for laboratory fire detection in transfer learning. table 2. performances of learning models accuracy rate precision rate recall rate f1 score googlenet 0.9901 0.9934 0.9868 0.9901 resnet 0.9768 0.9868 0.9675 0.9770 mobilenet 0.9967 1.0000 0.9934 0.9967 to assess the rate of convergence and overall performance of the final models generated for small sample datasets, this paper compared mobilenet and googlenet. while mobilenet exhibited a slightly lower rate of convergence than googlenet, the difference in iteration algebra was within acceptable limits. furthermore, the loss function of mobilenet was comparatively more stable and the performance results were optimal. based on these observations, mobilenet among the three models is the preferred option for laboratory fire detection, as it is capable of obtaining optimal model performance with a fast rate of convergence. 5. conclusion this paper proposes a laboratory fire detection scheme that combines cnn and transfer learning to address the challenge of training models with limited laboratory fire images, which may lead to extended iteration times or even model failure. to assess the efficacy of the scheme, three pre-trained cnn models: googlenet, resnet, and mobilenet, were trained after conducting gaussian denoising and bilinear interpolation on laboratory fire dataset. the results of the experiments demonstrated that all three models converged quickly and achieved high recognition rates, validating the effectiveness of the proposed approach. after analyzing and comparing the rate of convergence and model performance of the different cnn models, it was observed that the mobilenet achieved superior results for laboratory fire detection. therefore, it can be concluded that the mobilenet-based transfer learning model is better suited for laboratory fire detection with small sample datasets under cnn while providing valuable insights for improving laboratory safety through the use of neural networks. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 157 published by scholink inc. references alzubaidi, l., zhang, j., humaidi, a. j., al-dujaili, a., duan, y., al-shamma, o., ... farhan, l. (2021). review of deep learning: concepts, cnn architectures, challenges, applications, future directions. journal of big data, 8, 1-74. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40537-021-00444-8 chauhan, r., ghanshala, k. k., & joshi, r. c. (2018, december). convolutional neural network (cnn) for image detection and recognition. in 2018 first international conference on secure cyber computing and communication (icsccc) (pp. 278-282). ieee. https://doi.org/10.1109/icsccc.2018.8703316 du, s., ibrahim, m., shehata, m., & badawy, w. (2012). automatic license plate recognition (alpr): a state-of-the-art review. ieee transactions on circuits and systems for video technology, 23(2), 311-325. https://doi.org/10.1109/tcsvt.2012.2203741 dupuy, j. l., & maréchal, j. (2011). slope effect on laboratory fire spread: contribution of radiation and convection to fuel bed preheating. international journal of wildland fire, 20(2), 289-307. https://doi.org/10.1071/wf09076 gray, d. (2003). automatic fire suppression for fume hoods promotes laboratory safety. research & development, 45(5), 47. he, k., zhang, x., ren, s., et al. (2016). deep residual learning for image recognition[c]//proceedings of the ieee conference on computer vision and pattern recognition (pp. 770-778). https://doi.org/10.1109/cvpr.2016.90 howard, a. g., zhu, m., chen, b. et al. (2017). mobilenets: efficient convolutional neural networks for mobile vision applications. kaur, g., sinha, r., tiwari, p. k., yadav, s. k., pandey, p., raj, r., ... rakhra, m. (2022). face mask recognition system using cnn model. neuroscience informatics, 2(3), 100035. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuri.2021.100035 raji, i. d., & fried, g. (2021). about face: a survey of facial recognition evaluation. arxiv preprint arxiv:2102.00813. sandler, m., howard, a., zhu m., et al. (2018). mobilenetv2: inverted residuals and linear bottlenecks. ieee. https://doi.org/10.1109/cvpr.2018.00474 silva, b. n., khan, m., & han, k. 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(2010). transfer learning. in handbook of research on machine learning applications and trends: algorithms, methods, and techniques (pp. 242-264). igi global. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-60566-766-9.ch011 https://doi.org/10.1186/s40537-021-00444-8 https://doi.org/10.1109/icsccc.2018.8703316 https://doi.org/10.1109/tcsvt.2012.2203741 https://doi.org/10.1071/wf09076 https://doi.org/10.1109/cvpr.2016.90 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuri.2021.100035 https://doi.org/10.1109/cvpr.2018.00474 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2018.01.053 https://doi.org/10.1109/cvpr.2015.7298594 https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-60566-766-9.ch011 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 158 published by scholink inc. weiss, k., khoshgoftaar, t. m., & wang, d. (2016). a survey of transfer learning. journal of big data, 3(1), 1-40. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40537-016-0043-6 wilbraham, a. c. (1979). safety in the chemical laboratory: fire safety and fire control in the chemistry laboratory. journal of chemical education, 56, n/a. https://doi.org/10.1021/ed056pa311 zhuang, f., qi, z., duan, k., xi, d., zhu, y., zhu, h., ... he, q. (2020). a comprehensive survey on transfer learning. proceedings of the ieee, 109(1), 43-76. https://doi.org/10.1109/jproc.2020.3004555 https://doi.org/10.1186/s40537-016-0043-6 https://doi.org/10.1021/ed056pa311 https://doi.org/10.1109/jproc.2020.3004555 microsoft word fet-v3n2-p1.doc frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 1 original paper does capitalism need a government to be nice: robert axelrod and his iterated prisoner’s dilemma computer tournament sung ho park1* 1 korea international school pangyo, seoul, south korea * sung ho park, korea international school pangyo, seoul, south korea received: february 14, 2020 accepted: february 28, 2020 online published: march 23, 2020 doi:10.22158/fet.v3n2p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v3n2p1 abstract in the past few decades, the progressive political ideal of strong central governments or collective morality being necessary to enforce cooperative behavior has become widely-accepted. however, many philosophers throughout history, especially that from the classical liberalism tradition, have espoused free market, open society ideals arguing not only that governments are the source of much of the immorality and conflict many are afraid of, but also that man left in a free environment can and will cooperate and develop naturally moral systems that allow for economic and societal development. robert axelrod, more recently, studied this debate using the famous prisoner’s dilemma (pd) game from traditional game theory and applied computer science to find that, indeed, cooperation can arise naturally even between selfish prisoners. this paper develops the study further by examining more realistic situations of pd games involving multiple players, using computer simulations, i.e. agent-based modeling, and finds that axelrod’s original conclusions hold true. keywords gametheory, robertaxelrod, algorithmicgametheory “in a capitalist society, all human relationships are voluntary. men are free to cooperate or not, to deal with one another or not, as their own individual judgments, convictions, and interests dictate.” ayn rand, “what is capitalism?” the classical liberal thinker ayn rand believed that the beauty of capitalism lies in its unwavering respect for egoism and self-interest. on top of that, the freedom men have is a tool to pursue their own www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 2 published by scholink inc. ego and to do what best helps themselves. philosophically, those who think like rand stress an inextricable relationship between selfishness and productivity, which would evolve into that between economic liberty and political freedom, capitalism, and democracy. this is a common stream of logic that flows from the minds of classical liberals and libertarians. they deny the necessity of a central authority to mediate economic activities but support a minimal state whose role is limited to no less than a night watchman (boaz, 2015, p. 26). if capitalism has a conundrum to which it must answer, it is “under what conditions will cooperation emerge in a world of egoists without central authority?” (axelrod, 2009, p. 3). in a predominantly selfish society where all are “free to cooperate or not”, the absence of a central authority seems intimidating because everyone works for themselves and thus no one works for the whole. the idea that humans are purely motivated by greed, ego, and profit was initially a sound explanation on how competition and productivity improved under capitalism, and the magical invisible hand promotes the best for all. however, it is also an obsession with self-interest that causes capitalism’s most pernicious flaws, namely growth in economic inequality and moral hazard (piketty, 2017, p. 304). it has long been a focus of philosophers, economists, and politicians, in the course of history, to figure out if humans are born cooperative or altruistic enough that even without a forceful central authority, capitalism can prosper without individual greed bringing the demolition of other individuals. are humans too selfish to persist in society on our own? right and left-wing theorists have two different answers. john locke provided a seminal answer on which conservatives and libertarians tend to base their answers. locke’s two treatises firmly hold the belief that human nature is consistently selfish and evil because it is in their nature (forster & parker, 2008, p. 169). based on locke’s writings, many right-wing economists and thinkers today continue the claim that humans are by nature self-centered (machan, 2006, p. 100). they also go a step further because they do not only argue that selfishness is the de-facto state of things but that selfishness itself should be understood as a virtue that leads to rational choices (ozinga, 1999, p. 92). the idea of unyielding selfishness and the elevation of it then makes left-wing, progressive thinkers with their claim that a strong, robust regime must be in charge of the economy and politics to prevent men’s selfishness from obliterating humanity. however, what many of those thinkers tend to leave out is that locke himself argued this within the two treatises, and a significant number of intellectual heavyweights contend that a stateless society is a chaotic one. hobbes, in particular, argues that a state of nature is of bellum omnium contra omnes, where without a powerful, centralized government, there is neither protection of private property nor individual liberty but a tragedy for all (karlberg & buell, 2005, p. 22). many progressive people today also sympathize with hobbes’ viewpoint and support the existence of a strong central government that can elicit cooperation among selfish individuals for the common good of all (shambra & west, 2007, pp. 1-2). a capitalistic society has not always been as competitive and prosperous as hard-wired rightists had envisioned to be. the ascent of global wealth discrepancy and labor exploitation are the tip of an iceberg of a problematic, selfish, and uncooperative society. this is yet another indication that www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 3 published by scholink inc. capitalists can no longer sustain their society through repeating an anachronistic and anti-socialist narrative. for now, the threat that capitalism faces is not just political (as in the cold war) but rather economic: an uncooperative society not only unjustly concentrates wealth in the hands of the top elites but in the end, debilitates the economy by impoverishing social minorities, encouraging moral hazard, and prompting precipitous resource depletion (appleby, 2010, pp. 416-417). a solution to growing inequality, climate change, and a remarkable lack of “morality”, all rapidly increasing under capitalism, requires an understanding of how cooperation can be elicited in a capitalistic society without central authority. this paper dares to undertake that job by borrowing the work of professor robert axelrod, who used computer science and game theory to study the conditions under which cooperation arises without a central authority. his work is analytic proof of how cooperation does not need be a product of morality, compassion, love, nor selfless concerns for others, but, indeed, can be a product of self-interest, selfishness, and egoism: the very features of capitalism that have vociferously been criticized for their supposed “immorality” and “incompatibility” with cooperation. in the end, robert axelrod’s work provides a general insight into how cooperative strategies can rise out of selfishness in his iterated prisoner’s dilemma computer tournament. the present paper aims to extend his work onto applying it on how to realize cooperative capitalism. furthermore, this paper will come up with specific conditions under which participants in greed-driven capitalism can cooperate than defect to yield the most productive outcome for themselves and the rest of the society. 1. game theory and the prisoner’s dilemma game theory is the study of strategies that rational decision-makers would use against competing actors. it is widely applied in different fields of economy, politics, diplomacy, business, and even biology. axelrod, through his research on game theory, originally wanted to see what would happen to a decision maker’s strategies if their counterparts were to compete and cooperate using multiple strategies. to conduct his experiment, he opened up an iterated prisoner’s dilemma computer tournament, receiving submissions of strategies from different game theorists around the world. his collection of studies on the most successful strategies that produced the best outcomes in the iterated prisoner’s dilemma tournament are compiled in his work the evolution of cooperation, which this paper will heavily rely upon explaining how the prisoner’s dilemma works. 1.1 prisoner’s dilemma the prisoner’s dilemma (pd) is a thought experiment where prisoners a and b are confined in a separate, solitary room without means of communication and forced to either betray his partner by confessing their crime or cooperating by staying silent. conceived by merrill flood and melvin dresher working at the rand and formalized by albert w. tucker who added prisoner sentence rewards, the original dilemma assumes that if prisoners a and b both defect, they receive a sentence of two years. if both cooperate, they receive a year. if a defects and b cooperates, a is released while b www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 4 published by scholink inc. ends up serving three years alone in prison (vice versa) (kuhn). although researchers have applied different variations to pd, both prisoners are assumed to be wholly self-centered and rational, and there exists no coercion or external influences on prisoners making a particular choice. table 1. prisoner’s dilemma matrix 1 prisoner a cooperates prisoner a defects prisoner b cooperates a: -1 / b: -1 a: 0 / b: -3 prisoner b defects a: -3 / b: 0 a: -2 / b: -2 professor axelrod modified the dilemma to fit it into his computer tournament. instead of getting rewarded and punished through prison sentences, players a and b were rewarded with different points for each decision they have made. if both players cooperate, they get a point of three, which is also known as the reward for mutual cooperation. on the other hand, if both players defect, they get a point of one, known as the punishment for mutual defection. if one player decides to cooperate and the other to defect, the player that cooperates receives the sucker’s payoff and the player that defects the temptation to defect, each respectively zero and five. table 2. prisoner’s dilemma matrix 2 prisoner a cooperates prisoner a defects prisoner b cooperates r: 3 / r :3 reward for mutual cooperation s: 0 / t: 5 sucker’s payoff / temptation to defect prisoner b defects t: 5 / s: 0 temptation to defect / sucker’s payoff p: 1 / p: 1 punishment for mutual defection let us begin by stepping into the shoes of player a. if b decided to cooperate, a would do better to defect than cooperate, getting five points of temptation to defect over none for sucker’s payoff. if b decided to defect, again a would do better to defect than cooperate thereby receiving three points as a reward for mutual cooperation rather than getting one as a punishment for mutual defection. this means that it is better to defect no matter whether a defects or cooperates. the same logic holds for player b as well. thus, the game ends up with both a and b defecting and getting the point as punishment for mutual defection, which is worse than getting three points as a reward for mutual www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 5 published by scholink inc. cooperation. the choice that was considered rational and selfish led to a result far worse than what was possible. axelrod’s prisoner dilemma is just an abstraction of a peculiar situation where the choice best for each player individually ironically leads to a worse outcome than mutual cooperation. for a prisoner’s dilemma to work, it must satisfy two conditions. the first condition has to do with the order of payoffs. in the prisoner’s dilemma, the best payoff that one can get must be the temptation to defect when the other player cooperates. then follows the reward for mutual cooperation, which is followed by the punishment for mutual defection and sucker’s payoff in that order. to simplify would be a sequencing of payoffs from best to worse as t, r, p, and s. the second condition is that the dilemma cannot be resolved by players simply alternating turns to exploit each other. in other words, the outcome of mutual cooperation must be better than having an equal chance of exploiting and being exploited. when numerically measured, the mean of t and s must be less than r. by now, one may have noticed the resemblance between a prisoner’s dilemma and libertarian capitalism. it lies in the way mutual defection, which initially sounded like the most rational choice for individuals, ends up getting punished for both defecting. it is similar among individuals within capitalism that have initially made uncooperative choices to profit themselves but ended up losing more than they would have if they cooperated. a single round prisoner’s dilemma, as explained above, seems to emphasize that cooperation is difficult to emerge although its outcome, a reward for mutual cooperation is more profitable for all than a punishment for mutual defection. however, what if the prisoner’s dilemma is not a single round but occurs over multiple rounds? if players are repeatedly granted a new opportunity to participate in another round of the game, would they still insist on defecting and getting punished or would they revert their strategy and opt into mutual cooperation? under such conditions, is the dominant strategy still defecting? the experiments of axelrod that will follow in the next section is necessary for addressing those questions. 1.2 definite iterated prisoner’s dilemma in the iterated version, the rules of the prisoner’s dilemma are slightly modified. here, the players are asked to play the prisoner’s dilemma more than once, and they may remember the decisions that their opponent has made in the previous round of the game. therefore, both players can change their own decisions accordingly in the succeeding rounds. this version of the game is commonly known as the iterated prisoner’s dilemma (ipd). even within the iterated prisoner’s dilemma, there exists a definite ipd and an indefinite ipd. the former occurs when the game repeats for a limited amount of time and both players recognize that there exists an upper limit to the total number of rounds played. the player may not know the number, but he does know that the game is finite. in a definite ipd, the dominant strategy is to defect as it is under a single rounded prisoner’s dilemma. around the time players are about to reach the final round of the game, both players are aware that after the final round, there no longer exists a chance of retaliating against the opponent for defecting. thus, the final round is the equivalent of a single-shot prisoner’s dilemma where the dominant strategy is www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 6 published by scholink inc. always to defect. what about the round right before the final? again, the game players fully comprehend that their current payoff will have no influence on their future payoff for both players will defect under any circumstances in the final round, so both decide to defect as well. the same goes for the round before that and so on. in other words, in a game of definite prisoner’s dilemma, the dominant strategy in every round of the game is to defect. neither of the players will cooperate, and the problems of a single-shot prisoner’s dilemma are still left unresolved. 1.3 indefinite iterated prisoner’s dilemma in an indefinite ipd, each round of prisoner’s dilemma is repeated indeterminately, meaning no player knows when the game will end or even whether the game will end. because every element is indeterminate and particularly the end of the game, no player can reckon the final round. nevertheless, the players do understand that the game will end someday (or the game may carry on indefinitely, but very unlikely to) and the probability that the game is repeated slowly decreases as more rounds are played. mathematically, the probability that a prisoner’s dilemma is reiterated is known as the discount factor. as such, because the future is valued less than the present, payoffs received in the future are not as valuable as payoffs received today. in other words, future payoffs are discounted so that they are worth a fraction of what they would be if they were received today instead. axelrod defines the discount parameter as “the degree to which the payoff of each move is discounted relative to the previous move” (p. 13). a $100 payoff received in one month, would be worth only $80 today for a discount parameter of 80%. for a series of payoffs received over multiple iterations of a game, the discount parameter determines how much they are worth. consider a game that is played 5 times with a payoff of 10 received each time and a discount parameter, p, of 90%. the present value of the payoffs for this game is 10 + 10(0.9) + 10(0.9)2 + 10(0.9)3 + 10(0.9)4 = 40.951. if the future was not discounted at all (discount parameter equal to 100%), the present value of the game would be 10 + 10 + 10 + 10 + 10 = 5(10) = 50. when the future is discounted, the present value of the series of payoffs is less than would it would have been with no discounting. for the same game played an infinite number of times, the cumulative value of the payoffs is 10 + 10(0.9) + 10(0.9)2 + 10(0.9)3 + 10(0.9)4 + … = 1/(1-0.9). this comes from the fact the sum of an infinite series with discount parameter w is 1/(1-w). further, as the discount value p steadily approaches zero, the dominant strategy approaches to defecting because the game more and more resembles a single-shot prisoner’s dilemma. on the other hand, if p approaches one, the game resembles an infinite ipd and the value of cooperating increases while the value of defecting decreases (a high discount factor indicates that choosing to defect can lead to retaliation in the subsequent rounds). although in an indefinite ipd no player understands what upper bound would be, there always exists a probability of 1discount factor p that the game will stop being played. to sum up, players in a definite ipd can make a backward induction from the fact that rational players are meant to defect in the final round of the game. on the other hand, it intuitively seems that players www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 7 published by scholink inc. cannot make inductive decisions in an indefinite ipd. nevertheless, even in an indefinite ipd, the players may be aware of each round’s discount value, p from the outset and the probability pi for each stage i decreases. in such circumstances, a player on a particular stage may assume that both the chance of winning rewards and the harm of future retaliation no longer outweigh the benefits of immediate defection. when a player can predict or reasonably expect a stage i at which both players are likely to defect, then backward induction is possible in an indefinite ipd as well. 2. robert axelrod and iterated prisoner’s dilemma if indefinite ipd can yield a dominant strategy other than absolute defection, it is worthwhile to examine strategies that can elicit cooperation among players. robert axelrod conducted an ipd computer tournament to examine the effectiveness of different strategies. in the tournament, different participants wrote a computer program that encodes whether to select a cooperative or uncooperative choice on each round. the program has access to the full history of moves by far and actively utilizes the history of the game to make new choices on the next round. the tournament was a round-robin, and every entry matched with each other, so with its twin and with random strategy that either cooperates or defects randomly. the tournament awarded three points for mutual cooperation, a point for mutual defection, five points for temptation to defect, and none for sucker’s payoff. 2.1 tournament and results with fourteen entries submitted by experts in economics, mathematics, political science, sociology, and psychology, the most successful strategy was tit for tat, turned in by anatol rapoport, a professor at the university of toronto (simpson 16). tit for tat starts off cooperating in its first move, then does whatever the opponent did on the previous move. tit for tat placed second in a preliminary tournament and first in a variant of that preliminary tournament. despite its simplicity, tit for tat outcompeted all other strategies, including the ones that have made complex, statistical modifications to the original tit for tat. professor axelrod wrote that a benchmark for a good score in a tournament of 200 moves is 600 points, equivalent with both sides always cooperating in every round. a benchmark for poor performance is 200 points, equivalent to both sides always defecting in every round (axelrod, effective choice in the prisoner’s dilemma 9). the winner of the tit for tat scored 504 points in the first tournament, implying that the strategy was repeatedly successful in eliciting mutual cooperation. however, surprisingly enough, every eight top-ranking entry including the tit for tat was never the first to defect. the property of never defecting first is known as being “nice”. in the tournament, “nice” strategies recorded a score between 472 and 504 whereas the highest score that a not nice strategy received was only 401. the instance that made rapoport’s tit for tat the most successful among all the other “nice” strategies was its moves against not nice strategies. a majority of “nice” strategies score well when playing against their twin or other “nice” strategies because both are sure to cooperate until literally the end of the game. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 8 published by scholink inc. 2.2 replication of tournament in order to gain a deeper understanding of the mechanics and dynamics of the tournament, strategies and the indefinite ipd, i programmed a few of the major strategies, i.e., titfortat, joss and tranquilizer, and ran the tournament as a computer simulation. the results were similar to that of axelrod’s, confirming the effectiveness of cooperative strategies such as titfortat. the pseudocode for the strategies are explained below. 2.3 pseudocode for titfortat strategy: titfortat input: global self.history[], opponent.history[], current_round_index, prev_round_index 1 if self.history == null then 2 |return self.histroy[current_round_index] := cooperate 3 end 4 if opponent.history[prev_round_index] == defects then 5 |return self.history[current_round_index] := defects 6 else 7 |return self.history[current_round_index] := cooperate 8 end self.history[]: for agent 1’s strategy (array) opponent.history[]: for agent 2’s strategy (array) current_round_index: number of current round. (if current round is the 3rd round, current_round_index==3) prev_round_index: number of previous round. (if current round is the 3rd round, prev_round_index==2) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 9 published by scholink inc. explanation of pseudocode. 1 if there is no history of rounds (this is the first round) 2 | my first move is cooperate, this round completes 3 4 this is not my first round, agent 2 decides to defect 5 | if current move is defect, this round completes 6 this is not my first round, agent 2 decides to cooperate 7 | my move is cooperate, this round completes. 8 2.4 pseudocode for joss strategy: joss input: global self.history[], opponent.history[], current_round_index, prev_round_index func boolean random_generator(float portion) 1 if self.history == null then 2 |return self.histroy[current_round_index] := cooperate 3 end 4 if random_generator(0.1) == true or opponent.history[prev_round_index] == defects then 5 |return self.history[current_round_index] := defects 6 else 7 |return self.history[current_round_index] := cooperate 8 end www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 10 published by scholink inc. explanation of pseudocode. 1 if there is no history of rounds (this is the first round) 2 | my first move is cooperate, this round completes 3 4 this is not my first round, if 10 percent probability or the previous was defect 5 | if current move is defect, this round completes 6 this is not my first round, agent 2 decides to cooperate 7 | my move is cooperate, this round completes 8 2.5 pseudocode for tranquilizer strategy: tranquilizer input: global self.history[], opponent.history[], current_round_index, prev_round_index, round_count, flag_d init round_count = 0, flag_d = 0 1 round_count := round_count+1; 2 if round_count <= 5 or self.history[prev_round_index] == defects then 3 |return self.histroy[current_round_index] := cooperate 4 end 5 if (flag_d / round_count) <= 0.25 and opponent.history[prev_round_index] == defects then 6 | flag_d := flag_d+1; 7 |return self.history[current_round_index] := defects 8 else www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 11 published by scholink inc. 9 |return self.history[current_round_index] := cooperate 10 end 2 if my move from 1st round to 5th round were defect 3 | my first move is cooperate, this round completes 4 5 if condition 2 was not fulfilled, total rounds thus far had defect under 25% and agent 2 decides to defect 7 | if current move is defect, this round completes 8 if condition 2 was not fulfilled, total rounds thus far had defect under 25% and agent 2 decides to cooperate 9 | my move is cooperate, this round completes 10 2.6 analysis of tournament results further, one of the most necessary traits among successful strategies was the propensity to forgive, and one of the deleterious flaws that unsuccessful strategies have committed was being unforgiving. out of all the “nice” strategies, the one with the lowest score was friedman, which was “nice” because it never defected first but also unforgiving because once the other defects even once, it retaliated with permanent defection. another example of how short-term unwillingness to forgive is detrimental to earning points is shown in a duel between tit for tat and joss (axelrod, effective choice in the prisoner’s dilemma 14). joss starts off cooperating and mirrors the choices that its opponent has made in the previous round, but instead of always cooperating after the opponent cooperated, it defects ten percent of the time. thus, joss attempts to exploit its opponent in a sly manner. in a game between tit for tat and joss, the outcome cannot be worse thanks to both of their short-term unwillingness to forgive. when joss, by a percentage of ten, decides to defect, tit for tat immediately retaliates by defecting, and so does joss. the result is an endless chain of recriminations, where single defection echoes back and forth (remember the second rule of a prisoner’s dilemma states that the outcome of mutual cooperation is better than that of an equal chance of altering to exploit and to get exploited). joss emphasizes how www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 12 published by scholink inc. important it is that a single defection does not spur an endless series of recriminations and counter-recriminations. in other words, the strategy that wins is the one that can forgive defections and cultivate mutual cooperation in the following rounds. using the examples above, professor robert axelrod analyzes four properties that made tit for tat the most successful strategy after all. the first is the strategy’s label as “nice.” tit for tat never starts off defecting, thus eliciting a reasonable degree of mutual cooperation with different strategies. second is a willingness to provoke. tit for tat avenges itself against opponents that have made uncalled defections, warning them that to defect will not pay because tit for tat is not exploitable. the characteristic that makes tit for tat’s short-term provocativeness effective is its forgiveness that immediately follows. tit for tat opens itself to resuming cooperation even when the opponent has a record of defection. by forgiving the opponent, tit for tat helps its opponent to understand that mutual cooperation will bring the most optimal outcome for both the strategies. professor axelrod tested the accuracy of his experiment by conducting a second ipd computer tournament with a far larger size and a fuller range of strategies. to get rid of small end-game effects, instead of running a tournament of 200 games, axelrod set the length of the tournament probabilistically, fixing the discount factor as 0.00346. participants were all given a detailed analysis of first tournament outcomes, and all the entrants understood clearly that tit for tat was the first to rank in the tournament. surprisingly enough, despite a larger pool of sixty-two entries from six countries, the strategy to win the tournament was again tit for tat. although entrants were informed of tit for tat’s niceness and forgiveness, none was able to come up with a single better program that tit for tat. although the second tournament, unlike the first one, is difficult to analyze a successful strategy thanks to its sheer size—there were over a million moves from 63 strategies matched in 3969 different ways—it once again paid to be nice. fourteen out of the top fifteen strategies were “nice”, and fourteen out of the bottom fifteen strategies were not nice (axelrod, effective choice in the prisoner’s dilemma 21-24). then, again, among those nice rules, only the ones that retaliated were able to prevent the opponent from taking exploitative strategies of repeated defection. a strategy that lacked such retaliatory property did poorly in the tournament. one such strategy, downing, which performed so well against top contenders in the first tournament, did not perform well in the second because it calculated to keep on cooperating with a program that has cooperated over half of the time by then. another strategy that exploited other’s unwillingness to retaliate is tranquilizer. tranquilizer starts off the first several rounds of cooperation to cultivate an atmosphere of mutual cooperation. when a stable interaction of mutual cooperation is formed, tranquilizer lulls the opponent into forgiving occasional defections. the strategy never defects twice in succession, and never more than one-quarter of the rounds, thus not preventing its opponents from doubting its action but rather eliciting forgiveness among its opponents for sporadic defections. again, a lack of retaliation after an “uncalled for” defection should not be confused with niceness. a successful strategy is “nice” www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 13 published by scholink inc. and forgiving yet also retaliatory. tit for tat had them all, thus making itself the champion of both the first and the second tournament. being incited by the opponent’s defection is also different from being an exploitative strategy. tranquilizer did well at exploiting unresponsive programs, but overall, they did not do well in the tournament because their tendency to sneakily exploit their opponents ended up getting punished for defection, resulting in lower scores and a less rewarding game than mutual cooperation would have provided. it is nevertheless important to remember that in a game of ipd there is no absolute best rule independent of its opponents. the reason tit for tat was successful in winning both the tournaments was not because it was absolutely the strongest but rather because it was generally stable and robust against a wide variety of strategies and environments. different strategies understand that to do well with tit for tat requires mutual cooperation and the clarity of tit for tat’s behavior lets other strategies get this quickly. a wide range of strategies including the most exploitative ones like tester understood this and apologized for their defection by cooperating in the following rounds. in the other hand, tit for tat itself also abandoned the possibility of exploiting others to prevent risking retaliation and more importantly stop mutual recriminations from taking hold of the entire game. a combination of tit for tat’s property of being “nice” retaliatory, and forgiving made it the most persistent and sturdy rule against different strategies in different environments. 3. multi-agent-based model of n-person prisoner’s dilemma a common objection to axelrod’s depiction of cooperation using the prisoner’s dilemma is that it is unrealistic as most situations involved more than two agents. that is, seldom do we see a one versus one dynamic. rather, more than one agent is commonly involved and each of those may be employing different strategies. for example, the current trade war between the us and china, while fought mainly between the two countries, involve numerous other countries. taiwan has its conflict with china and is using ties with the us for protective measures. vietnam and other southeast asian countries are trying to win business from us companies by lobbying for manufacturing operations to be moved to their own countries. to understand with more detail how cooperation can emerge in complex, realistic situations is not an easy task. by using mult-agent-based modeling techniques using computer modeling techniques from the machine learning sector, researchers have been finding interesting results. in this section, a study by miklos n. szilagyi is analyzed, modeled and further discussed to find that under certain conditions, cooperation does indeed emerge in a prisoner’s dilemma game w/numerous players. the investigation in the paper miklos n. szilagyi’s “an investigation of n-person prisoners’ dilemmas complex systems,” 14 (2003) 155-174 is implemented using netlogo modeling tool. the payoffs of the players are shown in the next picture. here we present n-person multistep setup to analyze strategies of players and their characteristics. this technique is an efficient way to represent the payoff structure as it allows for easy modeling. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 14 published by scholink inc. figure 1. reward/penalty functions for defectors (d) and cooperators (c). the horizontal axis (x) represents the ratio of the number of cooperators to the total number of neighbors; the vertical axis is the reward/penalty provided by the environment. in this figure, d(x) = 0.5 + 2x and c(x) = -1 + 2x. agents either cooperate or defect. but each agent can change that strategy depending on what happens within their environment. the environments are modeled below; they are varied in aggregate and numerous enough to represent various strategies agents would use in real life. the key parameter p means that player will continue his strategy with probability p and switch to other strategy with probability 1-p. the strategies include: stable. p is defined initially and doesn’t change. pavlovian. the probability of taking a certain action p changes by an amount proportional to its reward or penalty from the environment. unpredictable. acts randomly with p = 0.5. conformist. imitates the action of the majority of its neighbors. greedy. imitates the neighbor with the highest reward. here we will introduce simple simulation and show behavior for different setup. below the diagram is a brief explanation of the results the models produced. 1) stable setup www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 15 published by scholink inc. main screen. players are red and blue patches average payoffs and percentage of players of each type www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 16 published by scholink inc. 2) pavlovian setup pavlovian environments generate equilibrium. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 17 published by scholink inc. 3) conformist strategy usually, conformist strategy produce converging to cooperating but it depends on initial conditions and radius of neighbors here we have stable regions for conformist strategies. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 18 published by scholink inc. 4) greedy setup greedy strategy usually produces stochastic process but different from pavlovian. so initially everyone gravitates towards defectors since they had the highest payoff. but if there are a sufficiently large number of cooperators, the cooperators in total will score higher (3) than the defectors (since they defected against each other they scored 0). then many will start to convert over to cooperators. the greedy environment is most realistic as herding behaviors have been exhibited in numerous studies in a variety of fields. as the herding instinct drives agents to certain behaviors, cooperation starts to take effect. 4. conclusion are humans purely selfish, or can we cooperate when we need to without the hand of a central authority? it is a question that philosophers, political thinkers, and economists have asked for years and neither side has yet to win the battle. when axelrod asked, “under what conditions will cooperation emerge in a world of egoists without central authority?”, he received an answer through the use of the prisoner’s dilemma experiment. although capitalism comes with issues such as moral hazard, wealth inequality, and more, axelrod’s experiments show that there is not necessarily overwhelming evidence that a powerful, centralized government is the answer to the issues capitalism presents. axelrod’s work provides an analytical account of how the conditions of cooperation arise without the heavy hand of a central authority. it shows that cooperation does not require an absence of selfishness, but mutual cooperation can, in fact, be a product of self-interest and selfishness. the experiments showed that successful strategies even amongst prisoners (who are inherently selfish) are characterized by cooperative behaviors. thus, axelrod shows even in an anarchistic environment, cooperation can www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 19 published by scholink inc. happen and perhaps the classical liberals are right in saying we do not need a central state to police its citizenry. even if it is not conclusive, at the very least, it casts some doubt on the common rational among government officials that without a large government society would descend into chaos. references appleby, j. (2010). the relentless revolution: a history of capitalism. e-book, w.w. norton & company. axelrod, r. (1980). effective choice in the prisoner’s dilemma. the journal of conflict resolution, 24(1), 3-25. https://doi.org/10.1177/002200278002400101 axelrod, r. (2009). the evolution of cooperation. e-book, basic books. boaz, d. (2015). the libertarian mind. e-book, simon & schuster. forster, g., & parker, k. i. (2008). men being partial to themselves’: human selfishness in locke’s two treatises. politics and religion, 1(2), 169-199. https://doi.org/10.1017/s1755048308000163 karlberg, m., & buell, l. (2005). deconstructing the “war of all against all”. peace and conflict studies, 12(1), 22. kuhn, s. (2014). prisoner’s dilemma. standford encyclopedia of philosophy, 29. retrieved march 16, 2019, from https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/prisoner-dilemma/ machan, t. (2006). libertarianism: defended. e-book, aldershot, ashgate publishing. ozinga, j. (1999). altruism. e-book, praeger. piketty, t. (2017). capital in the twenty-first century. e-book, the belknap press of harvard university press. https://doi.org/10.4159/9780674982918 rand, a. (1999). ayn rand reader. e-book, plume. shambra, w., & west, t. (2017, 18 july). the progressive movement and the transformation of american politics. retrieved from https://www.heritage.org/political-process/report/the-progressive-movement-and-the-transformati on-american-politics simpson, e. (2016). the contributions of anatol rapoport to game theory. political science publications. retrieved from https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1133&context=politicalsciencepub www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 20 published by scholink inc. appendix a. the code ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ;; n-person prisoner dilemma ;; szilagyi model ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; globals [ round-played ] patches-own [ score p strategy neighbors-cooperate defect-now? current-payoff total-payoff ] ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ;;;setup procedures;;; ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; to setup clear-all setup-players ;;setup the players and distribute them randomly reset-ticks set round-played 0 end ;;setup the turtles and distribute them randomly to setup-players ask n-of number-players patches [ set neighbors-cooperate 0 set total-payoff 0 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 21 published by scholink inc. set p p-parameter ifelse random-float 1 < percent-cooperating [ set strategy "c" set pcolor red ][ set strategy "d" set pcolor blue ] ] end to go tick set round-played round-played + 1 let l 0 let c 0 ask patches with [pcolor != black][ set l count neighbors in-radius neighbors-radius with [pcolor != black] set c count neighbors in-radius neighbors-radius with [strategy = "c" and pcolor != black] if l > 0 [ set neighbors-cooperate c / l ifelse strategy = "c" [ set current-payoff -1 + 2 * neighbors-cooperate ][ set current-payoff -0.5 + 2 * neighbors-cooperate ] set total-payoff total-payoff + current-payoff ] ] ask patches with [pcolor != black][ www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 22 published by scholink inc. update-parameter-p ] update-plots end to update-parameter-p if agents-type = "stable" [ set p p-parameter update-strategy ] if agents-type = "pavlovian"[ let s1 sum [current-payoff] of neighbors in-radius neighbors-radius with [strategy = "c"] let s2 sum [current-payoff] of neighbors in-radius neighbors-radius with [strategy = "d"] let c1 count neighbors in-radius neighbors-radius with [strategy = "c"] let c2 count neighbors in-radius neighbors-radius with [strategy = "d"] ifelse c1 / (c1 + c2) * s1 >= c2 / (c1 + c2) * s2 [ if strategy = "c" [set p p + 0.01] if strategy = "d" [set p p 0.01] ][ if strategy = "c" [set p p 0.01] if strategy = "d" [set p p + 0.01] ] if p > 1 [set p 1] if p < 0 [set p 0] update-strategy ] if agents-type = "unpredictable" [ set p 0.5 update-strategy ] www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 2, 2020 23 published by scholink inc. if agents-type = "conformist"[ let c1 count neighbors in-radius neighbors-radius with [strategy = "c"] let c2 count neighbors in-radius neighbors-radius with [strategy = "d"] ifelse c1 >= c2 [ set strategy "c" set pcolor red][ set strategy "d" set pcolor blue ] ] if agents-type = "greedy" [ let a max-one-of neighbors in-radius neighbors-radius with [pcolor != black] [current-payoff] if a != nobody [ set strategy [strategy] of a set pcolor [pcolor] of a ] ] end to update-strategy if pcolor != black [ if random-float 1 > p [ ifelse strategy = "c" [ set strategy "d" set pcolor blue ][ set strategy "c" set pcolor red ] ] ] end frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no.3, 2021 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) original paper hot and cold cognition in hybrid communication euphrosyne efthimiadou1* 1 department of aeronautical sciences, hellenic air force academy, dekeleia, greece * euphrosyne efthimiadou, department of aeronautical sciences, hellenic air force academy, dekeleia, greece received: june 1, 2021 accepted: june 17, 2021 online published: june 30, 2021 doi:10.22158/fet.v4n3p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v4n3p1 abstract in the socioprofessional as well as the educational context, hybrid communication has experienced an explosion and exerted strong influence not only on our psychic but also on our physical existence. in this context, cybernetics makes it possible to exploit the mechanism of control and interaction among people in continuous motion. with the integration of digital media in all aspects of human life, the exchange of digital data is continuously spreading without neglecting that these new modes of communication and collaboration can also determine our senses as well as our behavior by exerting influence not only on our perceptions and thoughts but also on our mentality. on the other hand, human capacities linked to psychomotor factors make it possible to cultivate critical thinking, sense of responsibility and cooperation. however, the risk of disturbances could lead to a gap of psychomotor investment. above all, it is necessary to take into account social cognition and the role of memory in online interactions and learning techniques with the uses of computer systems, because the memorization of actual experiences becomes profound, if we perceive each situation in a state of strong emotional involvement. keywords hot and cold cognition, social cognition, hybrid communication, media and digital platforms, memorization 1. introduction with the advent of artificial intelligence and the domination of digital technology in socio-professional life in an international context, it is time to focus on the strong influence exerted on our physical and mental health by cybernetics, a fact requiring a study of the processes of control and communication among human beings and machines. bearing that in mind, it is necessary to become aware of the mental states of the participants, in order to engage and adjust them in the context of hybrid 1 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 3, 2021 communication. within this framework, the sensory memory which is connected to mental representation as well as the short-term memory trigger the decoding and encoding of information, while associating the cognitive aspect with the affective dimension in the implementation of the tasks to be performed. from this point of view, we will first identify the contribution of hot and cold cognition in the context of synchronous and asynchronous communication at the same time. afterwards, we will highlight the human skills of digital platforms users by inquiring their positive commitment or the risk of possible disruption. finally, it would be essential to pinpoint the close relationship between hot and cold cognition as well as to underline the contribution of memory in online interactions and learning techniques with the uses of computer systems. 2. hot and cold cognition in digital media immerging into the virtual world, temporality and spatiality alternate in the synchronous and asynchronous environment where hybrid communication takes place. hyles (2016) emphasizes the reversibility of digital time and is deeply interested in how to co-evolve over the transformations of digital environments (hayles, 2016). it is undeniable that information and the exchange of digital data is spreading with the new modes of communication and collaboration because these machines that are frequently re-formed at the pace of technological innovations and consumerist modes, these machines in turn in-train us, individually and collectively, by favoring certain particular modes of communication and collaboration rather than others (citton, 2016). digital media can also form not only our sensations but also our behavior by exerting influence on our perceptions and thoughts, a matter which has consequences on the biological, neurological and psychological rhythm of users. indeed, we find ourselves immersed in different media environments, always particular, frequently straddled and superimposed between them, which penetrate into us—in our “thought”—well beyond the only “information” that we derive from it punctually (citton, 2016). therefore, the technocratic invasion manages to penetrate human life and to modify the way we learn, inform ourselves, reflect, act and even react to external stimuli which invade the areas of our brain and our sensitivity. the nature of the stimulation shapes the connections among neurons that create the neuronal networks necessary for thought and behavior. wexler explores the social implications of the close and changing neurobiological relationship between the individual and the environment, with particular attention to the difficulties individuals face in adulthood when the environment changes beyond their ability to maintain the fit between existing internal structure and external reality (wexler, 2006). roose (2010) notes that problems arise when wexler extends the paradigm of how internal structures of the brain shape the individual to how these same structures shape society. the number of variables in play at the societal level makes matters here so much more complex (roose, 2010). in this way, technogenesis changes the way we think and act in a hybrid interactive environment while opposing the outside world to the virtual environment because what predominates is our brain shaken by digital technology. as 2 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 3, 2021 serres points out, “cognitive sciences show that the use of the web, the reading or writing of messages by thumb” (hence the title petite poucette, editor’s note), the consultation of wikipedia or facebook do not excite the same neurons or the same cortical areas as the use of books, slates or notebooks. they can manipulate multiple pieces of information at once. they do not know, integrate or synthesize like us. they no longer have the same head. (https://www.la-croix.com/sciences-et-ethique/sciences-et-ethique/le-cerveau-bouscule-numerique-20 19-05-28-1201025090). clearly, michel serres with the publication of his book petite poucette (le pommier, 2012) believed that neuroplasticity, this new ability will have to be cultivated, in order to reinvent a way of living together, a way of being and knowing with the beginning of a new era dominated by the image and fascinated by new technological tools. 3. the psychomotor factors of users using digital platforms: positive engagement or risk of disruption? in the field of education, it is essential to develop human capacities related to psychomotor factors in order to cultivate critical thinking, sense of responsibility and cooperation in divergent groups that interact in a multicultural society. moreover, as côté (2011) points out, “any desire for change is an extension of who we are, of our previous experiences, of the emotions and messages associated with our experiences and of the image of ourselves that results from them.” (côté d., 2011, p. 115). the decisive factor for the positive commitment of the learner in the act of learning is the motivation through active participation and personal involvement, which will determine his investment in the learning process by creating fruitful exchanges with his partners. moreover, as bogaards (1991) notes, “other situational and personal factors, both physical and psychological, play their part, not only in the how of the process, but also in its determination and modalities” (bogaards, 1991, pp. 50-51). from this perspective, learning, which takes into account psychomotor factors, may include the following path: a. to acquire and develop basic notions, b. to promote diversity, c. to foster creativity. moreover, skills management emphasizes the emotional and evaluative dimension of the learner’s experience. (efthimiadou, 2011, p. 170). with the implementation of online collaborative scenarios using digital platforms, it would be motivating to develop the social dimension of the participants through the use of communication and information management techniques. thus, psychomotor investment is reinforced by self-management and self-regulation while remaining interdependent with the development of interactive metasocio-cultural strategies. on the other hand, the loss of self-confidence, often followed by a deep sense of inferiority, leads the process to a halt. in addition, manifestations of physical insecurity are related to socio-emotional contacts. “in this aspect, anxiety is realized in stages and determines the inability to eliminate disappointed sensations. for sure, we feel this inhibitory mental rigidity, since we do not feel ready to take action”. it is true that some subjects do not manage to get rid of this psychological frustration and experience depression, which often reflects negativity in the face of an obstacle to be overcome 3 published by scholink inc. https://www.la-croix.com/sciences-et-ethique/sciences-et-ethique/le-cerveau-bouscule-numerique-2019-05-28-1201025090 https://www.la-croix.com/sciences-et-ethique/sciences-et-ethique/le-cerveau-bouscule-numerique-2019-05-28-1201025090 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 3, 2021 (efthimiadou, 2011, p. 165). moreover, “major depressive disorder (mdd) is characterized by dysfunction in cognitive and emotional systems. however, the neural network correlates of cognitive control (cold cognition) and emotion processing (hot cognition) during the remitted state of mdd (rmdd) remain unclear and not fully probed, which has important implications for identifying intermediate phenotypes of depression risk.” (stange et al., 2018, p. 183). this is why there is the risk of disturbances, since “on the side of psychomotricity, this way of considering the link between the body state and emotional flows has led to the description of psychomotor disorders as disturbances of psychocorporeal balance, not responding to a single neurological impairment and expressing psychic suffering. psychomotor disorder is not only caused by a neurobiological disorder, it is always related to functional and expressional disturbance. it can only be understood in the psychosocial context”. (boscaini & saint-cast, 2010, pp. 78-79). 4. social cognition and the role of memory in online interactions “cold cognition is defined by the term ‘mentalizing system’: the others (and their emotions) are perceived in a cold, rational way; it is the system that allows the theory of mind. this term is in contrast to the term ‘mirror system’ which refers to hot cognition (spikman et al., 2013)”. (foucaud contraire ch., montet de la seiglière a., 2016, p. 5). the close relationship between hot and cold cognition highlights the primordial role of social cognition, which is self-regulating by the behavioral reaction of individuals in the environment that surrounds them because they remain influenced by their beliefs but also by their psychic life, including emotions, affective state, psychomotor functions. ric and muller (2017) in their book social cognition emphasize the definition of social cognition “proposed by herbert bless, klaus fiedler and fritz strack (2004) and susan fiske and shelley e. taylor (2008)”, namely that cognitive productions are the result of psychological processes “by which people give meaning to themselves, to others, to the world around them, and to the consequences of these thoughts on social behaviour.” (boucher, 2018). as far as sensory memory is concerned, it remains dependent on the amygdala of the brain, in order to examine very quickly and roughly the signals perceived by the natural environment. this storage of information is linked to emotional memorization by the hippocampus, which makes learning more effective. on the other hand, short-term memory associates the cognitive aspect with the affective. as efthimiadou (2018) states: “in the process of memorization, short-term memory activates mental operations by maintaining, but also by processing the information retained by the reception of sensory data. (...) short-term memory retrieves the data recorded by long-term memory to move on to the analysis of information related to sensory memory.” (efthimiadou, 2018, p. 122). 4 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 3, 2021 chelsey taylor, march 30, 2018, amygdala-hippocampus-stress-and-the-brain, https://positiveroutines.com/stress-and-the-brain/amygdala-hippocampus-stress-and-the-brain/ certainly, the information received, exploited and decoded helps to assign meaning to the situations put in context because the operations of decoding and encoding of the information connect and highlight not only the cognitive aspect but also the affective dimension in the elaboration and management of the tasks to be performed. “this is why, in online communication, it is essential to take into account the factors related to hot or cold cognition, because different kinds of memories including sensory, short-term and long-term depend on the encoding and storage of cognitive, socioaffective and metacognitive decision-making in any learning situation.” (efthimiadou, 2020, p. 48). it is essential to take into account the mental states of people in interaction, in order to translate their behavioral reaction and to predict their conduct and also their regulation during interpersonal exchanges. as a result, “the emotional dimension appears central to the design of today’s machines, and it has part to do with memory: both with human memory, in particular unconscious memory at work in recognition phenomena, and with its computer modeling, which includes machine learning techniques.” (ganascia, 2016, p. 153). in the educational framework, the interplay of interactions carried out in the process of online learning highlights the need for the empowerment of the subjects to perform effective tasks with regard to their learning and also for the adoption of values and positive reflexes to be able to be stored in memory as moments of discovery and creativity. as asma (2017) puts it, “any brainstorming activity must have a second editorial phase of throwing out the copious junk. but the performing brainstormer, the improviser, has no such convenience or comfort. this suggest that the imagination has a cold cognition and a hot cognition pathway.” (asma, 2017, p. 168). thus, memory is also used to retain information and activate the senses of sight and hearing first, while consolidating the information through judgment. therefore, the assimilation of knowledge is built on a triple axis that can work in all directions: a. external and inner contemplation, b. judgment, c. action. finally, the broadcasted message, actively stored in memory, can intervene in a reconstruction of information and give rise to divergent or even original interpretations. 5 published by scholink inc. https://positiveroutines.com/author/chelsey/ https://positiveroutines.com/stress-and-the-brain/amygdala-hippocampus-stress-and-the-brain/ www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 3, 2021 5. discussion eventually, hot and cold cognition are associated and remain complementary in the interrelations between trainees and both their virtual and physical environment. with the use of collaborative online tasks, participants become actors and co-actors by cultivating their cognitive, socio-affective and transversal skills. however, the manifestation of anxiety associated with the lack of self-confidence leads to a discrepancy in action while at the same time risking of disruption. it is therefore necessary to be aware of the mental states of the participants, in order to engage and readapt them in the hybrid learning context. in this context, the memorization of experienced facts becomes profound if one perceives each situation in a state of strong emotion. as eustache (2016) points out, “the importance of the event, perceived at the outset, the effect of surprise and the emotional charge lead to memorizing the context of the learning: where we were, what we were doing when it happened, how we felt, how we reacted.” (eustace, 2016, p. 21). finally, social cognition highlights the affective state with the triggering of emotions and takes into consideration the physiological, mental, but also behavioral changes of the human-environment interactions, in order to demonstrate divergence and creative imagination. references asma, t. s. (2017). the evolution of imagination. chicago, london: the university of chicago press. bless, h., fiedler, k., & strack, f. (2004). social cognition: how individuals construct social reality. new york, psychology press. bogaards, p. (1991). aptitude et affectivité dans l’apprentissage des langues étrangère. paris: hatier-didier. boscaini, f., & saint-cast, a. (2010). l’expérience émotionnelle dans la relation psychomotrice. enfances & psy, 4(4), 78-88. https://doi.org/10.3917/ep.049.0078 boucher, m. (2018). françois ric et dominique muller (2017). la cognition sociale, communication [en ligne], 35(2), 2018. https://doi.org/10.4000/communication.8169 citton, y. (2016). préface. humanités numériques et études de media comparés. in n. k. hayles, lire et penser en milieux numériques: attention, récits, technogenèse. grenoble: uga éditions. côté, r. (2003). apprendre-formation expérientielle stratégique. québec: presses de l’université du québec. efthimiadou, e. (2020). multimodality and digital space: cognitive and socio-emotional factors in online communication. annals of the university of craiova, series psychology, pedagogy, 42(2), 47-58. efthimiadou, e. (2018). mémoire sensorielle vs mémoire affective et émotionnelle. de la représentation mentale à l’imagination créatrice. (n.d.). berdal-masuy, f.(eds.) emotissage—les émotions dans l’apprentissage des langues (pp. 119-128). belgique: presses universitaires de louvain. 6 published by scholink inc. https://doi.org/10.3917/ep.049.0078 https://doi.org/10.4000/communication.8169 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 3, 2021 efthimiadou, e. (2011). les facteurs psychomoteurs de l’apprenant dans la classe de fle. la jeunesse francophone. dialogue des langues et des cultures. cecilia condei, claire despierres, cristiana teodorescu, jolanta zając, mircea ardeleanu, luc collès (éds.), (pp.163-171). maison d’édition : universitaria. craiova. roumanie. eustache, f. et al. (ed.). (2016). mémoire et émotions. paris, france: editions le pommier. fiske, s. t., taylor, e., & shelley e. (2008). social cognition: from brains to culture. londres: sage. foucaud contraire charlotte, montet de la seiglière anne. création d’un protocole de rééducation de la cognition sociale pour adultes cérébrolésés. (2016). sciences cognitives, dumas-01376726. hal id: dumas-01376726. retrieved from https://dumas.ccsd.cnrs.fr/dumas-01376726 ganascia, j.-g. (2016). du côté de l’intelligence artificielle. in f. eustache (eds.), mémoire et émotions (chapitre 7, pp. 135-153). paris : éditions le pommier. hayles, n. k. (2016). lire et penser en milieux numériques: attention, récits, technogenèse. grenoble: uga éditions. https://doi.org/10.4000/books.ugaeditions.379 ric, f., & muller, d. (2017). la cognition sociale. grenoble: presses universitaires de grenoble. https://doi.org/10.3917/pug.mulle.2017.01 roose, s. p. (2010). book review: brain and culture: neurobiology, ideology and social change. by bruce e. wexler. cambridge: mit press, 2006, (p. 320). journal of the american psychoanalytic association, 58(5), 1044-1047. https://doi.org/10.1177/0003065110379486 sergent, d. (28/05/2019). le cerveau bousculé par le numérique. la croix, sciences et éthique. retrieved from https://www.la-croix.com/sciences-et-ethique/sciences-et-ethique/le-cerveau-bouscule-numeriqu e-2019-05-28-1201025090 spikman, j. m., boelen, d. h. e., pijnenborg, g. h. m., timmerman, m. e., van der naalt, j., & fasotti, l. (2013). who benefits from treatment for executive dysfunction after brain injury? negative effects of emotion recognition deficits. neuropsychological rehabilitation, 23(6), 824-845. https://doi.org/10.1080/09602011.2013.826138 stange, j. p., jenkins, l. m., hamlat, e. j., bessette, k. l., deldonno, s. r., kling, l. r., … langenecker, s. a. (2018). disrupted engagement of networks supporting hot and cold cognition in remitted major depressive disorder. journal of affective disorders, 227, 183-191. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2017.10.018 wexler, b. (2006). brain and culture: neurobiology, ideology, and social change. bradford book. cambridge: mit press. https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/1658.001.0001 7 published by scholink inc. https://dumas.ccsd.cnrs.fr/dumas-01376726 https://doi.org/10.4000/books.ugaeditions.379 https://doi.org/10.3917/pug.mulle.2017.01 https://www.la-croix.com/sciences-et-ethique/sciences-et-ethique/le-cerveau-bouscule-numerique-2019-05-28-1201025090 https://www.la-croix.com/sciences-et-ethique/sciences-et-ethique/le-cerveau-bouscule-numerique-2019-05-28-1201025090 https://doi.org/10.1080/09602011.2013.826138 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2017.10.018 https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/1658.001.0001 original paper microsoft word fet-v2n1-p1 frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 1 original paper effective learning strategies in the homes of famous artists and writers converted to museums susan smith nash1* 1 university of oklahoma, norman, oklahoma, usa *susan smith nash, university of oklahoma, norman, oklahoma, usa received: december 29, 2018 accepted: january 6, 2019 online published: january 8, 2019 doi:10.22158/fet.v2n1p1 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v2n1p1 abstract homes of writers and artists that have been converted into museums are powerful frameworks for a wide range of both individual and group learning experiences. the museums have a unique ability to engage the learners on a deeper level by piquing their curiosity, and also by encouraging participative creative activities. the foundation is that of experiential learning, with an emphasis on authentic and content-based learning. each visit to an artist’s home museum is a springboard for more universal learning experiences, particularly if the learner follows up and builds on memories of the visit, or to the museum’s website. meta-cognitive development of analytical skills and creative techniques can enrich the learner, particularly when accompanied by both individual and collaborative online activities. each artist or writer’s home provides a unique experience, which provides an opportunity for the museum’s educational and creative staff to be very creative. the homes in this article include those of pablo neruda, alexander pushkin, ilya repin, carson mccullers, isak dinesen, and juan josé arreola. keywords learning strategies, instructional strategies, museum education, museum homes, experiential learning, content-based instruction, constructionist learning, constructivism, consubstantiality, collaborative learning, mobile learning, authentic learning 1. introduction artist-home museums can give rise to a wide range of educational experiences and incorporate activities that utilize both self-directed individual experiential learning and group-based collaborative learning. contextual and content-based learning strategies can be incorporated as well. in some cases, artist and writers’ homes-museums are already encouraging active learning, and their administrators www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 2 published by scholink inc. have developed a framework of informal instructional strategies for both face-to-face learning as well as mobile/distance learning. the key to a successful learning experience is in engagement, and each location leverages its particular set of resources to do so. in the case of artist-home museums, experiential learning can be enhanced by creating ideal conditions for learning, which can be done by piquing the curiosity. after the engaging experience, the learning experience can continue with meditative reflection, after one has returned home. experiential learning can also be augmented by the artist-home museum’s website where they may participate in online activities or an online course. in addition, creating unique emotional connections and bonds by means of sharing thoughts and stimulating creative writing and journaling can also lead to durable learning experiences. this paper discusses the experiences of visiting such home-museums and describes instructional strategies. the homes include those of pablo neruda, alexander pushkin, ilya repin, carson mccullers, isak dinesen, and juan josé arreola. 2. method: a unique learning setting: the artist’s home-museum often thought of as simply tourist destinations, the homes of artists and writers that have been converted into museums or historical monuments possess unique attributes that contribute to a deeper level of engagement and thus deeper learning about the artist or writer’s life, times, and work. in addition, with planning and a design for learning, the sites can both motivate individuals to study the works of the artist or writer, and inspire them to produce their own art or creative writing. for example, the museum can put together a series of prompts for an engaging journaling experience that encourages the visitor to make close observations and to answer certain questions. in addition to guided journaling, artist-home museums can give rise to a wide range of educational experiences and incorporate activities that utilize both self-directed individual experiential learning and group-based collaborative learning. contextual and content-based learning strategies can be incorporated as well. while on-site learning is effective, mobile learning is also a viable alternative. in addition to making a history and repositories available at the artists’ homes, it is also possible to have live streaming readings and interactive webinars, which can later be archived and accessed on demand. there are many web conferencing platforms, which could include bigbluebutton, youtube live, facebook live, skype, zoom, etc. depending on the goals of the artist home museum, one can develop a full e-learning solution with an integrated elearning platform such as moodlerooms, which is free for up to 50 users. more than anything, a visit to the home of an artist or writer is an experience. the type of experience it provides can be shaped by the preparation and the kinds of activities and displays that are available. here we examine the artist and writer homes i have visited that have been converted into monuments or museums, and discuss how the museums have developed a framework of informal instructional strategies for both face-to-face learning as well as mobile/distance learning. the key is in engagement, and each location leverages its particular set of resources to do so. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 3 published by scholink inc. such experiential learning can be enhanced by creating ideal conditions for learning, which include inspiring curiosity and later, meditative reflection, after one has returned home and is visiting the website or participating in an online course. in addition, creating unique emotional connections and bonds by means of sharing thoughts and stimulating creative writing and journaling can also lead to durable learning experiences. 3. cases 3.1 case 1: pablo neruda’s home in valparaiso, chile: poetry, politics, and natural history i had the opportunity to visit pablo neruda’s house, la sebastiana, in chile a few years ago on a day trip from santiago to viña del mar and valparaiso. valparaiso is an important port city and the site of a number of naval battles. la sebastiana has been converted into a museum and is maintained by the pablo neruda foundation and it contains furniture, books, clippings, historical documents, and even a copy of a poem on his desk. (https://fundacionneruda.org/en/museums-houses/la-sebastiana-museum-house/). despite its vulnerability to devastating earthquakes, the last in 2010 and a particularly damaging one in 1906, valparaiso has well-preserved stunning buildings and squares influenced by the german, austrian, and french architecture. valparaiso is a unesco world heritage site, which translates into a great deal of local pride, with clean, well-maintained, freshly painted homes and well-tended gardens and fountains. pablo neruda’s house, “la sebastiana” is located on a steep road on a hillside. you can see the pacific ocean from his rooftop balcony. i could imagine his writing veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada (1924) and residencia en la tierra (1931) with a fountain pen in his hand, clean, white sheets of paper in his notebook under his arm, and a stiff ocean breeze on his face. the docent points out printed material in “la sebastiana” that encourages the visitors to read and translate the poetry if spanish is not our native language. she asks us to think of neruda’s life in the context of political change as well as the highly sensual verses he became famous for. the instructional strategy involves historical contextualization as well as a rhetorical strategy of consubstantiality. kenneth burke, who applied the term consubstantiality to persuasive writing, describes it as a method of connecting with the reader by making the experience so real that they are transported into the experience of the other. it “gets under the skin” but even more than vicarious experience, it triggers a sense of extreme identification, with a kind of hyper-awareness that foments one’s creativity (burke, 1969). pablo neruda’s poem, “a ‘la sebastiana’” lies on a desk, wonderfully inspirational. later, for post-visit reflection, one can easily access an online version (https://www.neruda.uchile.cl/sebastiana3.html). here’s the first stanza. i took slight liberties with the word choices, and for that, i refer to lawrence venuti’s ideas about literary translations and the idea that the best translation is one that captures the spirit of the work. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 4 published by scholink inc. to “la sebastiana”, i built the house. i made it first of air. then, i raised a flag into the air, and i left it hanging, from the firmament, from the star, from the brightness and the darkness. here’s a link to the rest of neruda’s poem (https://www.neruda.uchile.cl/sebastiana3.html). and, in line with what neruda envisioned as a perfect house for writing, the house and the neighborhood are cheerful, intimate, but not invasive. i noticed that the colors were bright, and each house seemed to be painted a different bright, cheerful hue. the rooms seemed small, which is not how i would design a house, but perhaps the options are limited when the hillside is so steep. valparaiso is still a critical port city. it is proud of its navy, which undoubtedly was charged with maintaining the waters safe for commerce. if one thinks that this is a trivial duty, all one has to do is to look at somalia, a failed state, and the fact that its waters are teaming with ersatz, improvised flotillas of pirate bandits who will attack and kidnap absolutely everything and anything. as i look at the narrow pathways up and down the steep hills, i reflect that valparaiso was also the epicenter of conflicts as well as earthquakes. bolivia used to own a part of the coast now claimed by chile, and spain fought to keep chile as a part of its possessions. later, with various economic adjustments and political conflicts, valparaiso found itself in a strategic position. being willing to travel and experience the house and then the historical district immerses one in the experience and leads to highly effective experiential learning. “the most effective experiential learning occurs when individuals participate in concrete experience that fully involves their intellect, feelings, and behaviors” (meyer, 2003, p. 353). while walking in valparaiso and other unesco world heritage sites may not be outdoor adventure in the sense of mountain-climbing or kayaking, it is a physical experience, and as such triggers other aspects of cognition which are associated with physical activity. meyer found that outdoor-adventure is a very effective type of experiential learning precisely because it brings together different types of learning (auditory, spatial, visual, kinaesthetic) (meyer, 2003). thus is it possible that the best artist or writers’ homes museums will incorporate hands-on, experiential learning that incorporates skills and challenges. after visiting neruda’s house, i went with my small group to the plaza sotomayor, where we toured some of the historical buildings and took photos of the stunning sculptures and monuments. it gave me a sense of the context of neruda’s writing, and also of some of the influences on his view of nature, history, and heroism. i view neruda as a philosophically heroic figure; perhaps not so much for his political stance (ephemeral—do we even remember what that was?) but for his gift of poetry and the ability to illuminate human spirit. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 5 published by scholink inc. looking out across the pacific ocean, one feels a sense of vastness and a sense of the infinite—feelings so well evoked by neruda’s writing. one also feels a renewed sense of stewardship toward nature and harmonious coexistence with the oceans and all forms of life on earth. 3.2 case 2: carson mccullers’s house in columbus, georgia: place-based learning it was early in march and the weather alternated between chilly and wet, and bright green blossoming spring. i walked down the old sidewalks in the columbus, georgia neighborhood where carson mccullers lived, and i could feel a certain vibration—was it the feeling of the underdog? the town is on a river that had just flooded, and like all towns on rivers, the heart and soul of the flowed in the waters. to understand carson mccullers, it is necessary to understand the attitudes toward race, women, the disabled, and the lgbt community in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s. “as we envision it here, place-based study involves both the museum members of the community, and it may address museum or community needs or issues. for example, an art or history museum might turn to ethnic community to provide context and audience for a related traveling exhibition” (villaneuve et al., 2007, p. 258). carson mccullers lived only a few miles from the chattahoochee river, and to get to the location involved driving on old brick streets, where lawns are manicured and green, and the shrubs and bushes grow rapidly, to bud out, flower and fade equally rapidly. it feels like a place of genius, where conflicts and contradictions see the just below the surface, tormenting the sensitive and artistic until they capture the paradoxes in words, music, or art. the community columbus has embraced carson mccullers, and there are many historical monuments and plaques that educate the visitor on important historical and cultural facts. instead of denying its uncomfortable past, columbus has historicized it, and the individual visitor may gain a great deal by sitting, observing, and reflecting in a journal or a quickly drafted short story. carson mccullers’s home is now a living museum and a place for researchers working on carson mccullers to stay in residence. it is affiliated with the carson mccullers center for writers and musicians (http://www.mccullerscenter.org/) at columbus state university where mccullers specialist scholar nick norwood is its director. there they can immerse themselves in her life, times, and literary productions while living in a town that was, during carson’s childhood, highly socially stratified and segregated industrial textile mill town. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 6 published by scholink inc. figure 1. carson mcculler’s childhood home in columbus, georgia. (photo credit: susan smith nash) the instructional strategy utilized by the center is one of unveiling. they use the home as a way to reveal the historical conditions that figure so prominently in mccullers’s writing. the visitor looks inward and seeks the parts of his or her psyche that has been damaged by the world, and is somehow healed by finding it reflected in the heart is a lonely hunter and ballad of the sad cafe. once inside the home, i was struck by the fact that people did not include hallways in the floorplan and they had to walk through the different rooms. that may explain some of the odd floor plans i’ve seen in older homes. further, they do not have closets. it’s necessary to have armoires or large cedar chests and chests of drawers. so, you walk in and out of each other’s rooms without any sort of separation or buffer. i considered how the arrangement of the home may have shaped the way that the inhabitants interacted with each other. it might have been difficult to have privacy. this awareness made me think of the scenes in the heart is a lonely hunter where the bedroom is a place of refuge. that moment of reflection after my visit definitely deepened my understanding of both the work of literature and the social/psychological context. similarly, young children in an international, bilingual reggio emilia school in stockholm demonstrated that each visit to a museum that involved follow-on activities showed increasingly deeper levels of knowledge (d. carter, 2018). so, in such a home where there are no halls, you will always be a part of another person’s room. as i looked at carson’s books, her work spaces, and her living quarters, i could imagine both her moments of sickness and of exultation. i felt the body desperately ravaged by rheumatic fever, and then by stroke after stroke. what was more, i felt the body that felt itself connected to all of society’s harmed, broken, vulnerable, and desperately fragile, all of whom had in common the fact they loved, and they loved deeply, usually unrequited, unknown, or simply the wrong person. mccullers has a special ability to describe the loneliness and isolation of the human condition, and the special human qualities of society’s misfits, outcasts, sick, young, old, and more. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 7 published by scholink inc. love was the condition that pushed the individual directly from room to room, place to place, feeling connections, but perhaps not able to express it, and certainly not able to articulate the pain and anguish when the desperately desired love was not returned. the day i visited was a bright spring day and outside the azaleas were already blooming, the trees oxygenating the air with their showy green foliage. in this close, narrow house, i felt the harsh ironies of love when one does not love oneself. carson mccullers was small, with a pixie-cut hair style, and quite courageous, but fame was too much for her. she fell in love with a soldier at nearby fort benning. they married. they loved each other, competed with each other, and ultimately had to separate. people blame her drinking, but that was probably only a symptom. carson needed the competition as a conversation to continue to write, to have the courage to write about taboo subjects: the racial issues of the deep south, the loves of the developmentally delayed, the deaf-mute, the same and “other-sex” confusion, all are painted in through scenes in which people react to each other, sacrifice themselves for each other, and then realize that their sacrifices ultimately meant nothing. i saw the sofa where she composed many of her works, and i was moved by the fact that she continued to write even after experiencing severe pain from her condition. common wisdom holds that carson mccullers was a desperate alcoholic, but others maintain that it was not really so much alcoholism as heart and vascular issues stemming from childhood rheumatic fever and the subsequent series of strokes. at a certain point the sense of grief in the home was too much for me. i shivered lightly and looked out the front window and contemplated the neatly trimmed yards. the home is on a quiet residential street in a very nice part of town. the lots are large and there are wide sidewalks where people walk their dogs. it reminded me of ardmore, oklahoma, and my grandmother’s house. where did “the ballad of the sad café” take place? near here? near the river where coca-cola was supposedly formulated, and where people either worked as laborers in the textile mills or as gentry who spent time sipping mint juleps and capturing life in dreamy watercolors to hang in galleries with impossibly high ceilings and the musical tones of hushed, low deep south antebellum accents. 3.3 case 3: content-based learning for language learning: alexander pushkin’s home in st. petersburg, russia the famous poet of heroism lived in a house that was actually a palace. of the russian aristocracy, pushkin was also descended from an african king, general abraham petrovitch gannibal, of a tribal kingdom near present-day cameroun. pushkin was proud of his heritage, and often referred to himself as “afrikanitz” (african). visiting the pushkin house was a perfect opportunity to practice content based instruction (cbi) for learning another language; in this case, russian. pushkin’s poetry is stunning, and the descriptions of his work and the history tend to be presented in a clear, almost technical russian, which makes it easy for learning. the brochures we purchased along with books available for purchase in the gift store were in russian, which helped with immersion: “by engaging students in subject matter they find interesting, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 8 published by scholink inc. and by using authentic target language materials, cbi aims to make students’ language output more natural, and to help students make new connections among language, culture,and society” (sederberg, 2013, p. 252). the day i visited “pushkin house” was in late june, still in the season of “white nights” where the sun never seems to set, but sinks in the sky until it touches the western horizon, just to strike up an eery glow on the eastern horizon. it rained almost every day, and in the photograph on the walkway to the house, i am carrying a borrowed umbrella. it was before 9-11, the ruble had just crashed, and you could see signs of economic suffering everywhere. elderly people on pensions were reduced to begging, retired professors were selling their books for cash, and there was talk of violence and the russian mafia. in fact, i saw a bloodied and beaten man groaning under the bridge across the neva river near my dormitory at the herzen university, where my two weeks of study ended far too soon. figure 2. outside pushkin house in st. petersburg, russia (photo credit: susan smith nash) i was delighted to have the chance to visit pushkin’s house, whose poetry i admired. pushkin house was not necessarily easy to visit. first, i felt a bit uncomfortable because there was a great deal of resentment toward foreigners or outsiders, who were viewed to have contributed to the collapse of the economy. to my surprise, however, i was constantly mistaken for a russian. i was learning russian and sometimes could understand up to 50 or 60 percent of what was being said (but sometimes that dropped to around 10 percent). we took a car to the palace, paid our fee, and entered. to visit the museum, you had to take off your shoes and put on slippers in order to not damage the wood floors or the exquisite carpets. everything www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 9 published by scholink inc. was built in the style of louis xiv through louis xvi which featured bright white walls, gilt frames, gold leaf, mythological figures, dolphins, and cherubs. many paintings were in the style of poussin. i could better imagine how pushkin’s values and his overwhelming sense of heroic loss could engender the desire to write epics and thereby construct history when i saw his house. i could imagine pushkin drafting “the bronze horseman” in his home library, which had so many shelves it resembled the library of a university or monastery. the wood parquet floor was roughly the same color as his mahogany escritoire, which had intricately worked french rococo bronze pulls and terminations. in addition to writing poems, pushkin also wrote short prose. his short story, “the shot” also addresses issues of heroism, sacrifice, and firm adherence to a higher sense of duty. in it, the prince ypsilanti attempts to institute reforms for the improvement of life for his people. pushkin lived the philosophy of political resistance, personal honor, heroism, and valor that he expressed in his poems. he died at age 38 in a duel. in an unpredictable world where violence, issues of honor, and duty are a part of an individual’s responses to real-life challenges, visiting pushkin house also provides an opportunity for authentic learning. authentic learning, in which one is encouraged go through a process of observing, making meaning, and then creating a work (pearce, 2016), is an effective and appropriate strategy in this case. for example, how might one write a story that deals with a soldier’s experience in war? the learner would acquire knowledge, transfer the learning to the situation, and then make meaning (in the form of the response, which could be written, visual, or a performance). the activity could be very healing for a veteran who is trying to make sense of the loss of his companions in battle. 3.4 case 4: content-based learning across cultures: ilya repin’s house outside st. petersburg, russia i had the chance to visit ilya repin’s home several years ago while i was attending a 2-week workshop on language and writing at herzen university in st. petersburg, russia. because of the nature of repin’s historically informed romantic canvases, it was a perfect opportunity to see how an emphasis on content and themes enhanced the learning process. following ritchhart’s ideas (2007) group tours, along with self-guided tours can be made even more effective by positing questions as well as simply having docent or podcast-delivered information. in addition, the idea could be to capture the responses to the questions in a journal or a response-piece of art or creative writing. repin’s house is outside st. petersburg in the middle of a beautiful forest. i visited in june, and the weather was pleasant, the cool, summer light made the atmosphere crystal clear. the colors seemed super-saturated, and i could not think of a more engaging environment for painting. i brought a journal with me and started to jot down thoughts. the docent asked us questions, too. in this case, some of the strategies for group learning could be effectively applied: “visits by instituting throughlines or overarching questions that could be used to learning”. their three questions—(1) www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 10 published by scholink inc. where do ideas for making art come from? (2) how does art connect us to the artist? ourselves? each world? and (3) how can we find meaning in a work of art?—framework for group learning (ritchhart, 2007, p. 141). in addition, the same questions could be incorporated in a discussion board in an online course, for either synchronous or asynchronous discussion, and thus learn from each other. this is the “social constructionist” learning philosophy that forms the intellectual underpinning of moodle’s interface design, and also the kind of learning that takes place in group learning. social constructionism does not live in a vacuum, or by discussion alone. instead, it is important to anchor it with a concrete learning object or situation. here, being in repin’s house was ideal. ilya repin was not a writer, but an artist, but it was extremely interesting to see the lovely home where he painted. it was in a wooded little area, and it had lots of windows and rooms, plus several inventions to make it easier for the cook to send him his meals without interrupting him. the house was comfortable and the rooms not too large, but definitely large enough for painting and having a studio. repin’s eyesight failed and he developed arthritic hands (similar to matisse, i think). he had special accommodations made for that as well. one of repin’s most famous paintings, “reply of the zaporozhian cossacks” (1891) was painted in his home. now hanging in the russia museum in saint petersburg (which i happened to visit as well), it depicts cossacks engaged in the delightful task of composing a profanity-laced letter to the sultan after they had defeated the ottoman empire troops in battle. in the painting, the cossacks are laughing uproariously as they collectively pen the appropriate response to their mortal enemies. it’s a gorgeously composed canvas in the realistic/romantic style of the late 19th century. i’m unconsciously engaged in content-based instruction (cbi), and there are many opportunities for repin house to offer tours on site, develop online learning courses, and also even collaborate with other museums that share part of the history and artistic experience. in addition, focusing on the themes in repin’s work helps the museum visitor begin to see patterns and to make meaningful connections between the pieces. museum educator and art historian o. hubard (2014) has described her experiences working with collections of mexican muralists and how she used the work to talk about populist and political themes, and deeper significances given their context. in addition, hubard was able to take a single work of art, namely romare bearden’s patchwork quilt and to use it as a way to find themes useful in story-telling (hubard, 2014, p. 110). for patchwork quilt, she focused on the following themes: story-telling, pattern and rhythm, and cultural influences (hubard, 2014, p. 110). imagine my surprise and delight when i found myself in the city museum of the town of gandze, azerbaijan, where i happened upon an exhibit describing ilya repin’s visit in 1888 where he sketched people and objects to correctly capture the people, artifacts, and culture of the ottoman empire. even more astonishing was a scabbard and long sword exactly matching the scabbard and sword which take center stage in repin’s famous painting. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 11 published by scholink inc. there is no doubt that there is a connection to of all three places: the russian museum, ilya repin’s house, and the gandze, azerbaijan, city museum’s repin exhibit. the content constitutes a kind of discourse which is artistic, historical, and cultural, and it encourages the visitors to make comparisons of the objects and also to think of the historical events from more than one perspective (cossack, ottoman empire, soviet union). it’s an opportunity for synthesis, as points out duenas: “studies in discourse comprehension processes offer powerful support for cbi as well, since one of the paradigm major goals is to make information available through multiple opportunities to work with varied yet coherently developed sets of content resources, and to recycle that information with different procedures and techniques” (duenas, 2004, p. 79). the synthesis of art, history, culture, and political science allows one to develop explanations for certain phenomena, and to posit explanations for one’s own observations, especially while traveling. 3.5 case 5: reflection, regrets, and the construction of autobiographical metafiction: isak dinesen (karen blixen)’s house in nairobi, kenya i had expected africa to be hot, but nairobi was not, due to the altitude, which was right at a mile high, and perfect for cultivating coffee. i was eager to make a pilgrimage to karen blixen (writing as isak dinesen) because i consider her work to be autobiographical metafiction that encourages one to re-read and rethink other works of literature. the air was cool under the trees, and there was a soft, light breeze. i was in kenya for two weeks on as a volunteer consultant for an economic development program to develop marketing materials and to develop a system for communication among smallholders in order to achieve economies of scale and to improve the markets. it was a fascinating project and there was a sincere desire to make things better for people in rural areas. it was not easy, though. the danish author, isak dinesen (real name, karen blixen) lived in kenya for 17 years as she tried to make a go of her coffee plantation. it was a turbulent time in terms of politics and also in terms of her emotional life, all of which she captures in out of africa, which was written long after she had moved back to denmark. blixen published under the name, isak dinesen, for english-speaking audiences. i have no idea why. i think that no one cares about the name the author uses; they care about the writing. karen blixen lived in nairobi, africa, in a suburb now named “karengata” which means karen’s home. the suburb is an exclusive one, now, and all the homes have walls and security services. there are lush gardens, green lawns, and large, shade-imparting trees. karen’s house is a one-storey rock building, a farmhouse with multi-paned windows, a steep red tile roof, and long winding paths that crisscross the grounds. karengata is near the lovely ngong hills that she visited frequently during her years in kenya (1917 to 1931). i visited one cool, cloudy afternoon, and the greens had a super-saturated hue, and one felt the magic of possibilities. during karen’s years in africa, karen established deep bonds of trust with the masaii people and their culture. she came to deeply appreciate the changes in the politics, and the conflicts www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 12 published by scholink inc. over land, influence, and control of resources. her experience, however, was difficult, and at the end of the day, she failed to make her farm economically viable. one thing that interests me about the process of writing the novel is that was written in 1937, years after karen had moved back to denmark. like wordsworth’s “lines written a few miles above tintern abbey” (1798), out of africa was written years after the events happened and in a different location, which means that work is freighted with an unforgettable emotional element. being in the place encourages one to reflect and take notes about one’s own memories, and to construct what turns out to be a metafiction about one’s youth, one’s young adult dreams, sacrifice, and hopes (and what turn out to be highly romanticized and unattainable) for love. blixen’s (dinesen’s) work is shrouded in nostalgia, regrets, and memories of a glorious, youthful time of intense experiences and feelings. in addition to trying to make her family’s farm a success, karen went lion-hunting and explored the african veldt in a small plane flown by her pilot friend, a man she could never have, but whom she dearly loved. the novel is drenched in a hot, bright africa sun, the rift valley area with its thorn trees, grass lands, massive shallow lakes that radiate a shimmering pink hue as thousands of flamingos stand knee-deep in the waters brimming with fish. out of africa was one of fellow author carson mccullers’s favorite books, and there is a photograph in carson mccullers’s house that features karen blixen and also marilyn monroe. 3.6 case 6: embodied responses: the complex world of juan josé arreola i visited the house of the mexican writer and critic juan josé arreola in ciudad guzmán, jalisco, mexico the 100-year anniversary of the author’s birth arreola’s house sits perched on a hill with a stunning view of the city, the valley, and the colima volcano. when you pass through the gates, you are in a walled garden, and a house that has many levels. it has been converted into a gallery and cultural center. when i visited, there was an exhibition of “papel picado” (pierced paper) the perforated paper flags that are hung across streets during holidays and fiesta. most were celebrating día de los muertos. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 13 published by scholink inc. figure 3. the entrance to juan josé arreola’s home in ciudad guzman, jalisco, mexico (photo credit: susan smith nash) to understand arreola’s work, one has to understand the context. like his fellow author, also from jalisco, juan rulfo, arreola experienced the guerra de los cristeros, which was remarkable in its immediacy and brutality. trusted priests were hidden by parishioners, to be brutally murdered in front of the mothers, grandmothers, fathers, grandfathers, and children who protected them. to have such close contact with seemingly indiscriminate bloodshed was very traumatizing. arreola’s house contains a museum as well as a garden, and an invitation to participate in his activities, which included riding a bicycle and devising elaborate costumes. such a kind of participation is an “embodied response”, which can be effective. “embodied responses make the learning experience more enjoyable. but aside from making visits more dynamic and fun, non-discursive activities make unique contributions to museum learning. they help visitors engage their bodies and emotions in response to an object, they grant viewers access to those aspects of a work that may elude discourse, and they enable people to express their responses through processes other than rational thought. in short, non-discursive activities can help activate, in particularly direct ways, the embodied ways of knowing that are so essential to aesthetic experience” (hubard, 2007, p. 48). juan josé arreola’s house sits perched on a hill with a stunning view of the city, the valley, and the colima volcano. when you pass through the gates, you are in a walled garden and then in a house that has many levels. the home itself has been converted into a gallery and cultural center. when i visited, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 14 published by scholink inc. there was an exhibition of “papel picado” (pierced paper) the perforated paper flags that are hung across streets during holidays and fiesta. most were celebrating dia de los muertos. the grounds are lovingly landscaped with pine trees and jacarandas, along with other flowering trees. supposedly, juan josé rode around town on his bicycle, his wild hair flowing. he made an impression in the 1950s with his innovative fictions, which combined a kind of borgesian surrealism with whimsy and irony. he is considered a quintessential mexican writer who incorporated many of the traditions, values, and language of his home, jalisco. because of the guerra de los cristeros, arreola had to drop out of school after the 4th grade, at age 8. after that, he taught himself everything he knew, which included acting, writing, and working with book construction. arreola was known for his prodigious memory for poetry and drama, which must have helped him develop his ear for language, and also to incorporate the world around him. further, having such a deficit of formal education might account for arreola’s flamboyant dress and behavior—it would provide armor in a very hierarchical and snobbish literary world. at the same time, arreola seemed to appear on the scene at a fortuitous moment in time, when artists such as diego rivera and frida kahlo were championing the authentically mexican. in being an autodidact, he reminds me of charles dickens. i had the good fortune to visit arreola’s home on precisely the 100th anniversary of his birth, just when a reading/presentation was wrapping up. my friend and i were both given a gift of his book of whimsical short stories, confabulario. i’ve read a few of them. i find them absolutely delightful. “rhinoceros” shimmers with a delightful schadenfreude as the divorced wife of a choleric and abusive judge (the “rhinoceros”) is tamed by a quick-witted (but selfish) new wife; he lives an enforced and circumspect life… only wonders why he allowed himself to be converted into a docile, slightly malnourished vegan. for all who have had to deal with a brute, it has a dantesque symmetry as the judge experiences his own “contrapasso”. there is tremendous wisdom in arreola’s “beast fables”—here’s a quote from “girafa” which perfectly captures the ironies of the human spirit, and the resulting divisions, splits, and double-edged blessings and gifts: with such wasted technique, which makes it really challenging to both gallop about and to love, the giraffe represents better than anyone the delirious ravings of the spirit; it looks in the heights for what others find on the surface of the earth. (a loose translation of a paragraph from “girafa”). another of my favorite passages in arreola is a discussion in a movie theatre about whether or not the devil got a good deal when he bought the soul of what the commentator in the story considers to be something of a ne’er do well spendthrift. it reminds me a bit of o. henry’s “the ransom of red chief”—kidnappers kidnap a child who is so annoying that by the end, instead of demanding ransom they pay the parents to take him back. the instructional strategy is that of comparison and connection, along with collaboration. one sees a kind of conversation that the text has with other texts (in the manner of bakhtin’s “carnivalesque” www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 15 published by scholink inc. which refers to the way that works interact with each other in the world). the activity encourages visitors to create categories of writing and to analyze them. for example, some of arreola’s most whimsical writing reminds one of jorge luis borges, especially in the way that his stories explore transformative symbolism and metaphysics (rodríguez ruiz, 2018). the instructional strategy involves intellectual contemplation, but it’s also deeply experiential. i breathe deeply and enjoy the woody, slightly spicy aroma of the woods and flowers. i realize we’re between the “sky islands” of mountainous pine forests, and then the chaparral scrub in the valley floor toward the colima volcano. the volcano is active, the earth is capable of passion and violence, and, as in the guerra de los cristeros, is probably inevitable, but unpredictable in its impact. 4. discussion artists’ and writers’ homes that have been converted into museums and monuments provide a unique opportunity for experiential and content-based learning about the artist’s life work, his or her biographical and historical context. instructional strategies can be developed for individual visitors, groups, and also online visitors, which can take full advantage of content (manuscripts, reproduction, critical and historical works) and possible group/collaborative learning. the learning strategies for the museums are most effective when they are framed in the unique experience of each museum, which could also incorporate the immediate community. content-based contextual learning can be very engaging because it also can tie to prior learning, and can be used in many ways, ranging from the use of themes, classification and comparison, to collaborative or individual creative responses. references arreola, j. j. (1952). confabulario. madrid: editorial joaquin mortiz. burke, k. (1969). a rhetoric of motives. berkeley: u of california p. carter, d. (2018). narrative learning as theory and method in arts and museum education. studies in art education: a journal of issues and research in art education, 59(2), 126-144. retrieved from http://libraries.ou.edu/access.aspx?url=http://search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.lib. ou.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&an=ej1188733&site=ehost-live chang, e. (2006). interactive experiences and contextual learning in museums. studies in art education, 47(2), 170-186. https://doi.org/10.1080/00393541.2006.11650492 dueñas, m. (2004). the whats, whys, hows and whos of content-based instruction in second/foreign language education. international journal of english studies (ijes), 4(1), 73-96. fundacion, p. n. (n.d.). la sebastiana museum house. retrieved from https://fundacionneruda.org/en/museums-houses/la-sebastiana-museum-house/ hubard, o. (2007). complete engagement: embodied response in art museum education. art education, 60(6), 46-53. https://doi.org/10.1080/00043125.2007.11651133 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 2, no. 1, 2019 16 published by scholink inc. hubard, o. (2014). concepts as context: thematic museum education and its influence on meaning making. international journal of art & design education, 33(1), 103-115. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1476-8070.2014.12001.x meyer, j. (2003). four territories of experience: a developmental action inquiry approach to outdoor-adventure experiential learning. academy of management learning & education, 2(4), 352-363. https://doi.org/10.5465/amle.2003.11901956 neruda, p. (2018). a la sebastiana. university of chile. retrieved from https://www.neruda.uchile.cl/sebastiana3.html pearce, s. (april 2016). authentic learning: what, why, and how? e-teaching: management strategies for the classroom, 10. retrieved from http://www.acel.org.au/acel/acel_docs/publications/e-teaching/2016/e-teaching_2016_10.pdf ritchhart, r. (2007). cultivating a culture of thinking in museums. the journal of museum education, 32(2), 137-153. https://doi.org/10.1080/10598650.2007.11510565 rodriguez ruiz, j. l. (2018). el simbolo como figura literaria en la prosa de juan jose arreola. proquest dissertations & theses global, 78(7). retrieved from http://libraries.ou.edu/access.aspx?url=http://search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.lib.ou.edu/login.aspx? direct=true&db=mzh&an=2018420090&site=ehost-live sederberg, k. (2013). bringing the museum into the classroom, and the class into the museum: an approach for content-based instruction. die unterrichtspraxis/teaching german, 46(2), 251-262. https://doi.org/10.1111/tger.10144 villeneuve, p., & martin-hamon, a. (2007). at the heart of it: museums and place-based study in rural communities. the journal of museum education, 32(3), 253-262. https://doi.org/10.1080/10598650.2007.11510575 frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no.2, 2022 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 18 original paper investigating teenage pregnancy in sierra leone. case study: portee community in the east end of freetown alhaji bakar kamara1 1 university of management and technology, freetown, sierra leone received: february 28, 2022 accepted: march 19, 2022 online published: april 14, 2022 doi:10.22158/fet.v5n2p18 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v5n2p18 abstract this study attempts to answer the question related to the causes and effect related to pregnancy on the educational and holistic development of our school going teenage girls and as well as out of school going teenage girls. firstly, this study endeavors to identify prescription of the respondent on the causes of teenage pregnancy. it also looks at the different perceptions about teenage pregnancy and the way it should be combated. the respondents also agree that parents don’t talk about the consequences of planned or unplanned indulgence of sex. secondly, this study attempted to find out the causes of teenage pregnancy and its effects on holistic development of our country as perceived by the respondents in terms of community factor. the finding shows that the respondents agreed to all indicators stated in the questionnaire. a self-made questionnaire was employed to gather data of the study, average weighted mean was used to find out the extent of teenage pregnancy among school going teenage girls as well as out of school going teenage girls. t-test was used to test the significant difference of the extent of the educational development when respondent was grouped according age, educational attainment, type of school attended and the socio-economic status of the family. step-wise regression analysis was used to analyze which among the causes of teenage pregnancy greatly affect the respondent educational development. keywords teenage pregnancy, teenage girls, educational attainment 1. introduction presently there is no doubt to say that teenage pregnancy is on the increase, causes leading to that are varied to name but few that would be dealt with as the researcher continue with his work. poverty, lack of education and so on. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 19 published by scholink inc. 1.1 background to the study according to the multiple indicator clusters survey (mics) it was reported that 36% of girls aged between 15-19 years are married or in union. that is one in every three teenage girls. given that these girls are considered married and adults, it is not surprising that they become pregnant. child bearing is end of their duty it is this 36% more than half (58%) are married to men ten years or more their age. however, even the girls who are not married are falling pregnant. in recent research done by unicef a lot of girls dropped out of school because of pregnancy. this is indeed destructive for the future of our young women and that of the country. a teenager is a person or child moving from childhood into adulthood with the age range differing by cultural tendencies. teenage pregnancy has caused a major hindrance or impediment of rural community education particularly so with the girl children. it has hampered the development of the nation’s human resources potential base; therefore, it is a cause for concern does identify and find solution to it. this menace is caused by boys of school going and non-school going for instance “okada rider”, fishermen, teachers, drivers, adult in the community family members and every sector of the community. lack of parental care, poverty, peer pressure and materialism had greatly contributed to the high rate of teenage pregnancy. it is god’s utmost desire for young people or teenagers to grow up into adulthood in his instruction-principles and practices to take responsibility of carrying and controlling his creation. he (god) has translated such desire and will into religious mandate for parent to show true, faithful and committed stewardship over their children being gift by god himself. the divine mandate, as seen in religious books (holy quran and holy bible) urges parents to love disciplines, teach and train children from childhood to teenage by way of preparing them appropriately for adulthood, responsibilities. such preparation takes into consideration the provision of required need such as physical, social, emotional and spiritual, adequate advice or counseling comfort love control so that our teenagers could be directed and guarded into the right path throughout their life. this is description of how life should be, which should help parents to discern and develop the individuality and special strengths as natural indignation that god has given our teenagers. therefore, with the concentrating on teenagers, parent and other elders, will better develop the individual capabilities of our children, influence them for decision making to remain on the right path through out their time. many parents in contemporary times are still influenced by the religious emphasis of their responsibilities as stewards and custodians, so much that they are in this discipline of god. but a good number of teenagers are seeking their own ways and tend to neglect and reject parental counseling in such a way that rejection are made in a bid to endeavor to meet their sociological, psychological and economic needs. a good number of young girls both of school going and non-school going ages in the portee community are displaying such tendencies of disobedience to their parents when advised or counseled, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 20 published by scholink inc. as opposed to hastily meeting their desires and needs. as a result, they are seen pregnant at early stages of their teenage lives at the detriment of their success in academic, moral and spiritual development undertaken vocational skill activities like gara-tie dyeing, soap making, tailoring etc. and some few lucky ones are gainfully employed as teachers due to their high level of education. it is however glaring that the peculiarities of this community have contributed to making a good number of our parents unable to meet with their children’s holistic needs. as a result, these teenage girls are indulged in random sexual intercourse with people such as fishermen, ‘okada riders’ teachers, drivers and other community members that could afford the price. they have enjoyed this act and forsaken the aspect of guiding against pregnancy. this social vice that has neglected the academic potential of our teenage girls, has been on an increase for the two consecutive years (2010-2012) within the portee community in the eastern end of the city. such negative signal is a cause for concern for the research work. the causes and effects of such social menace on our teenage girls in the portee community are the focal aspect that this research intends to investigate and examine. 1.2 statement of problem the causes of teenage pregnancy could be attributed to many reasons that range from sociological to psychological. the urge of fanciful materials against paying attention to their counseling and teaching fancies has so much attracted our young girls that their alternative for satisfying such emotions remains fixed on prostitution or sexual actions in order to meet up with social trends and fashions. this brought about waywardness, while social delinquencies are seen as means of improving and maintaining their social and financial or economic status in society. these dilemmas which generate the problem in contemporary societies has to do much with peer groups, persuasion of influences on teenage girls in misleading them to street life and drop outs. the problem is noticeable in pointing out to how much education or sensitization can restrain the negative effects of teenage pregnancy on our younger girls. to motivate and encourage others to be committed in pursuing education, as obvious in some area in the capital city. 1.3 justification of the study it is unreservedly factual that teenage pregnancy is one of the major setbacks to young girl’s education, as it impedes students with academic potential. it is equally disadvantageous to gender equality in terms of opportunities for education in the community. therefore, the desire or intention to investigate the causes and impact such menace that stagnated and destroy the academic, social a spiritual potential of our teenagers to act as usual and viable community members. this study will provide information for parents, teachers, elders and leaders, as well as the ministry of education, the ministry of social welfare gender and children’s affairs, for guidance in fighting against this menace. it will help parent with the appropriate mechanism that can be adopted to equip them with strategies of controlling and caring for their children needs. the study will add to the scarce literature on the causes www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 21 published by scholink inc. of early pregnancy and the impact on the holistic development of school going girls, especially within the age range of 15-18 years the study will help progress in the strives made by meaningful sierra leoneans and parents in the portee community towards individual attempts to minimize the problems. 1.4 limitation of the study the study of teenage pregnancy problems is quite expensive, even beyond the scope of this research. the research is therefore limited to the particular psychosocial problem evident in the portee community and how it is relatively impacting on the lives of our teenage girls in that area. it also specifically deals with school going teenage girls of 14-18 years the problems are discussed only in as far as they affect the teenager’s physically, socially, emotionally, economically and spiritually. however, research of this nature is subject to so many restrictions, inadequacies and challenges or constrains. therefore, constrains encountered by the researcher in the courses of this study can be seen as finance. looking at the nature of the research entailing library and field or empirical investigations, so many funds are demanded to meet with the requirement of the researcher. the researcher thus experienced financial constrains in a bid enhance the compilation of the information collected. the research spent so much time in dispensing the research instruments such as interview schedule, questionnaires etc. and assembling the appropriate information entailed moving from one street to another within the portee community such was done to facilitate the compilation and collection of accurate and most vital information correlation of the research work which cost so much. due to the fact that most people in the community feel shy to speak to the researcher and some because of their busy schedule like fishing activity they found it difficult to save time and talk to researcher. therefore, the researcher went through so many constrains in order to get or acquire the right information. 2. review of related literature 2.1 introduction the previous discussion gave an introductory or introspective view of teenage pregnancy, its causes and effects on the holistic development of our school going girls, as well as out of school girls in the east end of the city, portee community to be specific. over the years teenage pregnancy has being on the increase. in this generation having sex is considered “ok” but consequence come from those actions. the impact of teenage pregnancy on our girls tends to be quite sociological, psychological, economical and spiritual. this section reviews related literature as it focused on correlated concepts of teenage pregnancy in the bid to build up a comprehensive study. different relations opinions and beliefs of various writers have been accessed to justify the impact of teenage pregnancy, its causes; problems associated with the issues discussed in the study. the issues of teenage pregnancy are becoming more alarming as its incidence in the trend of teenage pregnancy in their community. opinion and community leaders have realized and tried to find solution www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 22 published by scholink inc. to the problem especially with regards to child bearing tendency and its substantial economic consequences couples with the tendency of high proliferation in the area or community has become more worrying and alarming. in addition the general upward trend of maternal mortality in sierra leone in a steady flow is at the detriment of our youths (especially school going girls) and is based on the involvement in risk taking ventures, such risk taking venture that definitely result to frequent deaths that have been proved to be primarily caused by teenage pregnancy. it is therefore the intension of this review to interact with related variables in order to ascertain the impact of teenage pregnancy alongside its causes and problems or assess its effects on the education, poverty, socio-economic and psychological status of the girl child. child growth and holistic development in relation to their participation towards community development and the factors contributing to the upwards trend in the number of pregnancies at a given period of time and within a particular location. the interacting variable includes: i. the concept of teenage pregnancy. ii. contributing factors to teenage pregnancy related issues. iii. religion perspective on teenage pregnancy iv. traditional perspective on teenage pregnancy v. family perspective on teenage pregnancy 2.2 the concept of teenage pregnancy the concept of teenage pregnancy in the sierra leone contest has attracts a lot of attention and contribution or participation towards its eradication due to its negative consequences on our school going girls in rural and urban communities. a modern psychologist c.h benson in his book understanding children and youth (29 1967 p.69) defined teenage as a person or child moving from childhood into adulthood with the age range differing by cultural tendencies. he then described a teenage adolescence for modern psychology to discover youth and set it end as a life that has neither the characteristic of childhood not the maturity of adulthood “this description gives a vivid picture of a period to be transitional that physically puts the teenagers into a frame work of building into adulthood”. critically the term teenager is synonymous to ‘adolescence’ which gives an understanding of a period of childhood or a phase in life between ages thirteen and nineteen (13-19). this concept, according to professor dresser, it is actually difficult to clarify especially when it pertains a period that constitute childhood. the difficult is particularly so as it contradicts the typical traditional interpretation of the term when the childhood stage is place between five and twelve (5-12). the traditional person however thinks that ages 12, 14 and 15 are stages of maturity of girls that makes them ready for marriage especially after secret initiation. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 23 published by scholink inc. this description gives an encouragement and motivation for teenage pregnancy, which according to her, as expressed in her book ‘let have more teenage pregnancy’ (2007, p. 4) teenage pregnancy is not the problem, but unwanted teenage pregnancy is the problem, with its child bearing outside marriage that cause all the trouble. fredenca (2007) agreed that the dangers we associate with teenage pregnancy on one hand are behavioural, not biological drug use. stds prior abortion extreme youth and lack of parental care. a woman’s fertility has already began to decline at age 25 simple with a reason of the population control crowd which promotes and destroyed child bearing she concludes that early child bearing rewards a woman’s health with added protection against breast cancer. in contrast view on the necessity of teenage pregnancy a staunch liberal sociologist, hogan d.p (1986) disagrees as he states the young people absolutely must not have children. the younger generation must not produce a younger generation. 2.3 teenage pregnancy related issues frederica miller, states that sex is the sugar coating on the drive to reproduce and drive overwhelming. it is supported to be its survival engine race. fighting means fighting a basic bodily instinct akin to fight thirst. the above assertion gives a strong support of having sex, irrespective of the partners’ state or period of development. the most important connotation is that because sex plays a pivotal function in reproduction. it must be carried out to meet its desired objectives, she also affirms with the justification of having sex for the course of pregnancies which leads to the survival of human race. by the age of 18, a young woman’s body is well prepared for child bearing; young men are equally qualified to do their end. both may have better success at the enterprise than they would be in later years as some health risks caesarean section and down syndrome for example increase with passing years. teenage pregnancy is simply term, can mean a girl between ages 13-19 carrying a baby inside her. hogan’s (1985) disagreement lings on his conviction that bears two concerns, firstly the financial ability of young people especially africans and sierra leonean in particular cannot sufice the smooth and convenient care taking of children. secondly, he believes that young people are simply incapable of adult responsibility. his expectative is that young people will have poor control of their impulses be self-centered and emotional and be incapable of visualizing consequences and also with an assumption of teenage irresponsibility being noted in our estimation of the nature of adolescence, which involves our very ideal of the purpose of childhood. however, the sociological and psychological advancement made by researcher provide a foundation of care of fact to make this study quite cohesive. therefore, the researcher confers with candid assertions as justifications for the need to minimize if not eradicate teenage pregnancy as evident in the study area. however, it is without doubt, that the sierra leonean situation of teenage pregnancy trend is at an extreme alarming rate that the figures accounted for the eastern end of the city deserves special attention and concentration, death of our young school www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 24 published by scholink inc. going girls have occurred as a result of the prominence in teenage pregnancies. some years ago, a notable magazine, the independent observer revealed that sierra leone has one of the highest mortality rates in the world. a confirmation of the above statement was made by dr. sokana, a health reproduction specialist working with united nation fund for population activities (unfpa) in sierra leone as he comments material mortality cases reported involve girls with teenage pregnancies, some of whom while hiding out their pregnancies, decided to register with traditional birth attendants (tba’s) who feed them with concocted herbs as a substitute of the required clinical services from gynecologists. this is a clear indication of the high level of risk bearing attached to teenage pregnancy. generally speaking more women die from labour, profuse bleeding and a good number of complications of pregnancy and infections after delivery. aunicef report also stated that: a sierra leonean woman has a one out of six chances of dying in child birth. a prominent reason for such assertion is due to young mother narrow pelvises, which can lead to obstructed labour. female genital excision, which is almost universal in the country, is another complication factor according to m.s.f it has been clearly evident that the use of traditional medicine seems very hazardous in that, one mixture in particular can estimate contractions and also cause reputed disease. dr. francis smart from the reproductive health division of the ministry of health in collaboration with sahr more junior and damy glen wright noted that high blood pressure, common in teenage pregnancy causes girls to go into convulsion, comma after giving birth and such babies die and the risk of losing even the mother is great. some of our teenage girls are being accidentally impregnated by their male student. teenage pregnancy is therefore of utmost concern, dr. smart further commented that early marriage is high and school dropout also causes teenage pregnancy and more so a large percentage of teenage girls entering marriage in their teenage. he also unfold a statistic that (27%) of girls are married before they are 15 years old while majority (62%) are married before their eighteen birthday, such girls are expected to become pregnant so long as they are married. he opined that accompanying health complication are most worrying issues around teenage pregnancy. teenage mothers are more likely to have difficulty in labour, often leading to a permanent change in the anus and bladder called fistula or they develop high blood pressure known as eclampsia, which can kill them. a report submitted by a non-governmental organization save the children states that annually thirteen million (13,000,000) children are born to women under the age of twenty (20) years. about ninety percent (90%) of this figure could be found in developing countries like sierra leone. the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in the world could be found in sub-sahara africa where women often marry at an early age. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 25 published by scholink inc. in the portee community for instance eighty seven percent (87%) of women surveyed were married and fifty three percent (53%) of this proportion had given birth to children before the age of eighteen (18) years. but girls out of ignorance and unscientific approach to life still continue to be pregnant in their teens without the slightest hesitance. making situation very difficult for them in addition, a gender and human right activists, shown attest that early marriage is not only risky for teenage girls but it’s also a human right violation once perpetrated them by poverty, traditional practices and discrimination teenagers involved in early marriages are mostly seen in risk taking especially in terms of complications experienced during pregnancy. the young girls to see themselves as potential sex workers capable of assuming motherly roles. pregnancy on the other hand point to a period of having an off-spring developing in the uterus of a woman or young girl, being perpetrated by sexual intercourse. herold brook millennium (200) defined pregnancy as the period when the female carries a developing baby with her body. he confirms that the female of almost all special of mammal goes through pregnancy before given birth and in human being it last for nine months. his research proves that pregnancy begins when an egg (female cell) and a sperm male (cell) unite in a woman body the union is called conception. man love j. (1998) in his research on adolescence pregnancy and child bearing risk affirms that the increase in teenage pregnancy and birth rates among africans remain high based on biological deception in the development of adolescents’ sexual organs and urges. coupled with their behaviours as seen in having sex early no use of contraceptive, living disadvantaged and neighborhood or with single parents, have older sexually active or pregnant sibling or were sexually abused. in some societies like the portee community, illiteracy and poverty are important factor in the rate of teenage pregnancy; due to this they often see early marriage and teenage pregnancy as a blessing because it is a proof of the young girl fertility and also a source of income or financial support for the family. furthermore, teenagers lack knowledge of and access to conventional methods of preventing pregnancy (use of contraceptive) as they may be too embarrassed or frightened to seek such information from parent or elders. it is strongly supported that peer influence also plays an important role in the right rate of teenage pregnancy. over half of unintended pregnancies were from women not using contraceptives. in other cases contraceptive are used but prove to be inadequate. in experience adolescent may use condoms incorrectly or forget to take oral contraceptive (tablets) correctly. also because of the conciseness of the facilities of young girls, they always try to attract the opposite sex either from their body structure or from melting looks and the young boys muscular development ready. 2.4 religion perspective on teenage pregnancy many studies suggest that the link between teenage pregnancy and religion indicate that religious teenagers are having sex more often than non-religious teenagers. however, that may not be the case. it www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 26 published by scholink inc. could simply be that religious teenagers are not using protection as much as non-religious teenagers that are having sex. the other explanation is that the number of teenagers having sex might be close to the same in every state, but the number of teenagers terminating the pregnancy before giving birth might be higher in non-religious states. many religions frown on purposeful termination of pregnancy-abortion. this might lead to more teenagers carrying the baby to full term and delivering the baby instead of terminating it early on in the pregnancy. many religious states might also focus more on abstinence-on instead of the realities of teenage sex, teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. because of this attitude toward abstinence and against contraception use, these religious cultures could be leading more teenagers toward unsafe sexual practices indicating the link between teenage pregnancy and religion. in fact, teenage pregnancy statistics do show higher numbers of abortion rates in less-religious states. other factors to consider with this link between teenage pregnancy and religion include other aspects of the teenager’s background, race, culture and socioeconomic background—all factors that can play a role in whether or not a teen is having sex, having safe sex or practicing abstinence. these practices are the link to the rates of teenage pregnancy. with about three out of every 10 teenage getting pregnant each year, the numbers of teenage pregnancies are still high in the past decade. some researchers attribute the cause-and-effect idea to the link between teenage pregnancy rates in general or among those religious teenagers. some teenagers will promise themselves to remain a virgin until marriage. however, in the heat of the moment decide to go ahead and have sex with their boyfriend or girlfriend. because they are unprepared to have sex, but go for it anyway, they are taking that chance that their sexual intercourse could result in a teen pregnancy. there might also be a link between religious teens that tend to get married at a younger age, around 17-20 compared with non-religious teenagers. these teenagers who are married might have planned pregnancies, but fall into the category for a teenage pregnancy because of their age. regardless of the reason, there is a clear link between teenage pregnancy and religion. to prevent teenage pregnancy, it is important for teenagers and their parents to be realistic about the possibility of teenagers having sex. knowing how to practice safe sex is one of the best ways to prevent teenagers from continuing to get pregnant. teenagers need to consider learning about the resources available to practice safe sex with contraception even if they are worried about the religious implications. practicing safe sex, or finding ways to stay abstinent from teenage sexual intercourse can help the teenage pregnancy rate to decline. 2.5 traditional perspective on teenage pregnancy the researcher aimed to explore indigenous methods used to prevent teenage pregnancy from the perspective of traditional healers and traditional leaders. furthermore, it aimed to explore with traditional healers and traditional leaders whether these methods have relevance today as form part of teenage pregnancy intervention. the findings of the study revealed that traditional healers and traditional leaders are concerned by high rate of teenage pregnancy within the community. they felt www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 27 published by scholink inc. strongly that ignoring indigenous cultural practices due to modernity has led to major non-resolvable social issues such as teenage pregnancy, spread of hiv/aids related diseases, poverty, drugs and alcohol misuse. the research findings also revealed that there is a high demand for re-instituting elders’ and family roles in addressing the erosion of cultural practices and traditional methods. traditional practices such as virginity testing (bondo), non-penetrative thigh sex, physical maturity examination as well as traditional ceremonies were identified as indigenous methods previously used to groom girls and to prevent teenage pregnancy. furthermore, traditional healers and traditional leader were totally against contemporary teenage pregnancy interventions and policies around this issue, and have mixed views towards the idea of combining modern and traditional methods for teenage pregnancy prevention. based on the findings of the research, recommendations were made regard to collaboration between sierra leone government and indigenous experts so that to deal effectively with teenage pregnancy. 2.6 family perspective on teenage pregnancy the research presented here sought to identify the effects of teenage pregnancy and childbearing on the teenager’s family of origin by examining changes across time in mothers’ parenting within families in which there was either a pregnant teenager or a parenting teenager. the mothers of pregnant and parenting teenage would monitor their children less, be more accepting of early no marital parenting, have lower expectations for their other children, and communicate more about sex and contraception with their other children. this research also assessed other aspects of mothers’ attitudes, such as their perceived importance of childbearing, the problems associated with early parenting, and the best ages to reach certain life course transitions. differences in these mother characteristics across time in families in which the daughter was originally pregnant would reveal how mothers changed as a result of their daughter’s giving birth. differences in these mother characteristics across time in families in which the daughter was originally parenting would reveal how mothers changed across their daughter’s first year postpartum. this research also contrasted the mothers of never-pregnant teenagers with the mothers of pregnant teenagers and the mothers of parenting teenagers. mothers’ monitoring of their children, their attitudes about sex and childbearing, and their communication with their children were compared. differences in these characteristics among mothers could reveal the within-family risk factors that preceded the older daughter’s pregnancy. that is, low parental monitoring, low expectations, permissive attitudes about sex, and poor mother-teenagers communication all have been shown to relate to teenage sexual activity and teenage pregnancy. thus, in the research presented here, the mothers of pregnant and parenting teenagers are expected to do less monitoring and to have lower expectations, more permissive sexual attitudes, and poorer communication with their children than the mothers of never-pregnant teenagers. this research also sought to determine how mothers’ time spent caring for their new grandchildren impacts their ability to supervise their own children. it was expected that as the number of hours that mothers spent caring for their grandchildren increased, mothers’ monitoring of their own children would decrease. finally, the mothers of parenting teenagers answered questions about how their older www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 28 published by scholink inc. daughter’s childbearing had affected their daughter’s life. mothers’ responses to these items were analyzed across time to determine whether a mother’s perceptions of the effects of her daughter’s childbearing changed across the daughter’s first year postpartum. over a decade sierra leone has seen an increase rise on teenage pregnancy once again. there have been many solutions out there in the open that can help reduce teenage pregnancy but some have failed to do so. this literature review will answer the following questions: 1) what is causing the increase rise on teenage pregnancy? 2) what can schools do to help decrease teenage pregnancy? 3) how effective is comprehensive sex education? throughout this literature review, both points of views of this issue will show the reasons teenage pregnancy is on the rise again and what we can do to try to decrease the number of teenage pregnancies there are in sierra leone today. 2.7 what is causing the increase on teenage pregnancy? the increase rise on teenage pregnancy have left many wondering what is happening today in our country (sierra leone) especially the eastern part of the capital, portee to be specific, but what they need to search for is what is causing the increase rise on teenage pregnancy to become a serious problem. according to dr. alvarez (2010), “our society has created a cultural that makes having sex ok, and creating an environment where promiscuity is accepted.” many have believed that today’s social media and the internet is highly exposed to everyone and can be one the reasons on the rise of teen pregnancy, such as alvarez has concluded. others might disagree otherwise such as alexander wright; a psychologist who was interviewed by the british broadcasting corporation (b.b.c) to see what he thought about the cause of rise of teenage pregnancy was due to the social media and the internet. wright disagrees on the idea that social media and the internet have to do with the cause of teenage pregnancy. he explained as followed: today’s generation is different from the past generations, teens are going to have sex no matter what, the internet or social media has no effect to cause teen pregnancy, parents just need to be able to know how to communicate better to their teenagers to have safe sex and consequences that may come from their actions. (alexander wright, interviewed, 2010) although, can this really be the reason why or could it be the lack of education given to teenagers about sex? research by cynthia bowers (2010), concluded that the main cause can be that no one is paying attention to girls who are living in poverty, whose birth rate has never declined since the past decade but increased over 60%, and the fact that schools lack sex education. however, it can be interpreted that many factors such as poverty, the media, internet, or even peer pressure can be leading factors on teenage pregnancy. for the past decade, the government can also be the blame for not seeing the increase rise on teen pregnancy coming mostly from those who live in poverty. 2.8 what can schools do to help decrease teen pregnancies? schools can contribute to reducing teenage pregnancies by offer sex education at senior secondary schools. schools have the choice on whether to provide access to contraceptives and provide sex www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 29 published by scholink inc. education to students in senior secondary schools. although, studies have shown that if schools included education on sex and pregnancy prevention as part of the health education curriculum it can indeed delay sexual activity among teenagers and increase safe sex (parnes, 2010). teenagers just need self-motivation to avoid sex or practice safe sex. informing teenagers by offering sex education and information on contraceptives can provide a broader perspective for each individual. although, religion or moral reasons cause many people to strongly oppose making sex education available in senior secondary schools (kirby, 2000). however, if the government provided senior secondary schools with sex education classes can it influence teenagers to avoid sex and decrease pregnancies? 2.9 how effective is comprehensive sex education? comprehensive sex education can for the most part be considered to people as having no effect on teens to avoid sex, but others can see it has a way to decrease teen pregnancies in america. according to advocates for youth (2009), comprehensive sex education programs helped youth “delay onset of sexual activity, reduce the frequency of sexual activity, reduce number of sexual partners, and increase condom and contraceptive use.” organizations such as advocates for youth encourage others to spread the message that comprehensive sex education programs are effective. schools may consider taking a more approach to comprehensive sex education programs for senior secondary school, but it also depends on each community schools come from. researchers who also studied the impact of sex education on teenagers said that they found that teenagers that take comprehensive sex education reduced having unproductive sex by 60 % (advocates for youth, 2009). however, many disagree with the idea of comprehensive sex education being effective. many have said that sex education will send confusing messages to teenagers and lack common sense. according to christine kim (2010), comprehensive sex education programs have had no effect on teenagers’ sexual behavior and these programs caused no reduction on teen pregnancies or the increase of contraceptives. if comprehensive sex education failed to do reduce teenage sex, then the effect of teenage pregnancy would see no results or maybe an increase on teenage pregnancies in the country. although without proper information about sex to teenagers, the government might see no effect also on teenage pregnancies. with different perspectives on comprehensive sex education, it will depend on the government or even schools if they wish to decrease the increase on teenage pregnancies through comprehensive sex education. 3. research methodology this section deals with the methods and instrument used to assemble and analysis data which is reflective of the study on academic background. the study focuses on the causes of teenage pregnancy and the subsequent effect on the holistic development of our teenage girls that are currently going to school as well as non-school girls as evident in the east end of freetown. the ministry of social welfare gender and children’s affairs is fully aware that the dropout rate for teenage girls is higher than that of boys and also that pregnancy and subsequent drop out of the teenage www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 30 published by scholink inc. girls from school contributes to the very disparities the educational policy seeks to eliminate. teenage pregnancy, especially when unintended, is correlated with negative effects for the child and the mother. girls who withdraw from school due to pregnancy would have otherwise continued in school had they not become pregnant. literature studies have investigated the degree to which pregnancy related school dropout is a major cause of gender differences in educational attainment (eloundou-enyegue & strokes, 2004). the civil society is another potential beneficiary of the outcome of this research in their course of championing for the rights of the girl child in attaining education, while working towards narrowing down the gender disparities in the education study has also helped create an environment of clear understanding of teenage pregnancies in schools the components of the research methodology discussed in this section are as follows: research area i. research procedure ii. data collection methods iii. data collection analysis 3.1 research area this study was undertaken in the east end of freetown portee community to be specific. this community was selected because of the predominance of the menace discussed than any other area in the east end of the city. the community is very prominent and consists of life supporting agencies and academic institutions like the portee tailoring institute, portee youth development centre, secondary and primary school such as sierra leone muslim union secondary school, pentecost secondary school and so many primary schools. health centre etc. 3.2 research population and sample the study target (150) teenagers in the research area and out of this number eighty (80) are girls, twenty (20) are boys (12) school going and (8) non-school going selection of both boys and girls in the target group spread from the senior primary level to the end of junior secondary school and senior secondary school level. during the investigation a means of accessing independent information was expedited. fifty (50) elderly and well experienced people that included parent civil servants, fishermen and others from various other works of life were targeted in the study. the sum total population size for this research work is therefore one hundred and fifty (150) the selection was not done on random basis but systematically done to represent every end of the community as specifically targeted. it was done using the purposive sampling techniques. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 31 published by scholink inc. 3.3 research procedure the sampling procedure was done through random sampling techniques. questionnaires were administered randomly by moving from street to street. the greater proportion of the population in the community constitutes women and children interviews of illiterate members were conducted in the targeted study area. 3.4 data collection methods the nature of the study being a sensitive social problem required enough information gathering and coalition. the two main methods were library research and field or empirical research methods. the library research methods were adapted to survey through written material and make inputs into the literature review of this research work. the fields or empirical research method was also used to ascertain the reality of the research problem. this method was adopted for this study as much information was contracted from respondents in their respective areas. much effort was made to bring out the main causes and effects of teenage pregnancy with adequate complementary information by developing certain research instruments designed to reflect the actual feeling of respondents on the increase rate of teenage pregnancy in their community. such instrument includes: 1) questionnaires 2) interviews with predetermined participants 3) participants’ observation. 3.5 data collection analysis the data collection on the causes and effects of teenage pregnancy in the portee community is presented and analyzed in simple calculations statistical tables and graphs. the analysis involved data on the major causes of the menace as evident in the study area and on the other hand the effect of such menace on the holistic development of our teenagers living within the respective streets of the community, reflecting the responses of the sample people interviewed. the scores table charts and details are converted to percentages. in all the major areas forty (40) respondents from each sector or facets of the sample population were investigated. the analysis further shows parents, stakeholders as well as teenage girls and boys’ responses on the causes and effects of teenage pregnancy as evident in their community. it clearly shows the status of teenager’s parent, the factors that are causing problem, what is directly affecting the teenagers, parents and community members. 4. summary, conclusion and recommendations 4.1 summary of findings this research was generated out of the desire of the researcher to point out one of the major hindrances or impediment of eastern community education particularly so with the girl child the researcher assumed before now that the religious decline in spiritual life of the children, teenagers and adults in the area coupled with the drastic increase in the standard of living of the people and educational www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 32 published by scholink inc. requirements were factors seriously militating against the general educational system or tread in the study area. but it was discovered that teenage pregnancy has played a great role in stagnating the teenage girl education as well tarnish other problems which affect girls in the community/area. in addition the researcher discovered from the findings of the study that teenage pregnancy in portee community has the absolute capacity to destroy or slowdown of our human development index that is already at an all-time low give between ages 12-19 years have a high tendency of debarring their own progress and destroying their future on the basis of teenage pregnancy. several factors have actually been proved to be responsible for the increasing role of teenage pregnancy in our communities and the problem must be addressed in order to profitably manage the crisis. most teenagers experience many of the same obstetric issues as women in their 20s and 30s. there are additional medical concerns for younger mothers, particularly those living in the east end of the city for mothers between 15-19 years, and at least two of every 10 between 11-15 years in the area. figure is even worse for non-school going girls in the same community. some other parents in the portee community allowed their teenage girls to involve in sexual activity with adult male workers for survival. teenage girls are more likely to get pregnant if they have limited or no guidance from their parents. many parents have busy lives that prevent them from providing the guidance and support that their young teenagers need to make good decisions on issues such as sex, according to the website parent dish when a teenage does not feel that she can talk to her parents about sex either because they forbid sex talk or because they are not around, she will more likely turn to friends for direction on whether or not have sex, resulting in misinformation and possible teenage pregnancy may occur. according to the chief, he expressed his fear as to what the future holds girls in portee and the east end as a whole. he admonished human and child right organizations to double their efforts in the eastern end of freetown. however, information about teenage boys shows that only two out of fifteen may have become teenage fathers between 15-19 years of age, the problem actually lies with the girls. according to the family support unit (fsu) of the sierra leone police in the community police post, their hands are tied up by the community people as whenever they want to send a case to the kissy police for further investigation and action, they will decline their involvement they believe in settlement or settling such issues as traditional demands “family”. there is little or no form of parental supervision as all the parent, cares about is their fishing and petty trading. most of this automatically leads to the issues of peer pressure. parent within the wrap area encourage their teenage girls to have relationship with fishermen or boys in order to assist then in their fish activities and help them in terms of finances for their survival. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 33 published by scholink inc. 4.2 conclusion from the data obtained from the research with the aid of the instruments used, the researcher is fully capacitated with facts to arrive at the following conclusion.  teenage pregnancy is actually a social problem or menace in the eastern end of freetown and that the pregnancy rate is high due to uncontrolled sex.  that illiteracy, peer influence, materialism, poverty in appropriate parental care and control are the most outstanding cause of teenage pregnancy among girls in the area.  programs of reproductive health arrived at teenagers are often in a small scale and not centrally coordinated, non-governmental organization likes snap and acf provide contraceptive advice for young girls nationwide and laws against child marriage have reduced but has not eliminated teenage pregnancy or the practice of early marriage.  that the financial support given by government to educate and health care programs in relation to reproductive programs and welfare programs to create awareness on the issue of teenage pregnancy, have been misdirected or invested on other country programs.  that the socio-economic life style of the community youths are not controlled or adequately monitored to ensure pregnancy risk reduction among teenagers, should the status remain the same our human development index in the whole country will be low in addition, our future generation will constitute more of an endangered species who will not be ready to care for attainting old age.  that parents, government, nongovernmental organizations, teachers, medical practitioners are all contributors to the problems just as the children (girls) themselves.  that along with unwed mothers even teenage fathers posed a risk to the social and economic progress of society.  some elders in the community believe that improved female literacy and educational prospects will lead to a significant reduction in teenage pregnancy; others believe that increase in female literacy will lead to an increase in the age of at first birth. it was also observed that one fourth of adolescent mothers in the eastern end of freetown will have a second child within 24 months of the first. 4.3 recommendations looking at the problems associated with teenage pregnancy and in order to minimize the rate and impact of such menace on our teenagers and to enhance the admission and retention of more girls in schools and increase the number of literate women in portee thereby empowering girls and women in the east end to positively contribute in the socio-economic development of their community and the country as a whole, the following recommendation are advanced or suggested by the researcher. i. that considerable number of skilled medical practitioners be trained and encourage to stay and work for their country, extra incentives should be directed to medical researcher efforts and the findings and recommendation implemented. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 34 published by scholink inc. ii. joined up action, making sure branches of government and health education services work effectively. iii. prevention of teenage pregnancy through better sex education and improving contraceptive and advice service for young people in service design. iv. that government adopts and seriously implements the teenage pregnancy strategy which is very good in coordinating the attempt to tackle both the course and consequences of teenage pregnancy. v. teenage parents should use family and community support, social services and child care support to continue their education and get higher paying as they progress with their education. vi. the reproductive health issues are taught in schools as suggested by matron marion davies. in addition, she suggested the legalization of abortion so that teenage mother who can endeavour to terminate their pregnancies will not again do it in secrecy, so as to reduce the risk of dying. vii. that traditional birth attendants (tbas) whom teenage mothers confide in should be scientifically trained and encouraged to quickly take teenage pregnancy cases to appropriate health centres and hospital especially when they discover that the case is critical. viii. government should organize series of sensitization programmes example outreach, radio programs specially design for men and boys on their role in minimizing teenage pregnancy. ix. government should enact laws and policies that will eradicate teenage pregnancy and see that are implemented to the latter. x. improve conditions of living for the eastern people. xi. girls who maintain their virginity till after the senior secondary school should be given rewards and awarded scholarship for further education. xii. early initiation of young girls into the bondo society should be discouraged. xiii. legal action should be taken against parent for child abuse. xiv. those men who are found wanting in pregnating school going children be brought to justice. xv. the media should encourage open dialogue and the health care system should guarantee confidentiality and non-judgments approach. xvi. most teenagers actually rate their parent high on the list people they trust to give accurate information about birth control and sex. as parents you can help your teenagers in informing about birth risk of teenage pregnancy by speaking with him/her how you feel. xvii. parent can do a lot to prevent teenage pregnancy simply by knowing whom your teenagers is hanging out with get to know your teen’s friends and arrange to meet their parents this way you can establish common expectation make such your home is an open environment that other teenagers feel comfortable in. xviii. show your teenagers that is more to life make sure that you encourage your teen’s and let him or her see that there are other things that they can do before starting a family. encourage your teens to get a good education and pay attention to his/her progress in school can go a long way towards preventing teenage pregnancy. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 5, no. 2, 2022 35 published by scholink inc. references a research journal. (1998). the independent observer magazine may 27, 2007. benson, c. h. (1961). understanding children and youths. illinois evangelical training association. brook, h. (december, 2000). adolescent sex, contraception and child bearing (a review of volume 2). campbell, r. (1981). how to really love your child. illinois victor book. dr. francissmart. (1974). boundaries of the soul june singer victor gollaniz. retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1177/026455057402100112 dr. sokana, babatunde, & dr. kim. (2017). united nation population fund. retrieved fromhttps://www.unfpa.org>previous.e dressler, r. (1988). child development, michigan-zondervan publishing house. fredenea. (2000). england and wales. civil registration birth index 1916-2007. birth, baptism &christening. retrieved from https://www.ancestry.com getz, g. (1974). psychology of human growth and development. new york reinchart printing press. hogan, d. p. (2018). 1986 world wrestling federation program hulk. retrieved from https://www.amazon le bar, l. (1987). reaching out troubled teenagers. illinios-victor books. man love, j. s. (n.d.). adolescent pregnancy and child bearing risk. miller, f. (2001). “families matter”a research synthesis of family influence on adolescent pregnancy. washington d.c. miller, f. (2001). “families matter”. a research synthesis of family influence on adolescent pregnancy. washington d.c. msf comments on the reported draft text of the trips waiver negotiation. (2022). retrieved from https://msfaccess.org sahrmorisjunior. (2018). vestex media. retrieved from https://vertexmedia.sl>tag>sahr.m https://doi.org/10.1177/026455057402100112 https://www.ancestry.com/ https://www.amazon/ frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 84 original paper mediator as a story recipient in narrative mediation: what types of questions should i ask? ying chen1 & chee lay tan2* 1 english language and literature (ell), national institute of education, nanyang technological university, singapore 2 asian languages and cultures (alc), national institute of education, nanyang technological university, singapore * chee lay tan, asian languages and cultures (alc), national institute of education, nanyang technological university, singapore received: may 2, 2018 accepted: may 13, 2018 online published: may 25, 2018 doi:10.22158/fet.v1n1p84 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v1n1p84 abstract this study adopted the theoretical framework of narrative mediation to investigate a storied conflict talk between a landlord and her tenant in which the mediator played the role of a story recipient in the co-construction of stories with disputants. the focus of this research is on the function of questions posed by the mediator in the production of turning points which are favourable to the evolution of “better-formed” stories. the results of this study indicate that there are at least two types of questions mediators ask: 1) the questions that can help disputants reflect on their imperfectness; 2) the questions that awaken disputants’ memories of their good stories from the past. it is shown that the de-legitimacy for self laid a foundation for the production of a good story towards a meaningful outcome for the mediation. the inadequacy of the context formed by first having legitimacy for other followed by the de-legitimacy for self led to the failure of destabilizing the problematic story in the mediation. the lack of the dominant party’s legitimacy for other resulted in the absence of legitimacy from the marginalized side and would likely cause unfavourable consequences to the mediation in the long term. keywords narrative mediation, mediators, story recipient, questioning skill, turning points www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 85 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction this study of narrative mediation draws inspiration from the allegory of the cave in plato’s work: republic, in which prisoners chained to the wall of a cave were unable to turn their heads. all they could see in their lives were the shadows projected on the wall from the puppets held up by puppeteers passing in front of a fire behind them. these prisoners took the shadows as reality for themselves. through the theory of forms, plato argued that the “non-material abstract known to us through sensation, possess the highest and most fundamental kind of reality” (cheng, 2014). disputants in conflict like prisoners in the cave grasp the matter at the core of the story through contemplating its form presented in the narrative. and in the narrative approach, we explore the relationship between the story and its narrative which reflects the connection between matter and its form. regarding the question: “what do we know when we know about a person?”, mcadam (1993) proposed that we know a person from his or her own life stories and the stories the person lives by. however, we have no direct access to the stories or the “truth” in people’s minds. we can only know a person through his or her narrative or their way of describing stories in their lives. varying ways of storytelling creates different forms of “truth”. over the past decades, an increasing body of research has focused on studying mediation through the narrative approach. this approach provides a new angle for mediators to take mediation as a process of storytelling in which the disputants’ stories can be told and the mediator leads the narratives along the direction of “better-formed” stories until the arrival at the settlement. the disputing parties are the chief storytellers in mediation. on the other hand, mediators, as story recipients, listen and actively co-author stories with disputing parties, while simultaneously using their metacognitive resources to monitor the whole process of storytelling. nonetheless, limited research has been conducted to study the choice of questions in narrative mediation. based on brandon’s (2011) work, “questioning is what a dispute resolution practitioner does most”. therefore, we can see that it is beneficial to investigate the impact of the questions asked by the mediator as he or she plays the role of a story recipient in narrative mediation. 2. literature review 2.1 mediation approaches the present study focuses on a case of interpersonal conflict, that is, the conflict between at least two persons, in the institutional setting of a mediation center. conflicts occur in all human relationships, societies, and cultures. conflicts become intractable when people in conflict are unable to put distrust and animosity aside and work together to develop solutions that can satisfy their individual as well as shared needs and interests (moore, 2014). according to morasso (2011), “mediation is a reasonable way out of conflict”. it provides disputants with opportunities to create openness, trust, and understanding with the facilitation of a neutral third party (hyde & bineham, 2000). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 86 published by scholink inc. any attempt at understanding conflict resolution through mediation cannot be successful without first studying the approach taken by the mediator. there is a diverse range of mediator styles and one of the first attempts to construct a framework encompassing the practices in mediation was through riskin’s grid (1996). although riskin’s grid had been criticized for its deficiency in the illustration of goals of mediation and the roles mediators play (kovach & love, 1998; riskin, 2003), it nevertheless served as a plank in the platform for mediators to clarify their roles. this grid consisting of four quadrants showing mediators’ “orientations”, when proposed by riskin (1996, 2003), was intended to generalize, describe and categorize different approaches to mediation. researchers have also described the general pathways in negotiation as delineated by the “adversarial approach”, “problem-solving approach” and “transformative approach” (moore, 2014; wilmot & hocker, 2011). the transformative approach is favored by mediators for its advantages in exploring deeper identity and relational concerns of two juxtaposed positions to solve the conflict in the long term instead of obtaining a written settlement agreement only (bush, 1994; stewart & maxwell, 2010; wilmot & hocker, 2011). no matter which approach the mediator uses, the result of mediation is the joint product of the choices of disputants with the intervention of a mediator, not the result of isolated tactics employed by either disputants or mediators (stewart & maxwell, 2010; wilmot & hocker, 2011). moreover, the complexity of reaching fruition in conflict resolution is compounded by the emergent nature of conflict. as such, the goals of the disputants are not prepackaged and will probably shift in the process of mediation (stewart & maxwell, 2010; street & cappella, 1985). to further improve the practices of mediators, more research is therefore needed to explain how disputants and mediators interactively co-construct conversation that shifts the conflict from the extreme of intractable to the other end of tractable. 2.2 narrative all human communication can be understood as narratives of stories in our lives (fisher, 1989; rifkin, millen, & cobb, 1991). as people participate in the conjoint telling of stories, relationships, identities, and institutions are established (cobb, 2006). the communication between people is not just the exchange of information, but the process of understanding others’ experiences described in the form of narratives (gubrium & holstein, 2008). the concept “narrative” was adopted by many researchers to study the different ways people use to describe the same story. through the notion of narratives, the narrative approach also affords a way to understand the dynamics of interaction in mediation (cobb, 2006; rifkin et al., 1991; stewart & maxwell, 2010; winslade & monk, 2000). in the study of narratives, riessman (1990) noted that people have no direct access to the experiences in our minds. furthermore, many researchers have proposed differences that separate stories and the process of storytelling (schiff, 2012; gubrium & holstein, 2008; schiff, 2012, 2017). stories are the reflection of ourselves at a point in time and space, but the way we describe stories may cause the listeners to construe us and others as different characters in the differing accounts. the disparate versions www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 87 published by scholink inc. of the characters coming out from the retelling of the same story arises from people’s choices of the materials in their memories and the order they organize these materials. our ways of telling stories have the power to shape the things we describe, change our viewpoints and construct our relationships with others (winslade & monk, 2000). the “narrative is an expressive action used by people to present their life experiences and understanding of life” (schiff, 2012). some researchers further argued that for a full understanding of the narrative, it is insufficient to merely examine the internal organization (gubrium & holstein, 2008). hence, narrative ethnography was proposed to emphasize the external and contextual organization of narratives (gubrium & holstein, 2008). the environments of storytelling, where the telling of stories happens, shape the content and the internal structure of stories (gubrium & holstein, 2008). the storyteller also shapes the materials from their memories into a verbal performance designed for the current context (norrick, 2000). 2.3 narrative conflict language is not used for information exchange only but as a means for joint intellectual activity (fisher, 1997; mercer, 1995, 2000). the consequences of how stories are told and interpreted by the other side (gubrium & holstein, 2008), may create a harmonious or tense relationship between interlocutors in storytelling. the tense relationship may escalate to conflict if interlocutors insist on holding the binary, entrenched and polarized position constructed by their social realities (stewart & maxwell, 2010). these realities are the reflection of their understanding of the social world and the cultural value systems they live in (stewart & maxwell, 2010). using language, stories emerge as linguistic phenomena for the narrational understanding of self. the study of self is essential for researchers to understand how interlocutors understand themselves in conflict talk (gubrium & holstein, 2008). some researchers make a distinction between the personal self and the relational self (gubrium & holstein, 2008; mead, 1934). the study of the relational self in narrative research has flourished since george herbert mead’s (1934) study about the relationship between mind, self, and society. compared with the personal self, the relational self is more flexible rather than located (gubrium & holstein, 2008). relational self is constructed and shaped in communicative relation to others (gubrium & holstein, 2008). the study of relational self focuses more on how self-understanding develops and transforms through interactions in social contexts (gubrium & holstein, 2008). thus, the current study of self is the study of relational self instead of personal self as the narratives are dynamically co-constructed in mediation. cobb (2006) pointed out that at the core of the narrative conflict are the constructs of legitimacy for self and de-legitimacy for other. based on previous research, dorcas quek anderson (2018) concluded that it is necessary to give disputants a perception of fairness through “the opportunity to voice their views, feel heard by the mediator and the other party and be accorded respect and a sense of dignity”. these are important aspects that contribute to construction of an environment for disputants to shift their boundaries and perspectives through de-legitimacy for self and legitimacy for other. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 88 published by scholink inc. hence, narratives in conflict talk, are used as the means, by which disputing parties privilege their centrality (cobb, 2006). the self in an entrenched conflict intertwines with the over-simplified stories that each side holds to construct the other with bad traits (cobb, 2006; dirth, 2015). these stories are closed, characterized with a black-white description of the other and premature solutions in which disputants are unable to take a step back to share the set of rules the other side used to judge a proof (littlejohn, 1995; steward & maxwell, 2010). in conflict narratives, disputing parties often use specific terms to enhance the legitimacy for self and de-legitimacy for other (cobb, 2006). each term holds a problematic story repeated by interlocutors over and over again. every narrative is the description of the stories that cannot be circulated and elaborated by marginalized groups (cobb, 2006; monk, 1996). 2.4 narrative mediation the purpose of narrative mediation is to ensure “one party’s story is not privileged over another” (stewart & maxwell, 2010), liberate the oppressed side from dominant stories, and allow the elaboration of the disputants’ stories. in narrative mediation, disputants are granted with the equal rights to utilize stories in which their own experiences and motivations are given airtime to defend their positions and correctness of their perspectives (gergen & gergen, 2006). truth is not the focus and critical criterion in narrative evaluation (stewart & maxwell, 2010). the disregard of truth creates an intersubjective space for both sides to write for themselves and is more empowering (wylie & pare, 2001). an individual can only genuinely change his or her perspectives when self-reflection happens (isaacs, 1999). the problematic stories can be turned into better stories when the elaboration of stories is done based on shifted self-awareness (cobb, 2006). for every term offered by disputants to enhance their legitimacy, it is always possible to find a linguistically opposite term with the same measure of legitimacy (cobb, 2006). to discern and address the causes of conflict, the task of the mediator, in narrative mediation, is to help disputants find their imperfectness through the terms they provided (cobb, 2006) and their way of describing experiences. the “ironic” move is, first and foremost, the most crucial move in narrative mediation (cobb, 2006; mediatoracademy, 2016). in the videos provided by mediatoracademy (2016), sara cobb gave a more detailed explanation about the “ironic” move, she proposed in her paper “a narrative perspective on mediation: toward the materialization of the ‘storytelling’ metaphor”. the “ironic” move enables the construction of self as less than perfect. this self in the “ironic” move is a representation of the shifted self-awareness about one’s identity and position in conflict talk, which can lay a solid foundation for the further establishment of intersubjectivity and the final settlement of the conflict in mediation. the critical moment from legitimacy to de-legitimacy for self or de-legitimacy to the legitimacy for other is called a turning point (cobb, 2006). a new reciprocal narrative logic can help disputants resolve conflict in the long term (cobb, 2006). from a conflicted narrative to a “better-formed” storyline, there are three dimensions that mediators need to consider for the realization of narrative transformation: plot, character roles, and themes (cobb, 2006). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 89 published by scholink inc. sara cobb (2006) suggests that there are five stages that a mediator can follow to facilitate the production of “better-formed” stories (see figure 1). each stage contains a corresponding turning point to change either of the three dimensions mentioned above to destabilize the tightly woven story held by each disputant. these five turning points together contribute to the creation of a “better-formed” story, transformation of disputants as people and positive evolution of a relationship (cobb, 2006). figure 1. turning points in narrative mediation note. this figure is from “a developmental approach to turning points: irony as an ethics for negotiation pragmatics,” by s. cobb, 2006, harvard negotiation law review, 11, 147-197. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 90 published by scholink inc. figure 2. notes for figure 1 note. this figure is from “a developmental approach to turning points: irony as an ethics for negotiation pragmatics,” by s. cobb, 2006, harvard negotiation law review, 11, 147-197. without making some shifts with regards to the characters, an excellent story that is conducive for the resolution of conflicts does not come into existence with only the shift in plot and themes alone (cobb, 2006). among these five stages, the first two stages focus on the change of characters in the problematic stories. these two stages are: 1) high in legitimacy for self and low in legitimacy for other; 2) moderate in legitimacy for self and other. the turning point 1 corresponding to the first stage reduces legitimacy for self and the turning point 2 leading to the second stage increases legitimacy for other. stage 1 is the prerequisite for the generation of the turning point 1. at the second stage, however, the turning point 2 generates the stage (cobb, 2006). the current study will focus on how the mediator helped the disputants generate these two turning points in the process of the narrative mediation. 2.5 the role of mediator 2.5.1 mediator as an evaluator or/and facilitator the value of de-legitimacy for self and legitimacy for other in narrative mediation is its self-reflective process in which parties can look back at their problematic stories. only by self-reflection, can there be a greater chance for the destabilization of the hegemonic control of old narratives. the plot, character roles, and themes interactively emerge through “turns” in mediation to become “better-formed” stories that can make the proposals of both sides more reasonable. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 91 published by scholink inc. many researchers have studied the role that a mediator plays in the process of mediation (cobb, 2006; riskin, 1996; stewart & maxwell, 2010; wilmot & hocker, 2011). some researchers proposed that the mediator should be the evaluator in mediation who provides assessments, predictions, or directions directly to the parties. in contrast, other researchers proposed that the mediator should be more like a facilitator who creates a conducive environment for disputants and leads them to create a resolution suiting their personal as well as mutual interests (bush & folger, 2004; stewart & maxwell, 2010; wilmot, 1995). the advocates of the facilitator role of a mediator believe “the more mediators ignore disputants’ relational concerns, the more difficulties they will experience in reaching agreement” (donohue, darke, & roberto, 1994). in evaluative mediation, the role of the mediator is more like a teacher in small group discussions who encourages the parties to develop their understanding and outcomes. as riskin mentioned (1996), this facilitative approach produces a degree of education or transformation in which the parties experience the process of “empowerment” and through which they strengthen their ability to deal with the problems and choices in life. the grid proposed by leonard riskin (1996) for describing the mediators’ approaches to mediation breaks the dichotomy of categorizing the mediator’s role as either facilitative or evaluative. he emphasized this dichotomy does not give appropriate recognition to the interactive and dynamic nature of mediation (2003). the roles mediators play ranges from one extreme of a facilitator to the other end of the evaluator in a continuum and depends on participants as well as the current situation of mediation (riskin, 1996, 2003). however, riskin (1996) mentioned that the static quality of his framework and emphasized dynamics and flexibility of using his framework in practice. while a significant amount of research has been devoted to examining the mediator’s role in facilitative approach, evaluative approach and riskin’s grid, few studies have been conducted to identify the role that mediators play in narrative mediation. as narrative mediation shares the characteristics of transformative approach (bush & folger, 1994; hansen, 2003), some researchers define the mediator as a facilitator for storytelling (rifkin et al., 1991). narrative mediation also shares some characteristics of a problem-solving approach. the stories in mediation do not develop spontaneously on their own, because mediators have already had different versions of good stories in their hand at the beginning of mediation. mediators lead the problematic stories that each side holds along the good storylines to the final settlement. 2.5.2 mediator as a story recipient in narrative mediation although mediators take on other roles which are specific in the study of narrative mediation, such as managers of the storytelling process or an active participant in the co-construction of the narrative (rifkin, 1991), limited research has been conducted to examine the mediator as a story recipient in narrative mediation. in the following part, we detailed our identification of the mediator as a story recipient in narrative mediation. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 92 published by scholink inc. narratives require at least two members of the human community to participate in the process of storytelling (nair, 2004). norrick (2000) criticized the narrative theory proposed by labov and wletzky (1967) for their ignorance of conversational emergence of oral narratives. the conversational narrative was proposed to study storytelling by focusing on the verbal performance of both the storyteller and recipient in storytelling (norrick, 2000). storytelling is not a fixed phenomenon but a dynamic and interactive process in which both teller and recipient co-construct the story together. however, “listeners as a group have generally been neglected in language research” (gardner, 2001). many studies have been conducted to research the roles that listeners play as story recipients in interactive talk (gardner, 2001). many researchers emphasized the recipients’ participation in the co-construction and their co-authoring of stories (goodwin, 1986; monzoni, 2005; sacks, 1992). the idea of the co-authored narrative was proposed to study the co-presence of the listener in storytelling (nair, 2004). narrative mediation is a joint intellectual activity in which people (mediators and parties) use language to reflect on their actions and create new experiences together. in mediation, there are at least one mediator and two parties’ participants. the disputing parties, as main tellers in the mediation, bring their problematic stories to mediation to enhance their entrenched positions. mediators, as story recipients, do not have a simple job due to the following reasons. firstly, mediators do not only listen and respond to these stories but also plan, control and evaluate the whole process of both parties’ narratives. the story teller “introduces the story to attract recipient’s attention, gain control of the floor and ensure recipient’s understanding” (norrick, 2000). during the storytelling, recipients may interrupt and comment on a story and try to change the direction of story development by providing an appropriate response at an appropriate moment (kim, 2016). secondly, mediators engage themselves in mediation with their past experiences or stories; and even actively participate in storytelling and co-author the story with the previous teller (norrick, 2000). they lead each party through turns to move from their original focus to the less problematic stories created by the new meaningful narratives. while some turns lead to the crucial evolution of positive stories, some turns devolve negatively into stories that obstinately refuse to break the old reflexive reponses in conflict. the role of mediators as story recipients is not well documented. although there has been considerable work on the discursive moves adopted by disputants and the function of moves in conflict talk (stewart & maxwell, 2010), the research on the linguistic and conversational tactics, used by mediators to influence the development of the problematic stories held by disputing parties remains limited. this study is an attempt to investigate the situated communicative practices and mechanisms by which mediators as story recipients create new narrative logic with disputants. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 93 published by scholink inc. 3. methodology 3.1 data the video (see acknowledgements) adopted in this research is about a landlord-tenant mediation in which one landlord (linda), one tenant (dennis) and mediator (terry) participated. the background of the video is a tenancy dispute which arises from dennis’ accrued rent of 2.5 months. dennis is a tenant as well as an old friend of linda for four to five years. he is jobless and depends on unemployment benefits to live, and it is hard for him to find new accommodation and relocate during winter. linda requires dennis to pay for late fees, court fees, mediation fees, double damage fees on the top of rent. both parties face a dilemma. dennis faces the risk of having an eviction on record, and linda may suffer impairment loss on her rental income without an agreement reached in mediation. 3.2 steps of analysis drawing from previous studies (moore, 2014; lovenheim & guerin, 2004), it is noted that the mediation process can be described in six parts which allow disputing parties to communicate and interact with each other to resolve their differences with the assistance of the mediator. the six parts of the mediation process are: a. beginning mediation b. opening statements c. joint discussion d. private caucuses e. joint negotiation f. closure referencing the above six components, the mediation discourse of this study has also been divided into six parts. many studies have been conducted to investigate the individual strategies that mediators employ in the six parts of the mediation process. however, few studies have been conducted to analyze the discourse of mediators. as such, this gap framed the first research question in this study: what discursive mechanisms were adopted by the mediator to generate turning points? a preview of the transcript indicates, from part a to part d, most of the mediator’s turns are questioning turns. a table was made to present the proportion of questioning turns adopted by the mediator as a discursive move, to make our observation more quantitatively accurate. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 94 published by scholink inc. table 1. the proportion of mediator’s questioning turns turns part a part b part c part d (linda) part e (dennis) part f part g total questioning turns 4 3 2 11 22 5 2 48 total 5 4 3 14 41 13 7 87 percentage 80% 75% 66.67% 78.57% 53.66% 38.46% 28.57% 55.17% in table 1, the questioning turns adopted by the mediator accounts for 55.17% of the mediator’s total number of turns. the percentage of questioning turns was more than 50% from part a to part d. the percentage of questioning turns in part a’s opening statement was 80%, which was the highest among these four parts. at part d (private caucuses), the questioning turns the mediator adopted with linda in caucuses (78.57%) was higher than that with dennis (53.66%). the percentage of questioning turns in part e was 38.46% and 28.57% in part f, which were both lower than 50%. the percentage of questioning turns at part f was 28.57% and this was the lowest among the six parts. all the turning points (turning point 1 and turning point 2) appearing in the six parts were identified respectively. table 2. turing points and their corresponding discursive moves part turning point 1 turning point 2 discursive moves a / / // b / / // c / / // d caucuses with m: okay, and how much do you think would be fair? l: well. (time at 6:20) m: okay, so how long has he lived there? l: ...maybe four or five years...he was a good tenant while he was paying, he was questioning www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 95 published by scholink inc. linda quiet...he always paid the rent on time… (time at 4:22) d caucuses with dennis m: but if you were in her shoes, would that be an acceptable arrangement to have a tenant lived there without paying rent? d: i suppose not... (time at 8:15) / questioning e / m: what would you think is fair considering that he doesn’t have a job? l: …because he’s here and he’s trying to work something out., i’ll give him a little bit of a break, but if he screws up then he owes me the entire amount. (time at 15:16) questioning f / / // note. turning point 1: reducing legitimacy for self. turning point 2: increased legitimacy for other. /: “/” means no turning point could be found. //: “//” means no corresponding discursive moves. m: mediator l: linda d: dennis table 2 presented that questioning was used as part of the discursive moves to trigger turning points, in each of the parts of the mediation process. the table lists the mediation parts, turning points and corresponding discursive moves used to generate these turning points. turning points appeared at part d (private caucuses) and part e (join negotiation). there is no turning point at part a, part b, part c and part f, and no corresponding discursive moves were found. at part d (caucuses of linda), turning point 1 (de-legitimacy for self) and turning point 2 (legitimacy for other) were found. on the other hand, there was no turning point 2 (legitimacy for other) at part d (caucuses with dennis). in the caucuses of linda, it is noted that the time of turning point 2 (4:22) was earlier than the time of turning point 1 (6:20). at part e, neither linda nor dennis presented de-legitimacy for self, but one turning point 2 could be found in linda’s conversation with the mediator. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 96 published by scholink inc. 4. findings and discussion 4.1 findings at this point, we have answered the first research question. table 1 and table 2 shows that questioning was the most frequently used discursive move by the mediator. the occurrences of turning point 1 and turning point 2, in this case study, were all triggered by the mediator’s questions. the findings are substantive clues for us to explore further about the function of the mediator’s questions in helping disputing parties realize the shift of self-awareness and connotating legitimacy for other. the current study examines not only the questions used to generate turning points, but also those questions having other functions. finally, the study also investigates how these questions are employed by the mediator to co-construct new narrative with disputants to reach resolutions that are satisfactory to all disputants. questioning skills are a prerequisite in the selection, training, and development of teachers, interviewers, therapists and related fields (hus & aberšek, 2011; dillon, 2004; padesky, 1993; moston & engelberg, 1993). in mediation, there has been considerable research on the importance of the mediator’s questioning skill in achieving success in mediation (bennett & hermann, 1996; lehman & page, 2007). unspoken needs are ignored by the mediator who does not elicit the narrative necessary to form the contextual background upon which a resolution arises (bennett & hermann, 1996). neutrality underpins the practice of the mediation and is an essential quality of a mediator as well as a stronghold against bias in the process of intervention (domenici & littlejohn, 2001; riskin, 1996). however, many mediation practitioners are confronted with difficulties in practicing neutrality in the facilitation of making mutually accepted solutions (rifkin et al., 1991). the problems in practicing neutrality are embedded in the inevitable conflict and paradoxical relationship between impartiality and equidistance, two aspects of neutrality (rifkin et al., 1991). on top of these issues, poor questioning techniques prevent parties from reaching a mutually satisfying agreement. in contrast, a good question can maintain the mediator’s neutrality and still encourage parties to express their feelings and the facts in their minds (lehman & page, 2007). however, limited studies were conducted to examine the function of question-asking in maintaining neutrality, which is hard for mediators to achieve in practice. besides, previous studies on the mediator’s questioning skill is static, that is, these studies were conducted to study questioning skill as an individual tactic. few studies have been conducted to study how the mediator employs question-asking dynamically to co-construct talk in mediation. nearly no research has been conducted to study how mediators, as story recipients, use questioning skills to transform intrinsically intractable conflict talk via the recipe of a “better-formed” story to reach resolutions that are satisfactory to all parties. many researchers have noted the importance of question-asking in narrative mediation (cobb, 2006; mediatoracademy, 2016; nago & page, 2005; rifkin et al., 1991). however, no systematic research has been conducted to study the application of questioning skills in narrative mediation. therefore, the second research question in this study is: how does the mediator uses question-asking techniques in generating the turning points in sara cobb’s (2006) systematic approach to narrative mediation? www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 97 published by scholink inc. narrative mediation is greatly influenced by how the mediation session is organized and the interventions made by the mediator (rifkin et al., 1991). “strategic question asking is the key to implementing narrative mediation” (nago & page, 2005). in answering the “how-to” in generating turning points, cobb (2006) mentioned that one of the essential methods is the “formulation of questions that functions to connote others positively”. the answer to “what types of questions to ask?” (rifkin et al., 1991) is to understand what question influences the unfolding of the story in narrative mediation. the current study analyzes how questions posed by the mediator generate turning points. the function of the questions asked by the mediator as listed in table 2 is further explored in the formation of “better-formed” stories. thus, we attempt to answer the third research question which is: how do the turning points help the mediator co-construct the narrative with disputants to reach resolutions based on “better-formed” storyline? 4.2 discussions this study adopted sara cobb’s (2006) theoretical framework on how to apply the five stages in achieving success in narrative mediation. there is one critical turning point, corresponding to each stage of the mediation process, which is essential for the mediator to create a cooperative climate, destabilize dominant stories and overcome relational problems. sara cobb emphasized the first two stages and their corresponding two turning points for their importance in facilitating disputants to change their entrenched positions. a long-lasting and mutually beneficial agreement is not attainable without de-legitimacy for self and legitimacy for other. in this article, we will focus on the first two stages and study how the mediator’s questions trigger their corresponding turning points. 4.2.1 mediation story 4.2.1.1 high in legitimacy for self. low in legitimacy for the other conflict arises from the differences between how we describe our stories and and how others interpret our stories. the differences signify a divorce between “the desired path and actual or potential obstacles” (stewart & maxwell, 2010). closed systems and structures often feature in the problematic stories in conflict talk. the plots, characters, and themes are tightly woven and are not easy to be reorganized to create a new circular narrative. according to cobb (1994), the high legitimacy for self and low legitimacy for other form the root of the problematic story. as can be seen in table 2, no turning point could be found at part a, part b and part c in the mediation in this case study. in the subsequent sections of this article, we attempt to analyze the causes for the lack of turning points at the first three parts through the disputants’ and the mediator’s situated communicative practices and mechanisms. example 1 (part a: beginning mediation) mediator: did you have any questions about orientation? deniss: no, no. linda: i don’t know if i want to do this. mediator: why is that? linda: i don’t think this is gonna work www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 98 published by scholink inc. mediator: why is that? linda: i tried talking to him before example 2 (part b: opening statements) mediator: would you like to start and explain to dennis why we’re here? linda: you owe money and a lot of it and you know that and i’ve been waiting a long time for my money. i am alright now... for you... your rent is 750 a month, you owe the balance of december which is $250, all of january $750, and february is five days away you’re going to owe another $750 for that, you have two late fees hundred dollars, court fees $144. the purpose of the first stage in the mediation is to create a positive climate and a comfortable place to encourage each side to work cooperatively towards a settlement (moore, 2014). an open question was adopted by the mediator to encourage the flow of information and encourage parties to expand their stories and engage themselves in mediation (lehman & page, 2007). linda responded to terry’s two successive questions (“did you…?”, “why is that?”) with two negative replies (“i don’t know...”, “i don’t think”). instead of giving the expected answer “yes” or “no”, linda responded to the mediator’s closed question “did you have any questions about orientation” with a negative statement to show her skepticism even as she attended this mediation. the mediator applied two same open questions (“why is that?”) to explore the story behind linda’s show of reluctance. this open question is an invitation for linda to tell the mediator the reason behind her low expectation for the outcome of the mediation. the second question allows linda to communicate her subjective perception of her situation. she expressed her disappointment in her failure in talking with dennis (“i tried talking to him before”). in the initial story, linda constructed herself as a landlord who had tried asking for rent to be paid. the statement “i tried talking to him before”, was used to portray dennis as the tenant who delayed his rent even after the landlord’s repeated attempts to negotiate with him. in the opening statement, linda said to dennis, “you owe money and a lot of it and you know that and i’ve been waiting a long time for my money”. the coordinating conjunction “and” was used four times within one sentence by linda to attribute negative intent to dennis. linda casted herself as a victim and painted dennis in the guise of a victimizer in this landlord-tenant relationship. thus, linda’s high legitimacy for self as a good landlord and her matching low de-legitimacy for dennis as a tenant with bad traits were successfully established. example 3 (part b: opening statements) mediator: okay. now dennis, could you explain to linda your side of this situation? dennis: i can’t move out by the first and i can’t pay you that. mediator: could you explain to her what the problem was in paying? that’s why... dennis: i don’t have a job. linda: is that my fault? www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 99 published by scholink inc. dennis: well…no... it’s not your fault, but i can’t pay you, because i don’t have a job. i will pay you when i get a job. linda: when is that going to be? dennis: i’m not sure linda: do you have applications out? dennis: i have applications out all over the place. example 3 is the excerpt of dennis’ opening statement. from dennis’ description, the picture of the relationship between linda and dennis became clearer. dennis applied two negative statements “i can’t move” and “i don’t have a job” to express his attitude towards eviction and legitimize his delay in rent. dennis represented himself as a tenant whose traits contrasted to those of the antagonist in linda’s story. his delay in paying off his rent is due to the current circumstances of his unemployment, and he had tried to find a job instead of staying at home. at the stage of the opening statement, disputants can describe the dispute respectively (moore, 2014). while one person is speaking, the other person is not allowed to interrupt (moore, 2014). however, in dennis’s opening statement, linda interrupted dennis’ talk without getting permission from the mediator. linda’s aggressive action arises from the differences between the image of the tenant in her description and dennis’ description. despite linda’s interruption, dennis was given a chance in his opening statement to “defend against the first storyteller” (stewart & maxwell, 2010) and “the theory of responsibility” (stewart & maxwell, 2010) constructed by linda’s narrative. in this landlord-tenant relationship, the landlord was the party with the dominant story as the tenant was the marginalized party who delayed rent. linda’s story, to some extent, is privileged by the social moral system to be more “true” than the story of dennis. besides, linda, as the first speaker, “is granted a powerful advantage in the ability to frame the dispute” (cobb, 1994). inadvertently, the “truth” as forged by linda’s narrative and the social morality which availed her position as dominant power may have an impact on the practices of the mediator. yet, in the narrative approach, mediators are encouraged to balance the power between both sides and make the untold story to be told instead of emphasizing “truth”. the lack of turning points at this stage is a result of linda’s emphasis on high legitimacy for self and de-legitimacy for other. 4.2.1.2 turning point 1 and turning point 2 for linda example 6 (part d: caucuses (linda)) mediator: um... i hear what you’re saying. so, could you explain to me what you would like to happen today? linda: i like my money! example 7 (part d: caucuses (linda)) mediator: okay, so how long has he lived there? www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 100 published by scholink inc. linda: i don’t know, maybe four or five years, and... and... actually he... he was a good tenant while he was paying, he was quiet...uhm... he always paid the rent on time... and then all of sudden the rent stopped… linda: he said “yeah, he do it” and then he did it for one month and then he wouldn’t do it again, and then i’m trying to call him, and i’m just sick of it, you know, i just want him out. i want to get my money even if he’s out by the seventh. i want... i want to get that money. i mean... he owes it to me. i am a business not a charity. example 8 (part d: caucuses (linda)) linda: because he deserves it, he deserves to have an eviction on his record, screw up his record, i don’t care...i mean... i... i tried to work with him...i mean... we were... i would consider that we were actually friends at one point. mediator: okay... is there any other agreement you can make with him? anything, anyway you can work with him on this. because if he doesn’t have a job and doesn’t money, there’s nothing you can really do about that? linda: he can start making payments. mediator: okay, and how much do you think would be fair? linda: well… example 6, 7 and 8 are the excerpts from the private caucuses with linda. in example 6, the open question “what you would like happen today?” was used by the mediator to invite linda to express her purpose in coming to this mediation. as can be seen from linda’s response “i like my money!”, linda’s sole interest in this mediation is to take her money back from dennis. this assertive statement constructs linda as the aggressive landlord who is determined to get rent back. the adverse effect of this opening question is that it may increase the disputants’ frequency in repeating their problematic stories which will further drive the wedge in the disputants’ soured relationship. the goal of “what does each person want?” is called a topic goal in conflict by wilmot and hocker (2011). while the topic goal is easy for disputants to talk about and for mediators to discover, the “relational goals remain tacit and unspoken” (wilmot & hocker, 2011). our identities are not so much personal but defined by relational stories. in other words, how we connect with each other in stories is realized by the roles of who we are and the themes of what we want in our narratives. a useful technique for the mediator to create “better-formed” stories is to ask questions to get a fuller and more substantial understanding of the plot sequence. the task for the mediator in the narrative approach is to facilitate disputants to see the other side of themselves and prepare them to be more tolerant of the other disputant. the exploration of the alternative narrative can facilitate parties to give legitimacy to the other side and create chances for the reciprocal talk (mediatoracademy, 2016). when people in conflict are aware their imperfectness, they begin to tolerant other’s imperfectness (mediatoracademy, 2016). during the caucus with linda, de-legitimacy for self came before the legitimacy for other. as can be seen from example 6, a question (“okay, so how long has he lived there?”) was used by the mediator to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 101 published by scholink inc. seek good stories from the past as an indicator of linda’s future performance in the mediation. this question was useful for the mediator to understand the landlord-tenant relationship between dennis and linda in the past. linda’s response (“he was a good tenant”) changed the “reciprocal de-legitimacy” (mediatoracademy, 2016) between her and dennis. however, the mediator’s attempt to destabilize linda’s problematic and dominant story failed. as can be seen from linda’s following description (“i’m trying to call him, and i’m just sick of it”, “i want to get that money”, “i am a business not a charity”), she reverted to the problematic stories to emphasize her legitimacy for self. although there is another turning point (“i would consider that we were friends at one point”), the extended new story is not stable as linda cursed dennis (“because he deserves it”). thus, we see that putting the legitimacy for other before the de-legitimacy for self produces a context for conflict talk which does not lead to fruition in resolution. the real turning point in linda’s attitude during the caucuses came with the mediator’s question (“okay, and how much do you think would be fair?”). the mediator presented linda with a probing question on her idea of a fair amount to be paid by dennis. linda’s sigh followed by a drawn-out response of “well…” seems evident of her relenting and indicates that she realized her stance towards dennis may be too aggressive. the probing question by the mediator to rethink about fairness is critical for the mediator to help linda reflect on herself and awaken linda’s sympathy towards dennis. this question enables linda to realize her imperfectness and reduces her high legitimacy for self. the ongoing talk after this question between mediator and linda turned to a new proposal which seems fairer to dennis compared to the prior one. the private caucuses of linda show the de-legitimacy for self is a prerequisite for the reframing of each side’s story, to make settlements come out of these stories. this shifted self is a representation of the shifted self-awareness about one’s identity and position in the conflict talk. it lays groundwork for the further establishment of intersubjectivity and the final settlement of the conflict in mediation. the realization of the imperfect self is called the “ironic” move by cobb (2006). the “ironic” move (low legitimacy for self) enables the construction of self as the less perfect and is essential to fashion durable agreements out of mediations. linda’s response, in the joint negotiation, to the mediator’s question (“what do you think is fair considering that he doesn’t have a job?”) demonstrates this “ironic” move. until the last stage (joint negotiation), linda retained her shifted attitude towards dennis, gave more legitimacy to dennis and considered him as someone contrary to the one in the initial problematic story. without this “ironic” move, a lasting success cannot ultimately be reached, as can be seen from linda’s attitude which swung between high legitimacy for self and low legitimacy for other. therefore, the question that the mediator should ask first in the caucuses is the one that can facilitate the disputants to reflect on themselves. in this paper, we follow cobb’s (2006) theoretical framework and call this kind of question as an “ironic” question. the reversed order of first connotating legitimacy for other, followed www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 102 published by scholink inc. by de-legitimacy for self may lead the original problematic story to be fossilized while adding another problematic story as a new layer to the original one. 4.2.1.3 turning point 1 and the lack of turning point 2 for dennis example 9: (part d caucuses (dennis)) mediator: if you were in her shoes, would that be an acceptable agreement to have a tenant that doesn’t pay you any rent? dennis: well... i’m not in... i would rather be in her shoes right now... because i don’t have job. mediator: but if you were in her shoes, would that be an acceptable arrangement to have a tenant lived there without paying rent? dennis: i suppose not… example 10: (part d caucuses (dennis)) mediator: what could you offer her? dennis: well… i guess...i could sell my mother’s jewelry. example 11: (part d caucuses (dennis)) mediator: but again, put yourself in her shoes, would you? dennis: i don’t want to sell it to the first guy that makes me an offer. i wanted to go check it out, to make sure i’m getting maximum value. i don’t like selling it at all. mediator: well... but she said you hadn’t paid january rent, you owe $250 on december and to ask her to let you go for another $750 its... example 12: (part e joint negotiation (dennis)) dennis: i have... i have jewelry that my mother had, and i will sell that but i don’t want to sell it instantly, if i sell it sooner i will pay you sooner. linda: why only $1750? example 10 and example 11 are the excerpts from the mediator’s caucuses with dennis. example 12 is the excerpt from the joint negotiation between dennis and linda. it is observed from example 10, the hypothetical question (“if you were in her shoes, would that be an acceptable agreement to have a tenant that doesn’t pay you any rent?”) was applied by the mediator to set up a scenario for dennis to put himself in linda’s shoes to reflect on himself as a tenant who delays rent. this question helped dennis give himself more de-legitimacy, which is essential for dennis to come up with his new solution (selling his mom’s jewelry) to the conflict. this led to the problematic story taking on a productive direction as dennis was willing to take a step back. as can be seen from example 9 (“well...i guess...”) and example 11 (“i don’t like selling it at all”), it should be noted that selling his passed mother’s jewelry was not an easy decision for dennis. however, the sentimental value of the jewelry and dennis’ struggle of selling her mother’s jewelry seems ignored by the mediator and linda. no attempt to express sympathy or reciprocality for the sentimental value of the jewelry by the mediator or linda is demonstrated in example 11 (mediator: “well... but she said you hadn’t paid january rent”) and example 12 (linda: “why only $1750?”). the effort that dennis made in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 103 published by scholink inc. paying his rent was taken for granted by mediator and linda. dennis, as the oppressed one in the problematic story, remains as the marginalized one who had the desire to be liberated. thus, the legitimacy that linda gave to dennis is moderate. although dennis’ low legitimacy for self was realized in the caucuses, no turning point 2 (dennis’ legitimacy for linda) could be found in this case. the absence of turning point 2 here might be due to the mediator and linda’s lukewarm attitude towards dennis’ effort to construct himself as a good character in the newly created story. compared with the talk between linda and the mediator, we found no questions were posed by the mediator to help dennis remember his good relationship with linda in the past. in this new story, there is still an untold story that dennis held on to about the selling of his late mother’s jewelry. the lack of dennis’ legitimacy for linda may cause unexpected consequences when and if dennis does not follow through on the agreement at the end of the mediation afterwards. 5. conclusion and limitation the ability of a mediator to build durable agreements remains an enduring measure of success in mediation. as disputants become willing to accept de-legitimacy for self and legitimacy for other, they move from reflexively keeping their problematic stories to reflectively constructing a narrative along good storylines. for the mediation to produce durable agreements, the mediator must first be seen as a neutral for both disputing sides to perceive a sense of even-handed treatment. it is notable that perhaps only through this perception of even-handed treatment can each side be willing to look reflectively at their own imperfectness to establish de-legitimacy for self, followed by legitimacy for the other. although the mediator is a story recipient of the disputants’ narratives of the “facts” in their heads, it does not mean the mediator is a passive listener in the storytelling process. “the mediator plays an important role in asking the right questions, in raising central issues, and in overall participation” (gerami, 2009). so, what is the appropriate approach to mediation that allows for both parties in a conflict talk to take a step back to listen to others, to first connotate a de-legitimacy for self and subsequently, a legitimacy for other? to achieve a positive outcome in mediation, the mediator must adopt an appropriate approach that allows for the productive narratives to be co-constructed. a review of the literature available shows that very diverse approaches exist across the globe in the practice of mediation as noted by stipanowich (2017) and the situation may have been similar at the time of riskin when he decided to create the riskin’s grid. in the narrative approach, mediators use questions to guide disputants to a meaningful conclusion of the session. through narrative mediation, the “ironic” questions asked by the mediator as story recipient play a role in helping the mediator balance the power between parties so that neutrality can be maintained to some extent. the reciprocal narrative emerges as the mediators ask appropriate questions, encouraging parties to discern their underlying concerns and changing their form of talk from “disputational talk” to “exploratory talk” (mercer, 2000). the outcomes of mediation are shaped through the responses of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 104 published by scholink inc. disputants. the mediator helps disputants develop their responses in turn by turn unfolding of stories by eliciting new narratives along good storylines. the “better-formed” stories in intersubjective space can be co-constructed when there is co-existence of de-legitimacy for self and legitimacy for other. the legitimacy for other can only take root when the ground is prepared with the de-legitimacy for self. in other words, the disputants must be willing to take the first step in uncovering imperfections in their own perspectives. before disputants can propose a positive narrative, mediators should afford each party a sense of being treated even-handedly regardless of their “bad images” in the problematic stories. hence, in narrative mediation, each stage of the mediation process is anchored in a focus on “better-formed” stories by developing constructive responses with less regard for the truth. each disputant in mediation has two characters in the conflict narratives. one of these characters is the legitimized role constructed by himself or herself, and the other role is the de-legitimized character built by the other disputant. conflict comes from the contradiction of the two polarized characters existing for a person. the problematic stories are often characterized by temporality and the lack of complexity, which result in the limited options that disputants could choose. people in conflict are unable to listen to others and attune themselves to others because of the social construction of legitimacy for self and de-legitimacy for other. mediation is a way of pulling people out of the problematic stories (mediatoracademy, 2016) and helping them to see the world differently. narrative mediation facilitates disputants to take a step back to look at the frame created by their stories and come up with new solutions to the conflict (mediatoracademy, 2016). the new solutions reflect the new value systems that are created by both sides with shifted self-awareness (mediatoracademy, 2016). even though different mediators have their way of interacting with the disputing parties, the mediator is a character in the story who asks questions actively, and who is engaged in the evolution of the narrative (mediatoracademy, 2016). the narrative approach to mediation is beneficial for the creation of solutions instead of the static one given by evaluative mediator. the mediated agreements represent the work of disputing and mediators, and the solutions are more likely to be integrative, creative and sustainable. the result of the study shows there are two types of questions the mediator could ask. the first type of question is the one that can help disputants reflect on their imperfect side. the second type is the one that can awaken the disputants’ memories of the old stories about their good relationship. the result of this case study also indicates that the order of first seeking legitimacy for other and subsequently de-legitimacy for self did lead to the failure of destabilizing the problematic story. these findings enrich sara cobb’s (2006) research of turning points in narrative mediation in that a mediation may be ruined if there is no correct order in connotating de-legitimacy for self and legitimacy for other. in addition, the result of this study indicates that the lack of the legitimacy given to other, led to the absence of legitimacy given by the disputant at the marginalized side with a lower power position. the exchange of de-legitimacy connotations between the disputants may cause severe problems for the achievement of an agreement that continues to be honored after the mediation. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 1, 2018 105 published by scholink inc. the study of mediation from the conversational perspective can provide theoretical support for the training and selection of a mediator. specifically, the findings from this case study serves to inform practitioners what oracy skills are essential in guiding disputants’ responses to shape meaningful outcomes at the end of the mediation. this article clarifies some of the questioning skills mediators can apply when adopting the narrative approach and enriches the knowledge base of esp teachers to help learners improve their professional competence to be a mediator in settings where english is the medium of communication. however, the findings of this case study cannot be generalized to other cases, and more research is needed to investigate the function of question-asking in the generation of the first two turning points mentioned in this study. more cases are needed to support the study of how mediators’ question-asking triggers the production of the other three turning points in sara cobb’s (2006) framework. lastly, the function of other discursive mechanisms and strategies can also be examined to make the picture of narrative mediation more complete. acknowledgements the video used in this study lasted 24 minutes 34 seconds and was retrieved from: 1) https://mediationcentergreatergreenbay.org/mediation/ 2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6jepg10pbw i acknowledge the contributions of the persons in the video: terry hetzel, dennis layden and linda tyrrell. the video was produced as a collaborative project connecting the mediation center of greater green bay, inc. 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(2001). whose story is it, anyway? an interdisciplinary approach to postmodernism, narrative, and therapy. mosaic: a journal for the interdisciplinary study of literature, 153-172. https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.203 https://doi.org/10.1002/crq.3900090206 https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/n https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190256654.001.0001 https://doi.org/10.1075/sin.12 frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 24 original paper school public relations: an essential tool for fostering effective communication and administration in educational institutions okokoyo isabella ezinwa1 1 faculty of education, university of delta, agbor, nigeria received: march 28, 2024 accepted:april 20, 2024 online published: may 16, 2024 doi:10.22158/fet.v7n2p24 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v7n2p24 abstract in the dynamic landscape of educational institutions effective communication and administration are fundamental elements that underpin the success and sustainability of the educational process and school public relations play a catalytic role in facilitating these processes. as a multifaceted tool, this paper provides a comprehensive insight into school public relations for promoting transparency, building community relationships, and enhancing administrative effectiveness in educational settings. by drawing upon the fundamental principles, strategies, and best practices of school public relations, this study seeks to bring to light its significance in fostering positive stakeholder engagement, managing crises, and achieving organizational goals. through case studies, theoretical frameworks, and practical insights, the paper examines the various areas of school public relations and its impact on educational administration. recommendations were made for school administrators, educators, and communication professionals to leverage school public relations as a strategic asset in its pivotal role in enhancing administrative processes and the effective functioning of educational institutions. the paper concluded that school public relations is indispensable in the educational institution. by prioritizing communication excellence, ethical conduct, and stakeholders’ relationships, educational institutions can unlock the full benefits of school public relations as a tool for fostering effective communication and administration. keywords school, public relations, communication, administration, educational institutions www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 25 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction in the ever-changing world of education, creating a positive learning environment and accomplishing organizational goals depends heavily on efficient administration and communication. educational institutions serve as hubs for information sharing, community engagement, and social progress (sk, e, 2017). thus, it is impossible to overestimate the importance of effective administrative procedures and smooth communication channels. effective communication is the cornerstone of any successful educational institution. it is the first step in establishing strong bonds with all stakeholders, including parents, teachers, administrators, students, and the community at large. clear and open communication between all parties involved fosters collaboration, builds trust, and increases participation in the creation of an environment that is conducive to teaching and learning (kraft et al., 2013). effective administration is also necessary for the smooth operation and management of educational institutions. administrative responsibilities include creating regulations, assigning funds, handling emergencies, and strategic planning, to name just a few. effective administrative processes ensure that resources are utilized efficiently, goals are fulfilled successfully, and difficulties are addressed swiftly, so facilitating the general running and success of educational institutions (delgado et al., 2023). effective communication and administration are essential factors that underpin the success and sustainability of educational institutions (ramísio et al., 2019). by prioritizing these traits, educational leaders may create an atmosphere that encourages student success, academic performance, and organizational advancement. 2. role of school public relations in fostering effective communication public relations in schools plays a complex and critical role in establishing good communication, which is essential for the overall success of educational institutions. building and sustaining relationships with a range of stakeholders, including students, parents, teachers, administrators, alumni, the community, and the media, is the responsibility of school public relations specialists (johnston, 2014). school public relations practitioners foster positive connections and maintain open lines of communication to foster trust, collaboration, and engagement within the school community. effective communication involves more than just information sharing; it also involves listening to stakeholders and taking into account their needs, issues, and critiques. school public relations professionals are responsible for disseminating timely and relevant information to stakeholders about school events, initiatives, policies, achievements, and other pertinent matters (payne et al., 2018). they use a range of communication channels, including newsletters, websites, social media, emails, and press releases, to keep stakeholders informed and interested. in times of emergency or crisis, it is crucial to handle circumstances, address concerns, and maintain trust in the school administration through effective communication. public relations experts develop crisis communication plans, coordinate actions, and provide stakeholders with accurate and timely www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 26 published by scholink inc. updates to minimise the negative consequences of crises on the school reputation and relationships (payne et al., 2018). establishing confidence and trust among the school community requires transparency. by providing interested parties with access to information about decisions, policies, spending plans, and performance indicators, public relations specialists in schools promote transparency (hia et al., 2020). furthermore, they encourage accountability by holding the school administration accountable for its choices and deeds through the use of transparent communication strategies. public relations campaigns at schools serve the institutions mission, vision, and values and are crucial for leveraging communication to further these goals. in order to build a sense of pride and solidarity among the school community, public relations specialists explain the schools educational philosophy, highlight accomplishments, and support activities that advance the schools mission and values. school public relations plays a crucial role in handling crises, increasing transparency, encouraging engagement, and advocating for the schools objectives and core values. educational institutions can improve their reputation, build stronger relationships, and successfully accomplish their learning goals by placing a high priority on communication quality. 3. role of school public relations in administration 3.1 administrative leadership and decision making school public relations plays a critical role in supporting administrative leadership and decision-making processes in educational institutions by involving stakeholders, promoting communication, and supporting transparency. public relations professionals support efficient administrative leadership and decision-making in a variety of areas, including budgeting, goal-setting, resource allocation, and strategic planning. 3.2 strategic planning and goal setting strategic planning and goal-setting are essential to ensuring that educational institutions objectives and direction are in line with their purpose and vision. school public relations specialists help administrative leadership with goal-setting and strategic planning by doing the following, encourage feedback from stakeholders, convey the goals and vision, taking part in extended-term planning, monitoring progress and accountability. 3.3 resource allocation and budgeting to make sure that educational institutions have the resources to support their mission and strategic aims, efficient budgeting and resource allocation are essential. public relations professionals in schools assist administrative leadership with budgeting and resource allocation by declaring priorities for the budget, arguing for funding, including stakeholders in the decision-making process, and exhibiting fiscal responsibility www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 27 published by scholink inc. 3.4 crisis management and conflict resolution crucial elements of school public relations include crisis management and dispute resolution which calls for proactive communication tactics and skillful handling of difficult circumstances in order to maintain stability, reputation and trust within the systems difficult situations and finding solutions. 3.5 proactive communication during crises in order to manage perceptions, disseminate information fast, and minimise potential effects, proactive communication is essential during emergencies. school public relations specialists employ a range of proactive communication strategies in times of emergency, including: putting in place precise channels for communication and escalation to ensure a timely and well-organized crisis response, rapid response team, assembling a professional crisis communication team comprising key stakeholders such as administrators, public relations experts, lawyers, and subject matter experts, educating all relevant parties on the nature of the crisis, its consequences, and the steps being taken in a clear and open manner to remedy it, utilising a variety of communication channels to efficiently and rapidly contact stakeholders, such as websites, social media, news releases, emails, and phone calls, providing regular updates and progress reports to stakeholders in order to keep them informed and reassured that the problem is being addressed. 3.6 managing conflicts and controversies effectively conflicts and controversies in educational institutions can arise for a variety of reasons, including stakeholder differences, policy concerns, and outside pressures. professionals in school public relations employ the following strategies to resolve conflicts and controversies. a. employing conflict resolution strategies to resolve disputes and find solutions that benefit all sides, such as mediation, facilitation, or negotiation. b. attentively listening to the issues and points of view of each party involved in the disagreement in order to comprehend their needs, motivations, and underlying interests. c. acting as unbiased facilitators or mediators to promote constructive dialogue, diffuse tension, and promote cooperative problem-solving. d. ensuring accountability and openness in conflict resolution systems requires maintaining open lines of communication with all parties involved, ensuring confidentiality where necessary, and adhering to moral principles. e. identifying the fundamental causes of disagreements and controversies, implementing precautions to avoid reoccurring issues, and utilising these as chances for organisational learning and growth. in conclusion, effective crisis management and conflict resolution are two critical components of school public relations that require adequate handling of challenging situations, proactive communication, and truthful messaging. by using strategic communication tactics and conflict resolution techniques, public relations practitioners assist educational institutions in managing crises, resolving disagreements, and maintaining their reputation, stability, and trust within the school community. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 28 published by scholink inc. 4. meaning and scope of school public relations school public relations can be defined as the strategic management of interactions and communication between educational institutions and their various stakeholders. it encompasses the purposeful and systematic efforts to establish, maintain, and enhance positive perceptions and understanding of the schools goals, initiatives, successes, and mission among audiences inside and beyond the establishment. the strategic management of relationships and communication both inside and outside of educational institutions to promote understanding, trust, and support for them institutions mission, goals, and activities is known as school public relations. it includes a broad range of communication initiatives meant to encourage openness, participation, and favourable opinions of the school among internal and external stakeholders. public relations in schools have a broad reach. 4.1 scope school public relations includes communication efforts directed towards internal stakeholders, including staff, administrators, instructors, parents, and students. promoting engagement, a sense of belonging, and congruence with the institutions objectives are the three main purposes of internal communication. public relations at schools also includes outreach to outside parties, including the media, former students, the local community, legislators, and other academic establishments. maintaining the reputation of the school, attracting new students and supporters, and building relationships with influential people are the goals of external communication. (avram., 2015). strategic planning is necessary for school public relations to determine communication objectives, target audiences, key messaging, and communication channel (gandariani., 2023). public relations specialists create customised messaging and communication plans to successfully communicate the schools goals, accomplishments, and projects to a range of stakeholders. institution public relations includes media relations efforts to build rapport with journalists and secure favourable media coverage for the institution. in order to raise awareness of the schools accomplishments and initiatives, public relations specialists schedule interviews, make story pitches, and write news releases (waymer et al., 2018). school public relations includes crisis communication planning and response strategies to help manage reputational risks and handle crises. public relations experts develop crisis communication plans, organise responses, and maintain open lines of communication with stakeholders during difficult situations in order to protect the schools reputation and maintain confidence. in order to support educational objectives and programmes, school public relations involves interacting with the local community and forming alliances with businesses, organisations, and governmental bodies. to build relationships with the community and improve the schools standing as a prized resource, public relations professionals plan volunteer events, joint ventures, and cooperative projects. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 29 published by scholink inc. 5. significance of school public relations in facilitating communication and administrative processes school public relations are essential to the efficient operation of educational institutions because they improve administrative procedures and communication. some important factors help to understand the importance of school public relations. building and sustaining credibility and confidence among stakeholders, including parents, teachers, administrators, and the larger community, is made possible in large part by school public relations initiatives (ms, l., 2021). transparent and prompt communication regarding school activities, policies, and accomplishments have two benefits: it improves the institutions reputation and fosters trust and confidence in its leadership. effective school public relations builds trusting connections and meaningful engagement with stakeholders. by offering two-way communication channels like newsletters, social media, and community events, schools may get feedback, address problems, and involve stakeholders in decision-making processes. this involvement strengthens the sense of community and cooperation within the school ecosystem. public relations campaigns in schools are essential for advancing the goals, vision, and mission of educational establishments. through strategic communication initiatives, schools can highlight their achievements, provide stakeholders with an explanation of their long-term goals, and share their educational philosophies (crisol-moya et al., 2022). because of this clarity of purpose, the institutions overarching aims align with the expectations and behaviours of its stakeholders. in order to manage communication during a crisis or issue and minimise damage to the schools reputation, effective public relations are essential. public relations specialists can develop crisis communication plans, provide stakeholders with timely updates, and dispel rumours or inaccurate information in order to maintain stakeholders faith and confidence in the institutions leadership. by efficiently disseminating information and improving communication procedures, school public relations help to enhance administrative efficiency. stakeholders are informed and empowered to take appropriate action when administrative rules, procedures, and decisions are communicated clearly and consistently. this minimises misconceptions and friction. public relations campaigns by schools can also be used as a forum to promote inclusion and equity in education. schools may create a more inclusive and inviting school environment by encouraging a culture of respect, understanding, and acceptance among stakeholders through communication channels that support diversity, equality, and inclusion programmes (crisol-moya et al., 2022). in order to improve administrative procedures and communication in educational institutions, school public relations are essential. through the prioritisation of openness, stakeholder involvement, and strategic communication activities, educational institutions can foster collaboration, foster trust, and effectively accomplish their organizational goals. 5.1 key principles and strategies the following are some key principles and strategies of school public relations. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 30 published by scholink inc. 5.1.1 transparency and openness transparency and openness are fundamental principles of effective school public relations. transparency entails the clear and honest communication of information, decisions, and processes to stakeholders, fostering trust and credibility (schnackenberg et al., 2016). encouraging stakeholders to obtain information, offer input, and take part in decision-making procedures is a key component of transparency (parris et al., 2016). school public relations professionals should encourage dialogue, foster accessibility, and communicate pro-actively to foster transparency and openness. acknowledge your errors, stakeholder engagement and relationship building. developing a rapport with stakeholders is essential to encouraging a sense of cooperation, trust, and belonging in the learning environment. effective engagement requires understanding stakeholders requirements, soliciting their feedback, and involving them in decision-making processes. in order to promote stakeholder involvement and relationship building, school public relations practitioners can assess stakeholder needs, customise communication, form partnerships, acknowledge contributions, and more. 5.1.2 crisis management and reputation enhancement critical components of school public relations are crisis management and reputation building, especially during difficult or unfavourable periods. to manage crises and enhance reputation, school public relations professionals can develop crisis communication; monitor and anticipate issues; respond promptly and transparently; and rebuild trust. 6. examination of successful school public relations initiatives effective communication tactics, stakeholder engagement, and reputation management in educational institutions are all exemplified by successful school pr campaigns (shvardak., 2022). a variety of tactics are used in successful school public relations activities, such as extensive communication plans, captivating social media campaigns, open crisis communication, cooperative community alliances, student-driven projects, and alumni involvement. educational institutions can improve their own public relations efforts, fortify stakeholder connections, and accomplish their strategic objectives by looking at these programmes and discovering best practices. 7. analysis of best practices in school communication and administration the prosperity of educational institutions depends on efficient administration and communication, which promote cooperation, openness, and confidence among stakeholders (plewa et al., 2015). through an analysis of optimal practices in school communication and administration, educational leaders can discern tactics and methods to streamline their operations and accomplish their objectives. establishing clear communication channels, adapting communications to various audiences, emphasising transparency and openness, encouraging two-way communication, investing in professional development, embracing technology, and fostering a positive organisational culture are all www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 31 published by scholink inc. key components of best practices in school administration and communication. educational institutions can improve stakeholder relationships, improve communication efficacy, and more successfully accomplish their mission and goals by putting these best practices into practice. 8. challenges in implementing effective school public relations effective school pr campaigns can be difficult to undertake for a variety of reasons, from communication problems to a lack of resources (ms, l, 2021). for educational institutions to uphold good ties with stakeholders, encourage transparency, and improve their reputation, they must address these issues. typical difficulties include the following: 1). it can be difficult to commit enough time and funds to public relations campaigns because many schools have tight budgets and staffing levels. insufficient resources can impede the creation of all-encompassing communication strategies, the execution of proactive outreach tactics, and the building of robust connections with relevant parties (meer et al., 2017). 2). due to their frequently heavy schedules, educators and administrators rarely have time for public relations initiatives. amidst competing goals and obligations, finding time to organise and carry out communication plans, interact with stakeholders, and reply to questions or criticism may be a big issue. 3). clear and simple messaging is necessary to connect with a wide range of people. communication difficulties, such as linguistic or cultural differences, discrepancies in literacy, or inequities in technological competency, can impede effective communication and interaction with stakeholders. 4). new public relations campaigns or communication strategies may be met with resistance from staff members, administrators, or other stakeholders who are resistant to change or who have grown accustomed to the status quo. stakeholder involvement, effective communication, and leadership support are essential for overcoming change resistance, gaining support, and fostering an innovative culture of continuous improvement. 5). schools may find it difficult to correct misunderstandings about its operations, rules, or procedures or to manage unfavourable public attitudes. reputational risks must be addressed and mitigated through proactive communication and reputation management techniques. unfavourable press, rumours, or controversies have the potential to harm the schools standing and undermine stakeholder trust. 6). it could be difficult for educators and administrators to design and implement effective communication plans if public relations is not one of their core competencies. lack of experience, knowledge, or committed public relations personnel can make it more difficult for schools to handle difficult communication situations and take advantage of chances to improve their standing and connections with stakeholders. 7). schools must be equipped to respond quickly and effectively to crises, emergencies, and unanticipated events that may have an impact on their operations or reputation. however, responding to emergencies, which necessitate quick decisions, clear communication, and coordinated action, presents challenges for schools without established crisis communication plans or procedures. to overcome www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 32 published by scholink inc. these challenges, proactive leadership, strategic planning, and a commitment to continuous improvement in school public relations programmes are required. through prioritising communication, providing resources and staff, and fostering transparency and collaboration, educational institutions can overcome challenges and forge strong bonds with stakeholders to support their goals. 9. ethical considerations in school public relations practice in school public relations, ethical issues are crucial because they guarantee that communications are carried out with honesty, decency, and openness. respecting moral standards is necessary to keep educational institutions and stakeholders happy and to preserve credibility and trust. honesty and truthfulness, respect for stakeholder rights and privacy, fairness and equity, cultural sensitivity and diversity, avoiding conflicts of interest, professional competence and development, accountability and responsibility re some of the most important ethical factors in school public relations practice. school public relations practitioners can support the objectives and goals of the educational institution and build positive relationships by upholding the highest levels of professionalism, integrity, and trustworthiness in their communication efforts by adhering to these ethical principles. 10. strategies for addressing challenges and upholding ethical standards integrity, openness, and stakeholder trust in school public relations practice depend on strategies for resolving issues and sustaining moral principles. by putting these strategies into practice, educational institutions may manage complex communication issues and ensure that their public relations efforts are consistent with professional standards and ethical objectives (gribincea et al., 2022). educational institutions should set clear ethical standards and guidelines for public relations practice that outline expectations for honesty, transparency, decency, and fairness. by making these guidelines known to all pertinent parties, including staff members, managers, and outside partners, we can promote a moral and accountable culture. school practitioners can build the skills, knowledge, and awareness necessary to successfully navigate moral challenges by receiving ongoing training and instruction on moral ideas and public relations best practices. training programmes, conferences, and opportunities for career advancement should cover topics including conflict of interest, privacy laws, stakeholder rights, and cultural sensitivity. schools can ensure that pr campaigns are conducted honourably and ethically by establishing transparent and open decision-making processes. the community and the schools best interests should always come first, ethical standards should be observed, and relevant stakeholders viewpoints should be taken into account. ethical leadership is necessary to encourage moral behaviour and decision-making within the school community. teachers should lead by example by behaving honourably, truthfully, and openly in both their words and conduct. by fostering a culture of ethical leadership, schools may inspire confidence and trust among stakeholders and promote a shared commitment to ethical norms. schools should www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 33 published by scholink inc. implement monitoring and supervision processes to ensure that moral standards are upheld and to identify any possible breaches. this could include means for safely and covertly reporting ethical concerns or malfeasance, as well as regular audits, assessments, or evaluations of pr practices. schools should also create policies and processes that safeguard those who reveal unethical behaviour or misconduct in the field of public relations. whistleblower protection procedures should ensure secrecy, anonymity, and protection against reprisals. people will be able to bring up ethical issues without fear of repercussions thanks to this. it takes ethical consideration and dialogue to support understanding, critical thinking, and ethical decision-making in school public relations work. schools should encourage open dialogue and thought on ethical challenges, case studies, and real-world examples in order to foster a deeper understanding of ethical concerns and to inspire ethical behaviour among practitioners. by implementing these strategies, educational establishments can address problems and uphold moral standards in their school pr efforts, fostering honesty, confidence, and goodwill among interested parties. 11. recommendations for school administrators, educators, and communication professionals guidelines for school administrators, instructors, and communication specialists are crucial in order to uphold moral standards in educational institutions, promote effective communication, and increase transparency. these parties can improve public relations efforts and assist the schools overall mission and goals by cooperating and utilizing their particular areas of competence. for administrators it is suggested that, 1). it is the responsibility of school administrators to operate with honesty, integrity, and openness while engaging with stakeholders in order to provide an example of moral behaviour and open communication. 2). transparent communication protocols and public relations practice guidelines that outline expectations for moral behaviour, stakeholder participation, and decision-making processes should be established by administrators. 3). administrators should support opportunities for ongoing professional development to guarantee that teachers and communication professionals have the knowledge, skills, and resources needed to successfully navigate communication challenges and uphold ethical standards. 4). foster a culture of ethical leadership: administrators should foster an atmosphere of moral leadership within the school community by promoting frank dialogue, moral reflection, and a commitment to transparency and honesty. 5). in addition to handling budgeting matters, personnel, training, and technology, administrators are also in charge of supplying materials and assistance for pr campaigns. educators should, 1). give developing their written, oral, and digital communication skills top priority if they want to engage with students, parents, colleagues, and the community in a productive way. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 34 published by scholink inc. 2). integrate the development of communication skills into the curriculum, giving pupils the chance to practice writing, public speaking, and digital media literacy across a range of subject areas. 3). support school public relations efforts by participating in communication initiatives, providing input and feedback, and serving as advocates for the school within the community. 4). act as role models for ethical behavior and communication, demonstrating respect, professionalism, and integrity in their interactions with students, colleagues, and parents. 5). make the most of professional development opportunities to enhance their communication skills, support the school’s communication objectives, and stay current on public relations best practices. communication professionals should, 1). always refresh their knowledge and skills by studying new advances in public relations as well as emerging trends, technology, and best practices in order to stay ahead of the curve. 2). build strong relationships with all relevant stakeholders, including students, parents, staff, administrators, and community members, in order to establish credibility, trust, and involvement. 3). promote transparency in their activities by providing accurate, timely, and easily accessible information to stakeholders and by being frank and transparent in their responses to any questions or concerns that may come up. 4). uphold ethical standards in all parts of their job, adhering to principles of honesty, integrity, respect, and fairness in their communication practices. 5). make sure that communication initiatives are in line with the mission and goals of the school and further organizational goals, communication experts should work in conjunction with educators, administrators, and other stakeholders from various departments. by implementing these recommendations, educators, communication specialists, and school administrators can work together to enhance public relations campaigns, promote transparency, and uphold moral standards in classroom settings, strengthening relationships and contributing to the success of the school community. 12. implications for policy and practice in educational institutions effective public relations campaigns, openness, and moral principles have important policy and practice implications for educational institutions that can have a favorable effect on several areas of school operations. establishing explicit communication policies that spell out standards for moral behaviour, openness, and stakeholder participation is a good idea for educational institutions. to ensure consistency and alignment with the goals of the educational establishment, these regulations have to be incorporated into more comprehensive organizational procedures and policies. educational institutions should define defined objectives, strategies, and performance criteria for public relations as part of their strategic planning process in order to effectively lead communication operations. by aligning their public relations initiatives with their strategic objectives, schools can enhance their standing, prominence, and relationships with interested parties. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 35 published by scholink inc. to increase staff, administrators, and communication professionals’ communication ability, ethical standards understanding, and comprehension of public relations best practices, educational institutions should fund professional development opportunities for them. professional development programs ought to be tailored to the specific needs and objectives of the school community in order to foster an atmosphere that supports lifelong learning and growth. in their communication initiatives, educational institutions should place a strong focus on stakeholder participation and collaboration. this entails getting input, including stakeholders in the decision-making process, and cultivating ties with the local community. schools can establish credibility, support, and trust for their projects and programs by actively involving stakeholders. educational institutions should put in place transparent communication practices that provide stakeholders with quick, accurate, and easily accessible information on school policies, projects, and programs. by establishing trust, encouraging accountability, and cultivating connections with stakeholders, transparent communication helps to create a positive school climate and culture. to ensure that public relations initiatives are executed fairly, with respect, honesty, and equity, educational institutions must set up ethical guidelines and accountability systems. it may be necessary to implement monitoring protocols, whistleblower protection programs, and codes of conduct in order to keep an eye out for and address ethical issues or transgressions. educational institutions should regularly examine and assess the success of their public relations initiatives to support decision-making and continuous development. in this process, feedback from stakeholders and data-driven metrics should be employed. through the evaluation of communication initiatives, educational institutions can highlight their areas of strength and progress, allowing them to fine-tune their approaches to better satisfy stakeholders and meet organizational objectives. in summary, effective public relations campaigns, transparency, and ethical standards influence communication policies, strategic planning processes, professional development programs, stakeholder engagement strategies, transparency measures, ethical standards, and assessment techniques. by giving these principles top priority and incorporating them into organizational policies and procedures, educational establishments can boost communication effectiveness, build trust and credibility, and support the success of the school community as a whole. 13. findings and insights a thorough analysis of the topic of school public relations reveals some significant findings and conclusions that make sense of moral dilemmas and practical communication tactics. 1). in educational institutions, trust-building, pleasant interactions, and transparency are all dependent on successful communication. by communicating clearly and openly, the school can enhance student progress, advance its vision and goals, and increase stakeholder participation. 2). ethical issues play a major role in the practice of school public relations. they provide a framework for communication efforts that are founded on the ideals of integrity, honesty, and respect for www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 36 published by scholink inc. stakeholders’ rights. maintaining the credibility, trustworthiness, and accountability of communication initiatives requires adherence to moral values. 3). professionals in school public relations face many challenges, including limited funding, time constraints, communication barriers, and negative public perceptions. however, these challenges also present opportunities for innovation, cooperation, and continuous improvement of communication strategies and practices. 4). to overcome challenges and take advantage of opportunities, educational institutions can employ success strategies like transparent policies, professional development, encouraging stakeholder participation, and incorporating digital communication tactics. in summary, effective school public relations involves prioritizing communication, upholding moral standards, resolving conflicts, and seizing opportunities for growth and innovation. educational institutions can promote the success of the school community by embracing future directions for research and practice, adopting strategies for success, and enhancing their communication efficacy. 14. reiteration of the importance of school public relations in an educational institution school public relations plays a crucial role in educational institutions by serving as a liaison between the school community and its diverse stakeholders. its impact on numerous aspects of the school’s operations, reputation, and interpersonal relationships makes it extremely important. some compelling arguments for the need for school public relations include the following: 1). effective pr efforts help stakeholders such as students, parents, staff, administrators, alumni, and the community gain confidence and trust. strong interpersonal ties, honest dialogue, open communication, and moral behavior all demonstrate the school’s commitment to integrity and accountability. 2). building trusting relationships with interested parties via school pr promotes participation, teamwork, and a feeling of belonging. schools that actively involve stakeholders and solicit their perspectives can build strong connections that improve student achievement and progress the institution’s vision and objectives. 3). to encourage responsibility and openness in educational institutions, public relations is essential. stakeholders are informed and empowered to take part in the governance and decision-making processes of the school when there is open and transparent communication about policies, decisions, and activities. 4). through enhancing the school’s reputation and visibility in the community, strategic public relations campaigns attract sponsors, teachers, donors, and potential students. by effectively communicating the schools successes, resources, and guiding ideals, public relations helps differentiate it from the competition and position it as a leader in education. 5). public relations campaigns draw attention to the school’s extracurricular activities, academic programs, and supportive learning environment, all of which aid in attracting and keeping students. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 37 published by scholink inc. attractive narratives, striking visuals, and targeted messaging captivate prospective students and their families; ongoing communication fosters commitment and dedication among existing students. 6). to minimize reputational risks, maintain stakeholder trust, and effectively manage communication during crises and conflicts, public relations is crucial. proactive crisis management strategies and timely, transparent communication help to resolve problems, dispel rumours, and rebuild faith in the administration and the moral integrity of the institution. 7). in the end, school public relations assists the organization in achieving its goals and objectives by integrating communication activities with the purpose, vision, and strategic priorities of the institution. by effectively conveying the school’s accomplishments, goals, and initiatives, public relations supports fundraising efforts, legislative lobbying, community engagement, and other strategic initiatives that push institutional success. in conclusion, school public relations is essential to building success, involvement, trust, and openness inside educational establishments. by focusing on ethical behaviour, great communication, and stakeholder connections, schools can use public relations to further their goals, improve student and community life, and bolster their reputation. references avram, e. (2015). internal and external communication in higher education institutions. sea: practical application of science, 273-282. crisol-moya, e., romero-lópez, m., garcía, a., & sánchez-hernández, y. (2022). inclusive leadership from the family perspective in compulsory education. journal of new approaches in educational research. https://doi.org/10.7821/naer.2022.7.937 delgado, l., padilla, b., muñoz, g., & delgado, j. (2023). the interrelationship between the administrative work of teachers and the effective development of classes: implications and strategies for a comprehensive educational management. centro sur. https://doi.org/10.37955/cs.v7i3.320 gandariani, t. (2023). the portrait of public relations strategic planning. mediasi jurnal kajian dan terapan media, bahasa, komunikasi. https://doi.org/10.46961/mediasi.v4i2.687 gribincea, t., & trofimov, v. (2022). some aspects of communication ethics as a premise for improving quality management in the field of education. moldoscopie. https://doi.org/10.52388/1812-2566.2021.4(95).11 hia, e., prestiadi, d., m., maghfiroh, s., & oktaviani, v. (2020). the use of information and communication technology through website and social media as public relations information media (pp. 269-274). https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.201112.048 johnston, k. (2014). public relations and engagement: theoretical imperatives of a multidimensional concept. journal of public relations research, 26, 381-383. https://doi.org/10.1080/1062726x.2014.959863 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 7, no. 2, 2024 38 published by scholink inc. kraft, m., & dougherty, s. 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(2022). pr-technologies in the market of educational services. scientific bulletin of uzhhorod university. series: «pedagogy. social work». https://doi.org/10.24144/2524-0609.2022.50.307-310 waymer, d., brown, k., baker, k., & fears, l. (2018). socialization and pre-career development of public relations professionals via the undergraduate curriculum. communication teacher, 32, 117-130. https://doi.org/10.1080/174 frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no.2, 2021 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) original paper teachers’ inclusive, augmentative, assistive and it competences in working with children with special educational needs tamara milić1 1 head of unit for inclusive education, ministry of education, science, culture and sports, montenegro received: may 16, 2021 accepted: june 7, 2021 online published: june 15, 2021 doi:10.22158/fet.v4n2p132 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v4n2p132 abstract in this study we wanted to determine the presence of teachers’ information-communication-technological competencies in working with students with special educational needs. desk research provides an overview of policy and support in inclusive education in montenegro, with a focus on teachers’ inclusive training. from 2015 to 2018, 148 trainings were realized in the field of inclusive education and 3848 teachers were trained most often, these were one-day trainings, duration 8 hours, and the topics were: working with specific disabilities, adaptation, individualization. systematic observation based on a protocol was conducted with 15 children from the second to the sixth grade of primary school: autism; intellectual, visual, hearing, combined disabilities and difficulties: speech, language, reading and writing. the findings indicate that teachers are educated to an individualize approach. we observed the application of the approach and the use of learning and communication technology. the effects of teachers’ work and competencies are better after training, coaching and when they get support from the professional associates of the school and/or resource center. teachers’ attitudes are positive, they show creativity, adaptability, use the technologies after they have been trained about the characteristics of students, and recommended approaches for working with them. keywords inclusive education, children with special educational needs, augmentative communication, assistive technology, inclusive competencies 132 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 1. introduction inclusion reflects the way society adapts to the individual. it starts with acknowledging the differences between the children. it is based on the education of management and teaching staff, professional associates, as well as children and students. they are an example and a model to follow, creators of positive attitudes, virtues, advocates and promoters of universal values of human and children’s rights (brown, 2016). all activities that increase the ability are considered support, and they refer to any modification or adaptation: physical environment, educational and curriculum, didactic means and materials, methods of work (graham, 2019). communication involves the exchange of information between two or more participants. the question that arises is what happens when communication is affected by obstacles, burdened with barriers in terms of manner, content, form, goal, processing, reception and use of information. but, there are specific challenges in communication with children with disabilities and the environment in relation to them and with them. depending on the type of developmental disability, many children have a reduced ability to express what they are experiencing, what is happening to them, what they want, expect, their intentions. also to accept, understand other participants in communication, interlocutors. an additional difficulty is what, how and in what way they communicate and whether and how others understand them (goldbart & caton, 2010). children with visual impairments have difficulties in receiving, processing and communicating, communicating in writing. they rely on descriptions, tactile experience, aids, braille, etc. in children with intellectual disabilities, general status affects language skills and communication, which is reduced, simple, targeted, concrete, experiential, without delay. children with hearing impairments have difficulties in forming speech, locating the source of sound, verbal communication ... they use reading, sign language, they prefer written forms (milićb et al., 2017). when it comes to children with physical disabilities, challenges in communication are possible in the form of difficult formulation, understanding, duration of communication, clarity, articulation. for children with the autism spectrum, the challenges of communication and social interaction are visible in sending, processing, transmitting and accepting the message, understanding the purpose, purpose of communication (faherty, 2014). therefore, new approaches, methods, technologies in work and communication are in use. assistive technology is a set of instruments, means and devices that children with disabilities use to perform tasks which they would not otherwise be able to perform. instruments can be industrial products or home-made tools from simple pen holders, to expensive equipment such as custom computers, at equipment, tablets, eye controllers, speech recorders, interactive whiteboards and walls, speech readers, etc. (lazor, isakov, & ivković, 2012). augmentative communication consists of all methods of communication that replace or support common methods of communication when they are impaired or when they do not meet the needs of the 133 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 individual. it includes symbols, aids, strategies, and techniques used to strengthen communication (draffan, 2019). some of the at means used for communication are: communication board, picture book, objects, letters, words, applications that help communication with the help of symbols that are verbally supported. they are characterized by flexibility, accessibility, ease of use (mitchell & sutherland, 2020). the goal of using some form of assisted communication is to achieve functional communication, participate in activities, acquire new knowledge and experiences. communication is supported either by alternative means or by strengthening existing ones (eminović & denić, 2013). the required inclusive competencies and the framework that gives a broader direction of their development when talking about children with special educational needs are defined in the context of attitudes, values and skills of teachers to implement educational work (council of europe, 2016). 2. method 2.1 aims, tasks, hypotheses the aim of the study is to determine the representation of inclusive teachers in information-communication-technological competences. in order to achieve the set goal, it is necessary to realize the following tasks: 1). examine how to work on the development and support of inclusive teacher competencies from the perspective of creators and implementers of inclusive education policy and what is the scope, types, contents, target groups in the field of training for inclusive education; 2). examine and determine differences in knowledge and practical application of teachers for the application of specialized and modern inclusive approaches and procedures; 3). examine the characteristics of inclusive competence: information-communication-technological among teachers. the following hypotheses are set: h1 we assume that there are systematic, appropriate, purpose-designed programs of professional development and support for inclusive teachers’ competencies. h2 we assume that the training contributed to the development of knowledge and efficiency of inclusive practice and the manifestation of inclusive teaching competencies: information-communication-technological literacy. 2.2 instruments, sample, processing desk research is descriptive and provides an overview of policy and support in inclusive education in montenegro, with a focus on teacher training. the desk analysis guide contains three parts. the first part is a list of trainings in the field of inclusive education with the following elements: number of trainings, number of trainees, training topics, duration of trainings. the second part of the analysis of previous trainings for teachers determines what were the criteria for selecting teachers for training, who were the implementers of trainings, what are the results of the evaluation: grades, level of satisfaction, 134 published by scholink inc. https://www.routledge.com/search?author=david%20mitchell https://www.routledge.com/search?author=dean%20sutherland www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 recommendations. the third part refers to other available support, indicates additional resources that are offered and available to teachers: manuals, guides, instructions, portal, teaching aids, aids, assistive, teaching materials, etc. for that purpose, we use: strategies, laws, list of trainings in the field of inclusive education, catalogue of accredited programs, analysis of previous trainings for teachers (schools involved in training, evaluation results: grades, level of satisfaction, recommendations), other support available (manuals, guides, instructions, portal... didactic, assistive, teaching material, etc.) also, a systematic observation of the teaching process was realized. its goal was to directly, in the classroom, make sure whether the teachers apply the required competences. therefore, a systematic observation of the teaching process was conducted. the intention was to determine the real presence of the phenomenon—competences and benefits for children. it was applied on the basis of a pre-prepared observation protocol for 15 children. the selection of schools was appropriate due to several criteria: a large number of children with special educational needs, equal distribution and participation of children with specific disabilities and developmental difficulties, organizational and technical reasons. schools in podgorica dominate, one each in budva, berane, kotor, pljevlja and nikšić, which means that we have relatively achieved equality in terms of representation of montenegro. most often, the observation was conducted in classes for the subjects montenegrin language and mathematics. students from the second to the sixth grade of primary school were observed, in relation to disabilities and developmental difficulties. situations of learning and participation were observed on the basis of the application of approaches, learning and communication technologies adequate for specific obstacles and difficulties in development. it was observed which approach or technology was applied and in which situation, for what purpose, with what effect. the degree of knowledge of the obstacles and difficulties in the development of the child that the teacher shows were assessed, as well as the response of the teacher to the needs of the child in relation to learning and communication. situations of learning and participation were observed on the basis of competencies visible in the application of approaches, learning and communication technologies adequate for specific obstacles and difficulties in development. the documentation on which teachers base their work, the training they went through and the support they receive for work and during work were analysed. the observation is carried out in relation to the age of the child, the disorder and the developmental difficulty. it observes which approach or technology has been applied and in which situation, for what purpose, with what effect. the degree of knowledge of the child’s disabilities and difficulties in the child’s development was assessed, as well as the application of the teacher’s inclusive competence to the child’s needs in relation to learning and communication. finally, possible obstacles and challenges in relation to teacher competencies were studied. during the processing of data obtained by the research, programs for qualitative data analysis and descriptive inference statistics were used. atlas.ti version 8.2. computer program for systematization and coding of the obtained results (friese, (2012). the reason is to provide evidence, reduce the risk of subjective interpretation of these data, and obtain significant and reliable findings. 135 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 3. result 3.1 desk analyses results 3.1.1 analyses of legal and strategic framework inclusive education is a systematic part of the field of education in montenegro. therefore, a legal and strategic basis and framework have been set. it refers to the conditions, practice for the realization of learning and participation of students with special educational needs. also to teachers. the legal, strategic and program basis for inclusive education and teacher competencies has been set (note 1). the system of professional development of teachers is oriented towards continuous support and empowerment of teachers. the authors of the program are selected through a public competition that is announced every other year. renewal of the work license can be achieved after the completion of 16 hours of professional training in priority areas and 8 hours from other professional training programs for a period of five years. as the most common, we found forms and activities of continuous professional development: counselling, support on request, participation in seminars, the need for coaching experiential guidance by more competent colleagues, collaborative learning, etc. 3.1.2 overview of trainings in the inclusive education by analysing the documentation and reports of the bureau for education services, we determined the scope, types, topics of education for the application of methods of work and communication with children with special educational needs. in the period from 2015 to 2018 in the field of inclusive education, 148 trainings were conducted and 3848 teachers were trained. it turned out that one-day trainings lasting 8 hours are the most common. within the catalogue of professional development of teachers, we offer numerous accredited trainings on topics in the field of inclusive education, which is treated as one of the priority (note 2). in addition, programs were identified that were, as a rule, initiated and implemented through projects or through various initiatives. most often in response to the needs of children and the teaching process, and contemporary trends and practices, and extremely targeted in terms of topics and groups for which they are intended and implemented (note 3). a review of the evaluation of the seminar in terms of implementers and participants indicate that teachers need continuous training for inclusive teaching and monitoring of new technologies and trends in education. also, that it is necessary to monitor, guide and supervise the application in practice. this indicates that the training is targeted, aimed at acquiring precisely the knowledge that makes up the corpus of positive attitudes and should combine the required competencies. on the other hand, the initiative “from above” is noticed, and less the one encouraged by self-evaluation, professional culture of responsibility and child-orientation. trainings are most often conducted within projects or on the initiative of the ministry of education, part of the bureau for educational services, the centre for vocational education. rarely and occasionally by schools. therefore, advisors appear as implementers of trainings: the ministry of education, the bureau for 136 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 educational services, the centre for vocational education, resource centres, professional school associates. 3.1.3 additional support to the inclusive education the system of inclusive education is organized in such a way that in all policy and implementation institutions, those responsible are identified and delegated (table 1) for designing, coordinating, monitoring and supporting practice. table 1. organization of the system of inclusive education policy level supportive and advisory level practical and implementation level ministry of education unit for preschool and inclusive education bureau for educational services advisor for the inclusive education proffesional preschool and school associates (pedagogues, psychologist, special educators and rehabilitators) center for vocational education advisor for the inclusive education proffesional resource centers associates (special educators and rehabilitators, psychologist) mobile services (special educators and rehabilitators, psychologist, pedagouests, teachers accordingly, through further analysis, we examined and showed that teachers have access to professional support in the form of hiring resource experts, members of the mobile service. we found that teachers are mostly referred to professional associates in the school and that they cooperate with professionals from the resource centre on call or according to needs, when it is important to receive initial instructions for working with the child, and less continuously (figure 1). they rarely rely on mobile services. 137 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 figure 1. support to the teachers numerous manuals and materials are available to teachers. all are distributed to schools or are available at: http://www.skolskiportal.edu.me/pages/inkluzivnoobrazovanje.aspx. this website offers publications, examples of good practice, ideas and solutions to classroom dilemmas, etc. it is important to point out that the inclusive portal served as a channel of communication with teachers and parents in the situation caused by the covid-19 virus. instructions, examples and ideas were posted and thus available in order to facilitate the adaptation and development of individualized teaching materials for home learning for children with special educational needs in accordance with the individualized development-educational program. the materials most commonly produced, delivered, provided, and rented to resource schools by schools are textbooks, notebooks, worksheets, and braille tests, relief attachments, daisy (note 4) textbook application guides, communication board, visual layout and materials, silent books, tactile and interactive whiteboards, tablet apps, space adaptation instructions. 3.2 results of the systematic observation systematic observation was conducted for the following disabilities and difficulties (figure 2): autism 2, intellectual impairment 3, visual impairment 1, hearing impairment 2, speech-language and reading and writing difficulties 3, combined impairment 4, intellectual and hearing impairments). 138 published by scholink inc. http://www.skolskiportal.edu.me/pages/inkluzivnoobrazovanje.aspx www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 figure 2. disabilities and difficulties among observed children the approach or technology is fully in accordance with the obstacles and difficulties in development, applied in the situation in which the observation of the teaching process with the child was conducted (figure 3). figure 3. applied approach during the observation the approach or technology was applied during the observation, as a rule adequate to the situation for which they are intended, and which is presented in figure 4. it shows, in general, the process of rounding, repeating knowledge during the lesson, checking what has been done. observations have shown that the purpose for which a particular approach or technology is used depends on the disability, the individualized status of the child, and that the areas to be suggested for individualized support to children are precisely those that are partially targeted in teaching: behaviour, cooperation. also that some phases of the lesson do not have priority as knowledge acquisition, especially for certain disorders (e.g., to indicate to a child with autism during the preparation what will 139 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 happen or in a child with intellectual disabilities to summarize at the end and repeat the key, etc.). the purpose of use is shown in figure 5. figure 4. situation of application of an approach or technology during observation figure 5. the purpose of applying the approach or technology during observation during the observation, the teacher’s socio-emotional competence proved to be complete. it is shown in figure 6. creativity and communication and information skills are well present, but these are also areas that can be further strengthened. 140 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 figure 6. teachers’ competences during the observation the analysis showed that teachers base their work on idep, that they intensively adapt materials for a specific child, rely on professional, resource support, put the child in a situation that supports learning (first bench, application of learning and communication strategies), apply visualization, assisted forms of communication and learning (figure 7). however, a potential risk of “simplification” of content, access and materials has been identified. figure 7. the most commonly used approaches during observation 141 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 further qualitative observations are presented collectively according to the obstacles and difficulties in the development of students in relation to which the teaching practice is observed. related to children with autism, it was first noticed that they were non-verbal children. as a result, teachers are placed with greater demands for adaptation: method, content, strategy, goals. the tablet and smartphone are registered in the application (one student uses alternative communication gives answers by typing on the ipad). then structures, planners, schedules, rules, visual aids, marking, symbols. thanks to this, students have the opportunity to interact, to better accept and establish communication and provide more complete answers. in terms of academic expectation, the work is focused on learning, preparation for work, adaptation to the coming situation, partly communication, much more understanding, practice, knowledge testing. teachers have shown that they are competent because they are trained, informed, prepared to accept and work with the child, they are supported by a resource and school special educator, rehabilitator. there is a smaller representation of teachers’ creativity. it is because of the we children has routines and based on that teaching approach is organised on the routines. the reason may also be that they receive the finished material from the resource centre (table 2). table 2. approaches during observation in relation to autism autism areas of observation noticed during the observation devices, supplies, aac, at tablet, smart phone approaches structures, planners, schedules, visual aids, pictorial material, marking, symbols teachers’ behavior trained (autism, idep, aac), informed, accept the child, less creative (respond to the child’s routines by turning them in favour of the child), reliance on professional associates child’s behavior idep, interaction, communication, adaptation, attachment to the assistant in classes involving children with intellectual disabilities, the lessons were conducted by teachers trained in the development and implementation of individual educational developmental plan (idep), work with children with intellectual disabilities, for assistive technology (table 3). the paper uses simplified tasks, pictorial material. assisted communication is occasionally used in agreement with a speech therapist, most often for a specific activity. the focus is on, in addition to academic achievement, establishing communication and developing peer support. the working material is adequately designed and uniform. in one situation, we had a child with moderate intellectual disabilities for whose learning 142 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 and participation needs the daisy textbook was applied. this proved to be a good choice given the distractions the child has because daisy focuses his attention. the child was able to integrate. table 3. approaches during observation in relation to intellectual disabilities intellectual disability areas of observation noticed during the observation devices, supplies, aac, at computer and daisy approaches simplified tasks, pictorial and obvious material teachers’ behavior trained (idep, iq, at, aac), approach children rationally, adequate work material, focus on the child’s experience, the habit of relying on the assistant child’s behavior focusing attention, peer experience, participation in the case of the observed blind child, the teacher presented the aids, the idep for the child and the recommendations of the resource centre. there is active participation of a special educator, a resource centre rehabilitator who provides advice to teachers, conducts training in the use of braille, works individually with the child. the teacher was trained in idep, working with children with visual impairments, using braille, and received advice on assistive technology. thanks to the fact that they have a braille machine (child, teacher), the material is prepared and the child works independently during the processing of materials, learning, writing, reading, arithmetic, group work, acquisition of skills, rules. also we investigate how they use the aids, cooperate with the resource centre and we found that it is continuous (table 4). table 4. approaches during observation in relation to visual disability visual disability areas of observation noticed during the observation devices, supplies, aac, at braille approaches daisy, rc recommendations teachers’ behavior trained in braille, daisy, idep, cooperation with a special educator and rehabilitator for the visual impairments, with parents, preparation of materials, targeted use of aids 143 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 child’s behavior works independently: learning, reading, writing, arithmetic..., participates in group work in several situations during the observation, we had students with combined disorders: physical and intellectual, intellectual and hearing impaired (a child with down syndrome). the paper uses adapted material and assisted communication, pecs in a child with intellectual and hearing impairments, which indicates knowledge of the disorder. a visual schedule was used to adopt skills and rules the focus was on the student establishing communication with peers, to socialize. where hours were observed for children whose combination of disabilities included those related to physical development, an individualized approach was observed, an adapted workspace/table with adjustable plate, a chair with handrails, writing and reading accessories, notebooks contrastingly shaped with accentuated lines. in children with hearing impairments that accompany intellectual disabilities, the impact of early intervention and work has been shown to be an advantage. this experience of the child in combination with the trained teacher leads to individualization of work, application of targeted and specialized techniques and assistive technology. in this particular case, a smart board is provided that is used throughout the hour with the displayed visual content in accordance with the recommendations of the resource centre from kotor (table 5). table 5. approaches during observation related to the combined disabilities combined disability areas of observation observed during observation devices, supplies, aac, at smart board, computer (daisy program), adjusted furniture, space approaches pecs, visual layout, reading and writing accessories, teachers’ behavior trained (idep, iq, aac, at, daisy), adequate relationship, adjusted, targeted material, aids, individualized approach, cooperation with rc child’s behavior it feels safer, more important, better and more successful in communicating, mastering materials, interacting with peers in the class in which the child with hearing impairments is included, the teacher is trained in idep, assistive technology, knowledge about the child. the child has a built-in artificial cochlea and has been included in the early intervention program at the resource centre from an early age, which has led to a close connection between the school and the resource centre. ict technology was not required for a specific lesson because the teacher used adapted material and accessories, the method of verbal 144 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 demonstration, visual techniques, addressed the student in a targeted manner (table 6). distractions were eliminated in accordance with the recommendations. table 6. approaches during observation in relation to hearing impairment hearing disability areas of observation noticed during observation devices, supplies, aac, at cochlear implant approaches eliminates distractions, customized materials and accessories, visual techniques, verbal demonstration methods teachers’ behavior training (idep, adaptation, at, on hearing impairment), individualizes, respects rc recommendations child’s behavior good focus and attention because it has adequate material, participates with peers in group work adequate and interesting and universally designed material when it comes to speech-language and learning difficulties (as a rule, dyslexia, dysgraphia, adha, etc.) obtained and presented in table 7. teachers combine: daisy, adapted and visual materials, obvious means. they are most often focused on acquiring skills, rules, mastering a new situation. they have been shown to monitor, assess children and use models and new teaching aids accordingly. in children, there is an improvement in patience, attention, motivation, activities last longer, emotional exchange is bigger and better, different opinions are taken into account. the performance is greater when they have the support of a professional service. table 7. approaches during observation related to the reading, writing, attention difficulties reading, writing, attention difficulties areas of observation observed during observation devices, supplies, aac, at computer (daisy program) approaches daisy, custom and visual material, obvious means teachers’ behavior trained (idep, daisy, methodical instructions for reading and writing), monitor, prepare and assess children and respond to it, with the support of professional associates child’s behavior improving in patience, attention, motivation, cooperation with peers, they work longer 145 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 4. discussion the general impression is that teachers are purposefully trained to work with a child with a specific disability or developmental difficulty they have in the classroom. targeted, optimal and appropriate application of specific techniques, tools, accessories, approaches in working with a specific disability or difficulty in development. they show openness and flexibility to adapt to the child and organize the teaching process in the direction of achieving the goals set by the idep. they are based on the knowledge and skills acquired in the trainings, through instructions and advice, practical guidance they receive from school, resource or project associates. information technology competence is present depending on the type of disability and the child’s needs, training, information on assistive technology and equipment. in particular, it is noted how important it is when a child is included in the early intervention program from an early age and when there is continuity of involvement in educational processes. it has been observed that other school associates are less involved: psychologists and pedagogues. their greater engagement can empower teachers to use methodological models more confidently (the role of pedagogues), to make parents less involved (the role of psychologists). subject programs need to set and define outcomes more broadly and flexibly that will be appropriate for children with special educational needs and that will ensure comprehensiveness, accessibility, equality, equity, greater adaptability and applicability. when it comes to children with autism spectrum, teacher training was targeted for the development of idep, the application of assisted communication. support includes a resource centre, which empowers them to use structures, planners, schedules, rules, visual aids. teachers adapt to the characteristics of the children and individualization is targeted. when it comes to children with visual impairments, it is confirmed that it is an effective combination of school equipment, training that the teacher goes through, renting work materials, cooperation, monitoring and guidance by the resource centre. teachers in working with children with hearing impairments apply idep, preparation for class, adapted material, aids, recommendations. also, this is because the teachers are educated and have direct cooperation and exchange with the resource centre. furthermore, in children with combined disabilities, it was concluded that children are approached appropriately because they harmonize and apply the knowledge gained in training, instructions obtained regarding the use of assistive cabinet services, customized materials and assisted communication. when it comes to speech-language and learning difficulties, it is evident that teachers are educated, monitored and supported, and for that reason they work according to idep, prepare, combine techniques: daisy, adapted and visual material, obvious means. teachers’ attitudes are positive, they show creativity, adaptability, apply technologies. 146 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 obstacles include technical equipment, less correlation of subject programs, rare involvement of mobile service, outcomes in new subject programs are not sufficiently defined, broad, flexible, diverse and clear for these children, lack of speech therapists, special educators, non-cooperation with the resource centre branch. the effects of work and competence are greater when training, guidance, monitoring and support are combined by professional associates as a rule of the special educator of the school and/or resource centre. references brown, z. (2016). inclusive education, perspectives on pedagogy, policy and practice. routledge. council of europe. (2016), competence for democratic culture—living together as equals in culturally diverse democratic societies. council of europe, strasbourg, isbn 978-92-871-8237-1. retrieved from http://book.coe.int draffan, e. a. (2019). predavanje: at i aac, set simbola i originalna aac aplikacija. korišćenje tehnologije 21. veka za promociju komunikacije, obrazovanja i socijalne inkluzije dece sa smetnjama u razvoju, 05-06.06.2019., šoso “milan petrović”, novi sad. eminović, f., & denić, s. (2013), obrazovanjem do digitalne inkluzije dece sa višestrukom ometenošću. beograd: fasper. faherty, c. (2014). autism... what does it mean to me? future horizons inc., arlington, usa. friese, s. (2012). qualitative data analysis with atlas.ti. london: sage. goldbart, j., & caton, s. (2010). communication and people with the most complex needs: what works and why this is essential. research institute for health and social change manchester metropolitan university (mmu). graham, l. (2019). inclusive education for the 21st century, theory, policy and practice. routledge. lazor, m., isakov, m., & ivković, n. (2012), asistivna tehnologija u školi. edicija praktikum, škola za osnovno i srednje obrazovanje “milan petrović”, novi sad. milić, t., marić, a., vuksanović, a., popović, a., trailović-šljivančanin, a., radulović, j., & popović, j. (2017). instruktivno-edukativni materijal za inkluzivni rad i učenje đece s posebnim obrazovnim potrebama. ministarstvo prosvjete, unicef, podgorica. mitchell, d., & sutherland, d. (2020). what really works in special and inclusive education, using evidence-based teaching strategies. routledge. notes note 1. general law on education and upbringing (“official gazette of the republic of montenegro”, no. 64/02, 31/05 and 49/07 and “official gazette of montenegro”, no. 45/10, 45/11, 39/13 and 47/17), strategy of inclusive education (2019-2025), law on primary education and upbringing “official gazette of the republic of montenegro”, no. 64/02 and 49/07 and “official gazette of montenegro”, 147 published by scholink inc. https://www.routledge.com/search?author=david%20mitchell https://www.routledge.com/search?author=dean%20sutherland www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 no. 45/10, 39/13 and 47/17), teacher education strategy (2017 2024), law on upbringing and education of children with special educational needs (“official gazette of montenegro” no. 45/10, 47/17), rulebook on the manner, conditions and procedure of guidance children with special educational needs (“official gazette of montenegro”, no. 57/11, 60/19), program for the implementation of pisa recommendations 2015, rulebook on the organization of in-service teacher training and the method of selecting the author of in-service training programs (“official gazette of montenegro” no. 63/16), rulebook on detailed conditions, manner and procedure of issuing and renewing a work permit to a teacher, director and assistant director of an educational institution (“official gazette of montenegro”, no. 023/14). note 2. the topics of training that were most often realized from the offer within the catalogue of professional development of teachers are: “working with children with visual impairments”; braille; “teacher education in secondary schools to work with students with special educational needs”; “index to inclusive culture, policy and practice in educational institutions”; “inclusive education: kindergarten tailored to the child”; “intensive interaction of children with severe combined disorders”; “use of assistive technology”; “early intervention”; “sensory integration”; “training of professional staff of preschool institutions and support to parents of children with autism spectrum disorders”; “methods and procedures in working with children with autism”; “nonverbal communication and basics of sign language”; “training for the development and implementation of the individual transition plan itp 1 and 2”; “training for the development and implementation of idep”; “support for children with intellectual disabilities”; “support for children with hearing impairments”; “roadmap (test toolkit for recognizing difficulties in the process of mastering reading and writing skills)”; “learning difficulties (dyslexia, dyscalculia, dysgraphia)”; “students with adhd syndrome: indicators and approach to work”; “students with cochlear implant”; “fundamentals of inclusion in sports (principles, benefits and significance of the special olympics)”; “special olympics”, “young athletes”, “student assessment in inclusive education”; “speech and language development”; “recommendations for educators for the adaptation of space, activities, work materials to encourage intellectual development”, “recommendations for educators for the adaptation of space, activities, work materials for autism spectrum disorders”. note 3. “assistive technology and its application in the areas of intellectual, visual, hearing, physical disabilities, autism spectrum” about 200 participants, “assisted communication for children with autism spectrum disorders in regular schools” 53 participants. training organized by the ministry of education and unicef for “implementation of the guide for working with children with intellectual disabilities” (5 days, 5 groups, 120 participants), organized by the ministry of education and unicef: “training of trainees to work on an inclusive model”, (bar, nikšić, podgorica, bijelo polje for 2 days, 2 groups for 97 participants). “development and implementation of itp 1 in primary and secondary schools” for 14 groups about 300 participants, ministry of education and kulturkontakt, “development and implementation of itp—2” 16 groups for about 300 participants, center for 148 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 2, 2021 vocational education, kulturkontakt and ngos. consultations regarding the application of the material “instructional-educational teaching material for inclusive work and learning” organized by the ministry of education (4 groups, about 100 teachers). the ministry of education also organized a conference on the use of materials “package for the organization of activities at the school level on non-discrimination” (5 sessions, 110 participants), development and application of individualized and specialized didactic and teaching aids in kindergartens and schools (80 participants). note 4. daisy—digital accessible inform. 149 published by scholink inc. original paper tamara milić1 1 head of unit for inclusive education, ministry of education, science, culture and sports, montenegro abstract keywords inclusive education, children with special educational needs, augmentative communication, assistive technology, inclusive competencies 2.1 aims, tasks, hypotheses 2.2 instruments, sample, processing a review of the evaluation of the seminar in terms of implementers and participants indicate that teachers need continuous training for inclusive teaching and monitoring of new technologies and trends in education. also, that it is necessary to monito... on the other hand, the initiative “from above” is noticed, and less the one encouraged by self-evaluation, professional culture of responsibility and child-orientation. trainings are most often conducted within projects or on the initiative of the min... 3.1.3 additional support to the inclusive education references brown, z. (2016). inclusive education, perspectives on pedagogy, policy and practice. routledge. council of europe. (2016), competence for democratic culture—living together as equals in culturally diverse democratic societies. council of europe, strasbourg, isbn 978-92-871-8237-1. retrieved from http://book.coe.int draffan, e. a. (2019). predavanje: at i aac, set simbola i originalna aac aplikacija. korišćenje tehnologije 21. veka za promociju komunikacije, obrazovanja i socijalne inkluzije dece sa smetnjama u razvoju, 05-06.06.2019., šoso “milan petrović”, novi... eminović, f., & denić, s. (2013), obrazovanjem do digitalne inkluzije dece sa višestrukom ometenošću. beograd: fasper. faherty, c. (2014). autism... what does it mean to me? future horizons inc., arlington, usa. friese, s. (2012). qualitative data analysis with atlas.ti. london: sage. goldbart, j., & caton, s. (2010). communication and people with the most complex needs: what works and why this is essential. research institute for health and social change manchester metropolitan university (mmu). graham, l. (2019). inclusive education for the 21st century, theory, policy and practice. routledge. lazor, m., isakov, m., & ivković, n. (2012), asistivna tehnologija u školi. edicija praktikum, škola za osnovno i srednje obrazovanje “milan petrović”, novi sad. milić, t., marić, a., vuksanović, a., popović, a., trailović-šljivančanin, a., radulović, j., & popović, j. (2017). instruktivno-edukativni materijal za inkluzivni rad i učenje đece s posebnim obrazovnim potrebama. ministarstvo prosvjete, unicef, podg... mitchell, d., & sutherland, d. (2020). what really works in special and inclusive education, using evidence-based teaching strategies. routledge. frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no.4, 2021 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 59 original paper exploring students’ factors in online teaching during covid-19 lockdown from their lecturers’ viewpoint and perspectives egede, b. a. j. (ph.d)1 & awuja s. a. (ph.d)1 1 department of educational foundations, faculty of education, university of delta, agbor, delta state, nigeria received: november 19, 2021 accepted: december 3, 2021 online published: december 21, 2021 doi:10.22158/fet.v4n4p59 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v4n4p59 abstract the global community is currently harnessing the lessons learnt from the covid-19 education response, to build more resilient education systems. this can effectively be achieved via empirical evidence of the experiences of all stakeholders in education in all nations during the covid-19 pandemic and lockdown. the purpose of this study was to explore student factors in the lecturers’ experience of their online emergency remote teaching (ert) in the college of education, agbor, delta state, nigeria during the covid-19 lockdown. using a quantitative descriptive design, the lecturers completed a structured questionnaire about their online ert experiences. the findings suggest that generally, the students chose the familiar whatsapp (chat and voice) messaging as against the use of zoom and other platforms for the ert. top students’ challenges are:  unpreparedness for the ert.  experience of unavailable/unstable network/internet access and  inability to purchase enough data. in addition, students lacked:  smart phones/laptops/computers,  necessary ict skills, and  did not embrace the ert, although it engaged them academically during the lockdown. based on these results and in view of prevalent/imminent lockdown due to emerging new variants of the covid-19 such as delta and omicron, interventions/strategies for achieving successful and satisfactory online teaching are recommended. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 60 published by scholink inc. keywords covid-19 education response, covid-19 lockdown, emergency remote teaching, higher education, lecturers’ perspectives, online teaching in nigeria, student factors 1. introduction the global community is currently addressing and harnessing the lessons learnt for education from the covid-19 pandemic to develop more resilient education systems (oecd, 2020). these lessons are drawn from the experiences of all stakeholders during the covid-19 pandemic and lockdown in all levels of education which are documented in literature. a foremost experience was the covid-19 lockdown-induced online teaching which is termed emergency remote teaching (ert). the covid-19 induced online teaching and learning triggered variety of novel adjustments in all educational institutions. at the higher education level, lecturers and students were confronted with inevitable sudden adjustments in teaching and learning location, materials, timing, and methods associated with online mode of delivery. consequently, some stakeholders expressed doubts on the return of education to the pre-covid state (duncan, et al., 2020)), while others emphatically asserted that education has been changed forever (weforum, 2020). granted that the changes in the delivery of education in responding to covid-19 cannot completely be discarded due to an intensive global awareness of the versatility of online teaching and learning, adequate, extensive, and inclusive data is required to drive appropriate changes in all nations of the world. online teaching and learning mode of delivery of education (also known as distance learning) had been used by institutions which prepared adequately to achieve their objectives with it, prior to the covid-19 pandemic. but research has shown that students’ descriptions of their experiences with the covid-19 induced online teaching and learning in higher education ranged from satisfaction and high performance (weforum, 2020; craig, 2021) to high dissatisfaction and poor performance (selvanathan et al., 2020; almendingen et al., 2021; eidan et al., 2021). these two different polarities of experiences depend largely on the variables influencing the online teaching and learning processes in the institutions/environments. appropriate changes in education systems involve effective manipulations of the variables influencing teaching/learning processes. studies are required to describe vividly the variables to be sustained and the ones to be discarded to achieve positive changes in education (especially higher education) from the covid-19 induced online teaching and learning. hence this study was undertaken to explore the variables which enhanced or limited the success of the covid-19 induced online teaching as experienced by students from their lecturers’ viewpoint and perspectives. the students’ involvement, challenges and readiness in the online teaching were some of the factors explored. a follow-up study: the covid-19 induced online teaching experience in the college of education, agbor. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 61 published by scholink inc. this is a follow-up study of the online teaching in the college of education, agbor, delta state, nigeria, during the covid-19 lockdown in 2020 (egede, 2021). in december 2019, the novel coronavirus disease was reported in wuhan (in china). its spread was so rapid that on 30th january 2020, the world health organization (who) declared it a public health emergency of international concern and named it covid-19 on 11th february 2020 (who, 2020). in a quick succession, who declared it a global pandemic on 11th march 2020, as it claimed many lives in many nations within months (who, 2020). this adversely affected all systems of human endeavor in the world, including education, as the covid-19 spread resiliently against all surveillance, checks and restrictions imposed globally. the covid-19 virus was first reported in nigeria on the 27th of february 2020 from a traveler who came from italy (amzat et al., 2020). it was during the first semester of the 2019/2020 session, close to the period of examinations of courses taught. the institutions in nigeria were alerted on imminent lockdown as the covid-19 spread geometrically with deadly casualties. the examinations in the college of education, agbor, were quickly concluded in preparation for the lockdown which had been imposed by both federal and delta state governments (ahon, 2020) to start from 1st april 2020. on april 2nd, the minister of education in nigeria met with 237 vice chancellors, rectors and provosts of tertiary institutions and directed them to commence lectures online during the lockdown (adepetun & lawal, 2020). however, the lockdown placed restrictions which affected communication and effective planning of online teaching in some institutions until june 2020 when the federal government eased the lockdown, and movements into the campuses by staff could be made while observing the non-pharmaceutical precautions against covid-19 (royal, 2020). in this second phase of the federal government’s ease of lockdown, the college of education, agbor, organized the training of lecturers to teach online, while the students were still at home due to the lockdown, and were not expected to resume on-campus yet. the first study explained the details of the training of the lecturers for the online teaching (egede, 2021). since the students were not on campus, they were contacted through their various coordinators, and required to form whatsapp groups and liaise with their various lecturers to plan and start the online teaching for the second semester of the 2019/2020 session in july 2020. this situation portrayed an emergency measure to deliver education, as seen globally and in many nations (wu, 2021), and has been referred to as “emergency remote education” while we referred to it specifically as “covid-19 induced online teaching” in this study. this follow-up study focused on the students’ factors as experienced by the lecturers who were trained to persuade the students (who have been learning through the face-to-face mode), to learn online from their homes. the lecturers were the subjects of the study from whom data was collected because they were in direct communication with their students during/after the online teaching and could give valid information on their students’ experiences/reactions as they were being taught. the online teaching lasted from july to the end of september in 2020, after which schools resumed fully following further ease of the lockdown, for the students to do their examinations in-campus. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 62 published by scholink inc. 1.1 the global experience of the emergency remote teaching the technologies employed: the move to online teaching as the education response to covid-19 by nations of the world involved the use of every available and relevant technology. technologies such as learning management systems (lms), course management systems, collaborative tools, social media, media production tools including radio and television broadcasting were used according to the level of technological advancement of nations (world bank, 2020). digital technologies geared towards education users were offered by tech companies in very flexible and affordable (and free) varieties to facilitate remote teaching and learning during the lockdown periods. some of the specific provisions are lms (e.g., moodle, canvas); video-conferencing tools (e.g., facebook rooms, google meet, microsoft teams); online collaboration tools (e.g., miro, mural); project management software (e.g., trello, teams, slack); assessment tools (e.g., respondus); messaging platforms (e.g., whatsapp, discord, email, sms); social network sites (e.g., facebook rooms, telegram); massive open online course (mooc) platforms (e.g., coursera, edx); and education sites (e.g., google for education) (naffi, 2020). selecting from these technologies is a huge challenge/responsibility for nations, institutions, and educators, in the emergency remote teaching period. emergency remote teaching has been described as a temporary shift of instructional delivery to alternate modes due to crisis circumstances involving the use of fully remote teaching solutions, for education that would otherwise be delivered face-to-face or as a blended course (hodges et al., 2020). therefore, it is different from usual online teaching which is purposely designed using online design principles and fitting technology. the crisis in this case is the covid-19 pandemic, and the teaching solution employed was mainly ‘induced’ online or virtual mode of teaching involving the use of technologies by teachers and learners, which to a large extent determined its success in any place. the universities and higher institutions which have online platforms prior to covid-19 for all their courses quickly adjusted to using them during the lockdown. technologically advanced countries which have the required infrastructure for online teaching on ground adjusted to the online teaching mode for their schools in shorter periods. china (where the covid-19 pandemic originated) started the new semester in both primary and secondary schools online on february 9, 2020, and embarked on what has been described as the largest simultaneous online learning exercise in human history (world bank, 2020). the world bank report showed that china launched an initiative “ensuring learning undisrupted when classes are disrupted”, mobilizing all stakeholders including telecom providers to effect the shift to online teaching. there was massive government assistance to higher institutions for transition to online, remote and distance delivery mode. on february 9, 2020, the chinese ministry of education (moe) issued the “guidance on the organization and management of online teaching and learning in regular higher education institutions (hei)”. all heis were requested to select from 22 recommended online platforms in china which can provide 24000 higher education courses free (australian government, 2020). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 63 published by scholink inc. the centers of teaching and learning (ctls) supported the online delivery of courses in some of the universities in developed countries such as canada, usa, lebanon, uk, and france. as noted by naffi, (2020), the ctls, influenced by their previous experiences of supporting usual online teaching, provided training for lecturers who were only used to face-to-face (f2f) mode of teaching, designed online courses with lecturers, moved courses to online formats in addition to helping students purchase laptops from funds raised for them. both lecturers and students were empowered to adopt usual online teaching/learning technologies for the remote teaching in these cases and similar ones. however, studies showed the use of variety of tech tools in institutions in other nations. for example, zoom, microsoft teams, and whatsapp (in communicating messages to students outside the virtual classrooms) were used in jordan (almahasees et al., 2021); moodle was used in australian higher institutions (world bank, 2020). universities in russia launched “uni at home” on instagram and used the ministry of education youtube-channel to launch “keep learning, keep teaching” (world bank, 2020), while israel used lms, course websites and other digital tools (cohen & davidovitch, 2020). adjusting to the use of technology in developing nations was not very easy. developing countries in sub-saharan africa was marked by situations where 90% of people had no computers at home, more than 80% lacked internet access while approximately 56 million people live in areas with no mobile networks (un, 2020). in higher institutions, some lecturers are not efficient in using tools like slides, whiteboards, digital pen, touchpad, tripod screensharing, google classroom, zoom and similar apps (toufique, 2020). even with these difficulties, african countries like nigeria, namibia, kenya, and zambia developed coping policies which enabled the use of multi-modal approach, implementing remote teaching solutions using variety of channels and delivery systems such as radio, t.v, social media apps and online devices (barron rodriguez et al., 2021). in nigeria, the federal and state governments organized the remote teaching and learning through the ministries of education at the primary and secondary school levels for public schools using a variety of delivery systems (oyeniran & oyeniran, 2020) while the tertiary institutions were independent in choosing their respective digital platforms. studies revealed that higher institutions in nigeria used sms, emails, whatsapp messaging, zoom, telegram, youtube, google teams, google classroom, and some universities’ e-learning platforms (e.g., canvas) (iseolorunkanmi et al., 2021; olasunkanmi, 2020; idegbekwe, 2019; oliomogbe, 2020; egielewa, 2020). various tertiary institutions used these tools in variety of combinations depending on their prior virtual and infrastructural orientations (iseolorunkanmi et al., 2020). consequently, management of tertiary institutions had to create awareness and involvement of lecturers and students (the primary users) in choosing a convenient remote teaching platform to achieve success in line with planning for emergency shift to online teaching (richards & valentine, 2020). in the college of education, agbor, used for this study, lecturers were given orientation on how to use zoom and other familiar online social media platforms (e.g., whatsapp) to deliver remote teaching online (egede, 2021). as a follow-up, this study investigated the actual platforms the lecturers used as chosen by their students. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 64 published by scholink inc. students’ factors/experiences: students’ factors are the experiences of students which overtly influenced the online teaching by the lecturers. students’ experiences followed the same divide between technologically advanced nations and those nations that are not technologically advanced as in the type of platforms used for the emergency online remote teaching during the covid-19 lockdown. as summarized by weforum (2020), students’ experiences, especially with internet access and/or required technology gadgets varied across countries with respect to development, and within countries with respect to family income brackets. this trend was not different in china, with a historical massive and quick shift to emergency online remote teaching for all levels of education. studies showed that college students from disadvantaged family backgrounds (i.e., below-college parental education, below-average family economic income and rural residence) were prone to have an unsupportive attitude towards online courses (zhang & liu, 2021); and students also experienced initial problems of irregular mobile signals, lack of opportunities for constructive interaction, some degree of rote delivery of lessons and poor feedback (wang & gao, 2021). lockdown imposed some level of financial difficulties which made students from low socio-economic backgrounds unable to take the online courses fully due to lack of computer/laptop and smartphones, energy, and unconducive home environments (wang & gao, 2021). these are in addition to variety of challenges and psychological distresses, risk management imposed by travel bans, and quarantine/self-isolation experienced by international higher education students which disrupted personal continual online learning (peters et al., 2020). all through higher institutions in the united states of america (usa), there were recorded disproportionate access to online teaching experienced by students from various races and low-income backgrounds and by students with disabilities (department of education (usa), 2021). in russia, higher education students were used to online teaching prior to the covid-19 pandemic, but some of them expressed the challenge of missing usual physical interactions with fellow students during the emergency remote teaching (craig, 2021). one of the challenging student factors identified by some lecturers in russia was a lack of readiness to embrace the emergency online remote teaching (almazova et al., 2020). students were used to online teaching prior to covid-19 lockdown period in germany and studies showed that they had access to both technological devices and network for the ert (zawack-ritcher, 2020). students of efl faced problems related to technical, academic and communication challenges in saudi arabia and were dissatisfied with the online learning due to their poor performance (mahyoob, 2020). in the same vein, most students felt dissatisfied with their experience of the ert because its effectiveness was adversely affected by household income level, it literacy and lack of social presence as found in a study in hong kong (mok et al., 2021). although students identified flexibility and convenience as benefits of the ert, a study in jordan showed that they also experienced challenges adapting quickly to the online teaching, technical and internet issues, data privacy and security, lack of interaction/motivation, and disadvantage for the deaf and hard of hearing (almahasees et al., 2021). zhang (2020) reported experience of congestions created by the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 65 published by scholink inc. sudden and steep increase in the use of online platforms that were not initially prepared for the extensive use in israel. in taiwan, wu (2020) found that students’ familiarity with digital platforms and software/hardware assistance provided by the school’s information center helped to prepare them for the ert. gamut of research findings showed profound variability of higher education students’ experiences with the ert, as expected, due to differences in technological capabilities of nations. as an example, students from switzerland, norway, and austria where 95% have computers cannot have similar experience with those from indonesia where 34% have computers according to oecd (2018). a study on the ert in nigeria showed that students were not satisfied with the virtual learning in many higher institutions, due to poor internet infrastructure and lack of electricity (egielewa et al., 2021). their very low acceptance of the online learning and preference for f2f mode made the researcher, egielewa (2021) to recommend that the higher institutions should return to f2f as soon as the pandemic is over, and that the internet and power grid should be overhauled nationwide. specifically, adepetu and lawal (2020) described the ert in public universities in nigeria as a failure due to inadequate infrastructure, lack of expertise, epileptic power supply, erratic internet network and high poverty-level of many students. a researcher described the experience of the ert by nigerian university students as simply “painful” (olasunkanmi, 2020). although, olasunkanmi (2020) used students from a private university where the lecturers went the extra mile to deliver lectures through a variety of online platforms, their efforts were countered by erratic power supply, internet network fluctuations, distractions from the neighborhood of students’ residences and high data consumption. in these studies (egielewa et al., 2021; olasunkanmi, 2020), data was collected from students but in this study, data is collected from the lecturers whose teachings were affected by their students’ experiences in the covid-19 ert. 1.2 theoretical background teaching is a complex activity which involves the interactions between the teachers and learners, among others, irrespective of the mode of delivery. according to wright (2015), the principle of student-teacher interactions in online learning environment provides successful strategies and procedures for developing policies to bring about an awareness of practices that enhance online learning. student-teacher interactions could also portray strategies, procedures or situations which could hinder learning in any mode. this principle is employed in this study to assess the lecturers’ perspectives on the factors emanating from their interactions with their students which affected their online teaching adversely or otherwise. in higher education, student-teacher interactions have been found to be strongly linked to learning, classroom management and student absenteeism. hence tormey (2021) developed a theoretical model showing three dimensions of student-teacher interactions: affection/warmth, attachment/safety, and assertion/power in higher education. the principle employed in this study to collect data corresponds to the dimension of affection and warmth, in which a teacher expresses friendliness, care, warmth, positivity and compassion towards their students. this dimension is considered very essential and core in the context of the ert which requires teachers to encourage www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 66 published by scholink inc. their students to overcome the challenges of the sudden change in the mode of teaching. therefore, it is expected that the lecturers in this study, from their viewpoint in the context of ert, should validly identify students’ factors (experiences and actions) which affected their online teaching. some of the key factors which were prevalent in the study environment, choice of online teaching technology, access to network/internet, personal ownership of learning devices (computers, laptops, and smartphones), possession of ict skills, disposition towards ert and preparedness for online teaching are surveyed. 1.3 research questions the following research questions guided the study. 1) what are the online tools chosen by the students for the ert? 2) what were the students’ experiences regarding the following areas of common challenge during the ert? i. access to stable network/internet in their residences ii. access to sufficient data iii. possession of hardware (computers, laptops, and smartphones) iv. possession of requisite basic ict skills 3) to what extent were the students prepared for the online teaching? 4) what is the general disposition of the students to the online ert? 5) did the online ert provide significant academic engagement of the students during the lockdown? 6) are there significant influence of the lecturers’ gender and teaching subject on their perspectives 2. methodology 2.1 research design a quantitative descriptive survey was used for this study. this design is suitable for obtaining the perspectives of lecturers about the experiences of their students which had already occurred without any manipulation by the researchers (martyn, 2008). 2.2 population, sample and sampling procedure all the lecturers in the college of education (now upgraded to the university of delta) formed the population for the study. the common characteristics of interest shared by the 240 lecturers is that they were all required to teach online during the emergency remote teaching period. this number of lecturers is not too large, and they are reachable, hence the total population sampling (stephanie, 2018) is used to include all of them as the sample. 2.3 instrument in step with the research design, a quantitative questionnaire on the online emergency remote teaching (qoert) was constructed to obtain specific information from the respondents, with answers that can www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 67 published by scholink inc. be converted to numerical values (hartland, 2021). qoert has 15 items made up of two sections a and b. section a is made up of questions on ‘split’ variables of gender and teaching subject, while section b consists of questions with dichotomous response scale. the dichotomous response scale is appropriate in this study since the evidence of the students’ factors can clearly be observed by the teachers (descastellarnau, 2017), as they affected their teaching. before usage the questionnaire was revised based on the comments made on the items by a specialist in measurement and evaluation. the value of the cronbach’s alpha for qoert is 0.82 which is considered good for it to be used for this survey (kolassa, 2016; goforth, 2015). 2.4 data collection the questionnaires were administered in person to the lecturers on campus and retrieved from them after completion. two hundred and twenty-five (225 or 94%) of the total 240 lecturers completed and returned the questionnaire in usable form. 2.5 analysis of data the data from the questionnaire responses were analyzed using spss 23.0 to obtain frequency counts, percentages, weighted means, chi-square values and standard error. in addition, the results were presented pictorially using simple and clustered bar charts. the use and interpretation of likert scale values presented by jonald (2019) were adapted in this analysis, as shown in table 1. the influence of gender and teaching subjects were obtained using nonparametric tests, mann-whitney-u and kruskal-wallis tests and cross-tabulation of frequency counts. 3. results 3.1 demographic details there are six schools in the college of education, agbor (now upgraded to the university of delta): education, early childhood and care education, sciences, arts and social sciences, vocational and technical education and languages. the 27 departments in these schools were grouped into three in this study with respect to the degree to which information and communication technology (ict) was used in their various departments. the three groups consist of art and language—35 (e.g., french, english language, theatre arts …), vocational and social science—100 (e.g., business education, agricultural science, economics …), and sciences—40 (e.g., physics, mathematics, computer science …). the proportions of females and males for the total of 225 were 63 and 162 respectively. in some of the questionnaires there were missing values for some variables but in most cases, they did not exceed 5, from the results of the analysis. it was noted that some (55) of the lecturers did not fill in their departments while they filled their gender and is accounted as minor error as it did not affect the other core variables for the study. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 68 published by scholink inc. table 1. interpretation of the weighted means in the 2-point scale likert scale value meaning interval difference interpretation/description 1 disagree 1.00 – 1.53 0.53 not observed 2 agree 1.54 – 2.00 0.47 observed adapted from jonald (2019) table 2. means and standard errors for the choice of online teaching platforms by students s/n students chose: mean (m) s.e. interpretation/description 1 zoom (synchronous meeting) 1.133 0.022 not observed 2 whatsapp chats/texts 1.800 0.027 observed 3 whatsapp voice messages 1.778 0.028 observed 4 whatsapp video messages 1.533 0.033 not observed 5 sms 1.444 0.033 not observed 6 email 1.444 0.033 not observed n = 225 table 3. chi-square goodness-of-fit test for the students’ choice of online teaching platforms s/n online teaching platform frequency count agree (n) % frequency count disagree (n) % x2 df sig 1 zoom 30 13 195 87 121.0 1 0.000* 2 whatsapp chats 180 80 45 20 81.0 1 0.000* 3 whatsapp voice messages 175 78 50 22 69.4 1 0.000* 4 whatsapp video messages 120 53 105 47 1.0 1 0.317 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 69 published by scholink inc. 5 sms 100 44 125 56 2.8 1 0.096 6 email 100 44 125 56 2.8 1 0.096 n = 225, * significant at 0.05 level figure 1. simple bar charts showing the results for the lecturers’ ratings of the choice of online teaching platforms by their students 3.2 students’ choice of online platform/tools table 2 shows that on the average, the students did not choose zoom app (m = 1.113 < 1.53); whatsapp video message (m = 1.53 = 1.53); both sms and email (m = 1.44 < 1.53). the lecturers’ rating showed that on the average, the students chose the whatsapp text/chat and voice messaging tools (m = 1.80 > 1.53; m = 1.78 > 1.53) respectively (see table 2). table 3 shows that the proportion of lecturers who observed that their students did not choose the zoom platform were significantly higher than that of those who reported that their students chose it (x2(1, n = 225) = 121.0, p = 0.000 < 0.05). in the same vein, the proportions of lecturers who observed that their students chose whatsapp text/chat and voice messaging were significantly higher than that of those whose students did not choose them (x2(1, n = 225) = 81.0, p = 0.000 < 0.05, and x2(1, n = 225) = 69.4; p = 0.000 < 0.05 respectively). the chi-square test of goodness-of-fit showed that the proportions of observations for the choice of whatsapp video messaging, sms and email were not statistically different (x2(1, n = 225) = 1.0; p = 0.317 > 0.05; x2(1, n = 225) = 2.8, p = 0.096 > 0.05 respectively). generally, the results indicated that majority of the students did not choose the synchronous zoom platform, but rather chose the whatsapp chat/text and voice messaging for the online ert. in addition, some of them chose the whatsapp video, sms, and email, but the proportions were not significant enough to conclude that the platforms were generally chosen by students. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 70 published by scholink inc. 3.3 students’ factors/experiences which affected the online ert table 4. means and standard errors for student factors observed during emergency remote teaching s/n students: mean (m) std. error description/interpretation 1 are unable to buy enough data 1.974 0.011 observed 2 lack ict skills 1.825 0.027 observed 3 lack computer/smartphones 1.878 0.023 observed 4 have unstable/unavailable network 1.974 0.014 observed 5 are not prepared for ert 1.954 0.014 observed 6 did not embrace ert 1.881 0.022 observed 7 were engaged by ert 1.800 0.028 observed n = 225 table 5. chi-square goodness-of-fit test for the students’ factors observed during the online ert s/n students’ factor/experience observed freq. count agree % freq. count disagree % x2 df sig 1 inability to buy enough data 190 97.0 5 3.0 175.5 1 0.000* 2 lack of ict skills 165 82.5 35 17.5 84.5 1 0.000* 3 no possession of computer/laptop/smartphones 180 88.0 25 12.0 117.2 1 0.000* 4 unstable/unavailable internet/network 190 97.0 5 3.0 175.5 1 0.000* 5 not prepared adequately for online ert 205 98.0 10 2.0 176.7 1 0.000* 6 did not embrace the online ert 185 88.0 25 12.0 121.9 1 0.000* 7 were engaged by ert during lockdown 160 80.0 40 20.0 72.0 1 0.000* n = 225, * significant at 0.05 level www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 71 published by scholink inc. figure 2. bar charts showing the results for the students’ factors/experiences from the analysis, the were observed by the lecturers as significant factors which affected their online ert during the lockdown (see tables 4 and 5). i. students’ inability to buy enough data (x2(1, n = 225) = 175.5, p = 0.000 < 0.05) ii. students’ lack of ict skills (x2(1, n = 225) = 84.5, p = 0.000 < 0.05) iii. students’ lack of possession of computers/laptops and smart phones (x2(1, n = 225) = 117.2, p = 0.000 < 0.05) iv. students’ experience of unstable/unavailable internet/network (x2(1, n = 225) = 175.5, p = 0.000 < 0.05) v. students’ unpreparedness for the online teaching (x2(1, n = 225) = 176.7, p = 0.000 < 0.05) vi. students’ negative disposition for the online teaching (x2(1, n = 225) = 121.9, p = 0.000 < 0.05) vii. students’ engagement by the online teaching (x2(1, n = 225) = 72.0, p = 0.000 < 0.05). the significant general perspectives of the lecturers on these factors are pictorially shown in the simple bar charts in figure 2. while the first six factors were “clogs in the wheels” of progress for the online teaching, the seventh one helped in keeping it going, since it provided engagement for the otherwise idle students in their residences. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 72 published by scholink inc. table 6. mann-whitney u test and chi-square test of independence for the influence of gender on students’ choice of online platforms s/n measures zoom whatsapp chat whatsapp voice whatsapp video sms email 1 mean value for females (n = 63) 1.18 1.76 1.88 1.59 1.52 1.52 2 mean value for males (n = 162) 1.07 1.81 1.70 1.48 1.37 1.37 3 u 5150.0 5450.0 4712.0 5125.0 4825 4825 4 z -2.325 -0.895 -3.072 -1.540 -2.314 -2.314 5 sig. 0.020* 0.371 0.002* 0.124 0.021* 0.021* 6 chi-square x2 5.430 0.805 9.479 2.383 5.377 5.377 7 df 1 1 1 1 1 1 8 sig. 0.020* 0.370 0.002* 0.123 0.020* 0.020* 9 phi coefficient -0.157 0.060 -0.208 -0.104 -0.156 -0.156 10 sig. 0.020* 0.370 0.002* 0.123 0.020* 0.020* n = 225, * significant at 0.05 level table 7. mann-whitney test and chi-square test of independence for the influence of gender on students’ factors observed by lecturers s/n measures no data lack ict skills no smartphones no network/inte rnet apathy for ert not prepared engaged students 1 mean for females (n = 63) 2.00 1.90 2.00 2.00 1.88 1.94 1.86 2 mean for males (n = 162) 1.99 1.80 1.80 1.96 1.88 1.96 1.80 3 mann-whitne 4025.0 3675.0 3750.0 3900.0 4975.0 5075.0 4125.0 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 73 published by scholink inc. y u 4 z -1.726 -3.237 -4.130 -1.630 -0.125 -0.795 -0.995 5 sig. 0.084 0.001* 0.000* 0.103 0.915 0.428 0.320 6 chi-square x2 2.995 10.533 17.143 2.670 0.011 0.631 0.995 7 df 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 8 sig. 0.083 0.001* 0.000* 0.102 0.915 0.427 0.319 9 phi-coefficient -0.126 -0.232 -0.293 -0.119 -0.007 0.055 -0.071 10 sig. 0.083 0.001* 0.000* 0.103 0.915 0.428 0.320 n = 225, * significant at 0.05 level figure 3. 3-d clustered bar charts showing the influence of gender on the students’ choice of online teaching platforms www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 74 published by scholink inc. 3.4 the influence of the gender of the lecturers on their perspectives 3.4.1 students’ choice of online platform there is no difference in the directions of the perspectives of the female and male lecturers about their students’ choice of online platforms except the whatsapp video messaging (see table 6). although m = 1.59 > 1.53 for females while m = 1.48 < 1.54 for males, but the difference is not statistically significant (mann-whitney u = 5125, z = -1.540, p = 0.124 > 0.05), for the choice of whatsapp video. the chi-square measure of association ((x2 (1,225) = 2.383, p = 0.123 > 0.05) is not statistically significant. in the other four platforms the ratings of the females and males were statistically significant but in the same directions of observation (see table 1). i. for zoom, females’ mean ratings (m = 1.18) is greater than males’ mean rating (m = 1.07); u = 5150, z = -2.325, p = 0.020 < 0.05. ii. for whatsapp voice, females’ mean rating (m = 1.88) is greater than the males’ mean rating (m = 1.70); u = 4712, z = -3.072, p = 0.002 < 0.05 iii. for both sms and email, the females’ mean rating (m = 1.52) is greater than the males’ mean rating (m = 1.37); u = 4825, z = -2.314, p = 0.02 < 0.05 iv. for whatsapp chat, there is no significant difference between the females’ mean rating (m = 1.76) and the males’ mean rating (m = 1.81); u = 5450, z = -0.895, p = 0.370 > 0.05. hence the results in table 6 showed that there is no influence of gender in the students’ choice of online teaching platforms surveyed. the patterns of their choice for the male and female lecturers are like the general pattern as shown in figure 1 and to each other as shown in figure 3. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 75 published by scholink inc. figure 4. 3-d clustered bar charts showing the influence of gender of lecturers on the students’ factors/experiences 3.4.2 students’ factors/experiences the higher females’ mean ratings for students’ lack of ict skill (m = 1.90) and lack of possession of smart phones (m = 2.00) are significantly different from that of the males: (m = 1.80) and (m = 1.80), u = 3675, z = -3.237, p = 0.001 < 0.05; u = 3750, z = -4.130, p = 0.000 < 0.05 respectively (see table 7). however, they are in the same direction of observation (see table 1). the respective pairs of mean ratings for the females and males for the other factors: no data (2.00, 1.99); no network/internet access (2.00,1.96); apathy for ert (1.88, 1.88); not prepared (1.94, 1.96) and engaged students (1.86, 1.80) are not statistically different, as shown in the following values (see table 7). i. for ‘no data’, u = 4025, z = -1.726, p = 0.084 > 0.05 ii. for ‘no network/internet’, u = 3900, z = -1.630, p = 0.103 > 0.05 iii. for ‘not prepared’, u = 5075, z = -0.795, p = 0.428 > 0.05 iv. for ‘apathy for ert’, u = 4975, z = -0.125, p = 0.915 > 0.05 v. for ‘engaged students’, u = 4125, z = -0.995, p = 0.320 > 0.05. the results also showed that the perspectives of the lecturers about the students’ factors surveyed in this study were not influenced by their gender. the clustered bar charts in figures 1 and 3 showed that the patterns of the perspectives of the females and males (figure 3) are like that in figure 1 for the overall sample. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 76 published by scholink inc. table 8. kruskal wallis test and chi-square test of independence for the influence of teaching subjects on students’ choice of online teaching platforms s/n measures zoom whatsapp chat whatsapp voice whatsapp video sms email 1 mean (m) for art/language subjects 1.0 2.0 1.9 1.4 1.4 1.4 2 mean (m) for social science /voc. subjects 1.2 1.9 1.8 1.5 1.4 1.4 3 mean (m) for science subjects 1.1 1.6 1.6 1.6 1.2 1.2 4 h-statistics 8.555 24.995 6.747 9.444 3.346 3.346 5 df 2 2 2 2 2 2 6 sig. 0.014* 0.000* 0.034* 0.009* 0.188 0.188 7 pearson chi-square x2 8.604 24.938 6.785 9.498 3.365 3.365 8 sig. 0.014* 0.000* 0.034* 0.009* 0.186 0.186 9 phi-coefficients 0.222 0.377 0.197 0.233 0.139 0.139 10 sig. 0.014* 0.000* 0.034* 0.009* 0.186 0.186 n = 175, * significant at 0.05 level table 9. kruskal wallis test and chi-square tests of independence for the influence of lecturers’ teaching subjects s/n measures no data lack ict skills no smartphone s/laptops no network/i nternet access apathy for ert not prepared engaged students 1 mean (m) for art/language subjects (n = 35) 2.00 2.00 2.00 2.00 2.00 2.00 1.90 2 mean (m) for social science /voc. subjects (n =100) 1.90 1.90 1.80 1.90 1.80 1.90 1.90 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 77 published by scholink inc. 3 mean (m) for science subjects (n = 40) 2.00 1.60 1.90 2.00 1.90 2.00 1.7 4 h-statistics 4.179 22.931 11.059 4.179 7.015 3.989 4.683 5 df 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 6 sig 0.124 0.010* 0.004* 0.124 0.030* 0.136 0.096 7 pearson chi-square x2 4.208 23.090 11.143 4.208 7.059 4.104 4.714 8 sig 0.122 0.000* 0.004* 0.122 0.029* 0.134 0.095 9 phi-coefficients 0.170 0.299 0.273 0.170 0.210 0.154 0.177 10 sig. 0.122 0.010* 0.004* 0.124 0.030* 0.136 0.096 n = 175, * significant at 0.05 level. figure 5. 3-d clustered bar charts showing the influence of lecturers’ teaching subjects on students’ choice of online platforms www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 78 published by scholink inc. 3.5 the influence of lecturers’ teaching subjects on their perspectives 3.5.1students’ choice of online teaching platform the mean ratings of the lecturers in the three groups of their teaching subject areas are in the same direction of observation (see table 1) except in the students’ choice of whatsapp video which had higher significant value for the sciences (h (2) = 9.444, p = 0.009 < 0.05) as seen in table 8. hence the lecturers’ perspective about their students’ choice of whatsapp video messaging was significantly influenced by the lecturers’ teaching subject with only that of the science teaching subjects falling into the ‘observed’ category, 1.60 > 1.53 (see table 1). for the zoom app, the whatsapp chat and voice messaging, the significant differences obtained (h (2) = 8.555, p = 0.014 < 0.05; h (2) = 24.995, p = 0.000 < 0.05; h (2) = 6.747, p = 0.034 < 0.05) respectively indicate only the variation in the level of their perspectives within the same category: ‘not observed’ for zoom; and ‘observed’ for chat and voice messaging. for the sms and email, there is no significant figure 6. 3-d clustered bar charts showing the influence of teaching subjects on the lecturers’ perspectives on students’ factors/experiences. difference in the lecturers’ ratings across the teaching subjects (h (2) = 3.346, p = 0.186 > 0.05) in both cases. hence, there is no influence of the lecturers teaching subject on their perspectives about their students’ choice of online teaching platforms except on the whatsapp video messaging. the patterns of their perspectives shown pictorially in figure 5 shows similarity for the various teaching subjects as it is in the overall sample in figure 2. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 79 published by scholink inc. figure 6. 3-d clustered bar charts showing the influence of teaching subjects on the lecturers’ perspectives on student factors/experiences. 3.5.2 students’ factors/experiences during the online ert the results showed that there is significant association between the lecturers’ teaching subjects and their perspectives about the students’ lack of ict skills, inability to possess smart phones/laptops and apathy for ert (h (2) = 22.931, p = 0.000; h (2) = 11.089, p = 0.004; h (2) = 7.015, p = 0.030) respectively. however, the mean ratings are also in the same direction of ’observed’ (see tables 8 and 1). the highest level of significance (p = 0.000) was obtained for the perspective about students’ lack of ict skills which attracted the lowest rating from lecturers in the science teaching subjects (1.6) as against (2.0 and 1.9) for the other two groups. this marked difference is also seen pictorially in figure 6 showing the differences in the patterns in the clustered bar charts. there is no significant association between the lecturers’ teaching subjects and their perspectives about the students’ inability to buy enough data, to access internet/network, unpreparedness for the ert and that the ert engaged the students (h (2) = 4.179, p = 0.124; h (2) = 4.179, p = 0.124; h (2) = 3.989, p = 0.136 and h (2) = 4.683, p = 0.096 respectively). generally, the teaching subjects had no significant influence on the lecturers’ perspectives about all the student factors/experiences except in their levels of strength of observation. the lecturers from science subjects seemed to hold perspectives on the students’ lack of ict skills less than those from other subject areas. lecturers from the art/language areas seemed to hold highest perspectives about the students’ factors/experiences surveyed in this study (see figure 6 also). 4. discussion the results suggest that the students did not choose the zoom app which enables synchronous online teaching. this perspective of the lecturers portrayed reality since their students have never used zoom app prior to ert and were not prepared to use it as the lecturers were prepared (egede, 2021). this www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 80 published by scholink inc. result is contrary to that of amuda and ajani (2021) which established that the use of zoom application for online presentation was prominent among researchers in nigerian library school, and that of okeji and alex-nmecha (2021) which showed that zoom was used by lecturers in the department of library and information science (lis) of some nigerian universities. but it corroborates those of egielewa (2020) who found that unlike the universities, colleges of education in nigeria did not use zoom during the lockdown, in addition to those of abba (2021) and olasunkanmi (2020) whose results suggest that students found the use of zoom difficult. whatsapp chat and voice messaging had been in popular use in higher institutions in nigeria prior to the covid-19 pandemic period. students already had whatsapp groups in their various departments and were required to form similar groups for the various courses for the online teaching. this accounts for the popular choice of these platforms as found in this study. this result is in line with those of iseolorunkanmi et al. (2021), that whatsapp was used in nigerian universities for ert, and the previous study (egede, 2021) which showed that lecturers perceived that they could use it to teach online during the lockdown. sms was not a popular choice as found in this study probably due to its shortcomings (idegbekwe, 2019) but it was chosen by some students in addition to email, since they used them to send information to students during the lockdown. that whatsapp video messaging was not a popular choice is real since it takes more data to watch video and students’ experiences showed that they couldn’t buy enough data as required by the ert. the findings on the students’ experiences portrayed a profound reality typical of the situation with developing nations during the period (toufique, 2021). the lecturers observed the unpreparedness of their students for the ert with the same intensity across gender and teaching subject areas. this situation was observed in several studies concerning the ert (almahasees et al., 2021) but some quickly overcame it due to their already existing it infrastructure (zawack-ritcher, 2020). the results further suggest that generally, the students did not possess the required devices, such as smart phones/laptops/personal computers. those who have them were hindered by inability to buy enough data, and unstable/unavailable internet and network access. hence, they had apathy for the ert due to frustrations they experienced. this finding is corroborated by those of mayhoob, (2020) and mok et al., (2021) from other countries, and the findings of egielewa, (2021), adepetu and lawal, (2020) and olasunkanmi, 2020 in nigeria. this is contrary to the findings that students adjusted quickly to ert in countries which had been teaching online prior to the pandemic and had infrastructural it on ground (naffi (2020), wu (2021), oecd (2018) and zawack-ritcher, (2020)). similar results were found only among the rural community students and disadvantaged groups in developed nations (zhang & liu, 2021; wang & gao, 2021; department of education (usa), 2021; almazova et al., 2020). in some cases of developed nations, the students’ challenge was more of inconveniences at home and loss of interactions with fellow students (craig, 2021) as against real access to ert experienced by students of this study. as stated earlier (oecd, 2018), these results portray the usual influence of level of technological development in achieving digital learning. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 81 published by scholink inc. however, the results suggest that the ert helped to engage the students during the period. there was observed sensitization that online ert was going on, manifest interactions between students and teachers. students and students due to the ert which maintained an atmosphere of engagement despite the challenges. the results of this study suggest also that there was no profound influence of gender on the lecturers’ perspectives about the online ert platform chosen by their students and their students’ experiences. this corroborates those of egede (2021) and further enhances the validity of the findings. furthermore, there is no profound influence of the lecturers’ teaching subject areas on their perspectives about their students’ choice of online ert platform as in the case of gender. but in the case of students’ experiences, lecturers from the core science departments seem to be less perceptive of their students’ lack of ict skills. this is expected since the students of computer science education, physics and mathematics who make use of computer more than those from art and languages cannot be observed as lacking ict skills. this also portrays the validity of these results and indicates the necessity of using online teaching platforms in institutions which cater for the differences in the ict-skills dispositions/potentials and courses of students. the result is in line with that of mahyoob (2020) which showed that higher education students of english as a foreign language (efl) faced more ict technical challenges, and those of muthuprasad (2021) and godber and atkins (2021), whose results showed the influence of practically oriented courses on students’ experiences of ert. the students’ choices of whatsapp chat and voice messaging connote a leaning on material-based approach to online teaching (rapanta et al., 2020), which requires students to access learning materials. at times, these materials were uploaded to the students in such a way that much data is required to download them, and the indigent students are put at a disadvantage. the lead author had the experience of sending money for data to a student who was very regular in participating in the online teaching and suddenly dropped-off when data demand became high. unlike in developed nations like israel, where the lecturers’ emotions to ert were that of success and opportunity (meishar-tal & levenberge, 2021), the students’ adverse experiences induced stressful and insurmountable challenges to lecturers like the ones faced by students and lecturers in the study of peters et al. (2020). the overriding result suggests that the students did not embrace the online ert as it wobbled, with students’ and lecturers’ participation declining (from experience) to the end of the period. the students came back on campus after the lockdown and the lecturers taught the courses all over again in the f2f mode. 5. implications/recommendations the results of this study have implications for policymakers, researchers, educators, and all stakeholders in higher institutions. the following can be learnt from the results of this study. 1) the students were able to choose the familiar social media platforms for the online ert which implies that they could have chosen other more effective platforms if they could use them. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 82 published by scholink inc.  the curriculum of colleges of education in nigeria (the nce minimum standards) should be reviewed urgently, embedding online learning modalities in their programs, to equip students digitally.  colleges of education, especially public ones, should adopt learning management systems (lms) suitable for their respective programs. 2) the students cannot engage in online learning if they don’t have the required hardware devices or are unable to purchase enough data.  it should be a requirement for every student of higher education to be supplied with these gadgets by their sponsors. 3) the usual problems in developing countries such as lack of internet/network access and stable power supply stand against the experience of successful online teaching/learning.  since other covid-19 variants such as the delta and omicron are still spreading around some countries, policymakers should consider fixing these problems urgently to save the future of education in developing nations. 4) covid-19 pandemic has sensitized all stakeholders in the education industry on the power/advantages of distance/virtual/online teaching and learning in emergency and normal situations. as many researchers have recommended, it is evident that these advantages should be harnessed in the present global technological/digital age. at least, the pandemic made all institutions to attempt using online ert.  researchers should continue to study and unravel every challenge and possible solutions to successful breakthrough in online teaching/learning especially in developing countries. 6. strength and limitation this paper focused on a novel topic and provided implications/recommendations which are practical and can be used to enhance online teaching/learning experiences in developing countries like nigeria. the authors, as participants in the ert understood the environment which enhanced data collection procedures. a major limitation is that only one public higher institution of the category of colleges of education was used, and this limits generalization. however, many of such studies of individual institutions could provide a comprehensive collection of evidence of the experiences of the ert during the covid-19 lockdown for wider generalization of results. 7. conclusion as the global community seeks to harness the lessons learnt from the online emergency remote teaching (ert) during the covid-19 pandemic lockdown to strengthen the education system, studies such as this one can provide empirical evidence of guidelines to be used. this study has provided empirical evidence of the experience of the lecturers in college of education, agbor in the online ert www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 4, no. 4, 2021 83 published by scholink inc. in terms of the online teaching platforms chosen by students and their experiences. although the online ert provided the required engagement of students in academic activities, it failed to deliver a successful learning experience due to the challenges which were unmet. the results of this study corroborate those of other studies which suggest that the development of students’ digital competence and provision of appropriate digital infrastructure in the environments and institutions are the sine qua non for building a resilient education system from the lessons learnt from ert in this study’s environment and in developing nations. references adepetun, y., & lawal, i. 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(2021). psychological distress among chinese college students during covid-19 pandemic: does attitude toward online courses matter. front psychol. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.665525 https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/situation-reports https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2021.675434 https://doi.org/10.1002/hbe2.238 https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.200316.266 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.665525 microsoft word fet-v1n2-p149 frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 149 original paper student satisfaction and/or dissatisfaction in blended learning environments kimberly a. roff1* 1 graduate school of education, touro college and university system, new york, usa * kimberly a. roff, graduate school of education, touro college and university system, new york, usa received: july 18, 2018 accepted: july 31, 2018 online published: august 17, 2018 doi:10.22158/fet.v1n2p149 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v1n2p149 abstract research exists in blended learning environments as a means of online or distance learning. however, few researchers focused on student satisfaction or dissatisfaction in these environments. this mixed methods study addressed this gap in literature by focusing on how student satisfaction or dissatisfaction is viewed in blended learning environments. the conceptual framework is based upon research that discussed both face-to-face and online environments, which make a key argument for blended learning. this framework is community and inquiry. in conjunction with this, the study relied on the multimodal model that examines different learning environments. a mixed methods study design was conducted using open and closed ended questions for triangulation of the results to be completed. a sample of 23 students from blended undergraduate courses were used. data was analyzed using open and axial coding to identify emergent themes. the main findings indicated that students were satisfied with blended learning environments because they are flexible and convenient. some of the areas that participants indicated there was dissatisfaction were: disconnection and technology. keywords blended learning, hybrid learning, online learning, student dissatisfaction, student satisfaction, distance learning, alternative learning 1. introduction there has been an increase in understanding blended learning regarding student satisfaction or dissatisfaction. the current research in higher education is that there were “over 4.6 million students, mostly at the undergraduate level, were enrolled in at least one online course” (sinclaire, 2010, p. 2). some of the areas where research has indicated that students were satisfied with blended learning were www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 150 published by scholink inc. in flexibility, feedback, and learning activities (francis & shannon, 2013; hahessey et al., 2014; halverson et al., 2012). additionally, students have discussed their dissatisfaction with blended learning. they have discussed the delivery of material, collaboration, and group work (osgerby, 2013). research also examined the role of instructor in satisfaction as well as dissatisfaction of blended learning (shen et al., 2013). there was a discrepancy on what components make up blended learning and depending on the course and the instructor, the blending of online and face-to-face activities varied (vanderlinden, 2013). research has indicated that there was an inherent challenge in linking material from face-to-face then to online (glazer, 2011). others found that by delivering a course through blended learning there are more choices for students and it is an effective way to learn (vanderlinden, 2013). there has been an increase in understanding blended learning and student satisfaction or dissatisfaction. the current research in higher education indicated that in higher education there are approximately 80 percent of institutions which offer blended learning courses (garrison & vaughn, 2008). some of the areas where research has indicated that students were satisfied with blended learning were in flexibility, feedback, and learning activities (francis & shannon, 2013; hahessey et al., 2014; halverson et al., 2012). through the research, students have discussed their dissatisfaction with blended learning. they have discussed the delivery of material, collaboration, and group work (osgerby, 2013). research also examined the role of instructor in satisfaction as well as dissatisfaction of blended learning (shen et al., 2013). in conjunction with student satisfaction and dissatisfaction, the role of the instructor in blended learning was another factor to be considered. through interaction, support and feedback, and overall structure of the course, the instructor role in a blended learning environment should be analyzed. 1.1 literature review to understand what the benefits of blended learning for students in higher education were, student satisfaction and dissatisfaction were explored. within this literature review, there was a discussion on student satisfaction, student dissatisfaction, and the instructor role. 1.2 student satisfaction in blended learning
 to analyze the effectiveness of blended learning, students were surveyed and observed to see if blended learning is a viable way to learn. one of the key areas of research examined student satisfaction in a blended learning environment. in both the face-to-face as well as the online component of these blended learning environments, there were benefits to student learning. students may be able to engage in an environment that is non-threatening through the online component and then feel comfort and safe once they meet face-to-face. students feel comfort in their interactions online and feel anonymity. with the addition of the face-to-face component, it allowed students to meet each other and identify a face with a screen name. francis and shannon (2013) found that blended learning allows student engagement to be enhanced and students became active learners in their education. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 151 published by scholink inc. researchers found that students were satisfied with blended learning as a positive way to learn. some researchers found that the mix of online and face-to-face learning met students’ needs (waha & davis, 2014; vanderlinden, 2013). furthermore, sahin-kizil (2014) examined a group of over 65 participants in an english foreign language (efl) blended course through moodle and found that students responded positively to the blended learning environment and liu et al. (2014) also found that students were happy with the blend of online as well as face-to-face in their course. with this new way of learning and engaging in the learning process, students excelled in blended environments. shen et al. (2013) conducted a mixed methods case study of over 150 graduates through an online survey and found that students that participated in this study felt that they were satisfied with their blended learning environment. they felt that this type of learning was as effective as face-to-face learning. in addition, obiedat et al. (2014) discussed blended learning as it affected students at the university of jordan. a qualitative survey was conducted of over 400 randomly selected students in the school for information technology and found that blended learning positively impacted academic achievement on the students. students were achieving higher grades and final grades within their courses. lothridge et al. (2014) discussed how blended learning “combines the benefits of collaborative, independent, and problem-based learning to reach the broadest range of learning types” (p. 408). there were several areas where student satisfaction was further analyzed in terms of the flexibility, accessibility, and usability of the blended learning environments. hahessy et al. (2014) discussed, through a blended learning program of approximately 190 students in 7 modules, that students were satisfied with the flexibility that blended learning had to offer. the allowance of students to take the courses whenever and wherever they want was a quality that many adult learners want. hahessy et al. (2014) also described that accessibility was a key component for student satisfaction. having access to courses anywhere they may be being positive for students interacting in a blended environment. although, hahessy et al. (2014) did not discuss the negative implications when of accessibility, not everyone has access even though they may want it. the organization of the blended course allowed for student satisfaction, osgerby (2013) in a qualitative case study at the university of winchester in the united kingdom, students reported that through focus groups that they enjoyed the organization of the blended learning course. liu et al. (2014) also described that the learning platform was easy to use and because of the usability it saved time. students moved through the course seamlessly and this allowed them to have a positive experience in the blended learning environment. for students to succeed and be satisfied with the blended learning environment they had feedback, support, as well as assessment. hahessy et al. (2014) described that students felt that more guidance and feedback needed to be provided within assessment. students felt that additional feedback needed to be given so expectations could be communicated and allow students to see where their areas of weakness were in each assignment. without feedback, positive or negative, students felt that they were www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 152 published by scholink inc. not guided or supported. in any blended course, a discussion on how students will be supported is needed, whether it is with the library services, technical support, or another source (wang et al., 2015). an assessment, in the form of a quiz or a question, has students feel that their learning is being monitored. sockalingam (2012) focused on five different criterions for the relationship with students’ satisfaction and blended learning in a study of approximately 2,700 students in a blended format in singapore university. it was revealed that students were satisfied with assessment. this form of feedback was valued by the students and provided a positive experience in the blended learning environment. learning activities within blended environments. per francis and shannon (2013), “blended learning takes its place among online learning modes as an instructional technique that marries the benefits of social and collaborative interaction between students and staff together with the qualities of self-paced learning, reiteration, and revision” (p. 361). student satisfaction within the area of independence or collaboration was also analyzed. in either case of examination, communication was a positive part of students’ satisfaction (hahessy et al., 2014; sahin-kizil, 2014). in many blended learning environments, collaborative activities are required, either through the online component or the face-to-face. the primary focus of the collaborative activity was the student. the authors found that students can discover new conclusions and knowledge when they collaborate, rather than just relying on the teacher to present information when students play an active role in the course through collaborative learning, it provided opportunities for them to explore ideas and concepts through conversations (vesisenaho et al., 2010). independence in learning was also discovered as part of students’ satisfaction with blended learning. as researched by liu et al. (2014) through a 20-participant trial course in china, the blended learning environment was helpful and that the students became more independent because of the course. researchers found that student satisfaction in blended learning enhanced their learning and students were active learners when they were satisfied. researchers also found that if students were satisfied that learning would be engaging and positive.
researchers found that student satisfaction in blended learning was experienced when students had a flexible, accessible, and usable. students also needed to be given feedback, and support in their blended learning environment. this research is important to conducting the study because these factors needed to be evaluated on student satisfaction in blended learning. 1.3 student dissatisfaction in blended learning
 as with every learning environment there are positives as well as negatives to examine. in a qualitative case study by osgerby (2013) it was found that students revealed negative aspects of blended learning. students were not as satisfied with the delivery of material within the blended learning course because they preferred lectures (osgerby, 2013). the question remains if the blended learning environment was being given in the same manner. some blended learning environments have lectures that are given in person. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 153 published by scholink inc. besides the lack of personal lectures, students also were not satisfied with collaboration and group work. osgerby (2013) found that the students did not like the group work within the online component of the course and preferred the traditional way of performing group work. students related to each other more in a face-to-face environment for group collaboration than through asynchronous discussions. waha and davis (2014), in a study of 23 masters level students, found that while using a tool called elluminate, they experienced frustration with technical issues and this led to frustration with the blended learning environment. some students also found that the blended learning environment was not a positive experience for them. in the blended learning courses, students were confused with the formatting associated with the coursework. francis and shannon (2013) also found that in some areas of study in the blended learning environments it is hard to respond back to feedback and critique. the authors found that the flexibility may hinder students from receiving the proper feedback (francis & shannon, 2013). in some instances, researchers found that students were dissatisfied in blended learning because they preferred lectures or were not satisfied with group work. some students also found that these formats were confusing. this research is important to my study because student dissatisfaction will be evaluated through surveys and these factors will be examined. 1.4 instructor role in blended learning
 the role of the instructor is pivotal in shaping if and how students are satisfied. the instructor has the tools needed to enrich the course whether it is online, blended, or face-to-face. in a study of faculty teaching in a blended mode, shen et al. (2013) found that the faculty was satisfied with the blended learning environment. they felt that this type of learning was just as effective as face-to-face learning. they also felt that by combining these methods of learning such as online, face-to-face, and field experience, the students were at an advantage in the learning process. through interaction, support and feedback, and overall structure of the course, the instructor role in a blended learning environment will be analyzed. these areas were examined after a study conducted by wu et al. (2010) found that the instructor role in these areas was important for student satisfaction. interaction in the face-to-face as well as online environment is an important role for an instructor. the way that the instructor structured the discussions was an essential role of the instructors (carloni, 2013). furthermore, liu et al. (2014), through their study, also found that the more discussions that were added to modules, there will be more interaction from students as well as the instructor. this interaction between students and instructor will lead to more satisfaction with the course (liu et al., 2014). online communication was an essential component of the online component for instructors and with the use of communication instructors had students feel less isolated (hahessy et al., 2014). resources and support. in addition to interaction, instructors needed to provide students with resources and support so that students felt like they are not alone in their learning. whether online or face-to-face students needed to feel supported by their instructor as well as others. rovai and jordan (2004) conducted a case study of approximately 65 graduate students enrolled in education courses. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 154 published by scholink inc. they found that the focus should not be on how a course is delivered but rather about the “learning, reaching out to students through distance education technologies” (p. 11). instructors needed to also maintain a strong presence in the course for support to be felt by their students (sockalingam, 2012). besides supporting students, instructors also needed support in their learning of how to present in an online environment. as discussed previously, all courses cannot be easily converted to blended or online courses (vanderlinden, 2013). carloni (2013) found that providing support and resources to instructors helped in effective use of technology. also, steps needed to be taken so that instructors learn how to teach their course in multiple learning environments. instructors needed more than just materials for their learning (sockalingam, 2012). every course no matter the formatting needed to have structure and usability. for students to be able to properly learn, instructors needed the course whether online or face-to-face to be accessible (hahessy et al., 2014). kezar (2007) expressed that there needs to be small multiple assignments throughout to keep students engaged and learning. the small assignments needed to be graded rapidly so that the student sees progress. these concepts of assessment allowed the student to not have their grade rely on a series of 1 or 2 assignments but rather multiple to ensure success. the concept of breaking up the lecture by instructor and allowing students voices to be heard is a huge component of the blended model and allowed for the students to take charge of their responsibilities. sockalingam (2012) discussed how instructors needed more than just materials for their learning. in addition to creating assignments and lectures, a course was favorable if there was interaction and a strong instructor role. hahessy et al. (2014) described how the role of the instructor was to provide feedback so that students “scaffold their learning as they progress throughout the program of study” (p. 19417). feedback influenced student success as well as satisfaction. researchers found that it is important for the instructor to have to strong role in a blended learning environment. some factors such as interaction, resources, and course structure were important to student satisfaction in a blended learning environment. these factors were analyzed through surveys in the study to see if similar factors affect student satisfaction in blended learning environments. 1.5 research questions the framework for this study was through a community of inquiry by garrison et al. (2000). the ideas behind this framework discuss both face-to-face and online environments, which make a key argument for blended learning. the ideas set forth by this framework are in community and inquiry. in conjunction with the framework of community of inquiry, this study also relies on the multimodal model by picciano (2009), it “recognizes that because learners represent different generations, different personality types, and different learning styles, teachers and instructional designers should seek to use multiple approaches including face-to-face methods and online technologies that address the learning needs of a wide spectrum of students” (p. 4). this study used data collected from surveys completed by www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 155 published by scholink inc. students who just completed a blended learning course. the findings of this data highlighted the positive aspects of blended earning as well as offered suggestions on methods to improve. 1) what factors have led to students being satisfied with their coursework in a blended learning environment? 
 2) what factors have led to students being dissatisfied with their coursework in a blended learning environment? 
 3) how has the instructor role positively or negatively influenced students’ satisfaction? these research questions, used in this mixed methods approach, provided a foundation for analysis. the research questions structured the survey questions that were used. 2. method there are three main research questions that served as the focus of this study. these questions emerged at the beginning of the study to properly analyze student satisfaction in blended learning environments in an undergraduate course in a blended learning environment. some of the objectives that this study focused on are student satisfaction and dissatisfaction as they pertain to flexibility, feedback, learning, activities, and instructor roles. 2.1 study design for this study, surveys, using both open and closed ended questions, utilized information about student satisfaction in blended learning environments in an undergraduate course in a blended learning environment. the survey for this mixed methods study was obtained from blended learning tool kit, an open educational resource. university of florida and the american association of state colleges and universities created this survey instrument with funding from next generation learning challenges. the survey measured student satisfaction using much of the same verbiage that the researcher wanted to measure. the researcher felt this tool enabled proper data collection for the mixed methods study. the participants in this study were 23 students who have taken a blended learning course. the students ranged in age, gender, and college level. the studies in which the students participated in varied throughout subject area and the location of the blended courses varied throughout regional locations throughout new york. the surveys were distributed to the participants through the instructor. the survey measures student satisfaction using the same verbiage that the researcher wanted to measure. the researcher conducted open-ended survey questions as well as likert scale based (closed ended) questions. the participants were given ample time to complete the survey and all completed surveys were kept in a manila envelope. the researcher received these surveys through face-to-face distribution or through email by the instructors. 2.2 methodology each of the research questions shed light on some questions regarding student satisfaction in blended learning environments. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 156 published by scholink inc. to effectively analyze research question one, the researcher asked the participants pertinent open and closed ended questions relating to the topic within the survey. through the survey, qualitative as well as quantitative data was analyzed. one question on the survey asked the participants, how satisfied were you with your blended course? through quantitative analysis of the likert scale or closed ended survey question it can be concluded that 73.9% were very satisfied and 26% were generally satisfied (figure 1). figure 1. research question one analysis to further qualitatively analyze the data, textual analysis was used for an open-ended question of what do you like most about the blended course. the participants described many of the factors that serve as their primary reason for taking blended courses. some of the described factors were flexibility, technology, instructor, fit into their schedule, no other choice, convenience, work at on pace, and face to face as well as online access. one of the main factors that 48% of the participants identified as why they chose a blended learning environment was the flexibility of the courses (figure 2). the participants agreed that what they liked was the “flexible work time” (bg2). another participant (hn3) described the factor as “the flexibility to do work when i want as well as not coming to class as much”. many of the participants also wrote down just the word “flexibility” for their answer. in addition to flexibility being a factor, 65% of the participants felt that blended courses provided a good “fit” for their schedule (figure 2). as described by a participant (bg1), “meets my schedule needs”. another participant (bg6) described, “the schedule is what i like about blended courses and the only way that working more than 40 hours a week and taking courses could ever work for me is in a blended model”. the other participants discussed that there is “minimal schedule conflict” and “fits well with my schedule”. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 157 published by scholink inc. the idea of convenience playing a role in a participant taking a blended course coincides with some factors that are like flexibility as well as fitting into one’s schedule. approximately 48% of the participants found that convenience was a primary reason that they wanted to take a blended learning course (figure 2). since blended courses can integrate technology with the face-to-face aspect of learning, participants felt that technology was a reason that they wanted to take a blended learning course. a participant described (bc3) that the “ability to access the course anytime via moodle and via any device” was why he liked blended courses. in some cases, blended courses were attended because of the instructor. the main reason why students want to take blended courses is that it “provides interaction with the instructor” while still being online for other parts of the course (hn5). many students took the blended courses because a certain instructor gave it and not necessarily the modality it was given in. to properly triangulate the data of research question 1, a textual analysis of the data was also conducted. fifteen out of the 23 students felt that the blended course fit into their schedule and 8 out of 23 students felt the course was flexible. below is a figure of the quantitative results (figure 2). figure 2. research question one analysis analysis of the data both quantitatively as well as qualitatively, indicated that students are generally satisfied with blended learning courses. the open-ended questions revealed that there were many factors that students liked about the blended learning environments such as flexibility, convenience, and others as well. in the closed ended questions, analysis through quantitative means was conducted and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 158 published by scholink inc. approximately 74% of the students surveyed were very satisfied with the blended learning environment. within the survey, open and closed ended questions pertaining to dissatisfaction were asked so that analysis of research question two could be completed. the question asked participants what they liked least about blended courses. within the open-ended question of what students liked least about the blended learning environment, some qualitative factors were revealed. some of the described factors were disconnection, technology, time management, and confusion about material. some participants discussed that within blended learning environments there is a disconnection from classmates as well as the instructor. a participant described a “disconnected feeling i get not talking to my professor and classmates” (eh1). another student discussed that “don’t want to email professor because don’t want to annoy him/her” (bg6). there were no other reasons for disconnection discussed. since the blended courses have online components to them, 3 out of the 23 felt that this was a factor that they liked least about this learning environment (figure 3). one participant described, “sometimes the web/technology portion is down and not working” (bc3). another participant felt that just “depending on the computer so much” (hn4) was an issue. the last participant described, “technology as being scary for older adults but since it is becoming such a crucial part of society, it is beneficial to start using it” (bg1). to be successful in the blended learning environment, two participants mentioned the importance of time management. one stated, “make sure that you make time lines and deadlines for yourself” (bc2) and the other stated “stay on top of your schedule” (eh2). these factors were stated in favor of and against the blended course. one of the factors participants liked least about the blended course was that they were “confused at times” (hn5) and the “readings can be a lot” (bc5). lastly a participant stated, “sometimes the online module does not line up with what we have been learning” (bg3). when the open-ended question was analyzed for textual analysis, the number one element that students liked the least about blended learning was nothing. twelve out of the 23 students wrote this as what they like least in a blended learning environment. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 159 published by scholink inc. figure 3. research question two analysis the final question to be analyzed in this mixed methods study was how has the instructor role influenced student satisfaction either in a positive or negative way. there were two questions on the survey pertaining specifically to this and it is regarding interaction with the instructor. participants were asked to grade on a likert scale (closed ended question) if the amount of interaction with the instructor was better, same, or worse in online as compared to face to face and if the quality of interaction with the instructor was better, same, or worse in online as compared to face to face. approximately 43% of the participants surveyed felt that within the technology component of the blended course, the quality of interaction with their instructor was better or much better when compared to the face-to-face course (figure 4). thirty five percent of surveyed participants felt that that within the technology component of the blended course, the amount of interaction with their instructor was better or much better when compared to the face-to-face course. within the technology component of the blended course, the quality of interaction with their instructor was the same compared to the face-to-face course was felt by 48% of participants. fifty two percent felt that the amount of interaction between the two components was the same (figure 4). some of the participants felt differently and felt that there was a decrease in the interaction of the instructor. as seen in figure 4, nine percent felt that the quality of interaction was worse while 13% felt that the amount of interaction was worse within the technology component of the blended course when compared to the face-to-face course. when analyzing this question based on quantitative data, the result of the likert scale revealed that approximately 50% of the participants felt that the amount and quality of interaction with students and the instructor remained the same in a blended course as to a face-to-face course (figure 4). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 160 published by scholink inc. figure 4. research question three analysis 3. limitations some of the limitations of the study were that the participants in the study might not be honest and forthcoming in their surveys. some may not want the researcher to know the truth about the blended learning environment that they are in, especially since the researcher worked in the same school that the surveys were conducted in. 4. discussion throughout colleges and universities, blended learning has been evolving and changing. sinclaire (2010) found that higher education has seen a rise in this type of programming. in higher education, there are “over 4.6 million students, mostly at the undergraduate level, were enrolled in at least one online course” (sinclaire, 2010, p. 2). it is significant to our society that there is student satisfaction in blended learning environments being obtained since there are som many students involved in this type of learning. this mixed methods study sought to understand the underlying reasons for student satisfaction in blended learning environments. through the literature review many factors were stated regarding student satisfaction as well as dissatisfaction in these environments. some of the areas where research has indicated that students were satisfied with blended learning were in flexibility, feedback, and learning activities (francis & shannon, 2013; hahessey et al., 2014; halverson et al., 2012). through the research, students have discussed their dissatisfaction with blended learning. they have discussed the delivery of material, collaboration, and group work (osgerby, 2013). research also examined the role of instructor in satisfaction as well as dissatisfaction of blended learning (shen et al., 2013). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 161 published by scholink inc. in analysis of research question one, participants were asked through an open-ended question, why they were satisfied with the blended learning environment. the participants indicated the reasons why they chose to learn in a blended learning environment. most the participants felt that there were many positive reasons for taking blended courses. the qualitative factors that had influenced them were flexibility, technology, instructor, fit into their schedule, no other choice, convenience, work at on pace, and face-to-face as well as online access. in the closed ended questions, analysis through quantitative means was conducted and approximately 74% of the students surveyed were very satisfied with the blended learning environment. many of the students felt varied on why they chose to learn in these environments but overall, the experience was positive, and they were satisfied in learning in this fashion because of the factors described prior (waha & davis, 2014; hannessey et al., 2014; liu et al., 2014). in analysis of question two, the participants were asked why they were dissatisfied with the blended learning environment. the students surveyed did not indicate any prominent factors that they did not like regarding blended courses. some of the other areas that students were dissatisfied with were: disconnection, technology, time management, and confusion about material. participants found that at times they were disconnected from the instructor or their classmates. they felt that the use of computers to get through the class was a hindrance since the system may go down at times. other participants stated that they were confused with the material at times and felt awkward in contacting the instructor. in analysis of research question three the instructor role was analyzed for a positive influence or a negative one. most students felt that this role enhanced their online experience. some felt that the online experience remained the same. it is interesting that students revealed that in some instances the interaction for both students and instructors was better in an online environment. only a few indicated that the instructor role made it worse. the instructor role can influence how students handle a blended course. students need to feel supported by their instructor so that they are successful in the course. during the analysis of the three research questions, positives and negatives about the blended learning environment emerged. through this research, it was discovered that the participants were generally satisfied with the blended courses. as several participants suggested, there were huge benefits to blended learning such as flexibility, convenience, and working at your own pace. some of the areas that participants indicated there was dissatisfaction in the blended courses were: disconnection, technology, time management, and confusion about material. there was also an analysis of if the instructor role influenced the satisfaction in the course and majority of the participants indicated that it was either better or stayed the same. 5. recommendations for further study
 my focus for this mixed methods study was on student satisfaction or dissatisfaction in blended courses within a specific college. other studies could be conducted in a wider variety of colleges and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 162 published by scholink inc. universities to see how student satisfaction or dissatisfaction is within blended courses. an examination of blended courses with similar stipulations of meeting times and online components should be conducted at some point during the school term. another recommendation would be for a study based on blended courses themselves. it would be important to examine how under the umbrella of blended courses; how many different types of blended courses are being conducted as well as in what ways they are being blended. this comparison would provide great value to the educational community to see if the format of the blended courses may in fact influence student satisfaction or dissatisfaction. another study could be conducted analyzing the implementation of a prototype-blended course into colleges or universities. the model would be constructed out of all the best practices of this mixed methods study, such as flexibility, interaction of instructor, face-to-face components and so on. a longitudinal study on blended courses should be considered. this analysis should occur over a two to four-year period. this would enable more of an in-depth analysis of student success as well as satisfaction in blended learning environments. references carloni, g. (2013). content and language integrated learning: a blended model in higher education. international journal of technology, knowledge & society, 9(4), 61-71. https://doi.org/10.18848/1832-3669/cgp/v09i04/56358 garrison, d. r., & vaughn, d. (2008). blended learning in higher education: framework, principles, and guidelines. john wiley & sons, san francisco, ca. garrison, d. r., anderson, t., & archer, w. (2000). critical inquiry in a text-based environment: computer conferencing in higher education. the internet and higher education, 2(2-3), 87-105. https://doi.org/10.1016/s1096-7516(00)00016-6 glazer, f. (2011). new pedagogies and practices for teaching in higher education: blended learning across the disciplines, across the academy. sterling, va. hahessy, s., burke, e., byrne, e., farrelly, f., kelly, m., mooney, b., & meskell, p. (2014). indicators of student satisfaction in postgraduate blended learning programmes: key messages from a survey study. aishe-j: the all ireland journal of teaching & learning in higher education, 6(3), 1941-19423. halverson, l. r., graham, c. r., spring, k. j., & drysdale, j. s. (2012). an analysis of high impact scholarship and publication trends in blended learning. distance education, 33(3), 37-41. https://doi.org/10.1080/01587919.2012.723166 kezar, a., & glazer, f. (2011). new pedagogies and practices in teaching higher education: blended learning: across the disciplines, across the academy. stylus publishing. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 1, no. 2, 2018 163 published by scholink inc. liu, q., hu, r., zhan, x., & yan, w. (2014). evaluation of students’ satisfaction and attitudes toward blended learning in medical education: a survey in randomized controlled trial course. in proceedings of the european conference on e-learning (pp. 679-684). lothridge, k., fox, j., & fynan, e. (2013). blended learning: efficient, timely, and cost effective. australian journal of forensic science, 45(4) 407-416. https://doi.org/10.1080/00450618.2013.767375 obiedat, r., eddeen, l., harfoushi, o., koury, a., al-hamarsheh, m., & alassaf, n. (2014). effect of blended-learning on academic achievement of students in the university of jordan. international journal of emerging technologies in learning, 9(2), 37-44. https://doi.org/10.3991/ijet.v9i2.3220 osgerby, j. (2013). students’ perceptions of the introduction of a blended learning environment: an exploratory case study. accounting education, 22(1), 85-99. https://doi.org/10.1080/09639284.2012.729341 şahin-kızıl, a. (2014). blended instruction for efl learners: engagement, learning and course satisfaction. jalt call journal, 10(3), 175-188. sinclaire, j. (2010). student satisfaction with online learning: lessons from organizational behavior. research in higher education journal, 1-20. sockalingam, n. (2012). the relation between student satisfaction and student performance in blended learning curricula. international journal of learning, 18(12), 121-134. https://doi.org/10.18848/1447-9494/cgp/v18i12/47842 vanderlinden, k. (2014). blended learning as transformational institutional learning. new directions for higher education, 165, 75-85. https://doi.org/10.1002/he.20085 vesisenaho, m., valtonen, t., kukkonen, j., havu-nuutinen, s., hartikainen, a., & kärkkäinen, s. (2010). blended learning with everyday technologies to activate students’ collaborative learning. science education international, 21(4), 272-283. waha, b., & davis, k. (2014). university students’ perspective on blended learning. journal of higher education policy and management, 36(2), 172-182. https://doi.org/10.1080/1360080x.2014.884677 wang, y., han, x., & yang, j. (2014). revisiting the blended learning literature: using a complex adaptive systems framework. educational technology & society, 18(2), 380-393. wu, j., tennyson, r., & hsia, t. (2010). a study of student satisfaction in a blended e-learning environment. computers and education, 55(1), 155-164. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2009.12.012 frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no.4, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 41 original paper the effect of parental tutoring on student learning achievement iswan, siti khumairoh1 1 faculty of education universitas muhammadiyah jakarta, south jakarta, indonesia received: september 8, 2023 accepted: september 26, 2023 online published: october 10, 2023 doi:10.22158/fet.v6n4p41 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v6n4p41 abstract research entitled the effect of parental tutoring on student learning achievement. this research is motivated by the very important role of parents in accompanying their children, the quality of time that parents and children have can be used to build togetherness between family members. researchers used quantitative survey research methods, with researchers’ data collection methods using questionnaires, interviews and documentation. the sample used was 90 students at peninggilan i state elementary school, south tangerang. indonesia. the research results obtained in this study are that there is a significant influence between tutoring and student learning achievement. this can be seen from the functional relationship between tutoring (x) and student learning achievement (y) of grade 4 students at sdn peninggilin i. south tangerang. indonesia for the 2022/2023 academic year in the form of a linear regression equation, namely y=39.798+0.514x with a correlation coefficient of 0.628 at the level the 5% significance coefficient for the regression direction is 0.514. keywords tutoring, student learning achievement 1. introduction education is an effort of every nation that is carried out continuously. through this education efforts are made to realize the ideals of the next generation. education is one way to change or improve the life of a nation. education is a system for realizing the ideals of a nation, as well as a way to improve the quality of the nation itself. education is a process or effort carried out by humans with the aim of developing the quality of human resources so that they can carry out their roles functionally and optimally. education in the family is the main education a student gets before continuing education at school. when students enter education, they begin to carry out formal learning activities. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 42 published by scholink inc. this does not mean that the student has never carried out learning activities before. in kindergarten, even before that, students are already carrying out learning activities in the home environment and community environment. however, learning activities carried out at formal schools and at home or in the community are different. learning activities carried out in formal schools are carried out systematically and planned. family relationships in a child’s development have a very big meaning. there are many very important factors in the family that are involved in the child’s development process. one factor in the family that has a very important role in children’s development is parental guidance towards children. parents have various functions, one of which is guiding their sons and daughters, especially in their education. parents as caregivers of their children play a very important role in laying the foundations of learning for their children, especially the attitudes, behavior and habits of parents which are always seen and imitated by their children, then unconsciously all the habits of parents are absorbed by children and become habits for their children. children in carrying out their duties have a lot of contact with their parents to guide them. therefore, the role of parents is to provide children with an environment where they can complete their school assignments well. guiding children also means releasing children from anxiety and fear if they cannot achieve what they are trying to achieve, and also encouraging children so that they feel appreciated and loved by their parents even though they cannot achieve the expected grades in their studies. parents should provide guidance to children that learning achievement is the result of continuous learning activities. even though many parents are aware of the importance of their role in their children’s learning achievements, there are still many parents who have not been able to carry out optimally the guidance function in the family which is the main obligation in educating children. the role of parents in accompanying their children while studying at home is very important, the quality of time that parents and children have can be used to build togetherness between family members. the togetherness of parents is very necessary because they understand their level of development and the things they need, togetherness with children starts from before they are born until they are teenagers, to suit the needs of each child. so the role of parents is expected to be able to collaborate with teachers to be able to help students when completing learning carried out at home. 2. research methods research with a quantitative approach is an inductive, objective and scientific research method where the data obtained is available in the form of scores or statements which are evaluated using statistical analysis. research is a research approach that primarily uses a positive paradigm in developing science (thinking about cause and effect, reducing variables, hypotheses, concrete questions, measuring, observing and applying theoretical tests) applying research strategies such as experiments and surveys that require statistical data. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 43 published by scholink inc. this research was carried out from january 2023 to august 2023. this research was carried out at paninggilan i state elementary school, south tangerang. indonesia. usually the unit of analysis in survey research is itself. therefore, survey research is research that takes samples from a population and uses questionnaires as the primary data collection tool. this research process was carried out by collecting data based on the results of distributing questionnaires. the data is then processed and analyzed to obtain scientific information behind the numbers. in this research method, researchers use a form of survey research in which all sample members or respondents in survey research answer questions or questionnaires that have been prepared by the researcher. 3. literature review 3.1 definition of guidance guidance is a service within the framework of indonesian culture and religion. the guidance direction develops students’ competencies to fulfill their development tasks optimally and helps students to be able to overcome various problems that disturb and hinder their development. guidance is the process of providing assistance to individuals from an expert, but it is not that simple to understand the meaning of guidance. to understand the meaning of guidance, it is necessary to consider several definitions put forward by experts, including: prayitno and erman amti (2004, p. 99) state that guidance is the process of providing assistance carried out by an expert person to one or several individuals, including children, teenagers and adults so that the people being guided can develop based on applicable norms. meanwhile, according to frank parson, guidance is assistance given to individuals to be able to choose, prepare and assume a position and gain progress in the position they choose. meanwhile, winkel (2005, p. 27), defines guidance, (1) an effort to equip individuals with knowledge, experience and information about themselves, (2) a way to provide assistance to individuals to understand and use efficiently and effectively all opportunities available to them. owned for personal development, (3) a kind of service to individuals so that they can make choices, set goals appropriately and plan realistically, so that they can adapt satisfactorily to the environment in which they live, (4) a process of providing assistance or assistance to individuals in understanding themselves, connecting their understanding of themselves with the environment, choosing, determining and preparing plans in accordance with their self-concept and environmental demands. based on the definition above, it can be concluded about the broader meaning of guidance, that guidance is a process of providing assistance to individuals in a sustainable and systematic manner carried out by an expert who has received special training for this, intended so that individuals can understand themselves and their environment. and be able to direct oneself and adapt to the environment in order to develop one’s potential optimally for one’s own welfare and the welfare of society. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 44 published by scholink inc. 3.2 guidance objectives the aim of guidance is to help students become independent and develop their potential optimally. providing guidance at school aims to enable students to discover themselves, get to know their environment and plan their future: a. personal discovery means that students know their own strengths and weaknesses and accept them positively and dynamically as capital for further development; b. getting to know the environment means that students objectively know the social and economic environment, the cultural environment with values and norms, as well as the physical environment and accept all environmental conditions in a positive and dynamic manner; c. planning for the future means that students are able to consider and make decisions about their own future, both regarding education, career and family. 3.3 guidance function the guidance function in terms of the usefulness and benefits of the service can be grouped into four main functions, namely: a. understanding function, dewa ketut sukardi (2008, p. 26), states that the understanding function is the guidance function which will produce an understanding of something by certain parties in accordance with student development needs which includes understanding of the student’s self, the student’s environment and the wider environment, especially by students; b. preventive function, preventive function, is a function related to efforts to always anticipate various problems that may occur and try to prevent them, so that they are not experienced by other people. there are techniques that can be used, namely orientation services, information and group guidance. some issues that need to be informed about in order to prevent unexpected behavior from occurring; c. corrective function, the corrective function is the guidance function which results in the breakdown or resolution of various problems experienced by students. this improvement function is expected to result in the breakdown or resolution of various problems faced by students. 3.4 tutoring literally, the term guidance comes from the english language, namely “guidance”, which can be interpreted as guidance, assistance, leadership, direction, guidelines and instructions. in general, guidance can be interpreted as a process of providing assistance to individuals or groups that is carried out on an ongoing basis so that the individual or group can understand themselves, so that they are able to direct themselves and can act naturally, in accordance with the demands and conditions of the school, family, community and environment, his life. guidance is a process of providing continuous and systematic assistance from the mentor to the person being guided in order to achieve independence in self-understanding and self-realization, in achieving an optimal level of development and adapting to one’s environment. it can be concluded that, tutoring is guidance that enables students to obtain various materials from certain sources which are useful for supporting their daily lives both as individuals and as students, family members and communities as well as for consideration in decision making. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 45 published by scholink inc. 3.5 functions and objectives of tutoring in the continuity of human development and life, various services are created and organized. where the services provided provide benefits to facilitate and have a positive impact on developments that are the focus in the service sector. a service is said to have a positive function if there are uses, benefits or advantages provided. a service can be said to be non-functional if it does not show utility or does not provide certain functions or benefits. in general, there are four functions that can be obtained from the implementation of tutoring services, including: a. the function of understanding the function obtained in this case means the understanding produced by guidance services regarding other people’s problems; b. the function of prevention, prevention is an effort to influence positively and wisely which can cause difficulties to actually occur. in this case the environment is the main focus that must be understood, because a good environment will have a positive influence on individuals; c. alleviation function, alleviation function is a function carried out to resolve problems faced by someone, whether students, employees or others; d. maintenance function, the maintenance function is to maintain everything that is good in the individual, whether it is innate or the results of developments that have been achieved previously. such as high intelligence, special talents, a prominent interest in positive and productive things, attitudes and habits that have been developed in acting and behaving, high and realistic ideals, and various other positive aspects of the individual need to be maintained and maintained. 3.6 forms of tutoring according to sukardi, forms of tutoring in schools are: a. increasing student learning motivation, as follows: clarifying learning goals, adjusting learning abilities, interests and talents, creating relationships in a challenging learning atmosphere, providing prizes, creating dynamic relationships, bringing students from an uncertain atmosphere to complete learning resources and facilities, and learning outcomes obtained, b. improving learning skills, as follows: taking teacher teaching notes, making summaries of the material taught, making reports, developing ways of answering or solving problems, preparing papers, reading effectively, speaking effectively and asking questions effectively, developing good attitudes and study habits, as following: finding the right motives for learning, maintaining concentration on learning, managing good study time at school or home, learning by using learning tools, not being reluctant to ask questions about things that many people don’t know, developing motivation and attitudes positive. principles that emphasize strengthening students cognitive affective and psychomotor skills. samad put forward the principles of tutoring, as follows: a. strengthening attitudes and study habits that are effective, efficient and productive, both in seeking information from various learning sources, being kind to teachers and other resource persons, developing study skills, carrying out learning tasks, and undergoing learning outcomes assessment programs; b. strengthening the discipline of learning and practicing, both independently and in groups; c. strengthening mastery of learning program material at school in accordance with developments in science, technology and the arts; d. strengthening, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 46 published by scholink inc. understanding and utilizing the physical, social and cultural conditions that exist in schools, the surrounding community, for the development of knowledge and abilities, as well as personal development. according to djamarah (2014, p. 18), the family is an institution that is formed because of the bonds of marriage. furthermore, kartono (2007, p. 224), states that the family is the smallest social unit which provides the stamp and primary foundation for children’s development. in the family there will be reciprocal interactions, both between husband and wife, parents and children and between other family members. the process of good interaction or communication within the family can form closeness and harmony in a family. the role of parents is a leader who really determines the closeness and harmony of family relationships. a harmonious family can be formed with a good and conducive interaction system so that education in the family can run well too. every parent hopes that their child will grow up to be intelligent and have a good personality. this can be realized through an educational process. in carrying out the learning process, children also need learning guidance from their parents. good parents always provide study guidance for their children. in this way, learning problems, whether in the form of learning difficulties or the child’s overall learning development, can be known by their parents as well. 3.7 parental tutoring according to aisyah (2015, p. 68), parental learning guidance is the process of giving by parents to children in their learning activities, starting from motivating children to study, providing assistance in overcoming learning difficulties, providing facilities or tools for learning, supervising children in learning and recognize children’s difficulties in learning. based on the opinion above, it can be concluded that what is meant by parental learning guidance is the activity of providing guidance and assistance carried out by parents for children which can include supervision, fulfilling children’s learning needs, understanding children’s learning difficulties experienced so that children can carry out the learning process well, good in achieving learning goals so that children develop optimally and become high achieving children. parental assistance when children are studying at home is very necessary so that parents can find out about learning difficulties experienced by children and parents can help overcome these problems. with learning guidance from parents, children will feel that they are being helped, given love and directed in their learning so that children are motivated to try to achieve optimal learning results. parents have the responsibility to guide their children’s learning every day. children experience learning developments every day and are always different. so the level of frequency with which parent guide their children’s learning greatly influences changes in children’s behavior and learning outcomes. the more parents provide learning guidance to their children, the more they can control their behavior and learning outcomes because parents know their children’s learning developments, both in the form of changes in behavior and academic learning outcomes in children. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 47 published by scholink inc. 3.8 understanding learning learning a language is an effort. meanwhile, according to the term, learning is a process that allows the emergence or change of behavior as a result of the formation of a primary response, provided that the change or emergence of new behavior is not caused by maturity or by temporary changes due to something. learning is a process of effort carried out by a person to obtain a new change in behavior as a whole, as a result of his own experience in interaction with his environment. meanwhile, according to hilgard and bower, in their book theories of learning, it is stated that learning is related to changes in a person’s behavior towards certain situations caused by repeated experiences in that situation. based on the opinion above, it can be concluded that learning is a process in humans which appears in changes in behavior such as skills, knowledge, attitudes, habits, skills and thinking through the process of observing, listening, reading and imitating. achievement is the result of previous efforts. it can also be said to be the result of what has been done or done. meanwhile, learning language is defined as a process. learning according to the term is also defined as a process carried out by a person to obtain a new change in behavior as a whole as a result of his own experience in interaction with the environment. in the big indonesian dictionary, learning achievement is the mastery of knowledge or skills developed through subjects, usually shown by the grades given by the teacher. according to w.s. winkel, learning achievement is a learning result displayed by students based on internal abilities obtained in accordance with instructional objectives. 4. research results the results of the linearity test calculations obtained fcount for tutoring (x) on student learning achievement (y) of =0.173 while ftable=3.44. from these results it can be seen that the shape of the regression line between the independent variable and the dependent variable has a linear pattern. the purpose of discussing the results of this research is to determine the influence of tutoring on student learning achievement and how much influence tutoring has on student learning achievement. in this section, further discussion of the research results which are analyzed by correlation is presented. this research found that there is a significant influence between tutoring and student learning achievement. this can be seen from the functional relationship between tutoring (x) and student learning achievement (y) of grade 4 students at sdn peninggilin i, south tangerang. indonesia, in the 2022/2023 academic year in the form of a linear regression equation, namely y=39,798+0.514 the more often students follow tutoring, the higher the student’s learning achievement. the coefficient of determination (r2) is 0.912, this means that 91.2% of learning achievement is influenced by tutoring and the remaining 81.4% is influenced by other factors. therefore, further research needs to be conducted involving several changes that are thought to affect student learning achievement. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 48 published by scholink inc. the results of data analysis through the validity test mean that tutoring outside of school carried out by students can improve the learning achievement of grade 4 students at sdn peninggilan i, south tangerang. indonesia, in the 2022/2023 academic year, as follows: table 1. validity test results for variable no. statement rcount rtable information 1. x1 0,821 0,207 valid 2. x2 0,790 0,207 valid 3. x3 0,701 0,207 valid 4. x4 0,403 0,207 valid 5. x5 0,440 0,207 valid 6. x6 0,450 0,207 valid 7. x7 0,381 0,207 valid 8. x8 0,450 0,207 valid 9. x9 0,659 0,207 valid 10. x10 0,888 0,207 valid 11. x11 0,765 0,207 valid 12. x12 0,542 0,207 valid 13. x13 0,580 0,207 valid 14. x14 0,421 0,207 valid 15. x15 0,430 0,207 valid 16. x16 0,459 0,207 valid 17. x17 0,400 0,207 valid 18. x18 0,631 0,207 valid 19. x19 0,678 0,207 valid 20. x20 0,500 0,207 valid source: research results in august 2023 based on the results of the validity test above using spss, as many as 20 statements on variable table 2. validity test results for variable y no statement rcount rtable information 1. x1 0,821 0,207 valid 2. x2 0,790 0,207 valid 3. x3 0,701 0,207 valid 4. x4 0,403 0,207 valid www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 49 published by scholink inc. 5. x5 0,440 0,207 valid 6. x6 0,450 0,207 valid 7. x7 0,381 0,207 valid 8. x8 0,450 0,207 valid 9. x9 0,659 0,207 valid 10. x10 0,888 0,207 valid 11. x11 0,765 0,207 valid 12. x12 0,542 0,207 valid 13. x13 0,580 0,207 valid 14. x14 0,421 0,207 valid 15. x15 0,430 0,207 valid 16. x16 0,559 0,207 valid 17. x17 0,380 0,207 valid 18. x18 0,549 0,207 valid 19. x19 0,789 0,207 valid 20. x20 0,678 0,207 valid source: research results in august 2023 based on the results of the validity test above using spss, as many as 20 statements on variable. 4.1 simple linear regression test regression analysis was carried out to obtain an overview of the influence between the independent variable (x), namely study guidance, on the dependent variable (y), namely learning achievement. the following is the result data from spss: table 3. model summary model r rsquare adjusted rsquare std. error of the estimate 1 09,912a 0,814 0,225 7.234 a. predictors: (constant), tutoring the regression analysis used in this section is a simple regression which is based on the functional or causal relationship of one independent variable with the dependent variable. r is also called the correlation coefficient, so it can be read that the r value or correlation coefficient between the tutoring variable and learning achievement is 0.912, meaning the program has an influence, namely 0.912, which means sufficient or moderate. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 50 published by scholink inc. this can be seen from: 0.00-0.20 means very low or very weak, 0.20-0.40 means low or weak but certain, 0.40-0.70 means quite means moderate, 0.700.90 means high or strong, 0.90-1.00 means very high or very strong. meanwhile r square is also called the coefficient of determination, it can be read that the r square value shows 0.814. this figure can be interpreted as that tutoring on learning achievement is 23.3% while the remaining 76.7% is influenced by other factors. this means the influence of tutoring on learning achievement. the following is an anova table which will show the influence between variable x and variable y, namely: table 4. anova model sum of square df mean square f sig. 1 regression 1664.209 1 1664.209 39.798 ,000b residual 5128.401 98 52.331 total 6682.510 99 a. dependent variable: learning achievement b. predictors: (constant), tutoring based on the anova table above, it can be seen that a significance value of 0.000 means that the significance level has an influence, which means the significance is less than <0.50. this can be proven in the anova table which has a significance value in accordance with the requirements <0.05, namely 0.000, and can be seen from the results of the hypothesis test at: tcount=5.560>ttable=1.984. in the sense that there is an influence of tutoring on learning achievement. the regression equation obtained is: y=39,798+1,984. table 5. coefficientsa unstndardized coefficients standardized coefficients t sig. b std. error beta 24.014 5.927 4.052 ,000 1.346 ,247 ,482 5,560 ,000 a. dependent variable: tutoring in the table, it can be seen with degrees of freedom=n (number of samples) k (number of variables). so the degrees of freedom are 90-2=89, which is carried out in a 2-way test with a significance of 10%. to see the hypothesis test, what is seen in the tcount table is 5,560 and ttable is 1.984. because the value of tcount=5,560 >ttable=1,984. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 51 published by scholink inc. 4.2 hypothesis testing to test the influence of variable x that has been obtained, a hypothesis test can be carried out. this was done to test whether there was a significant influence between tutoring on learning achievement, thus the t value was 1.984. based on these calculations, the calculation results of tcount>5,560 ttable, namely>1.984, it can be determined that ho is rejected and ha is accepted. thus, it can be concluded that there is a significant influence between tutoring on learning achievement. null hypothesis (ho): there is no influence between tutoring on learning achievement. alternative hypothesis (ha): there is an influence between tutoring on learning achievement. if tcount<ttable, then ho is accepted and ha is rejected (no influence). if tcount>ttable, then ho is rejected and ha is accepted (there is influence). 5. conclusion based on the results of the analysis and discussion of the research conducted, several conclusions can be drawn as follows: 1) there is a significant influence between tutoring and the learning achievement of grade 4 students at sdn peninggilin i, south tangerang. indonesia in the 2022/2023 academic year as shown by partial correlation results of 0.628 at a significance level of 5%. so from the information above it can be concluded that the tutoring factor influences student learning achievement by 39.5%, while 60.5% is other factors besides tutoring. 2) the magnitude of the influence of tutoring on student achievement at school is 39.5% as indicated by the results of the coefficient of determination. 6. suggestions the results of this research recommend the following suggestions: 1) for students and teachers, they should continue to strive to improve learning achievement by being more active in learning both in the classroom and outside the classroom, they should better understand the conditions of students who have different levels of intelligence, so that teachers must be precise in determining teaching methods appropriate for use in teaching. the school is expected to improve quality in terms of students by motivating students to be more active in learning and improving supporting learning facilities and infrastructure. 2) for future researchers, to further strengthen the results of this research. it is necessary to carry out similar research with a wider population and involve other factors that are thought to influence student learning performance as well as using other data collection methods, for example interview methods, so that more complex data is obtained. for tutoring institutions, they should provide additional lessons that are more adapted to the learning conditions at school so that students who take part in tutoring will be more active in studying. tutoring is also a means for students to be more motivated in learning, so that students can produce better achievements. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 4, 2023 52 published by scholink inc. references agus, s. 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(2019). metode penelitian pendidikan (p. 249). penerbit: cv. budi utama. yogyakarta, indonesia. https://doi.org/10.33592/perspektif.v3i2.1540 microsoft word fet-v3n1-p40.doc frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 40 original paper age is not just a number: perceptions of pedagogical content knowledge, transformational teaching, student-professor engagement in learning, and deep learning in the graduate classroom jennifer economos, ed.d.1* & albert inserra, ed.d.2 1 touro college, graduate school of education, ny, usa 2 long island university c.w. post, college of education, information and technology, ny, usa * jennifer economos, ed.d., touro college, graduate school of education, ny, usa received: february 14, 2020 accepted: february 28, 2020 online published: march 3, 2020 doi:10.22158/fet.v3n1p40 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v3n1p40 abstract graduate students in higher education need pedagogical strategies that prepare them with knowledge and critical thinking for their careers. research conducted in this area concluded that teaching students how to integrate knowledge into the real-world continues to be a challenge for educators across various disciplines in higher education. while scholars have studied effective teaching practices for decades, a broad definition has not been determined. graduate students’ perceptions of professor pedagogical content knowledge, transformational teaching, student deep learning, and age were compared to determine the behaviors that influence deep learning in business and education programs in the united states and internationally. a survey was administered to 137 students. findings show that non-traditional learners did not feel as strongly about individualized consideration as traditional learners. the findings suggest that graduate students perceive humor, learning struggles, and relatable content differently. keywords pedagogical content knowledge, deep learning, effective teaching, and pedagogy www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 41 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction students need pedagogical approaches that prepare them with information and skills to be successful in their professional fields (mcguire, lay, & peters, 2009). since the 1930s, researchers studied and defined the components of effective teaching (weimer, 1990). however, a universal definition of effective teaching has not been determined (yamnill & mclean, 2001; trigwell, 2001). hildebrand (1973) identified five components of effective teaching, which include (a) command of the subject; (b) clarity; (c) instructor-group interaction; (d) instructor-individual student interaction; and (e) enthusiasm. other researchers have argued for these components and came up with various observations. starting with sherman (1987) who expanded this concept and determined that, hildebrand’s (1973) notions of enthusiasm and clarity were correct, but added that effective teaching also included (a) attention to preparation; (b) ability to stimulate interest; (c) thinking about the subject matter; and (d) love of knowledge. elton (1998) added that organization, presentation, relationships, assessment, evaluation, reflection, innovation, curriculum design, and pedagogical research contribute to effective teaching. similarly, hativa, barak, and simhi (2001) found: exemplary university teachers are well prepared and organized, present the material clearly, stimulate students’ interest, engagement, and motivation in studying the material through their enthusiasm/expressiveness, have a positive rapport with students, show high expectations of them, encourage them, and generally maintain a positive classroom environment. (pp. 701-702) various characteristics make an exemplary teacher who is able the connect classroom knowledge with real-world challenges. kane, sandretto, and heath (2004) found common attributes among lecturers, these may include but not limited to (a) subject knowledge; (b) skills; (c) interpersonal relationships; (d) teaching research connection; (e) personality and (f) reflective practice. these were regarded as 23 useful models for development and understanding of effective teaching. in the educational arena, there is a new aspect of the shift of focus of attention from the teachers’ perspective to students’ perspectives. some educational institutions have transitioned from lecture-based pedagogy to student-centered activities to enhance student-learning outcomes (floyd, harrington, & santiago, 2009). students have obtained higher levels of understanding with this transition (fink, 2003; majeski & stover, 2007; floyd et al., 2009). despite this change, teaching students to use the skills gained in class to the real-world application of knowledge continues to challenge professors across disciplines (burnett, philips, & ker, 2008). previous research has primarily focused on pre-college student perceptions of teaching (grossman, 1990). more research is needed to study college student perceptions of teaching in higher education (jang, 2011). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 42 published by scholink inc. 1.1 deep learning deep learning is defined as approaches in which students theorize and make connections between course concepts and prior knowledge (biggs & tang, 2007). biggs contended that while surface learners can perform well on assessments using memorization skills, deep learning skills in which students synthesize ideas are superior. biggs’ assertions have aligned with prior research that has shown deep learning strategies in the classroom are related to higher-quality teaching and student learning outcomes (marton & säljö, 1997; trigwell & prosser, 1991, 1998). when a professor consistently facilitates real-world experiences in the classroom, students engage in deep learning approaches and are ultimately more satisfied (nelson-laird, shoup, kuh, & schwartz, 2008). professors can facilitate deep learning by including learning activities that require critical thinking and reflection, and by excluding assessment tools that only measure rote memorization skills. in the absence of these skills, professors need to revise assignments to foster such higher-order and reflective practice, even if some students may not achieve deep learning (biggs & tang, 2007). platow, mavor and grace (2013) found that deep learning approaches positively impact student academic self-concept, and keep students continuously engaged. it was also discovered that deep learning approaches are a valuable contribution to the classroom, as students learn deeply achieve short-term academic goals, and remain motivated to continuously engage in the discipline. 1.2 pedagogical content knowledge another concept, which is also the focus of this study, is pedagogical content knowledge. shulman (1986) has defined pedagogical content knowledge as the methods of presenting content in ways that make it understandable for others, as well as an understanding of skills that students may find challenging. pedagogical content knowledge is the strongest predictor of deep learning (economos, 2013), and it shapes the quality of instruction. it has rarely been assessed due to a lack of appropriate survey instruments for valid assessment (zlatkin-troitschanskaia, shavelson, & kuhn, 2015). therefore, perceptions of this variable may vary, and there is a need for additional measurement tools. 1.3 transformational teaching practices also transformational teaching practices… pounder (2008) has found a positive relationship between student perceptions of their professor leadership behaviors in the classroom and student ratings. pounder has concluded that professors who students perceived as transformational were able to inspire greater effort from students and increase overall student satisfaction. bolkan and goodboy (2011) have affirmed that transformational leadership behaviors in the classroom link to previous research on effective teaching based on student perceptions. bolkan and goodboy (2009, 2011) have suggested that if transformational leadership produced positive learning outcomes in an organization coupled with intrinsic motivation, it is likely that the same will occur in the classroom. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 43 published by scholink inc. 1.4 intellectual stimulation further, intellectual stimulation, encouraging students to think critically and innovatively to influence learning outcomes (bass, 1985), has proved to be the largest indicator of positive student involvement in the classroom (bolkan & goodboy, 2011). dionne, yammarino, atwater, and spangler (2004) determined that one who practices individualized consideration encourages continuous individual development (modassir & singh, 2008). intellectual stimulation leads to innovative ways of thinking (bolkan & goodboy, 2011). 1.5 individualized consideration harrison (2011) found that professors have demonstrated individualized consideration by treating each student as an individual and assisting them in their personal growth. students have benefited from professors who have shown genuine concern for students’ needs, interests, and abilities (husband, 2013). it is recommended that professors have to be willing to establish relationships with students beyond the official course requirements. also, professors have to be willing to validate the perspectives of their students to improve the learning quality in their courses, which can lead to better interactions in the classroom, and enhance teaching effectiveness (husband, 2013). this is what determined the effect on individuals’ learning outcomes where self-confidence is built. 1.6 student-professor engagement in learning sidelinger and booth-butterfield (2010) reported that “the entire responsibility for student involvement should not fall on students alone” (p. 166). professors must promote a supportive and connected learning environment for students to be academically successful. professors need to connect with students and provide opportunities in the classroom for students to connect and participate. participation results in increased student motivation, enhanced communication skills, group interactions, and self-reported positive changes in character (armstrong & boud, 1983; berdine, 1986; junn, 1994). participation enhances skills such as critical thinking interpretation, analysis, and synthesis (smith, 1977; garside, 1996; crone, 1997). 1.7 age knowles (1990) identified that childhood learning and adult learning were different based on assumptions about the teaching-learning transaction. children typically learned in teacher-centered environments in which they need to learn was expected and knowledge was dictated by the teacher. in contrast, adult learning fostered a voluntary, autonomous learning environment in which students applied knowledge holistically. adult learning theories were grounded in theories that emphasize a readiness to learn, autonomous learning, active engagement in learning, critical thinking and reflection, and real-life relevance (knowles, holton, & swanson, 1998; merriam, 2001; trotter, 2006). however, earlier research by aslanian and brickell (1980) found the opportunity or desire to learn did not guarantee that adults learned. adults often waited for a life event or circumstance to trigger a desire to engage in learning activities. they concluded that adults needed to find a need to learn. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 44 published by scholink inc. merrill (2001) examined the relationship between adult students and professor behaviors across disciplines. the qualitative findings indicated that while professors enjoyed teaching adult students, most had not modified their teaching styles to adult student needs. non-traditional students ages 25 or older (howard & henney, 1998) were more open to admitting when they did not understand the material and were more willing to provide feedback on professor teaching practices. in comparison, it was found that a professor adopted an interactive teaching style to prevent non-traditional students from dominating the lectures. similar to merrill (2001), dunst, trivette, and hamby (2010) examined adult student learning outcomes in a meta-analysis of the effectiveness of four adult learning methods. the findings indicated that positive student outcomes resulted from student engagement in mastering new knowledge or practice, and the professor’s effort to facilitate the learning process. the findings also showed that the professor’s ability to engage students, guidance, and ability to encourage a student in deep understanding contributed to student effective learning. students benefited from the adult learning characteristics integrated into the learning opportunities. the findings supported the significance of the professor’s feedback, student reflection and critical thinking, real-world relevance, and immediate applicability (dunst et al., 2010). 2. method 2.1 participants as previously published by economos (2014) a total of 3, 232 female and male graduate students currently enrolled in full-time and part-time business and education programs were invited to participate in the study. of those students, 1,055 were graduate business students and 2,177 were graduate education students. the total response rate was 360 with 359 usable surveys (11 percent). responses from graduate business students totaled 67 while responses from graduate education students totaled 292. participants were obtained from four universities and two professional associations and in the united states and other countries. the response pool was randomized to minimize the chance for type one or two errors. a total of 137 surveys were used for data analysis in this study to balance the numbers in each group. sixty-seven responses were from graduate business students, and 70 responses were from graduate education students. 2.1.1 instrument the instrument was adapted from the research literature (kane et al., 2004; bolkan & goodboy, 2011) and two published questionnaires with permission from the authors (shepherd, 2009; nsse, 2001-13). statements from the research literature were revised in order to become measurable survey items. two jury reviews determined that 30 out of 41 items appropriately measured the variables according to their definitions. the remaining 11 items were reevaluated: charisma (two items), pedagogical content knowledge (two items), intellectual stimulation (five items), and individualized consideration (two items). the language of the items was modified and two items for intellectual stimulation were omitted. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 45 published by scholink inc. after the second jury’s results, the final instrument included 39 items that measured the variables: seven items measured charisma, nine items measured individualized consideration, seven items measured intellectual stimulation, nine items measured pedagogical content knowledge, and seven items measured deep learning (economos, 2013). a factor analysis of 359 participant responses was employed, and the items were analyzed using principal component analysis extraction method, and varimax with kaiser normalization rotation method. cronbach’s alpha coefficient of internal consistency was computed to assess the reliability of each of the five variables in the survey instrument. the cronbach’s alpha coefficients for the factors ranged from .752-.88. respondents were asked to rate their level of agreement of each statement regarding the variables. a five-point likert scale with the possible responses accompanied the statements (economos, 2013; economos, 2014). 3. result 3.1 research question how do graduate students’ perceptions of professor pedagogical content knowledge, individualized consideration, and student-professor engagement in learning, professor intellectual stimulation, and student deep learning differ based on age among all graduate students and within graduate-level business and education programs? question three was analyzed using independent samples t tests to contrast the groups. table 1. independent samples t tests comparing the difference of all graduate students’ perceptions based on age age range mean sd t p pedagogical content knowledge 21-30 years old 9-45 33.75 6.06 .08 .934 31 years old or older 33.67 5.39 individualized consideration 21-30 years old 8-40 30.41 5.88 2.62 .010 31 years old or older 27.87 4.94 student-professor engagement in learning 21-30 years old 5-25 21.42 2.69 1.67 .096 31 years old or older 20.51 3.50 intellectual stimulation 21-30 years old 6-30 24.34 3.80 1.49 .138 31 years old or older 23.33 3.97 deep learning 21-30 years old 6-30 23.79 4.48 .82 .409 31 years old or older 23.18 3.77 the results of the independent t tests reported that graduate students ages 21-30 years old reported higher mean scores than graduate students ages 31 years old or older. overall, all graduate students of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 46 published by scholink inc. all ages agreed or strongly agreed that their current professors demonstrated pedagogical content knowledge (m=33.75, m=33.67), individualized consideration (m=30.41, m=27.87), and student—professor engagement in learning (m=21.42, m=20.51), however, there was a statistically significant difference in the way graduate students perceived individualized consideration in their current graduate program (p=.010). all graduate students also differed in that students ages 31 years old or older reported they somewhat agreed-agreed that their professors demonstrate intellectual stimulation, while students 21-30 years old agreed or strongly agreed. both groups somewhat agreed or agreed that, they engaged in deep learning in their current graduate program. a frequency analysis was conducted in order to determine the difference among all graduate students on individualized consideration. tables 2-6 present the frequency analyses for graduate students on individualized consideration. five of eight items were responsible for the significant difference between students ages 21-30 years old and 31 years old or older. the tables demonstrate a trend between students who somewhat agreed and strongly agreed. table 2. frequency analysis for individualized consideration item 32 32 i experienced professors who show empathy for student learning struggles. n percent valid percent cumulative percent 1) strongly disagree 1 .7 .7 .7 2) disagree 14 10.2 10.4 11.2 3) somewhat agree 49 35.8 36.6 47.8 4) agree 46 33.6 34.3 82.1 5) strongly agree 24 17.5 17.9 100.0 total 134 97.8 100.0 graduate students disagreed or strongly disagreed (17.2 percent) and agreed (33.6 percent) that their current professors show empathy for student learning struggles. more students somewhat agreed (35.8 percent) than strongly agreed (17.5 percent). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 47 published by scholink inc. table 3. frequency analysis for individualized consideration item 17 17 i experienced professors who consider students’ opinions in the development of the course syllabus. n percent valid percent cumulative percent 1) strongly disagree 12 8.8 8.9 8.9 2) disagree 28 20.4 20.7 29.6 3) somewhat agree 46 33.6 34.1 63.7 4) agree 29 21.2 21.5 85.2 5) strongly agree 20 14.6 14.8 100.0 total 135 98.5 100.0 more than 28 percent of graduate students felt that their current professors do not consider students’ opinions in the development of the course syllabus, and at least 20 percent of students agreed. more students somewhat agreed (33.6 percent) than strongly agreed (14.6 percent). table 4. frequency analysis for individualized consideration item 11 11 i experienced professors who use humor to make learning fun. n percent valid percent cumulative percent 2) disagree 7 5.1 5.2 5.2 3) somewhat agree 38 27.7 28.1 33.3 4) agree 59 43.1 43.7 77.0 5) strongly agree 31 22.6 23.0 100.0 total 135 98.5 100.0 graduate students reported that they have not experienced professors who use humor to making learning fun (5.1 percent) and others reported that they have (43.1 percent). more students somewhat agreed (27.7 percent) than strongly agreed (22.6 percent). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 48 published by scholink inc. table 5. frequency analysis for individualized consideration item 22 22 i experienced professors who accommodate different student learning needs. n percent valid percent cumulative percent 2) disagree 18 13.1 13.3 13.3 3) somewhat agree 40 29.2 29.6 43.0 4) agree 50 36.5 37.0 80.0 5) strongly agree 27 19.7 20.0 100.0 total 135 98.5 100.0 as many as 13.1 percent of graduate students disagreed and 36.5 percent agreed that their professors in their current program accomodate different student learning needs. there were more students who somewhat agreed (29.2 percent) than strongly agreed (19.7 percent). table 6. frequency analysis for individualized consideration item 15 15 i experienced professors who are passionate about relating content to students’ lives. n percent valid percent cumulative percent 1) strongly disagree 2 1.5 1.5 1.5 2)disagree 8 5.8 5.9 7.4 3)somewhat agree 42 30.7 31.1 38.5 4)agree 50 36.5 37 75.6 5)strongly agree 33 24.1 24.4 100.0 total 135 98.5 100.0 most students agreed that they experienced professors who are passionate about relating content to students’ lives (36.5 percent), while others disagreed or strongly disagreed (7.3 percent). more students somewhat agreed (30.7 percent) than students who strongly agreed (24.1 percent). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 49 published by scholink inc. table 7. independent samples t tests comparing the difference of graduate students’ perceptions based on primary professional area of interest on age (n=19-47) primary professional area of interest age range mean sd t p business pedagogical content knowledge 21-30 years old 9 45 32.75 6.40 -.57 .566 31-40 years old or older 33.60 5.57 individualized consideration 21-30 years old 8 40 29.89 5.77 1.55 .125 31-40 years old or older 27.78 5.28 student-professor engagement in learning 21-30 years old 5 25 20.96 2.89 1.02 .311 31-40 years old or older 20.13 3.47 intellectual stimulation 21-30 years old 6 30 23.48 3.62 .19 .843 31 years old or older 23.28 4.16 deep learning 21-30 years old 6 30 22.25 4.76 -.58 .564 31 years old or older 22.86 3.88 education pedagogical content knowledge 21-30 years old 9 45 34.40 5.82 .39 .693 31 years old or older 33.80 5.15 individualized consideration 21-30 years old 8 40 30.75 5.99 1.77 .081 31 years old or older 28.05 4.32 student – professor engagement in learning 21-30 years old 5 25 21.71 2.54 .68 .498 31 years old or older 21.19 3.53 intellectual stimulation 21-30 years old 6 30 24.87 3.84 1.44 .153 31 years old or older 23.42 3.70 deep learning 21-30 years old 6 30 24.73 4.07 .89 .376 31 years old or older 23.80 3.56 graduate students of all ages in both groups reported they somewhat agreed or agreed that their professors demonstrate pedagogical content knowledge, individualized consideration, student-professor engagement in learning. business students and education students 21-30 years old reported higher mean scores than those students that reported ages of 31 years old or older, with the exception of deep learning (m=22.25, m=22.86). in contrast, business students of all ages somewhat agreed or agreed that they engage in deep learning while education students agreed or strongly agreed that they engage in deep learning. education students also differed in that students ages 21-30 agreed or strongly agreed while students ages 31 years old or older somewhat agreed or agreed. there were no statistical www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 50 published by scholink inc. significant differences in the way graduate students in business and education programs perceived the independent and dependent variables. table 8. independent samples t tests comparing the difference of graduate students’ perceptions based on primary professional area of interest on age (n=19-47) primary professional area of interest age range mean sd t p business pedagogical content knowledge 21-30 years old 9-45 32.75 6.40 -.57 .566 31-40 years old or older 33.60 5.57 individualized consideration 21-30 years old 8-40 29.89 5.77 1.55 .125 31-40 years old or older 27.78 5.28 student-professor engagement in learning 21-30 years old 5-25 20.96 2.89 1.02 .311 31-40 years old or older 20.13 3.47 intellectual stimulation 21-30 years old 6-30 23.48 3.62 .19 .843 31 years old or older 23.28 4.16 deep learning 21-30 years old 6-30 22.25 4.76 -.58 .564 31 years old or older 22.86 3.88 education pedagogical content knowledge 21-30 years old 9-45 34.40 5.82 .39 .693 31 years old or older 33.80 5.15 individualized consideration 21-30 years old 8-40 30.75 5.99 1.77 .081 31 years old or older 28.05 4.32 student – professor engagement in learning 21-30 years old 5-25 21.71 2.54 .68 .498 31 years old or older 21.19 3.53 intellectual stimulation 21-30 years old 6-30 24.87 3.84 1.44 .153 31 years old or older 23.42 3.70 deep learning 21-30 years old 6-30 24.73 4.07 .89 .376 31 years old or older 23.80 3.56 graduate students of all ages in both groups reported they somewhat agreed or agreed that their professors demonstrate pedagogical content knowledge, individualized consideration, student-professor engagement in learning. business students and education students 21-30 years old reported higher mean scores than those students that reported ages of 31 years old or older, with the exception of deep learning (m=22.25, m=22.86). in contrast, business students of all ages somewhat agreed or agreed www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 51 published by scholink inc. they engage in deep learning while education students agreed or strongly agreed that they engage in deep learning. education students also differed in that students ages 21-30 agreed or strongly agreed while students ages 31 years old or older somewhat agreed or agreed. there were no statistical significant differences in the way graduate students in business and education programs perceived the independent and dependent variables. 4. discussion 4.1 course syllabus and graduate students of all ages there was a significant difference between all graduate students on individualized consideration according to age, even though students’ ages 21-30 years old and 31 years old or older both reported similar levels of agreement. both of the groups somewhat agreed and agreed that they experienced professors who demonstrate individualized consideration in their current graduate program. frequency analysis revealed that item 17: i experienced professors who consider students’ opinions in the development in the course syllabus, contributed to the significant difference between the groups. in conclusion, if graduate professors include students in the development of the course syllabus, they may foster a higher level of individualized consideration. in the same way, bolkan and goodboy (2011) found that students felt that they participated in the class. 4.2 learning struggles and graduate students of all ages there was a significant difference between students’ ages 21-30 and 31 or older on individualized consideration. students who are 31 years old or older, non-traditional learners ages 25 or older (howard & henney, 1998), reported lower mean scores than students who are 21-30 years old. a frequency analysis suggested that item 32: i experienced professors who show empathy for student learning struggles, contributed to the significant difference between students ages 21-30 and 31 or older. in conclusion, if professors show empathy for student learning struggles, they can foster individualized consideration and positive learning outcomes among students of all ages. previous research by coffman (1981) found that empathy is an important factor in student-learning outcomes, and it facilitates meaningful learning experiences. further, students can benefit if professors demonstrate more empathy for non-traditional learners, as they enter the classroom for different reasons at different points in their lives. merrill’s (2001) study reported that he or she intentionally integrated group work and seminar discussions part of the class to make the course more accessible to adults who may have been out of an educational environment for years. some professors recognize that showing empathy positively affects student learning. in conclusion, professors can improve their performance if they demonstrate empathy for all students’ learning struggles to foster individualized consideration in the pursuit of deep learning outcomes. additionally, if professors develop awareness regarding non-traditional learners’ struggles, students will likely benefit. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 52 published by scholink inc. 4.3 learning needs and graduate students of all ages there was a significant difference between students’ ages 21-30 and 31 or older on individualized consideration. students who are 31 years old or older, non-traditional learners, reported lower mean scores than students who are 21-30 years old. a frequency analysis suggested that item 22: i experienced professors who accommodate different student learning needs, contributed to the significant difference between the two age groups. non-traditional learners may feel that their current professors are not meeting their learning needs. if professors make more of an effort to accommodate their learning needs, students’ perception of intellectual stimulation may improve. consistent with this study, merrill’s (2001) study reported professors did not modify their teaching styles to accommodate non-traditional learners’ needs. they failed to provide opportunities for them to relate their own life experiences to facilitate their learning. merill (2002) also found that even though the discussion was part of the learning process, some professors intentionally adapted their teaching styles to prevent non-traditional learners from dominating classroom lectures. the higher mean scores for students ages 21-30 also suggest that the group consisted of more traditional students under age 25 (howard & henney, 1998) than non-traditional students age 25 and over. it can be inferred that professors are making more of an effort to meet their needs, consistent with merrill’s (2002) study. a professor reported that he or she adopted an interactive teaching style to include students of all ages so that the non-traditional learners do not take over the seminar. howard and henney (1998) also found that non-traditional students often dominated the classroom by contributing twice as many comments and questions as non-traditional students. they also felt more comfortable interrupting a professor to make a comment or ask a question. this suggests that the non-traditional students who reported lower mean scores did not get the opportunities to participate in the way that they learn best, and their professors did not meet their learning needs. students of all ages will likely benefit from a professor’s initiative to meet their individual learning needs, regardless of their age, as dunst et al. (2010) found that positive student outcomes resulted from a professor’s effort to facilitate the learning process. in conclusion, non-traditional students will likely benefit from addressing their concerns about their learning needs with their professors. merrill (2002) found that professors described adult learners as verbal, mature, open to admitting when they did not understand the material, and more willing to provide feedback to professors. 4.4 content and graduate students of all ages there was a significant difference between students’ ages 21-30 and 31 or older on individualized consideration, as previously stated. students who are 31 years old or older, non-traditional learners, reported lower levels of agreement than students who are 21-30 years old. a frequency analysis suggested that item 15: i experienced professors who are passionate about relating content to students’ lives, contributed to the significant difference between the groups. similarly, bolkan and goodboy (2011) also found that students benefited from professors who chose relevant content that related to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 53 published by scholink inc. students’ lives and connected with realistic situations. in conclusion, if professors select the content that relates to students’ lives, students will have a greater opportunity to learn deeply. 4.5 humor and graduate students of all ages there was a significant difference between students’ ages 21-30 and 31 or older on individualized consideration. students who are 31 years old or older, non-traditional learners, reported lower levels of agreement than students who are 21-30 years old. a frequency analysis suggested that item 11: i experienced professors who use humor to making learning fun, contributed to the significant difference between the groups. if professors use humor in the classroom, students will be more likely to learn. previous research (kaplan & pascoe, 1977, berk, 1996, 1998; burkhart, 1998) indicated that humor can decrease students’ anxiety, improve students’ learning abilities, and self-esteem. it also yields a receptive, warm learning environment that reduces stress, and enhances communication and recall skills. overall, humor facilitates the student-professor relationship and can make a class more interesting (kaplan & pascoe, 1977, berk, 1996, 1998; burkhart, 1998). besides, the significant difference between the two age groups suggests that students 21-30 years old perceive and accept humor differently than students who are 31 years old or older. similarly, gorham and christophel (1992) found that the type of humor and frequency of humor affected student-learning outcomes. students were aware of tendentious humor, written or spoken with personal bias. an overdependence of this type of humor weakened any kind of positive influence on student learning outcomes, as evidenced in previous literature (kaplan & pascoe, 1977; berk, 1996, 1998; burkhart, 1998). in conclusion, graduate students will likely benefit from professors who appropriately use humor in ways that will facilitate individualized consideration and the learning process. 4.6 limitations and recommendations the findings of this study cannot be generalized. the study was also limited to hybrid, and face-to-face environments. it was unknown if the respondents were attending a research-extensive or teaching university. the class size in which the graduate students were enrolled was unknown. lastly. the character or temperament of each participant was unknown and therefore could have impacted the findings in this study. professors are encouraged to create a learning experience in which students can apply their external experiences in the classroom, as well as apply theory’ to practice in the external environment (real world). professors should consider maintaining an open dialogue with students about their perceptions, and goals. finally, students benefit when a professor takes an interest in students’ personal lives and leads discussions with content free as well as content-based discussions. it is recommended that this study be replicated in online learning programs to determine if graduate students enrolled in distance learning perceive the variables differently, and the impact of distance learning on graduate students on the variables. further, subsequent research should be conducted in an undergraduate setting to determine if students perceive the variables differently. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 3, no. 1, 2020 54 published by scholink inc. references armstrong, m., & boud, d. 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(2015). the international state of research on measurement of competency in higher education. studies in higher education, 40(3), 393-411. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2015.1004241 frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no.2, 2023 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet issn 2576-1846 (print) issn 2576-1854 (online) 62 original paper nationally recognized open door model steven oppenheimer1 1 department of biology and center for cancer and developmental biology, california state university, northridge, ca, usa received: march 11, 2023 accepted: march 27, 2023 online published: april 12, 2023 doi:10.22158/fet.v6n2p62 url: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/fet.v6n2p62 abstract the white house brochure during a us presidential award ceremony stated of oppenheimer: “he has developed an open door model that encourages students of all economic strata and ethnic groups to participate in his research.” the national recognition noted in the title of this paper included: 1) a us presidential award for science research mentoring, a white house program administered by the national science foundation. the white house brochure said that oppenheimer’s philosophy was that all interested students should be given the opportunity to do research. research should not be reserved for the elite. 2) election as a fellow of the american association for the advancement of science (aaas). a fellow of the aaas is defined as a member whose efforts on behalf of the advancement of science or its application are scientifically or socially distinguished. specifically of oppenheimer as a aaas fellow it noted for studies on cell surface carbohydrates in morphogenesis and malignancy. and also for award winning programs that bring advances in science to the student 3) statewide trustees outstanding professor award of the 500,000 student california state university system (largest public university system in the united states). two of about 20,000 faculty are selected for this highest system wide award each year. these honors resulted from an open door student research program, student career outcomes, student co-authored publications and 14 textbooks/textbook editions. most of all oppenheimer’s enthusiasm, energy and humor were instrumental in this success. this program is replicable for those with the energy, enthusiasm and motivation to work with many research students. this paper will explore all the components of this program (note 1-94). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 63 published by scholink inc. 1. introduction most professors work with small numbers of students because their research systems don’t lend themselves to a lab with large numbers of students. this is because of safety issues and a high degree of complexity. and most faculty are not motivated to serve many research students. in the presidential award review one reviewer said…he (oppenheimer) calls his students doctors or professors…i think (the reviewer) i’ll try that. oppenheimer’s philosophy is that all interested students should be given an opportunity to do research (note 91). 2. the experimental systems we work with the sea urchin embryo and mouse teratocarcinoma cells. let’s first look at the sea urchin embryo system that provided the research that played a key role in the awards and honors noted. why is the sea urchin such a good system to work with? it has been cited as a model system by the national institutes of health. it is easy to work with by hundreds of students and therefore is a key component of the open door policy. over a 50 year period at cal state northridge, we developed a marine aquarium lab that housed hundreds of sea urchins in refrigerated aquaria. one can even maintain sea urchins in a refrigerated aquarium in an old refrigerator and there are many ways to do it. we are able to keep fertile sea urchins all year because different species are “ripe” with gametes during each season of the year. it is not only the sea urchins that attract many students to the oppenheimer lab. it is enthusiasm, energy and motivation to serve many students at one time. as all awarding organizations noted, it is oppenheimer’s enthusiasm, motivation and energy that is responsible for this record of accomplishment. but without an easy to use system with simple experiments, the numbers of participating students would be less. the figure shows the sea urchin embryo system and the main components of this system that we work with for half a century. the figure shows the hollow ball stage (blastula) as it begins to change form (gastrulates). as can be seen the primary mesenchyme cells move into the hollow ball center (blastocoel) as the embryo begins to invaginate. cells at the inner tip of the invagination (archenteron) form projections called filopodia that attach to the roof of the blastocoel. this attachment is a focus of our award-winning program that started over 50 years ago. other systems will be described later. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 64 published by scholink inc. 3. the research the election as fellow of the aaas, cited oppenheimer’s research findings on involvement of carbohydrates in development and cancer as well as his work with students as reasons for this honor. it all began with the mentoring by saul roseman, a giant in carbohydrate biochemistry, at johns hopkins, during oppenheimer’s graduate student days (1968-1970). he found oppenheimer’s initial findings, that only one component (l-glutamine) of a complex medium (medium 199), caused mouse teratocarcinoma cells to adhere to each other, to be exciting. many experiments showed that glutamine donated an amino group to fructose-6-phosphate forming glucosamine-6-phosphate, the key intermediate in the synthesis of cell surface sugar-containing molecules (note 88). after leaving johns hopkins with a ph.d. degree, oppenheimer did an american cancer society postdoctoral fellowship at university of california, san diego, with tom humpreys and found that the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 65 published by scholink inc. solution bathing the mouse teratocarcinoma cells contained a component that caused the cells to adhere (note 87). 4. open door program coming to cal state northridge in 1971, we continued the work on the teratocarcinoma cell adhesion component with many students participating in the research (note 90). this component had functional carbohydrate in its adhesion promoting activity (note 81). we found that the enzyme that synthesizes l-glutamine (glutamine synthetase) was associated with increased adhesiveness of the teratocarcinoma cells in culture (note 79). when protease inhibitors were added to the cancer cells their behavioral properties improved (note 65). proteases help cancer cells invade other tissues we found that the mouse teratocarcinoma cells were not the only cells that included functional adhesion-promoting carbohydrate. chick embryo cells also did (note 84). with hundreds of students participating in the research, we examined the role of sugars in the binding of cells at the tip of the sea urchin embryo archenteron to the blastocoel roof as shown in the figure. specifically, l-rhamnose, polyglucans, hyalin, cyclodextrin, mannose-containing molecules, all involved with carbohydrates, appeared to be involved in adhesive interactions in the sea urchin embryo (notes 31, 34, 35, 66, 72, 48). an examination of the titles of the papers in the notes listing will show which sugars were studied and which students were involved in the studies. purified glycosidases (carbohydrate degrading enzymes) inhibited the adhesion of the archenteron tip to the blastocoel roof (note 21) and sugar-binding lectins bound to the cellular interaction under study. one of our most interesting findings was that large molecules could enter the sea urchin blastocoel without microinjection (note 39, note 52) allowing easy probing of cellular interactions (note 39, note 52). two papers, one in science and one in nature examined carbohydrate-containing lectin receptors on the surfaces of sea urchin embryo cells, showing that the two top journals in the world had interest in the sea urchin embryo and cell surface carbohydratecontaining molecules. about 100 students were involved in this sea urchin research (notes 1-94). perhaps important in the award of the mentioned honors is that this research was simple and often consisted in the addition of purified reagents to developing sea urchin embryos. this attracted many students. to maintain a large open door program both enough space and help from more advanced students are essential. the department of biology helped with the space and the enrollments of large numbers of students who get credit for doing research. and oppenheimer is provided with teaching credit for handling many research students. such arrangements can only be done on an individual basis. but i have learned that departments pay attention to results. large numbers of student co-authorships help a department realize how resources should be allocated. advanced students help train new students so many more students can be served. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 66 published by scholink inc. the books oppenheimer wrote or in a couple of cases co-authored, that may have helped in the statewide trustees outstanding professor award included: 4 editions of introduction to embryonic development plus an instructors’ manual and an italian edition, 4 editions of cancer a biological and clinical introduction, cancer prevention guidebook, atlas of embryonic development. and 25 annual editions of the new journal of student research abstracts possibly helped in honors from the state of california, and aaas, showing the k-12 involvement of my work (note 2). 5. acknowledgements thanks to carolyn oppenheimer for outstanding formatting work and thanks to my colleagues and the csun leadership for over 50 years of support. 6. conclusions this open door program garnered 2 national honors (aaas fellow and us presidential award) and a statewide honor (trustees outstanding professor award of the csu system). here i review some of the student co-authored publications, student career outcomes and the qualities of the experimental systems used, in a program based on the philosophy that all interested students should be offered a chance to get involved in research. research is not just for the elite. simple experimental systems with easy to manipulate procedures are presented to help attract students. but as stated in the white house brochure, the key to success is the motivation, enthusiasm and boundless energy of oppenheimer. this program is replicable by those whose primary goal is to open up their laboratories to all interested students. these are some of the mostly student co-authored publications that may have helped lead to the aaas fellow designation, u.s. presidential award and csu system statewide outstanding professor award. notes note 1. s. oppenheimer, m. berman, h. chun, a. lundgren, s. tanaka, a antoniou, t. miller, g. zem, applied science research for all part 1 pre-college level, american journal of applied scientific research, 6: 72-75 (2020). doi: 10.11648/j.ajasr.20200606.11. note 2. s. oppenheimer, ed., new journal of student research abstracts, 27 annual volumes, http://scholarworks.csun.edu/handle/10211.3/125029, 1995-2022. note 3. s.oppenheimer, covid-19 pandemic, glycobiology, glycan shields, vaccine strategies, heparin sulfate: a mini review, american journal of applied scientific research 6(2): 46-48 (2020). note 4. s.oppenheimer, cell clusters in cancer metastasis: a mini review, american journal of applied scientific research 6(2): 43-45 (2020). doi: 10.11648//j.ajasr.20200602.13. note 5. smith, t., oppenheimer, s.b., involvement of l-rhamnose in sea urchin gastrulation: a live embryo assay, zygote, doi:10.1017/s0967199413000452 (2013) http://scholarworks.csun.edu/handle/10211.3/125029 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 67 published by scholink inc. note 6. singh, s., karabidian, e., kandel, a., metzenberg, s., carroll, jr.e., oppenheimer, s.b., a role for polyglucans in a model sea urchin embryo cellular interaction, zygote doi:10.1017/s0967199413000038 (2013). note 7. ghazarian, h, b.idoni, s.oppenheimer. . a glycobiology review: carbohydrates, lectins, and implications in cancer therapeutics). acta histochemica, vol. 113, pages 236-247 (2011) pmcid pmc3027850. on the order of 10,000 downloads. one of the most of all time. note 8. dreyfuss, j. and s. oppenheimer. cyclodextrins and cellular interactions in e. bilensoy, ed., cyclodextrins in pharmaceutics, cosmetics, and biomedicine, current and future industrial applications, john wiley and sons, hoboken, n.j., chapter 15, pp. 287-295. (2010). note 9. idoni, b. h.ghazarian, s.metzenberg, v.hutchins-carroll, s.oppenheimer, and e.carroll jr. use of specific glycosidases to probe cellular interactions in the sea urchin embryo. experimental cell research, vol. 316, pp. 2204-2211 (2010) pmcid pmc2921930. note 10. alvarez, m., nnoli, j., carroll, e.j., jr., hutchins-carroll, v., razinia, z., oppenheimer, s.b., exogenous hyalin and sea urchin gastrulation, part ii: hyalin, an interspecies cell adhesion molecule, zygote 16: 73-78 (2008). pmcid pmc2557437 note 11. carroll, e.j., jr., hutchins-carroll, v., coyle-thompson, c., oppenheimer, s.b., hyalin is a cell adhesion molecule involved in mediating archenteron-blastocoel roof attachment, acta histochemica, 110: 265-275 (2008). pmid 18262230 note 12. contreras, a., vitale, j., hutchins-carroll, v., carroll, e.j., oppenheimer, s.b., exogenous hyalin and sea urchin gastrulation. part iii: biological activity of hyalin isolated from lytechinus pictus embryos, zygote 16: 355-361 (2008). pmcid pmc2586997 note 13. oppenheimer, s. b., alvarez, m., nnoli, j., carbohydrate-based experimental therapeutics for cancer, hiv/aids and other diseases, acta histochemica 110: 6-13 (2008). pmcid pmc2278011. note 14. oppenheimer, s.b., cellular basis of cancer metastasis: a review of fundamentals and new advances, acta histochemica, 108:327-334 (2007). this paper garnered the most downloads of all papers in this elsevier journal, august 06-march 07 (813 downloads). pmid16730054 note 15. petrossian, k., banner, l., oppenheimer, s.b., lectin binding and lectin effects on human cancer and non-cancer cell lines: examination of issues of interest in drug design strategies, acta histochemica 109: 491-500 (2007). note 16. razinia, z., carroll, jr., e.j., oppenheimer, s.b., microplate assay for quantifying developmental morphologies: effects of exogenous hyalin on sea urchin gastrulation, zygote 15: 1-6 (2007). note 17. sajadi, s., rojas, p., oppenheimer, s.b., cyclodextrin, a probe for studying adhesive interactions, acta histochemica 109: 338-342 (2007). pmcid pmc 1988679. note 18. zem, g.c., badali, o., gaytan, m. hekmatjou, h., alvarez, m., nnoli, j., katus, e., oppenheimer, s.b., microbead analysis of cell binding to immobilized lectin: an alternative to www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 68 published by scholink inc. microarrays in the development of carbohydrate drugs and diagnostic tests, acta histochemica 108: 311-317 (2006). note 19. ghazarian, h., coyle-thompson, c., dalrymple, w., hutchins-carroll, v., metzenberg, s., razinia, z., carroll, jr., e.j., oppenheimer, s.b., exogenous hyalin and sea urchin gastrulation, part iv: a direct adhesion assayprogress in identifying hyalin’s active sites, zygote 18: 17-26 (2010). pmcid pmc2817981 note 20. oppenheimer, s. & meyer, j. (1982). carbohydrate specificity of sea urchin blastula adhesion component, experimental cell research, 139, 451-456. note 21. idoni, b., ghazarian, h., metzenberg, s., hutchins-carroll, v, carroll, jr., e., & oppenheimer, s. (2010). use of specific glycosidases to probe cellular interactions in the sea urchin embryo. experimental cell research, 316, 2204-2211. note 22. liang, j., aleksanyan, h., metzenberg, s., & oppenheimer, s. (2016). involvement of l-rhamnose in sea urchin gastrulation. part ii: alpha rhamnosidase, zygote 24, 37-377. note 23. k. crocker, j. deleon, l. telliyan, k.aprelian, a. rosenberg, n. pouri, g. beltran, v. ramirez, d. kaufman, a. petrosyan, d. nazarian, m. magistrado, s. matinian, d. hanna, s. eskandari, f. atanante, a. nerses, g. zem, s. oppenheimer a kinetic assay for drug discovery: part 2, sodium sulfate, american journal of applied scientific research, 2020; 6(2): 39-42 http://www.sciencepublishinggroup.com/j/ajasr
doi: 10.11648/j.ajasr.20200602.12
issn: 2471-9722 (print); issn: 2471-9730 (online). note 24. v. nahapetyan, s. delos santos, k. crocker, d.tobar, d.nazarian, h. chirishyan, g.beltran, r. dubin, l. reque, p. singh, b. cardona, g. royce bachinela, l. sarkisyan, g. zem, s. oppenheimer. a manual kinetic assay in a fixed yeast model for drug discovery american journal of applied scientific research 5, no1: 28-35. doi 10.11648/j.ajasr.20190501.15 (2019). note 25. aleksanyan, h., liang, j., metzenberg, s., oppenheimer, s.b., terminal alpha-d-mannosides are critical during sea urchin gastrulation, zygote doi: 10.1017/so967199416000113 (2016). note 26. a. ghazarian, oppenheimer, s microbead analysis of cell binding to immobilized lectin. part ii: quantitative kinetic profile assay for possible identification of anti-infectivity and anti-cancer reagents http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.acthis.2014.07.015, acta histochemica 116 (2014) 1514-1518. note 27. singh, e. karabidian, a. kandel, s. metzenberg, e. carroll, jr,. s. oppenheimer, a role for polyglucans in a model sea urchin embryo cellular interaction, zygote (cambridge university press), (2013), doi.10.1017/s096719943000038 (2013). note 28. h. ghazarian, c. coyle-thompson, dalrymple, v. hutchins-carroll, s. metzenberg, z. razinia, e. carroll, jr., s. oppenheimer exogenous hyalin and sea urchin gastrulation, part iv: a direct adhesion assay – progress in identifying hyalin’s active sites zygote 18: 17-26 (2010). note 29. a. contreras, vitale, v. hutchins-carroll, e. carroll, jr, s.oppenheimer. exogenous hyalin and sea urchin gastrulation, part iii: biological activity of hyalin extracted from lytechinus pictus embryos zygote, vol. 16, pp. 355-361 (2008). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.acthis.2014.07.015 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 69 published by scholink inc. note 30. e. carroll, jr., v. hutchins-carroll, c.coyle thompson, s. oppenheimer. hyalin is a cell adhesion molecule involved in mediating archenteron blastocoel roof attachment, acta histochemica, vol. 110, pp. 265-275 (2008). note 31. m. alvarez, j. nnoli, e. carroll, jr., v. hutchins-carroll, z. razinia, s. oppenheimer. exogenous hyalin and sea urchin gastrulation, part ii: hyalin, an interspecies cell adhesion molecule, zygote, vol. 16, pp. 73-78 (2008). note 32. m. alvarez, j. nnoli, s. oppenheimer. carbohydrate-based experimental therapeutics for cancer, hiv/aids and other diseases, acta histochemica, vol. 110, pp. 6-13 (2008). note 33. k. petrossian, l.banner, s.oppenheimer. lectin binding and effects in culture on human cancer and non-cancer cell lines: examination of issues of interest in drug design strategies, acta histochemica, vol 109, pp. 491-500 (2007). note 34. z. razinia, e. carroll, jr, s. oppenheimer. microplate assay for quantifying developmental morphologies: effects of exogenous hyalin on sea urchin gastrulation, zygote, vol 15, pp. 1-6 (2007). note 35. s. sajadi, rojas, s. oppenheimer. cyclodextrin, a probe for studying adhesive interactions, acta histochemica, vol. 109, pp. 338-342 (2007). note 36. s. oppenheimer. cellular basis of cancer metastasis: a review of fundamentals and new advances acta histochemica, vol. 108, pp. 327-334 (2006). note 37. g. zem, o. badali, gaytan, hekmatjou, m. alvarez, j. nnoli, katus, s. oppenheimer. microbead analysis of cell binding to immobilized lectin: an alternative to microarrays in the development of carbohydrate drugs and diagnostic tests, acta histochemica, vol. 108, pp. 311-317 (2006). note 38. l. welty, e. heinrich, c. garcia, l. banner, m. summers, l. baresi, s. metzenberg, c coyle-thompson, s.oppenheimer. analysis of unconventional approaches for the rapid detection of surface lectin binding ligands on human cell lines acta histochemica, vol. 107, pp. 411-420 (2006). note 39. c. coyle-thompson, s. oppenheimer. a novel approach to study adhesion mechanisms by isolation of the interacting system , acta histochemica, vol. 107, pp. 243-251 (2005). note 40. e.heinrich, l. welty, l. banner, s. oppenheimer. direct targeting of cancer cells: a multiparameter approach, acta histochemica, vol. 107, pp. 335-344 (2005). note 41. m. khurrum, hernandez, eskalaei, o. badali, c. coyle-thompson, s. oppenheimer. carbohydrate involvement in sea urchin gastrula cellular interactions acta histochemica, vol. 106, pp. 97-106 (2004). note 42. m.maldonado, g. weerasinghe, f.ambroise, yamoah, m. londono, j. pelayo, grigorian, s. oppenheimer, the charged milieu: a major player in fertilization reactions, acta histochemica, vol. 106, pp. 3-10 (2004). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 70 published by scholink inc. note 43. l. ngo, m. barajas, g. weerasinghe, g. zem, s. oppenheimer. a new histochemical approach for studying sperm cell surfaces, acta histochemica, vol. 105, pp. 21-28 (2003). note 44. m. khurrum, g. weerasinghe, e. soriano, r. riman, o. badali, s. gipson, medina, alfaro, v. navarro, c. harieg, l. ngo, t. sakhakorn, l. kirszenbaum, khatibi, abedi, m. barajas, g. zem, a. kirszenbaum, razi, s. oppenheimer. analysis of surface properties of human cancer cells using derivatized beads, acta histochemica, vol. 104, pp. 217-223 (2002). note 45. v. navarro, s. walker, o. badali, abundis l. ngo, g. weerasinghe, m. barajas, g. zem, s. oppenheimer. analysis of surface properties of fixed and live cells using derivatized agarose beads, acta histochemica, vol. 104, pp. 99-106 (2002). note 46. b. salbilla, h. vaghefi, chhabra, hall, bworn, sadoughi, e.francisco, l. attas, s. walker, nguyen, s. oppenheimer analysis of cell surface properties using derivatized agarose beads acta histochemica, vol. 101, pp. 271-279 (1999). note 47. v. latham, s. oppenheimer. a simple image analysis method for evaluating cell binding to derivatized beads acta histochemica, vol. 101, pp. 263-270 (1999). note 48. v. latham, m. tully, s. oppenheimer. a putative role for carbohydrates in sea urchin gastrulation acta histochemica, vol. 101, pp. 293-303 (1999). note 49. v.latham, l. latham, s. oppenheimer. desktop computer-based image analysis of cell surface fluorescence patterning from a photographic source. acta histochemica, vol. 98, pp. 295-300 (1996). note 50. j. philip, rodriguez, r. bada, f. ambroise and hernandez, s. oppenheimer. charge interactions in sperm-egg recognition, acta histochemica, vol. 99, pp. 401-410 (1997). note 51. ghoneum, vojdani, a. banionis, lagos and gill, s. oppenheimer. the effects of carcinogenic methylcholanthrene on carbohydrate residues of nk cells. toxicology and industrial health, vol. 13, no. 6, pp. 727-741, 1997. note 52. v. latham, martinez, l. cazares, hamburger m. tully, s. oppenheimer. accessing the embryo interior without microinjection, acta histochemica, vol. 100, pp. 193-200 (1998). note 53. r. roque, s. herrera, yeh,. j. philip, t. borisavljevic, l. brunick, miles, haritunians, c. addy, r. bada, h. vaghfi, s. matsumoto, g. picionelli and rodriquez, s. oppenheimer. cell adhesion mechanisms: modeling using derivatized beads and sea urchin cell systems , acta histochemica, vol. 98, pp. 441-451 (1996). note 54. m. daily, v. latham, c. garcia, c. hockman, h. chun, m. oppenheimer, s. west, k. rostamiani, r.chao, e. pollock, s. oppenheimer. producing exposed coat-free embryos, zygote, vol. 2, pp. 221-225 (1994). note 55. m. spiegler, s. oppenheimer. extending the viability of sea urchin gametes, cryobiology, vol. 32, pp. 168-174 (1995). www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 71 published by scholink inc. note 56. v. latham, j. ducut, k. rostamiani, h. chun, lopez, s. herrera, s. oppenheimer. a rapid lectin receptor binding assay: comparative evaluation of sea urchin embryo cell surface lectin receptors, acta histochemica, vol. 97, p. 89-97 (1995). note 57. v. latham, s. herrera, k. rostamiani, h. chun, s. oppenheimer. rapid identification of lectin receptors and their possible function in sea urchin cell systems, acta histochemica, vol.97,pp. 373-382 (1995). note 58. m. ghoneum, a. banionis, gill and romero, s. oppenheimer demonstration of involvement of mannose residues on nk cell cytotoxicity using lectin coupled beads, natural immunity and cell growth regulation, 10:132(1991). note 59. s. oppenheimer, biology and cultivation of teratoma cells, in tests of teratogenicity in vitro, north holland, amsterdam, pp. 261-274. note 60. s.oppenheimer, human made carcinogens vs. natural food carcinogens: which post the greatest cancer risk? american clinical products review, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 16-19, february 1985. note 61. s.oppenheimer cancer and stress, longevity letter, 2(6): 3, 1984. note 62. s.oppenheimer, carcinogens in food and water, longevity letter, 2(9): 2-3, 1984. note 63. s. oppenheimer carcinogens in the home, longevity letter, 3(5): 2-4, may 1985. note 64. s. oppenheimer preventing cancer, american longevity 1 (no.1), pp. 1-5, 1983. note 65. meyer, p. thompson, r. behringer, r. steiner, saxton, s. oppenheimer. protease activity associated with loss of adhesiveness in mouse teratocarcinoma exp. cell res., 143, pp. 63-70, 1983. note 66. meyer, s. oppenheimer. carbohydrate specificity of sea urchin blastula adhesion component, exp. cell. res., 139, pp. 451-456. 1982. note 67. s. oppenheimer causes of cancer: gene alteration versus gene activation, amer. lab., pp. 40-46, november 1982. note 68. j. meyer, s. oppenheimer isolation of species-specific and stage-specific adhesion promoting component by disaggregation of intact sea urchin embryo cells, exp. cell res., 137, pp. 471-476, 1982. note 69. c. capelle, j. meyer, s. sorensen, s. oppenheimer isolation of aggregation inhibitory factor from non-adhesive mouse teratoma cells, exp. cell res., 131, pp. 470-476, 1981. note 70. w. childress, freedman, c. koprowski, doolittle and p. sheeler, s. oppenheiimer, surface characteristics of separated subpopulations of mouse teratocarcinoma cells, exp. cell res., 122, pp. 39-45, 1979. note 71. m. grodin, nystrom, j. scordato,, m. cantor, s.oppenheimer relationship of adhesiveness of cells in culture with specific enzyme activity, exp. cell res., 122, pp. 149-157, 1979. note 72. m.asao, s. oppenheimer inhibitor of cell aggregation by specific carbohydrates, exp. cell. res., 120, pp. 149-157, 1979. note 73. s. oppenheimer introduction to the symposium and studies on the surfaces of separated and synchronized tumor and embryonic cell populations. american zoologist, 19, pp. 801-808, 1979. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 72 published by scholink inc. note 74. s. oppenheimer, cell surface carbohydrates in adhesion and migration, american zoologist, 18, pp. 12-23, 1978. note 75. b. bales, brenneman, l. knapp, lesin, a.neri, e.pollock, s. oppenheimer modulation of agglutinability by alteration of the surface topography in mouse ascites tumor cells exp. cell res., 105, pp. 291-300, 1977. note 76. b. bales, lesin, s. oppenheimer on cell membrane lipid fluidity and plant lectin agglutinability: a spin label study of mouse ascites tumor cells, biochemica et biophysica acta, 465, pp. 400-407, 1977. note 77. j. meyer, s. oppenheimer the multicomponent nature of teratoma cell adhesion factor, exp. cell res., 102, pp. 359-364, 1976. note 78. a. neri, m. roberson, d. connolly, s. oppenheimer quantitative evaluation of concanavalin a receptor site distributions on the surfaces of specific populations of embryonic cells, nature, 258, pp. 342-344, 1975. note 79. d. connolly, s. oppenheimer cell density-dependent stimulation of glutamine synthetase activity in cultured mouse teratoma cells, exp. cell res., 94, pp. 459-464, 1975. note 80. m. roberson, a. neri, s. oppenheimer), distribution of concanavalin a receptor sites on specific populations of embryonic cells , science, 189, pp. 639-640, 1975. note 81. s. oppenheimer. functional involvement of specific carbohydrates in teratoma cell adhesion factor, exp. cell res., 92, pp. 122-126, 1975. note 82. m. roberson, s. oppenheimer quantitative agglutination of specific populations of sea urchin embryo cells with concanavalin. a exp. cell res. 91, pp. 263-268, 1975. note 83. k. krach, a. green g. nicolson, s. oppenheimer cell surface changes occurring during sea urchin embryonic development monitored by quantitative agglutination with plant lectins, exp. cell res., 84, pp. 191-198, 1974. note 84. s. oppenheimer utilization of l-glutamine in intercellular adhesion: ascites tumor and embryonic cells, exp. cell. res., 77, pp. 175-182, 1983. note 85. r. potter m. barber, s. oppenheimer alteration of sea urchin embryo cell surface properties by mycostatin, a sterol binding antibiotic, developmental biology, 33, pp. 218-223, note 86. s. oppenheimer j. odencrantz ,a quantitative assay for measuring cell agglutination: agglutination of sea urchin embryo and mouse teratoma cells by concanavalin a, exp. cell res., 73, pp. 475-480, 1972. note 87. s. oppenheimer, t.humphreys isolation of specific macromolecules required for adhesion of mouse tumor cells , nature, 232, pp. 125-127, 1971. note 88. s. oppenheimer m. edidin, c. orr and s. roseman an l-glutamine requirement for intercellular adhesion, proceedings of the national academy of sciences usa, 63, pp. 1395-1402, 1969. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 73 published by scholink inc. note 89. s.oppenheimer, motivating college students: evidence from 20 years of anonymous student evaluations, higher education reseach, doi: 10.11648 (2019). please note: most of the co-authors on these papers are students. these are only the full length peer-reviewed papers from the oppenheimer lab. published abstracts and national presentations are not included. note 90. s. oppenheimer, lab training: undergraduate research in action, nature 519, 158 [2015). note 91. s.oppenheimer, include mentoring skills in hiring and promotion criteria, nature 554, 31 (2018). note 92. camacho, n.l., er doctor’s gift honors biology professor for changing the trajectory of her life, csun magazine, (may 30, 2018). note 93. oppenheimer, s., et al., applied science research for all part 2 college level, american journal of applied scientific research 7(1): 1-7 (2020). note 94. oppenheimer, s., university on the rise without ph.d. students, nature 538: 171 (2016). these are some of the student career outcomes that may have helped lead to the aaas fellow election, us presidential award and csu system statewide outstanding professor award. * denotes completed the masters degree with steve. some duplication may be inadvertently included. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 74 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 75 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 76 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 77 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 78 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 79 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 80 published by scholink inc. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 81 published by scholink inc. julie gorchynski. m.d., clinical medicine director, uc irvine now texas, professor, big csun donor * elias azzam, research associate * susan crowther, professor, college of the canyons * larry tawa, m.d. * sheryl fulop, d.v.m. * heber becker, ucla medical school * karen berg, m.d. * dana nojima, ph.d., u minnesota * phil patenaude, k-12 teacher * arunas banionis, m.d. * pradnya kuwwadekar, research scientist * miriam golbert, professor, community college * debra kowal, forensic technologist, community college instructor * helen fredell, k-12 teacher * jerome puttler, k-12 teacher * linda esmaili, research scientist * marci spiegler, community college instructor * mohsen saidinejad, ph.d. pgm * greg bentley, research associate * alice stanboli, biotechnology research scientist * mehrnoosh saghizadeh, biotechnology research scientist * tanya borisavljevic, m.d. * sandra matsumoto, ph.d., u utah, industry scientist * ani issaian, cal tech electron microscopy facility director * ron roque, pollution inspector, city of los angeles * pat krueger, u.s. forest service scientist * valerie dunn, research scientist, industry * michael daily, m.d. * brian salbilla, research associate? * norman lautsch, research associate ? * john slack, was in med school * majid heydarizadeh, ph.d. pgm * ana garcia-flack? * mary keens, criminologist * miguel rocha, research associate * bibi aguero, research scientist, industry * www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 82 published by scholink inc. tun-yin joseph yeh, ph.d., u utah * cynthia hochman, d.v.m. * vern traxler, criminologist * jessy philip, criminologist * virginia latham, senior research associate * pavanjit chhabra, d.d.s. * audra mckenzie, research associate * paul narguizan, ed.d. or ph.d. usc professor or adjunct professor * houman vaghefi, m.d./ph.d. chicago med *? tharenee sakhakorn, d.d.s.? * bernard hunwick, ph.d. pgm? * vanessa navarro, m.d. * sheri walker, m.d. david khatibi, m.d. * lital kirszenbaum, d.v.m. pgm uc davis * lyla ngo, medical school * evelyn soriano, was in ph.d. pgm lily welty, ph.d. or masters pgr ucsb * eileen heinrich, ph.d. ucla, postdoc * ziba razinia, ph.d. pgm yale, post doc. u penn * hesam hekmatjou, was in harvard dental school astrid hernandez, k-12 teacher anna martinez, stanford medical school luis rodriguez, ph.d. cornell, senior scientist nih monica tully, k-12 teacher * maria abundis, ucsd medical school juan carlos pelayo, ucsf, m.d. edward yamoah, ucsf m.d. gayanee weerasinghe, johns hopkins/nih ph.d. pgm marcella barajas, u minnesota ph.d. pgm arash razi, nyu dental school * karina garcia, west virginia u masters pgm nasim monajemi, m.d. pgm claudia garcia, ph.d. harvard, senior scientist sabino herrera, d.v.m. uc davis karen brannon, m.d./ph.d. pgm u kansas celina barba, m.d. stanford medical school, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 83 published by scholink inc. emergency room physician, co-direct, emergency department rhodelio cruz, ph.d. uc berkeley * jeanette ducut, ph.d., ucsd, postdoc karolin abedi, pharmacy school rashad riman, dental school stephanie gipson, criminologist juan sosa, medical school melena grigorian, phg.d. pgm edna francisco, science writer liat attas, medical school talin haritunians, ph.d. pgm cecil addy, m.d. krystal jarvis, laboratory technician* linda brunick, ph.d. pgm monica londono, research associate mike kaliko, chiropractic pgm * maribel alvarez, ph.d. pgm uc irvine karineh petrossian, ph.d. pgm city of hope * jennifer nnoli, ph.d. pgm, sloan kettering rashad riman. dental school christine le, dental school * arjang naminik, dental school * arbi keshishian, dental school * evelin adamian, dental school rabin ebrahimi, pharmacy school souren basmadjian, pharmacy school mike astete, dental school jehan murugaser, m.d. stacy tanaka, k-12 teacher ignacio saldain, k-12 teacher* oliver badali, cosmetics scientist rowena bada, nurse azalia contreras, community college instructor * pouria parsa, m.d. massoud agahi, m.d. mary haghi, m.d., pediatric endocrinologist neema oroomchi, medical school www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 84 published by scholink inc. ardy khou, dental school sina samie, medical school anush margarian, pharmacy school marie gonzalez, pharmacy school allen tabibian, m.d., facc, cardiologist ralph buoncristiani, d.d.s. stephen e. jones, m.d. andy solkovits, m.d., assoc. professor uc davis erica dent, master of health administration pgm usc jenieke allen, admit.ph.d. pgm* justin dreyfuss, ph.d. pgm, usc* diana naderi, admit md pgm brian idoni, research tech ii usc* margaret lemell (aranda), m.d. richard karout, pharmacy school arbi keshishian, dental school*, tiffany smith, pa program christine le, dental school* arjang naminik, dental school* william dalrymple, osteopathic school of medicine ziba razinia, ph.d. yale, postodc u penn* earl sandroff, d.m.d. susan wensel, monsanto r&d* kim krach, m.d.* sokuntheavy so, research technician oliver badali, cosmetics industry chemist collete bibayan, admitted 2 pharmacy schools vanessa navarro, m.d., family practice san diego * mark sussman, ph.d., distinguished professor san diego state herry budiyono, hospital patient analyst* claudine bulan, cytology training program, wisconsin houman vaghefi, md, ph.d, radiation oncologist* poria edalat, dental school lauren michaels, veterinary school basmah akhter, pharmacy school nareeneh zadori, pharmacy school eileen heinrich, ph.d. ucla, now staff scientist at city of hope* www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 85 published by scholink inc. jordan vallejo, h.s. summer res 2yrs, purdue university, mechanical engineering niosha edalat, usc dental school and admissions ambassador forooze rashidi, instructor college of the canyons* odette arman, in vitro fertilization clinic embryologist* mark colgin, clinical laboratory technologist drew edelberg, high school research student, b.s. berkeley, ph.d. program, solid state physics, columbia university maria atikyan, masters in nursing program alexandra mokh, instructor/professor, la valley college* pam klein, m.d., vice president clinical development at genentech tina askari, research associate* hurig katchikian, medical school* marianna muradyan, pharmacy school usc lana darghali, pharmacy school lusineh mirzakhani, admitted to pharmacy school evelyn adamian, dentist ofelya tonyan, accepted western university of health sciences jigar patel, medical school jenieke allen, ph.d. program cedars sinai* krystal jarvis, teacher* hamid davoudi, college teacher, pa program* forooze rashidi, teacher* odette arman, in vitro fertilization embryologist,* ronik khachatoorian,. ph.d. ucla, postdoc ucla mirey qubrosi, technical associate, product testing research oryla wiedoeft, edd, teacher, asst. principal, jouliana davoudi, dental school usc* debrin yahya-kashani, csun nutrition masters program yukiko kanda, masters program in social work john sobhani, research associate ucla tiffany smith, pa program* usc keck school of medicine suprita singh, ph.d. program penn state* hye na kim, research assistant ignacio saldain, hs teacher* jung suh, amgen quality control analyst krystal jarvis, research associate* careen khatchitorian, ph. d pgm, uc riverside www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 86 published by scholink inc. marina hernandez vergara, k-12 teacher ravneet gill, md pgm hamid allatabakhsh, dentistperiodontist anita aloian, optometry pgm, western university eddie karabidian, usc dental school* hamid davoudi, pa program* pam klein, m.d., oncologist, head biotechnology company noreen warner, pa program lenny mayorga, lenny, usc dental school edmund petrossian, med school nomiki kolettis, ph.d. pgm uc riverside, now research associate yukiko kanda petrus, masters of social work pgm csun anasheh ghazarian, research technician sokunttheavy so, research technician hiensen hiesmantjaja, med school armin sarkissian, med school ivette ramos ortega, med school, 9-19-14, remarkable testimonial sent virginia hutchins carroll, laboratory manager college of the canyons * samantha arvizu, technical associate mai phan, csun m.s.pgm, research associate gayani weerasinghe, passed bar, patent attorney miriam golbert, chair, biology department, college of the cabnyons* heghush aleksanyan, csun m.s. pgm, teaching assoc, medical school alex kandel, law school – berkeley helen chun, ph.d. and postdoc ucla, assoc.prof., chair biology, csu dominguez hills karina garcia, ph.d. program, history rod blourtchi, admitted medical school /pa program brandon wallace, medical school samantha arvizu, technical associate thermofisher jing liang, research associate weizmann institute* shabnam sorooshiani, dental school elizabeth aquije, ucla school of medicine carol chavez, ucsf dental postbac pgm magy eskander, admitted to pharmacy school haike ghazarian, ph.d. pgm, city of hope* heghush aleksanyan, medical school* www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 87 published by scholink inc. ralph buoncristiani, d.d.s. mona kelvani, admitted to pharmacy school carol chavez, accepted roseman dental school, utah nomiki kolettis, research associate genentech anasheh ghazarian, los angeles county sheriff’s crime lab technologist program destinney cox, accepted csun biology masters m. larijani, emergency room physician alice chalikian kouyoumdjian, chiropractor sayeh behnia, admitted to pharmacy school mai phan, career protein chemist* jim bollinger, dentist christina irikyan, clinical laboratory scientist jouliana davoudi, dentist, graduated from usc dental school* bermans iskandar, pediatric neurosurgeon, university of wisconsin john sobhani, admitted usc dental school haike ghazarian, ph.d. city of hope, postdoctoral fellow* salmeen andkhoy, registered nurse stacy tanaka, teacher, magnet coordinator, new medical magnet at northridge middle school. jasper chang, loma linda university school of pharmacy karen pastrano, accepted uc san francisco and pittsburgh schools of dentistry and pittsburgh ph.d. program jenieke allen, ph.d. * justin dreyfuss admitted rosalind franklin, medical school* massoud agahi, m.d. vascular surgeon maribel alvarez, ph.d celina barba, m.d., stanford, co-director emergency medicine, providence st. joseph medical center burbank, scholarship donor to csun in honor of dr. oppenheimer raff khechoumian, accepted masters pgm rosalind franklin university of medicine and science dayana tobar, ventura county medical center residency program karoline rostamiani, tenure track community college professor yun lee, accepted to pharmacy school karoline rostamiani, tenure track community college professor carol chavez, dmd, roseman university college of dental medicine kristel crocker, accepted into clinical laboratory scientist training program byron aquino, accepted into clinical laboratory scientist training program www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/fet frontiers in education technology vol. 6, no. 2, 2023 88 published by scholink inc. regie canta, accepted into clinical laboratory science program dominique evans-bye, u.s. presidential award recipient, high school teacher and superb student research mentor arya saleh, m.d., internal medicine peyman saadat, m.d., reproductive endocrinologist