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Aim: To explore the health beliefs of clinical and academic nurses from Japan, Australia and China regarding wearing paper masks to protect themselves and others, and to identify differences in participants' health beliefs regarding masks. Background: The correct use of face masks and consensus among health professionals across the globe is essential for containing pandemics, and nurses need to act according to policy to protect themselves, educate the public and preserve resources for frontline health workers. Paper masks are worn by health professionals and the general public to avoid the transmission of respiratory infections, such as COVID‐19, but there appear to be differences in health beliefs of nurses within and between countries regarding these. Methods: This qualitative descriptive study used content analysis with a framework approach. Findings: There were major differences in nurse participants' beliefs between and within countries, including how nurses use paper masks and their understanding of their efficacy. In addition, there were cultural differences in the way that nurses use masks in their daily lives and nursing practice contexts. Conclusion: Nurses from different working environments, countries and areas of practice hold a variety of health beliefs about mask wearing at the personal and professional level. Implications for nursing policy and health policy: The COVID‐19 pandemic has sparked much discussion about the critical importance of masks for the safety of health professionals, and there has been considerable discussion and disagreement about health policies regarding mask use by the general public. Improper use of masks may have a role in creating mask shortages or transmitting infections. An evidence‐based global policy on mask use for respiratory illnesses for health professionals, including nurses, and the general public needs to be adopted and supported by a wide‐reaching education campaign. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is commonly defined as a transitional subclinical state between normal aging and dementia. A growing body of research indicates that health behaviors may play a protective role against cognitive decline and could potentially slow down the progression from MCI to dementia. The aim of this study is to conduct a bibliometric analysis of literature focusing on health behaviors and MCI to summarize the factors and evidence regarding the influence of health behaviors on MCI. Methods: The study performed a bibliometric analysis by retrieving publications from the Science Citation Index and Social Sciences Citation Index subdatabases within the Web of Science Core Collection. Utilizing VOSviewer and CiteSpace software, a total of 2,843 eligible articles underwent co-citation, cokeywords, and clustering analyses. This methodology aimed to investigate the current status, trends, major research questions, and potential future directions within the research domain. Results: The bibliometric analysis indicates that research on healthy behaviors in individuals with MCI originated in 2002 and experienced rapid growth in 2014, reflecting the increasing global interest in this area. The United States emerged as the primary contributor, accounting for more than one-third of the total scientific output with 982 articles. Journals that published the most articles on MCI-related health behaviors included "Journal of Alzheimer's Disease," "Neurobiology of Aging," "Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience," and other geriatricsrelated journals. High-impact papers identified by VOSviewer predominantly cover concepts related to MCI, such as diagnostic criteria, assessment, and multifactorial interventions. Co-occurrence keyword analysis highlights five research hotspots in health behavior associated with MCI: exercise, diet, risk factors and preventive measures for dementia, cognitive decline-related biomarkers, and clinical trials. Conclusion: This study provides a comprehensive review of literature on health behavior in individuals with MCI, emphasizing influential documents and journals. It outlines research trends and key focal points, offering valuable insights for researchers to comprehend significant contributions and steer future studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study is to identify the most prolific countries in the field of special education and to discuss the widespread impact of their papers by taking into account the country's h-index. Through a bibliometric analysis, the data were collected in the Web of Science Core Collection category "Education, Special" in the Social Science Citation Index during 2011-2020. The 25 most prolific countries in the field of special education were determined in terms of paper productivity, and it was seen that the leading country was undisputedly the USA (54.42%). Meanwhile, a strong positive correlation was found between the h-index and the number of papers published by the countries (r=0.864). On the other hand, when the ranking in terms of the number of papers was reconfigured by the h-index, it was relatively changed. The possible reasons for this change for the countries with the most changing rankings were discussed by considering some definitive criteria such as the journal quartiles, the percentage of international and domestic, and the percentage of open access papers. This study reports a positive correlation between the quality and quantity in the field of special education for the publications of countries. It has been shown that where the positive correlation deviates, then especially, the journal quartiles, the percentage of international collaboration and the percentage of open access papers have a significant effect. The bibliometric findings may be useful to enrich the discussion about the widespread impact of papers and debate whether the use of h-index is acceptable for cross-national comparisons.

A major hurdle in pediatric formulation development is the lack of safety and toxicity data on some of the commonly used excipients. While the maximum oral safe dose for several kinds of excipients is known in the adult population, the doses in pediatric patients, including preterm neonates, are not established yet due to the lack of evidence-based data. This paper consists of four parts: (1) country-specific perspectives in different parts of the world (current state, challenges in excipients, and ongoing efforts) for ensuring the use of safe excipients, (2) comparing and contrasting the country-specific perspectives, (3) past and ongoing collaborative efforts, and (4) future perspectives on excipients for pediatric formulation. The regulatory process for pharmaceutical excipients has been developed. However, there are gaps between each region where a lack of information and an insufficient regulation process was found. Ongoing efforts include raising issues on excipient exposure, building a region-specific database, and improving excipient regulation; however, there is a lack of evidence-based information on safety for the pediatric population. More progress on clear safety limits, quantitative information on excipients of concern in the pediatric population, and international harmonization of excipients' regulatory processes for the pediatric population are required. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, the variables having impact on the student motivation have been analyzed based on the articles, conference papers, master's theses and doctoral dissertations published in the years 2000-2017. A total of 165 research papers were selected for the research material and the data were collected through qualitative research techniques through document review and content analysis. According to the research results, the most important factors affecting student motivation are the fields of teacher, teachers' classroom management skills and their teaching methods. In this research, factors having less influence on the student motivation are parental communication, student characteristics and study fields. In addition, relational search type was used more than others, mostly students were selected as the study group and most researches were conducted in USA and Turkey.

This article maps the scientific production and the contents associated with the sustainable development goals and their integration with universities during the past 21 years. Although many of the topics related to sustainable development goals (SDGs) have been addressed in different studies for decades, it is since 2015 onwards that they gained greater prominence due to the inclusion of higher education as an important actor in the fulfillment of the 2030 agenda and the United Nations SDGs. For the purpose of this paper, a bibliometric analysis of 871 papers, 535 documents in Scopus, and 336 in Web of Science (WoS) from 1998 to 2019 was performed, and the Bibliometrix analysis tool was used. The objective of this mapping is to answer the following research question: Is the integration of the Sustainable Development Goals and Universities a field of study? An analysis of the network of collaborators and trend topics in Scopus and WoS allows us to identify the concurrence and relationships of some keywords, such as sustainable development, sustainability and planning, and some background words, such as humans and global health. In another analysis, the word "higher education" is related to change. This article suggests that the integration of the Sustainable Development Goals in Universities is becoming a field of study under exploration, with a peak of production in 2016 and that has remained stable in the last three years, but thanks to the leading role assigned to Universities, intellectual production should increase in the following years.

For those receiving funding from the UK HEFCE-funded Open Educational Resource Programme (2009-2012), the sustainability of project outputs was one of a number of essential goals. Our approach for the hosting and distribution of health and life science open educational resources (OER) was based on the utilisation of the WordPress.org blogging platform and search engine optimisation (SEO) techniques to curate content and widen discovery. This paper outlines the approaches taken and tools used at the time, and reflects upon the effectiveness of web strategies several years post-funding. The paper concludes that using WordPress.org as a platform for sharing and curating OER, and the adoption of a pragmatic approach to SEO, offers cheap and simple ways for small-scale open education projects to be effective and sustainable.

Governance and regulation of the use of live animals in research and teaching is examined in Australia, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, China, Japan and India. A comparison of the systems in different countries will enable the determination of best practice and fit-forpurpose regulation. The most comprehensive government regulation of animal welfare in institutions covers a broad range of animals and institutions are required to have an Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, whose membership is specified in guidelines or regulations. The work of the Committees is rigorously overseen by government and facilities that use live animals are audited externally. All countries examined have legislation governing the use of live animals in research, although only Australia and Malaysia have a fully equivalent mandated oversight of teaching. Teaching that uses live animals is partly covered in the Philippines, Japan, Singapore and Thailand This paper thus aims to review the regulation of animal use in different Asian jurisdictions in order to determine best practices that are appropriate to those settings. The most comprehensive oversight is provided in Australia and Malaysia that essentially use the same regulatory framework.

The fragmentation of academic work and its uneven distribution among academic staff have produced particular challenges for new entrants to teaching in Higher Education, Early Career Teachers [ECTs]. In this paper, documentary analysis of the narratives of fourteen ECTs, who worked across six different continents, was undertaken. The findings highlight the diverse forms of precarity that ECTs face, which cut across migratory, identitarian, economic, and ideological dimensions. It discusses ECTs' reflections on their expectations of teaching and their adaptation to the demands of neoliberal Higher Education. Drawing from their narratives and Sevil Sümer's theories of differentiated academic citizenship, ECTs are recognised as 'precarious academic citizens'. This has important implications for revealing the unique circumstances of this group, thereby opening further questions as regards their mentoring and support to enable them to be situated more equally as citizens of the academy.

Nurses' beliefs about food and nutrition influence the care and advice they give patients, their families, nurses and others, but these beliefs have not been extensively researched before. This paper presents findings from the qualitative phase of a large q-methodology study that involved both quantitative and qualitative methods. The phase of the study reported here utilized a qualitative descriptive approach regarding a range of beliefs, and in-depth interviews with 240 participants who comprised 30 academics and 30 clinical nurses each from China, Thailand, Japan and Australia. Content analysis was employed to analyse the extracted data regarding their beliefs about nutrition and nutritional supplements, and the sources of these beliefs. Findings and resultant discussion are reported about 17 specific nutritional beliefs. We concluded that many nurses in all the surveyed countries had some false and scientifically unsupported beliefs about nutrition, derived primarily from the media or personal experience. Study findings speak to the need for nurses to critically examine the sources of information they use in their practice and teaching, as well as a need for research to be reported responsibly and accurately. The review of the presented evidence about nutrition will assist nurses in their clinical and teaching practice, and hopefully inspire them to use evidence-based practice in future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to evaluate and determine the effectiveness of university education on the economy of various countries. Design/methodology/approach: To determine the necessity and expedience of making provision for the effectiveness of university education on the market economy, this work uses the method of regression and correlation analysis. Evaluation of effectiveness of the system of university education is performed separately for students, state, and employers by taking as example countries with specially developed formulas. Findings: The authors substantiate the necessity for provision of effectiveness of university education on the market economy, view the effective system of university education as a basis for the development of a knowledge economy, determine approaches to evaluate the effectiveness of university education on the market economy, perform evaluation of effectiveness of the system of university education by the example of various countries, determine its connection with indicators of economic growth and development, and provide recommendations for provision of effectiveness of the system of university education on modern market economies. Practical implications: The practical value of results of the conducted research consists in the possibility to use the developed formulas for determining the level of effectiveness of the system of university education on various countries of the world. Originality/value: Theoretical value of this paper consists in the possibility for the application of authors' conclusions and recommendations in the process of development of the policy of management of effectiveness of university education system.

This paper reports on research conducted as part of the International Instructional System Study that explored five subject areas across nine jurisdictions in six high-performing countries. The Study's overall aim was to understand what, if anything, there is in common in the curricula and assessment arrangements among the high-performing jurisdictions to see if there are aspects of instructional system design that might account, in part, for high performance. This paper focuses on social studies which in most jurisdictions includes elements of history, geography and citizenship and highlights a number of emerging issues. These include the advantages and disadvantages of teaching history and geography separately or within a social studies programme; the extent to which key concepts are embedded within the social studies/history/geography curricula; whether the level of demand should be considered in terms of a generic taxonomy or in terms of subject specific models; how progression might be defined and considerations of an appropriate balance between teacher assessment and external assessment.

Seamless learning has a significance that has been increasing in recent years, and an increasing number of studies on the subject in the literature draws attention. This study aimed to examine the research on seamless learning between 1996 and 2020 with the bibliometric analysis method. The Scopus database was used in the collection of the data. After various screening processes, a total of 389 publications were included in the analysis. Descriptive analysis and bibliometric analysis were used in the analysis of the data. The distribution of publications by years, types of publications, sources, and languages were analyzed in the research. Additionally, visual maps were created with analyses of co-author, cocitation, and co-word. At the end of the study, it was seen that there has been an increase in the number of publications from the past to the present, articles and papers were predominant, and that most of the studies were carried out in English. As a result of bibliometric analysis, it was concluded that the most efficient countries in seamless learning were the United Kingdom, the United States, and Singapore. Also, it has been determined that the National Institute of Education, Center for International Education and Exchange, and Kyushu University institutions are dominant. The most frequently mentioned authors cited in studies in many different fields are M. Sharples, L.-H. Wong, and H. Ogata. According to the co-word analysis, the keywords seamless learning, mobile learning, ubiquitous learning, and mobile-assisted language learning stand out in the field of seamless learning.

Interpretive frameworks may be helpful to understand narratives, yet they also risk displacing unique information of the research context. In this paper, we argue that such is the case in narrative inquiry studies of English language teaching set in the Asian context, perhaps due to the pressure to use familiar interpretive frameworks that are sanctioned by scholars. Through meta-ethnography, we examined recent narrative inquiry studies set in Asia. It was observed that the research findings do not offer any critical insights about the context of the study; instead, they add to the prevalence of broad constructs of English language education, such as the components of identity. For future narrative inquiry research, we recommend researchers to consider utilizing local meanings pertinent to the study context as an analytical lens, as a means to Asianize the field.

This paper reports on the first stage of an international comparative study for the project "'Digital educational architectures: Open learning resources in distributed learning infrastructures--EduArc,'" funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. This study reviews the situation of digital educational resources (or (O)ER) framed within the digital transformation of ten different Higher Education (HE) systems (Australia, Canada, China, Germany, Japan, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Turkey and the United States). Following a comparative case study approach, we investigated issues related to the existence of policies, quality assurance mechanisms and measures for the promotion of change in supporting infrastructure development for (O)ER at the national level in HE in the different countries. The results of this mainly documentary research highlight differences and similarities, which are largely due to variations in these countries' political structure organisation. The discussion and conclusion point at the importance of understanding each country's context and culture, in order to understand the differences between them, as well as the challenges they face.

This paper aims to identify the current state of knowledge management (KM) diffusion in LIS schools. In terms of content, we have identified two principal approaches to the perception of KM in the LIS community: an active approach, seeing KM as an opportunity for the LIS community to change; and a passive approach, seeing KM merely as a topic of information management with a new label. Our research analyzed study programs at 145 LIS schools and in 188 LIS study programs in the United States, Canada, Europe (in particular, Russia), Australia, India, South Africa, China, Japan, Singapore, and Brazil and observed the inclusion or non-inclusion of KM courses in those programs. We employ a narrower approach to defining a KM course as being one having the term "knowledge management" in its name. The findings indicate that KM courses are integrated in one-third of the LIS study programs analyzed, and in schools with an information science focus this figure can rise to around 45%. Given the importance of this area and various views regarding KM diffusion in LIS schools, we recommend that those who have already implemented a KM course in their LIS programs create an informal community of practice (CoP) on KM implementation in LIS schools and build an open database of lessons learned from such integration, thereby capturing and sharing this crucial knowledge in a single place.

This paper explores faculty's perspectives and use of open educational resources (OER) and their repositories across different countries by conducting a multiple case study to find similarities and differences between academics' awareness, perceptions and use of OER, as well as examining related aspects of institutional policy and quality that may influence individual views. Data were collected through nine expert reports on each country studied (Australia, Canada, China, Germany, Japan, South Africa, South Korea, Spain and Turkey) and were analyzed through qualitative content analysis using thematic coding. Findings show the impact on individual OER adoption with regard to the individual control of diverse factors by faculty members; of institutional policies and quality measures on the externally determined factors (by the institution); and of institutional professional development and provision of incentives in more internally determined factors (by the faculty members themselves). These findings carry implications for higher education institutions around the world in their attempt to boost OER adoption by faculty members.

Fitts' Law is, more often than not, thought of as standard knowledge in the field of Human-Computer Interaction. However, in many occasions, interface components are being built by professionals with little or no knowledge of HCI principles (e.g., software menus are often being built by software developers with no designer input). How much appreciation of Fitts' Law exists among developers, and how does it affect our collaboration with them and the software they build and we use? To help answer this question, a survey among 65 designers and developers was conducted, as well as an analysis of the Computer Science undergraduate curricula from 94 internationally high-ranked universities. The contribution of this paper is twofold: firstly, treating Fitts' Law as an Open Educational Resource and, secondly, the analysis identified gaps that extend beyond HCI Education and fall in the sphere of Epistemology.

Approximately a third of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) items in the core domains (math, reading, and science) are constructed-response items and require human coding (scoring). This process is time-consuming, expensive, and prone to error as often (a) humans code inconsistently, and (b) coding reliability in international large-scale assessments varies across items and countries. The shift in PISA 2015 from paper- to computer-based assessment digitized all responses and associated coding, thus providing opportunities to introduce technology and analytical methods to improve data processing and analyses in future cycles. In this computer-based setting, this research explains the framework and approach for improving the accuracy and efficiency of the coding process in constructed-response items for future PISA cycles. In the pilot study associated with this research, we demonstrate how the proposed machine-supported coding system can be utilized using sample reading items from the PISA 2015 cycle.

This paper presents a compilation of personal reflections from 66 contributors on the impact of, and responses to, COVID-19 in accounting education in 45 different countries around the world. It reveals a commonality of issues, and a variability in responses, many positive outcomes, including the creation of opportunities to realign learning and teaching strategies away from the comfort of traditional formats, but many more that are negative, primarily relating to the impact on faculty and student health and well-being, and the accompanying stress. It identifies issues that need to be addressed in the recovery and redesign stages of the management of this crisis, and it sets a new research agenda for studies in accounting education.

Cross-border higher education institutions are considered a main way to fulfill the educational internalization in Mainland China; to some extent they represent the attitude of entering the international market. In this paper, the history, status quo, and future of Chinese-foreign cooperatively-run schools are analyzed and discussed. Cross-border higher education institutions in Mainland China have experienced the process from accidental and disorder to a systematic and quality orientation.

This paper scrutinizes decentralization of education with reference to some countries around the world. We consider discussion on decentralization to be complex, critical and broad question in the contemporary education planning, administration and politics of education reforms. Even though the debate on and implementation of decentralization education can result from differences in ideological and philosophical backgrounds (McGinn & Welsh, 1999), in this scrutiny we begin by theorizing the concept, provides dimensions and goals of decentralization and demonstrate how decentralization has been implemented in some countries. Finally, conclusion is assumed in this debate as a summary and a conduit to further discussion and investigation of educational decentralization.

This systematic review is built on the seminal work by the New London Group in 1996. Few endeavours have synthesized findings of empirical studies pertaining to the effects and challenges of multiliteracies practices in various schooling and geographical contexts. Through a five-point Likert scale and a deductive and inductive thematic analysis, we conducted a systematic review of 66 multiliteracies articles from the ProQuest® database. These studies were empirical, qualitative/mixed-method, and ranged from 2006 to 2015. Findings show a burgeoning number of multiliteracies studies occurring in 15 countries, with Canada being the most prominently involved. Our evaluation of the reviewed studies was generally favourable with strengths identified in researchers' articulation of pertinent theoretical frameworks and connections to existent literature. Our findings refer to insufficient information of data collection and data analysis in a certain number of papers. We also elaborate on major affordances, challenges, and oversights of the multiliteracies practices as reported by the reviewed studies and discuss implications for future multiliteracies research, policies on literacy education, and teacher education in diverse contexts.

In school education, one of the few visible responses to increasing globalisation of educational practice has been the implementation of short-term experiential overseas student learning programmes. This paper analyses the results of a comparative research project on three Australian schools that offer such learning experiences. It argues that teachers who possess or who are capable of developing a transcultural--as opposed to an intercultural--capacity are more likely to be effective educators on these special programmes, as well as being more receptive to the personal and professional development that derives from participation in them.

East Asian dominance in international large-scale assessments is widely known. This is often explained as an outcome of highly competitive, exam-oriented education systems in East Asia, wherein students partake in a fierce competition for limited college entrance. Although achievement scores may be comparatively higher, the argument goes, the relative success comes at a steep price, with the emphasis on high-stakes tests heightening student stress and anxiety. In this paper we refute this persistent and out-dated stereotype by focusing on changes in Japanese education over the past several decades. The two original studies we report herein show that not only do Japanese students feel less school-related anxiety and stress than they once did, but these levels are now comparable to students in America, Australia, and the United Kingdom. In showing that stereotypes do not match empirical realities, we seek to open a richer discussion around East Asian student achievement. We conclude by extending the discussion to recent changes in China, Taiwan, and South Korea. We then raise the possibility that fundamentally different outlooks on the learning process explain both differences in achievement and the persistence of the West's distorted images of Japanese and East Asian education.

International students have continued to be the focus of simplistic stereotyping in media discourse where they are frequently identified as one of the forces behind declining academic standards in Australian universities. Their English language skills, in particular, have continued to be the focus of debate both in the mainstream media and in higher education research and policy. It is argued in this paper, however, that such debates do not sufficiently acknowledge the moral and affective complexity of the so-called "English problem" amongst international students in Australian universities. Drawing from an analysis of small group interviews with international students, domestic students and university staff, the beliefs and experiences of various parties about the English language skills of international students are examined. A key finding from this analysis is that the English language skills of international students, and their concomitant interactions with others, can be the object of both complaints and troubles talk. These complaints or troubles can be either ratified or resisted by those participants. The difficulties international students may experience in using English thus have complex moral and affective consequences. The way in which the so-called English problem in Australian universities is generally couched as one of objective, measurable deficiency on the part of international students arguably neglects the moral and affective complexity of the difficulties facing international students. This neglect leads, in turn, to an impoverished understanding of the English language capabilities of international students.

This paper sets out the main findings of the International Instructional Systems Study (IISS), conducted by the UCL Institute of Education and funded by the Center on International Education Benchmarking (CIEB). The study examined the instructional systems and intended curricula of six "high performing" countries and two US states. The study ultimately focused on nine specific aspects of those systems: the aims of the education system; how centralised or decentralised management of the instructional system is; principles and methods of accountability; what compulsory and optional subjects are included in the programmes of study; the degree to which curriculum is organised by discipline or integrated across disciplines; whether curriculum is common or differentiated; how twenty-first century skills are embedded in the curriculum; the clarity and content of curriculum for secondary vocational pathways; and how assessments are created and what stakes they have and for whom.

This article synthesises findings from two systematic reviews that examined evidence of the link between large-scale assessments (LSAs) and education policy in economically developing countries and in countries of the Asia-Pacific. Analyses summarise evidence of assessment characteristics and policy goals of LSAs that influence education policy, when LSAs are used in the policy-making cycle and types of education policies impacted, and factors that influence the use of LSAs in policy-making. Results show national assessments conducted at both primary and secondary school levels to have an impact on education policy. LSAs are used more often for monitoring education quality and equity purposes followed by accountability purposes. International assessments are more often used to leverage policy priorities than other assessment types. LSAs feature mainly at the monitoring and evaluation stage of the policy cycle. The education policies impacted by LSAs relate considerably more to curricular reforms and performance standards as well as assessment bodies and activities and far less to resource allocation and teaching and learning policies. Finally, whereas the quality of assessment programmes facilitate impact, financial constraints and uncertainty as well as weak assessment bodies hinder the impact of LSAs on education policy.

This paper empirically examines the impact of academic research on high-tech manufacturing growth of 28 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and emerging countries over the 1991-2005 period. A standard research and development (R&D) expenditure based measure is found to be too general to capture the input in high-tech research. To overcome this problem, a novel proxy for high-tech research investment--the supercomputer capacity--is proposed. Empirical evidence strongly supports this choice of variable. It is also found that academic R&D exerts a larger growth effect on high-tech output than its industry and government counterparts, but only the impact differential between academic and government R&D is statistically significant.