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For the forty-fifth time, the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) is sponsoring the publication of these Proceedings. Papers published in this volume were presented online and onsite during the annual AECT Convention. The Proceedings of AECT's Convention are published in two volumes. Volume #1 contains papers dealing primarily with research and development topics. Papers dealing with the practice of instructional technology including instruction and training issues are contained in Volume #2. This year, both volumes are included in one document.

The aim of the International Society for Technology, Education, and Science (iHSES) conference is to offer opportunities to share ideas, discuss theoretical and practical issues, and connect with the leaders in the fields of "humanities," "education" and "social sciences." It is organized for: (1) faculty members in all disciplines of humanities, education and social sciences; (2) graduate students; (3) K-12 administrators; (4) teachers; (5) principals; and (6) all interested in education and social sciences. [Individual papers are indexed in ERIC.]

Sub-Saharan African societies had contacts with China that stretch back to the early days of the Silk Road where the two regions facilitated trade relations and exchanged technology and ideas. Beginning in the 1950s China formalized relations with SSA based on South-South cooperation. At the end of the Cold War, China intensified its relations with SSA within the frameworks of "One Belt one Road" in Africa and the Forum for China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC). The China-Africa relations have scored benefits in the areas of promoting infrastructural development, strong investments in SSA, trade links between the two regions, less expensive technical assistance for nations in SSA, cultural exchanges, and student scholarships. Nonetheless, the relations raise complicated issues around trade where China is flooding markets in SSA with inferior goods, acquisition of resources, Chinese mining companies causing environmental destruction in many countries in SSA, and the Chinese government's debt trapping of many sub-Saharan African nations. Many suspect that China is surreptitiously forging a relationship with SSA that may help it assert its "trusteeship" over sub-Saharan Africa's political, economic, and development processes. The paper is developed within these broader contexts to examine the paradoxes and contradictions of the China-sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) relations and their potential impacts on education policy and practice in the region. The paper focuses on SSA, a region that constitutes forty-eight of the fifty-four countries of the African continent. This sociohistorical paper is part of my ongoing study to examine the impacts of external forces' economic and political relations on education policy and practice in the SSA and the potential of the relations to destabilize the epistemological processes of sub-Saharan African societies. [For the complete Volume 22 proceedings, see ED656158.]

This study explores the collaboration between Chinese and English partner teachers in a Chinese immersion school. They demonstrated commitment, communication, and collaboration, emphasizing student success. They bridged the curriculum by identifying shared standards, essential questions, and assessments, ensuring coherence across Chinese and English instruction. Pedagogical translanguaging strategies were employed, leveraging multilingual resources and encouraging cross-linguistic transfer. Students utilized their linguistic repertoire in meaningful ways, resulting in deeper content knowledge and language development. The study highlights students' positive experiences, recognizing the relevance of both languages and fostering bilingual identities. These findings emphasize the importance of translanguaging practices and the creation of flexible, multilingual spaces through collaborative planning to enhance content and language integration in immersion education.

This case study is based on teachers' personal observation of students of Oberlin College, Ohio, US, and students' feedback, and addresses cross-cultural communication of Chinese as a foreign (L2) language teacher, who is also the first author of this article. The study was conducted during the global pandemic; L2 language teaching methods in Oberlin College had to be shifted from face-to-face lectures to online teaching using videoconferencing tools, particularly Zoom. It was used not only as the online class platform, but also an additional live communication tool in other activities. The case study presented in this article was conducted mainly through observations in daily classes before and after the pandemic. The results suggest that reserved personality and inadequate cultural contact are factors of accultured difficulties for L2 Chinese language teachers when working in the US. This paper proposes solutions for preparations for a cross-cultural adaptability for Chinese language teachers teaching L2 Chinese abroad, especially in conditions like using videoconferencing tools in online teaching classes. [For the complete volume, "Intelligent CALL, Granular Systems and Learner Data: Short Papers from EUROCALL 2022 (30th, Reykjavik, Iceland, August 17-19, 2022)," see ED624779.]

This paper reports on the development of six student teachers' knowledge of instructional strategies (KOIS) for teaching proportions during a 2-month practicum in China. Development of four subcomponents was explored through Content Representation (CoRe) questionnaires and follow-up interviews. Data was analysed deductively and levels of each subcomponent determined based on a scoring rubric. Implications include that practicum is capable of developing KOIS effectively as final scores were at the maximum level with some participants showing greater initiative within their KOIS than others. Implications include that a further level in the rubric could be considered to reflect when creativity is shown in PCK.

Fostering students' bidirectional conception of the equal sign (viewing the equal sign as indicating an equivalence of two sides rather than a 'show result' symbol) is challenging, and students' misconception of the equal sign is persistent. Some studies mention that in China, the pedagogical approach to introducing the equal sign supports students' development of bidirectional sense toward the equal sign. Built up on this body of literature, this paper further investigates the Chinese pedagogy from the researcher, students and the teacher's perspectives.

This study aimed to reveal general landscape of research on teacher resilience, employing descriptive and bibliometric analyses. Descriptive analyses were performed utilizing Web of Science's internal system, while bibliometric analyses were executed through the VOSviewer program. Web of Science Core Collection was used as a data source. Citation analyses of publications, authors, and journals, as well as co-authorship, co-citation, and common word analyses were conducted. The research reveals a timeline of publications, indicating a notable surge in 2006, and a substantial increase in 2021. The countries with the highest number of publications on teacher resilience, in descending order, are the United States of America (USA), Australia, the United Kingdom (UK), and the People's Republic of China (PRC), according to the research findings. Authors such as Gu, C. Day, S. Beltman, C. Mansfield, and A. Price emerged from the citation analysis. Based on the results from the co-citation analysis, C. Day and Q. Gu were identified as the most frequently co-cited authors. The co-occurrence analysis of keywords highlighted key terms like resilience, teacher education, early career teachers, teacher candidates, professional learning, school leadership, and COVID-19. The findings were contextualized within the existing literature, leading to recommendations for future research. [This paper was published in: "EJER Congress 2023 International Eurasian Educational Research Congress Conference Proceedings," Ani Publishing, 2023, pp. 591-611.]

Augmented reality (AR), a cutting-edge technology, has the potential to change the way students learn by superimposing virtual items and information onto the real environment. Through more immersive and interesting interactions with digital content, AR might help students better understand difficult concepts and boost their drive to learn. As a result of its contribution to student learning, AR has become increasingly appealing to educational researchers. This study aimed to descriptively explore the characteristics of AR studies in education and to qualitatively analyze the most influential ones indexed in the Web of Science (WoS) between 2000 and 2022. A scoping review was conducted to determine the sample of the AR studies in education based on the inclusion criteria. Accordingly, descriptive analyses were conducted to identify the characteristics of the AR studies in education between 2000 and 2022 in terms of publication year, country, affiliations, journals, funding agencies, and citation trends. Then, the research methodologies and implications were found among the most influential AR studies in education between 2000 and 2022 by synthesizing qualitatively. The overall results indicated that AR studies in education have been conducted since 2008, with an increasing number of studies over time. Based on the implications of the most influential studies identified in terms of citation numbers, it was detected that AR has the potential to enhance education and training by providing interactive and engaging environments, linking real-world contexts with digital resources, and promoting efficiency and effectiveness in learning. [This paper was published in: "EJER Congress 2023 International Eurasian Educational Research Congress Conference Proceedings," Ani Publishing, 2023, pp. 273-291.]

Anchored in the researchers' investigation and experience during the internship at a middle school in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, this dissertation, carried out under the guidance of the theory of chunk teaching method, sorts out the current research results and findings on chunk teaching method, and then analyzes the differences between the chunk teaching method and other traditional writing teaching methods from the perspectives of contents and functions, which draws a conclusion that the utilization of chunk teaching method in China is of great significance to the improvement of middle school students' abilities in English writing. Before writing this paper, researchers conducted a series of preliminary preparations such as questionnaires, interviews and the same-topic writing tests. With that in mind, this dissertation reveals the chunk teaching method's capability of more or strengthening middle students' English writing ability, and thus demonstrates the effectiveness of chunk recitation in English writing teaching in China's middle schools, which provides reference and critical materials for scholars in this field. [For the full proceedings, see ED654100.]

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were developed by the United Nations in 2015 to encompass universal respect for equality and non-discrimination regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, and cultural diversity. Since 2000, Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS) have aligned with SDG 4.3 by developing higher education institutions (HEIs) which aims to "By 2030, ensure equal access for all women and men to affordable and quality technical, vocational and tertiary education, including university". This was intended to create equal opportunities and permit full realisation and prosperity of human rights and human dignity. This paper explores the effectiveness of managing racial integration in BRICS HEIs and illustrates remarkable progress in research and policy enactment. Particular attention is devoted to the period from the mid-2000s when evidence around the globe exposed the presence of many forms of violence, which inhibit management of effective racial integration. Based on case studies from selected BRICS countries (South Africa, Russia, and Brazil), this paper explores how the management of racial integration is being addressed within these contexts. [For the complete Volume 20 proceedings, see ED622631.]

The transition between arithmetic and algebraic thinking is challenging for students. One notable difficulty for students is understanding algebraic symbols--pronumerals. Researchers are exploring pedagogical approaches in seeking to address this issue. The current paper is contributing to this body of literature by illustrating how an online card matching game-based learning activity supports students' understanding of pronumerals.

In an Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS), problem (or question) difficulty is one of the most critical parameters, directly impacting problem design, test paper organization, result analysis, and even the fairness guarantee. However, it is very difficult to evaluate the problem difficulty by organized pre-tests or by expertise, because these solutions are labor-intensive, time-consuming, leakage-prone, or subjective in some way. Thus, it is of importance to automatically evaluate problem difficulty via information technology. To this end, we propose a novel difficulty prediction framework, named SQL-DP, for Structured Query Language (SQL) programming problems, mastering which plays a vital role in learning the database technology. In SQL-DP, semantic features of problem stems and structure features of problem answers in the form of SQL codes are both computed at first, using the NLP and the neural network techniques. Then, these features are used as the input to train a difficulty prediction model with the statistic error rates in tests as the training labels, where the whole modeling does not introduce any experts, some as knowledge labeling. Finally, with the trained model, we can automatically predict the difficulty of each SQL programming problem. Moreover, SQL programming problem answering log data of hundreds of undergraduates from Guangxi University of China are collected, and the experiments conducted on the collected log data demonstrate the propped SQL-DP framework outperforms the state-of-the-art solutions apparently. In particular, SQL-DP decreases the RMSE of difficulty prediction by at most 7.23%, compared with the best-related framework. [For the full proceedings, see ED623995.]

Online synchronous classes and seminars are increasing in universities along with the outbreak of COVID-19. Since the online classes are not in-person condition, it is difficult for a teacher to monitor the learners. In the field of distance education, the need to support learner's concentration has been identified. More effective methods adapted to online classes in universities should be discussed. In this paper, we focus on the teacher's and learners' attention to the material in online real-time classes. We then propose a system that provides feedback on the differences in learners' gaze in order to improve the followability of learners. The proposed system assumes an online environment using Microsoft Teams PowerPointLive and acquires the "gazing point" at every slide-material and "page change history" of the teacher and learners. The results of using the proposed system suggest that it can improve the learner's followability to the teacher.

Drawing on theories from transcultural theory, I examined Chinese immigrant mothers' transcultural perspectives on mothering and learning. Recent adult educational studies contain limited research on the effects of cultural influence on mothering and learning by immigrant mothers from their perspective. Based on 30 semi-structured interviews among Chinese immigrant mothers in Canada, this study revealed there are not only interactions between the fluid cultural values and the understanding of mothering and learning by immigrant mothers, but also race, gender, and class relations behind Chinese immigrant mothers' mothering and learning practice. This paper contributes to a better understanding of cultural influence on Chinese immigrant mothers' learning and mothering practice. The findings help foster adult educational programs for immigrant mothers in multicultural societies. [For full proceedings, see ED628982.]

Classroom instruction in China and in the United States have sharp differences. Typically, constructivist learning theory shapes American classroom instruction whereas Confucian educational culture shapes Chinese classroom instruction. Furthermore, typically, Chinese classrooms adopt a direct instructional approach whereas American classrooms adopt an indirect instructional approach. Awareness of such differences in classroom instruction informs educators of the educational backgrounds of students coming from different educational environments and cultures, enabling educators to better serve different student populations. Additionally, it is worth noting that educational culture worldwide is converging as indicated by world culture theory. This paper presents different classroom instruction in China and the U.S., and inspires educators to learn from the differences, reflect on their own instruction, and eventually innovate and improve their instruction. [For the full proceedings, see ED628982.]

Global competition results in an overall demand for higher skills. In the competitive world, China has no choice but to adjust themselves to become more efficient, productive, and flexible. Higher education in China has played a key role in achieving socialist economy and modernization. Since the open-door policy in the 1980s, there has been a shift from elite to mass education, practice of corporate managerialism in education governance, privatization of education, and spread of transnational education in the tertiary sector. The author first attempts to explore the strategies that have been adopted in higher education reform in China. Then there are reviews of the roles of Project 211, Project 985, and the Double First-Class Initiative in higher education reform in China. Higher education reform has allowed mainland China to identify a small group of universities to be measured alongside the best universities in North America and Europe. However, there are also some backwash effects created from these trends of restructuring of higher education in China. [For the complete Volume 21 proceedings, see ED629259.]

In this era of globalization, mobile learning is increasingly becoming a new paradigm to promote teachers' core literacy. In this study, teachers in rural secondary schools in South China were selected as respondents, and the correlation between mobile learning and teachers' subject core literacy was proved by using SPSS22.0 software. The study concluded that mobile learning for Chinese rural secondary school teachers is deficient at the level of social interactivity, the learners (teachers) themselves and mobile learning devices. Therefore, enhancing the social interaction level of mobile learning, stimulating the demand for m-learning among rural secondary school teachers and Increasing Equipment Support are crucial to improving teachers' subject core literacy in rural secondary schools. [For the full proceedings, see ED639391.]

This study aimed to build a model to detect the factors to enhance student engagement and learning development in mobile learning during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Data from a total of 400 junior-high-school students were collected in China in the fall semester of 2020, and a large proportion of students preferred accessing their study with cellphones (67.0%) than with computers (11.8%), laptops (11.3%) or pads (10.0%). Exploratory factor analysis and structural equation modeling (SEM) were used for data analysis. The fitness of the items for each scale of the student engagement and learning development indicated a sufficient fit (X[superscript 2][subscript (19)] = 41.252, GIF = 0.974, AGFI = 0.951, CFI = 0.986, RMSEA = 0.054, NNFI = 0.979, IFI = 0.986). The results of SEM analysis show that emotional engagement is the most important factor (r[superscript 2] = 0.859) in the model, and student engagement has a significant positive impact on learning development in mobile learning. The findings of this study provide a good reference for enhancing student engagement or fostering students' learning development in mobile learning. [For the full proceedings, see ED639391.]

TVET is an education and training process with a strong emphasis on industry practises that strives to generate competent workers in particular fields. Cooperation with industry in TVET has the potential to improve the quality and relevance of TVET programmes and equip students with the practical skills and knowledge demanded by employers. Thus, there is a need for a complete bibliometric study of research linked to collaboration between TVET and industry, despite the fact that the number of studies in this field continues to increase. The bibliometric analysis in this research which was extracted from Web of Science database is analyze using VOSviewer. The research conducted a descriptive analysis of the publication number trends, the top authors and leading journals in this field. Next, the researcher also analyzed the co authorship based on authors and countries, research trends, citation and keywords analysis as well as co citation analysis. The article found that most of the articles in this field are published by authors from developed countries where the majority is from the United States. Other than that, the recent research hotspot were also identified indicating the future direction of the research in this field. [For the full proceedings, see ED654100.]

"Proceedings of International Conference on Education in Mathematics, Science and Technology" includes full papers presented at the International Conference on Education in Mathematics, Science and Technology (ICEMST) which took place on May 18-21, 2023 in Cappadocia, Turkey. The aim of the conference is to offer opportunities to share ideas, to discuss theoretical and practical issues and to connect with the leaders in the fields of education. The conference is organized annually by the International Society for Technology, Education, and Science (ISTES). The ICEMST invites submissions which address the theory, research or applications in all disciplines of education. The ICEMST is organized for: faculty members in all disciplines of education, graduate students, K-12 administrators, teachers, principals and all interested in education. After peer-reviewing process, all full papers are published in the Conference Proceedings. [Individual papers are indexed in ERIC.]

This study aims to examine the research published in the Web of Science database on Curriculum Alignment using the bibliometric analysis method. A bibliometric analysis of the studies included in the research was conducted on August 10, 2023. The "Web of Science Core Collection" was searched by entering the keyword "Curriculum Alignment." One hundred-five studies were included in the evaluation. VOSviewer package program was used for bibliometric analysis of article data. According to the general data of bibliometric analysis, 105 studies were published in 42 different sources, and the average number of citations per document was 11.21. When the distribution of articles according to publication years is examined, most articles were published in 2021. It was understood that there were more publications on Curriculum Alignment in the journals Chemical Education and Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice. It has been determined that studies on curriculum alignment are concentrated in the United States; The United States was followed by Australia, England, South Africa, Canada, and the People's Republic of China, respectively. It has been determined that topics such as learning outcomes, curriculum mapping, problem-based learning, analytical competencies, in-service teachers, enacted curriculum, curriculum change, collaboration, and assessment design are current issues discussed together with curriculum alignment. A limited number of studies have been conducted on Curriculum Alignment in Turkey. It may be recommended to conduct new studies on the subject. [For the full proceedings, see ED652261.]

[For the complete volume, "CALL and Professionalisation: Short Papers from EUROCALL 2021 (29th, Online, August 26-27, 2021)," see ED616972.]This study investigated whether a translation tool (Microsoft Translator -- MT) and its built-in speech features (Text-To-Speech synthesis -- TTS -- and speech recognition) can promote learners' acquisition in pronunciation of English regular past tense "-ed" in a self-directed manner. Following a pretest/posttest design, we compared 29 participants' performances of past "-ed" allomorphy (/t/, /d/, and /id/) by assessing their pronunciation in terms of phonological awareness, phonemic discrimination, and oral production. The findings highlight the affordances of MT regarding its pedagogical use for helping English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners improve their pronunciation.

Guided by the theory of Language Socialization (LS), this study investigates the mediating effects of teacher-student power relations in an academic English course. To do so, several sets of data were collected: responses to a questionnaire survey, a series of semi-structured interviews, and the online interactions which took place on two teaching platforms (WeChat and QQ). Our results show that together with other factors, the power relations highlighted in this study influenced the participants' academic performances. Besides, three types of teacher-student power relations were brought to the fore. Eventually, the power relations identified affected the construction of role identity in our study. The findings provide supporting evidence for the complicated power relations which exist between language learners and their community of practice. [For the complete volume, "CALL and Professionalisation: Short Papers from EUROCALL 2021 (29th, Online, August 26-27, 2021)," see ED616972.]

This descriptive study presents the first research cycle with four synchronous telecollaborative language learning sessions on Zoom between Irish and Chinese teenagers. Intercultural Sensitivity Scale (ISS) post-questionnaire results show that the mean of interaction enjoyment scale is the highest compared to the other four categories, which implies that telecollaboration provides an enjoyable and authentic environment for Irish adolescent learners to experience communication with native speakers. However, low averages of ISS categories indicate some factors are at play such as short telecollaboration duration and potential technological issues. The gap between the previous needs analysis and current findings demonstrates that participants probably underestimated the challenge of engaging with Chinese native speakers, which would suggest that more scaffoldings and preparations are required for beginning-level learners before and during telecollaborations. [For the complete volume, "CALL and Professionalisation: Short Papers from EUROCALL 2021 (29th, Online, August 26-27, 2021)," see ED616972.]

The transitional and adaptive process of studying abroad for international students is challenging. This study explores the motivation to study abroad (MSA) and the intercultural adaptation (IA) of international Chinese doctoral students (ICDS) at an Italian university by conducting a narrative inquiry approach through semi-structured interviews. Findings included: firstly, MSA has seven selecting principles, including the cooperation policies; social support; personal goals, beliefs, and values; the attraction of Italy; the attraction of Italian university; the doctoral program; Chinese sociocultural and educational system. Secondly, ICDS spans two cultures and experiences cultural disequilibrium. IA's attitudes toward ICDS comprise ideal, involute, Buddhist, and lying flat. Last, this study summarizes a dynamic virtuous and vicious cycle model to explain the role of MSA on IA. [For the full proceedings, see ED631897.]

Previous studies have identified the relationship between cognitive activation and academic emotions. However, little is known about the underlying process behind this relationship. Considering that cognitive activation strategies may have different effects on students of different abilities, latent multi-group structural equation modelling was used to compare the mechanism mentioned above. Findings showed that (1) academic self-concept and value significantly mediated the link between cognitive activation and academic emotions among students with different mathematics achievements; (2) the mediating effects of academic self-concept and value are more significant in the below-average students than in the above-average students.

Previous studies have uncovered the relationship between handwriting and mathematics performance, without articulating the underlying cognitive mechanism. With 197 Chinese fourth graders as participants, this study explored the mechanism by which the spacing/spatial relationship in handwriting legibility affects number-line estimation through VMI. The results indicate that (1) the spacing/spatial relationship in handwriting legibility had a direct and positive effect on students' number-line estimation performance; (2) VMI completely mediated the relationship between the spacing/spatial relationship in handwriting legibility and number-line estimation. Overall, the findings confirmed one specific mechanism of linguistic influences on students' numerical knowledge. Possible explanations for the results and implications for future research are discussed.

Future time perspective is now increasingly catching attention in educational psychology field. There is evidence that students' future time perspective negatively affected students' academic procrastination. Although the relationship between future time perspective and academic procrastination is stable. There are research gaps to be filled. On the one hand, most attention was paid to older students such as undergraduates rather than primary students. On the other hand, we still know little about the mechanism of their relationship. This study aimed to explore the mediating role of students' positive emotion between their future time perspective and academic procrastination. A total of 185 (92are boys and 93 are girls) primary students completed measures self-report in the study. Correlational results showed that future time perspective positively correlated positive emotion, negatively associated with academic procrastination, and positive emotion negatively linked to academic procrastination. Bootstrapped mediation results showed positive emotion partially mediated the relationship between future time perspective and academic procrastination. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. [For the full proceedings, see ED631133.]

Mathematics learning plays a significant role for high school students. Although gender differences in mathematics learning have been well documented, gender differences in mathematics learning self-assessment have not been adequately studied. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether gender differences existed in the mathematics learning self-assessment process. In this study, nine Chinese high school students answered interview questions about self-assessment (Step 1: determine/set self-assessment criteria; Step 2: seek external and internal feedback; Step 3: reflect the learning process and product with the support of feedback) in mathematics learning. The findings revealed that all high school students self-assessed their mathematics learning. Gender differences varied across the self-assessment steps. In Step 1 and Step 2, it did not show significant gender differences. However, in Step 3, gender differences were significant. This study can help educators and researchers better understand the variability and complexity of self-assessment in mathematics learning. [For the full proceedings, see ED631133.]

The Commission on International Adult Education (CIAE) of the American Association for Adult and Continuing Education (AAACE) provides a forum for the discussion of international issues related to adult education in general, as well as adult education in various countries around the globe. These "Proceedings" are from the Commission of International Adult Education's (CIAE) 2022 International Pre-Conference. This year's "Proceedings" contain 12 papers from 18 authors, representing CIAE's usual diversity of authors and topics. Researcher and research sites include Canada, China, Ghana, Italy, Nigeria, and the United States. A major theme continuing from the 2021 conference is the impact of COVID-19 on learners in a variety of settings, including teacher training, adult basic education, and higher education. A second major theme concerns cross-cultural learning, including among migrants and in higher education. Some papers address adult learning experiences in myriad social contexts, such as learning for democracy, aging, military, and spiritual learning. A special feature at this year's Pre-Conference is a focus on CONFINTEA VII and the Marrakech Framework for Action. A panel and discussion session on these important endeavors are part of the Pre-Conference Agenda, with key documents provided in the 2022 Proceedings. [Individual papers are indexed in ERIC.]

Older adults' participation in the University for the Third Age (U3A) positively influences their physical and emotional well-being and thus increases their quality of life. However, the number of the elderly participating in the U3A has remained low in China, especially in rural areas. This study explored the factors influencing older adults' attendance in a U3A in Guangxi Province, one of the less-developed provinces in China. Results indicated that factors impact participation associated with gender, overall life quality, general health, daily life activities, self-esteem, and social relationships in the U3A. This study provides a new understanding of Chinese older adults' learning in U3A in rural provinces and may help countries with similar situations. [For full proceedings, see ED628982.]

Internationalization has become a substantial part of higher education worldwide, especially in the U.S. Moreover, Chinese students make up the largest portion of the U.S.'s international higher education students. The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a disruption in higher education, especially posing considerable challenges to international students. Given the emphasis of international higher education in the U.S. and the prominence of Chinese international students in this country, as well as the sparsity of research outside large cities, this study sought to examine particular challenges posed to Chinese international students studying at universities in smaller cities in the U.S. Results indicate that this group of students experienced a myriad of hardships and challenges during the pandemic. Understanding these effects can inform international higher education programs perhaps worldwide, ultimately improving such programs to better manage crises, but also to improve normal practice. [For the full proceedings, see ED628982.]

Various internal and external determinants influence an education system. External determinants include language, demographics, geography, technology, politics, and financial and economic trends. Religion is also one of these external determinants that can influence an education system, as well as the education systems of the. The BRICS member countries consist of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. The BRICS member countries are one of the most organized and supportive international cooperation organizations that currently exist. Religion is considered a controversial and sensitive topic. This research aimed to determine how religion as an external determinant influences the education systems of the BRICS member countries. The study focused on the differences and similarities that can be identified based on religion as an external determinant of the various education systems in the BRICS member countries. The BRICS member countries were deliberately chosen for this study because each member state is considered a secular country in terms of religion, yet each member state treats religion differently in their country. The comparative method was used during this study to identify the best practices from the BRICS member countries. The interpretive research paradigm was used during this study using the qualitative research approach. The document analysis was used during the study to analyse the content of policies, legislation, articles, and government publications using content analysis to be able to identify themes to be able to perform the comparison between the different education systems of the BRICS member countries. The findings from this study are as follows: Religion as an external determinant of an education system does have a significant influence on the education systems of the various BRICS member countries. It is very important to observe and describe these findings from the context of the various member states. [For the complete Volume 20 proceedings, see ED622631.]

This study examined the influence of motivation and online self-regulation on students' online learning satisfaction. A sample of 1649 middle school students participated in the study. The findings suggested that online self-regulation and motivation played a driving role in students' online learning satisfaction and that motivation indirectly affected their online learning satisfaction through the three elements of a Community of Inquiry. These findings imply that both teachers and students should be targeted with interventions to improve students' satisfaction with their online learning. Future research should consider the impact of the relationship between motivation and online self-regulation. [For the complete proceedings, see ED639262.]

COVID-19 pandemic and post-pandemic had led to the confrontation of higher education system with enormous challenges. That necessitated the urgent transition from face-to-face teaching to online-teaching. The change was an innovation in higher education. A comparative study of digital education based on the survey in 2020-2021 in seven different countries was conducted at Shanghai University. The study was based on grey comprehensive evaluation model. In general, developed countries had high comprehensive evaluation value, while Finland, United States of America, South-Korea and Latvia had relatively low grey correlation coefficient in several certain indicators, leading to a sharp drop in the overall score. Romania ranked last while China ranked second as a developing country as well. The study launched a conclusion that research and development personnel, infrastructure funds and university financial investment in digital education had relatively more obvious effects on improving the innovations and quality of higher education system including the leadership system of universities. [For the full proceedings, see ED639633.]

Due to grades as a primary concern in school selection in China, parents tend to choose a better school when their children enter secondary school from primary school resulting in the changing peer group (reference group). According to the Social Comparison Theory, individuals are affected by comparing with the people around them to get their own evaluation. This study aims at exploring the effects of changing reference group on developments of academic achievement and self-esteem. Results indicated that selecting secondary school with better grades may benefit individual academic performance but bring no positive influence on self-esteem developments.