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Science subjects at pre-tertiary and tertiary education levels are important for socio-economic and industrial development of any country; however, they are difficult for students to construct their concepts. In Tanzania, insufficient or lack of practical experiments are major challenges for science subjects due to insufficient or lack of laboratories, apparatus, expertise or reagents. Thus, this research assesses the effectiveness of paper-based against virtual laboratory experiences towards improvement of real (hands-on) chemistry practical in Tanzanian secondary schools focusing in Dodoma region. Chemistry virtual laboratory was developed and being deployed at Dodoma Secondary School for students who were never done practical sessions before to avoid biasness towards the study. The students were divided into three groups, namely paper-based and real laboratory as control groups (CG) and virtual laboratory as the experiment group (EG). Each group was further divided into two groups for the rest approaches forming six (6) groups. For EG, students were taught based on instructional approach which was enriched by computer animations in the computer laboratory. Results indicate that students who firstly attended virtual laboratory performed better in real laboratory than those who firstly attended real laboratory. Furthermore, the best progressive learning and performance for real experiments appears when the virtual laboratory preceded paper-based practical experiments. Thus, virtual laboratory is a very useful tool for learning chemistry practical not only to schools without laboratories but also to those with laboratories; and it should be considered by all the pre-tertiary schools in Tanzania and other schools in similar situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on pattern generalisation as a way to introduce young students to early algebra. We build on research on patterning activities that feature, in their work with algebraic thinking, both looking for sameness recursively in a pattern (especially figural patterns, but also numerical ones) and conjecturing about function-based relationships that relate variables. We propose a new approach to pattern generalisation that seeks to help children (grades 2 and 3) work both recursively and functionally, and to see how these two modes are connected through the notion of variable. We argue that a crucial change must occur in order for young learners to develop a flexible algebraic discourse. We draw on Sfard's () communication approach and on Châtelet's () notion of the virtual in order to pursue this argument. We also root our analyses within a new materialist perspective that seeks to describe phenomena in terms of material entanglement, which include, in our classroom research context, not just the children and the teacher, but also words, gestures, physical objects and arrangements, as well as numbers, operations and variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper outlines an alternative approach to teaching quantum computing at the high school level, tailored for students with limited prior knowledge in advanced mathematics and physics. This approach diverges from traditional methods by building upon foundational concepts in classical computing before gradually introducing quantum mechanics, thereby simplifying the entry into this complex field. The course was initially implemented in a program for gifted high school students under the Hong Kong Education Bureau and received encouraging feedback, indicating its potential effectiveness for a broader student audience. A key element of this approach is the practical application through portable NMR quantum computers, which provides students with hands-on experience. The paper describes the structure of the course, including the organization of the lectures, the integration of the hardware of the portable nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) quantum computers, the Gemini/Triangulum series, and detailed lecture notes in Additional file 1. The initial success in the specialized program and ongoing discussions to expand the course to regular high schools in Hong Kong and Shenzhen suggest the viability of this approach for wider educational application. By focusing on accessibility and student engagement, this approach presents a valuable perspective on introducing quantum computing concepts at the high school level, aiming to enhance student understanding and interest in the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

School mathematics examination papers are typically dominated by short, structured items that fail to assess sustained reasoning or problem solving. A contributory factor to this situation is the need for student work to be marked reliably by a large number of markers of varied experience and competence. We report a study that tested an alternative approach to assessment, called comparative judgement, which may represent a superior method for assessing open-ended questions that encourage a range of unpredictable responses. An innovative problem solving examination paper was specially designed by examiners, evaluated by mathematics teachers, and administered to 750 secondary school students of varied mathematical achievement. The students' work was then assessed by mathematics education experts using comparative judgement as well as a specially designed, resource-intensive marking procedure. We report two main findings from the research. First, the examination paper writers, when freed from the traditional constraint of producing a mark scheme, designed questions that were less structured and more problem-based than is typical in current school mathematics examination papers. Second, the comparative judgement approach to assessing the student work proved successful by our measures of inter-rater reliability and validity. These findings open new avenues for how school mathematics, and indeed other areas of the curriculum, might be assessed in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract  This paper addresses the dialectical relation between theoretical thinking and technique, as they co-emerge in a combined computer algebra (CAS) and paper-and-pencil environment. The theoretical framework in this ongoing study consists of the instrumental approach to tool use and an adaptation of Chevallard’s anthropological theory. The main aim is to unravel the subtle intertwining of students’ theoretical thinking and the techniques they use in both media, within the process of instrumental genesis. Two grade 10 teaching experiments are described, the first one on equivalence, equality and equation, and the second one on generalizing and proving within factoring. Even though the two topics are quite different, findings indicate the importance of the co-emergence of theory and technique in both cases. Some further extensions of the theoretical framework are suggested, focusing on the relation between paper-and-pencil techniques and computer algebra techniques, and on the issue of language and discourse in the learning process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this conceptual paper, the author argues that equity research in mathematics education is a genre that operates according to certain implicit ideological and rhetorical rules and assumptions—or discursive formations—that form how one can think about equity and inequity. One such rule that forms the basis of this paper is the axiom of racialized deviance, a logical tool developed by whiteness to establish its dominance and to justify physical, psychic, and epistemic violence against blackness. The author takes up whiteness and blackness related to global systems of racialization beyond the reference to white and Black people that is more typical in the United States. The author proposes three ways that the deviance axiom shows up in equity research in mathematics education: ethnomathematics, repair orientations, and success counternarratives. This issue of racialized deviance unveils equity research in mathematics education as a project whose logical foundations undermine its stated aims. The logic of global white supremacy under which school mathematics operates creates a situation where it is impossible for equity in mathematics education to exist outside because the genre requires that anyone who elects to participate accepts the axiom of racialized deviance on some level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reflects on an educator's perceived experiences and observations on the complex process of 'passage' when students transitioning from high school into their first-year of post-secondary education often struggle to adapt to academic writing standards. It relies on literature to further explore such a process. Written communication has become increasingly popular in formal academic and professional settings, stressing the need for effective formal writing skills. The development of online tools for aiding writing is not a new concept, but a new software development known as ChatGPT, may add to the many challenges academic writing has faced over the years. This paper reflects on the students' struggles as they navigate different courses seeking to adapt their writing skills to formal and structured written academic requirements. The COVID-19 pandemic forced many recent high school students into virtual education, uncertain of its effectiveness in developing the writing skills high school graduates require in academia. Many unknowns exist in using ChatGPT in academic contexts, especially in writing. ChatGPT can generate texts independently, raising concerns about plagiarism and its impact on students' critical thinking and writing skills. This paper hopes to contribute to pedagogical discussions on the current challenges surrounding the use of artificial intelligence technology and how better to support beginner writers in academia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among the challenges of the aquaculture sector, the present study tries to focus on the necessary modernisation and innovation of the Hungarian sector education by strategically outlining the possibility of a niche secondary-level fisheries PILOT (experimental) training. It is obvious that the "launching" of such a shortage training level is a very complex and long-term task, but in our opinion not unfeasible. To this end, we are considering the development of a multi-stage action plan, the first milestone of which will be a thorough situation survey of the aquaculture education community. The study applies a deductive approach to specific areas of education and training within the general trends in aquaculture, covering the main traces of PILOT training in fisheries as a niche discipline. Our first paper, targeted at educators, focuses on the results of a questionnaire survey of 94 educators. Our main objective was to assess the presence of aquaculture-related knowledge content and associated methodologies in the classroom and the general digital literacy of educators. Our objectives also focus on the general digital readiness of vocational trainers and on the patterns of "professional marketing" opportunities that aquaculture professionals can express. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Text-matching software (TMS) is a standard part of efforts to prevent and detect plagiarism in upper secondary and higher education. While there are many studies on the potential benefits of using this technology, few studies look into potential unintended side effects. These side effects include students worrying about being accused of plagiarism due to TMS output, even though they did not intentionally plagiarise. Although such worries are frequently mentioned in the literature, little is known about how prevalent they are, why they occur and how students react to them. This paper aims to fill this knowledge gap. The data for the study comprise 36 interviews with upper secondary and Bachelor students from three European countries combined with survey data from 3,424 students from seven European countries representing a broad range of disciplines. The study found that a substantial proportion of the two groups of students – 47% of upper secondary and 55% of Bachelor students – had experienced TMS-related worries during their current studies. Furthermore, there were substantial differences across countries. Students worry partly because they have a poor understanding of how TMS is used in their institution, and partly because they know that plagiarism is taken very seriously. The study shows that TMS-related worries can lead students to become very focused on not being caught plagiarising, to such an extent that some adopt citation practices that they believe are suboptimal. The paper concludes that institutions using TMS should always combine it with training for students and teachers. Students should be clearly informed about how TMS is used and should develop an understanding of plagiarism and good citation practice that goes beyond the narrow focus on any overlap between texts elicited by the software. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on the experiences of teaching Beloved in an elite, college preparatory context, the following research paper works towards alternative approaches to teaching trauma and difficult histories. After exploring some of the limitations and applications of the education as séance approach, this paper constructs a framework for teaching difficult histories modeled after Toni Morrison's description of The Clearing, a place of embodied, radical subjectivity, and personal transformation within a community of love and support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper combines the perspectives of animal studies and reception theory to trace the audience shift of narratives foregrounding interactions between adolescent boys and animals published in the US in the first half of the twentieth century. More precisely, it argues that a text's focus on human–animal bonds can result in its "kiddification," a term explained by Beverly Lyon Clark as trivialization that leads to dismissal. We argue that the reasons for this shift include the solidification of the boy-and-his-dog convention in the 1940s as an example of formula fiction for juveniles, combined with the simultaneous proliferation of animal movies geared towards a family audience. The case under scrutiny is Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings's novel The Yearling and its film adaptation from 1946. Despite the book's initial success among general audiences (awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1939), with time Kinnan Rawlings's novel became "kiddified" and then passed into oblivion, rarely discussed by critics who deem it undeserving of attention and unread by contemporary juveniles, who perhaps find the book difficult, long and tedious (Groff, Harper's, https://harpers.org/archive/2014/01/the-lost-yearling/, 2014). Consequently, the foregrounding of affective human–animal bonds in the book resulted in its later association with children's literature, which was amplified by the film adaptation as well as the publisher's marketing strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I look at how gender is performed in fanfiction, specifically in gender-swap stories within the Harry Potter fandom. Fanfiction is not constrained by any editorial oversight, and there are no financial considerations attached to either reading or writing it, two facts which make it a unique and essential part of the discourse surrounding children's literature. Anyone can write and read it, and there are very few narrative constraints, both of which make the characters and the worlds open to almost infinite types of adaptation. Rather than being closed off within a printed text, the characters take on an elasticity which allows them to exist in worlds, relationships and stories outside their source material. This narrative freedom means fan fictions act not just as textual adaptations, but also social commentaries, narrative sites which are plastic enough to allow writers to project themselves and their opinions onto pre-existing and familiar characters. This elasticity and textual fluidity lends itself very well to a study of contemporary performances of gender, which in turn reveals how the offline publishing market's adherence to a patriarchal hegemony continues to produce a gender imbalance in terms of both subject and author privilege, something which doesn't adequately reflect either the desires or the reading habits of contemporary children and young adults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Throughout The Chronicles of Narnia, nature plays a prominent role in driving good's triumph over evil, and while Lewis's environmental activism in writing Narnia has gained critical attention, the connection between his penchant for nature and his educational philosophy has not yet been accordingly considered. Stemming from his early studies of Wordsworth's Prelude, Lewis illustrates the crucial correlation between children spending time in nature and developing imagination. Lewis replaces English school systems and educational philosophy with natural images ranging from the transformation of pupil desks into rose bushes in Prince Caspian to Aslan's emergence from the forest and subsequent abolition of Experiment House in The Silver Chair, connecting nature's role in children's moral development to their formal education. Lewis's concerns expressed in Narnia draw renewed relevance with the prominence of technology and standardized testing in today's classrooms. As Richard Louv argues in Last Child in the Woods, twenty-first century children are experiencing an alienation from nature that is causing physical and spiritual damage. This paper will explore Lewis's educational philosophy as evidenced within the natural settings of The Chronicles of Narnia, its ramifications in a twenty-first century context and the real-world results of incorporating nature-based education into classrooms for all ages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of variables related to the use of ICT in the classroom is a topic of interest that has been frequently researched. In this paper, after examining the importance of teacher training in explaining the use of ICT in the classroom, we focused on analysing the weight of variables related to teaching practices and the organisational context of schools, which are variables that are less frequently addressed in the literature. To do so, a secondary analysis was carried out using data provided by the Teaching and Learning International Study (TALIS 2018). Specifically, we worked with a sample of 3,918 principals and 64,899 teachers from a total of 3921 schools in 21 countries. A multilevel binary regression model with random intercept, fixed coefficients and a two-level structure with teachers at level 1 and schools at level 2 was used. The results indicate that the presence of ICT in the classroom is associated with self-efficacy in teaching and the cognitive activation of students and with the organisational aspects of the school, which are scarcely addressed by the existing literature on this topic of interest, such as school climate, educational innovation and cooperation among teachers. Based on these results, we reflect on possible ways to promote the use of ICT in the classroom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article brings critical and postcolonial theories together with extended ethnographic research in a predominantly Latinx high school in California's "South Bay" to theorize the co-production and co-naturalization of mathematical and racial essentialization. Analysis of vignettes and interview excerpts illuminates both student uptake and resistance to homogenizing narratives of mathematics and racial personhood. Student voices from Sierra High School both evidenced the existence, stakes, and personal consequences of narrowly bounded, taken for granted, conceptions of mathematics and racial personhood and challenged these homogenizing categories. This paper contributes theory illuminating the co-construction of mathematical and racial essentialization along with examples of local critique and resistance from youth and their adult allies at one high school in the USA. Implications suggest that decolonial work in mathematics education must jointly address the narrow and essentializing frames for race and racialization and for mathematics itself as co-producing and co-naturalizing each other. This study contributes insight into mechanisms that perpetuate and also resist or disrupt these processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper has investigated the importance of explicit instruction and collaborative writing on (a) argumentative writing performance and (b) self-efficacy for writing of secondary school students. This intervention study additionally aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of alternating between individual and collaborative writing throughout the writing process (planning collaboratively, writing individually, revising collaboratively, and rewriting individually). A cluster randomized control trial (CRT) design was opted for. To investigate the effect of the intervention on secondary school students' writing performance and self-efficacy for writing, multilevel analyses were performed. It was found that the presence of explicit instruction in combination with collaborative writing is positively related to argumentative writing performance and self-efficacy for writing. Alternating between individual and collaborative writing was not significantly different from collaborating throughout all phases of the writing process. More in-depth research into the quality of collaboration is, however, needed to gain insight into the interaction processes and writing processes that take place during collaborative writing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In light of new data, this paper uses regression and descriptive approaches to examine Ghana's expenditure inequality from 1991 to 2017. Using household expenditure and several measures for the period under study, the paper observes that the inequality contiues to increase at the national level, mirroring similar trend at the sub-national level. Some administrative regions recorded over 30 percent increase in inequality. The regression-based approach reveals that household and community level characteristics contribute immensely to inequality. Household size, post secondary education, rural location and access to financial institutions are important contributors to the rising phenomenon of inequality. As the deadline of the Sustainable Development Goal approaches, this paper provides insights for policy action to attain the goal of reducing inequality especially in the Ghanaian context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role and significance of schooling in maintaining and renewing social disadvantage is particularly evident in upper secondary education, and especially so in the high-stakes final examination at the end of Year 12. This paper focusses on Senior English in this context, with specific regard to the Australian state of New South Wales. Building on a recent study of the outcomes of the Higher School Certificate (HSC) in 2017, it analyses what the data reveal about the relationship between Senior English and social inequality in this instance. It does so with reference to a brief account of the history of English teaching and senior secondary curriculum policy in New South Wales and also, comparatively, a now well-established comprehensive study of senior secondary schooling in Victoria. It concludes with some implications of this account for further investigations of Senior English and subject English more generally, as well as of the social meaning of senior secondary education in Australia, in particular with regard to the nexus between curriculum and assessment, knowledge, and power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the guest editors talk about the topics discussed in the special section of the issue including the need to balance computer science (CS) and information and communication technologies (ICT), overview of CS curriculum development, and use of ICT to support teaching and learning.

The engagement of students in processes for evaluating scientific arguments is particularly important for science education of all students. Research studying students' abilities to evaluate scientific arguments based on their evidence is limited. The present paper investigates the impact of a teaching sequence for temperature and heat, which is based on the teaching science-as-practice approach, on primary school students' abilities to evaluate the evidence of the written scientific arguments they read. The instructional material developed was implemented to 262 students aged 12 years. A questionnaire was developed and completed by the students before and after the implementation of the teaching–learning sequence. The data analysis showed that the teaching sequence significantly contributed to improving students' abilities to locate evidence in arguments, identify relevant supporting evidence that should be included in arguments, evaluate whether a piece of evidence is strong or weak, and compare and evaluate two arguments according to the evidence they include. This study provides preliminary evidence that a teaching sequence which is based on the teaching science-as-practice approach may be effective for increasing primary school students' abilities to evaluate the evidence of scientific arguments. The results of this study and their implications for both research and practice are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Play-based learning is an approach used in early childhood education that is well supported by research on its varieties and effectiveness for young children's learning. Play-based learning meets the developmental needs of young children, but new research presented in this paper suggests that teenagers learn through play too. The experience of 25 Year 10 students in three Western Australian government schools was drawn upon to generate grounded theory about how students experience their teachers' expectations of them, which included findings that playful learning approaches communicated high teacher expectations. The students were shadow-studied in their classrooms and interviewed at the end of each day. Teachers were appraised as having high expectations when they included a playful learning approach, characterised as creative, exploratory, hands-on, fun and non-didactic. The students reflected that this led to increased motivation and academic success. A foundation for conceptualising play in teenagers' education is provided, suggesting how secondary school educators can harness play and communicate high expectations for learning through their pedagogical approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International comparative studies on mathematics teaching and learning often provide unitary and harmonious images of classroom practices. This paper aims to complement those studies by describing the complex aspects of those practices. Adopting activity theory as a framework, this paper considers classroom teaching and learning of mathematics as an activity system embedded in socio-historical contexts, analyzes its contradictions, and makes a comparative analysis of different practices of mathematics teaching and learning in the same country. As a case in point, mathematics lessons in Japanese secondary schools are considered. The initial activity system of mathematics lessons in Japanese modern schools came from the whole-class instruction system and then gradually evolved into the problem-solving style lesson. The latter has been facing challenges, and then a new activity system has emerged from a new paradigm of school education. It is argued that activity systems analysis enables us to understand the contradictions prevailing in mathematics education and that comparative analysis of more than one system in the same culture can provide valuable insights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper discusses the significance of model-based teaching on the topic of ionic and metallic bonding in Year 12 Chemistry in a New Zealand secondary school. Based on the conceptualization of the sub-macro level understanding of the bonding structure and properties of ionic and metallic compounds, models and drawings were used as an effective visual aid tool to support students' learning. Based on performances during four sequential classes and the results obtained from a pre-test and post-test, a vast improvement was seen in students' understanding of the concepts of ionic and metallic bonding. The results in the post-test also show that the concept of ionic bonding was easier to grasp compared to metallic bonding. This is attributed to the misconceptions developed by the students while learning metallic bonding without the use of visual strategies. This paper argues that teaching Chemistry concepts, such as metallic and ionic bonding, without the use of visual strategies results in students' inability to clearly grasp the topic. The research demonstrates that models and drawings have many advantages while teaching such abstract concepts in Year 12 Chemistry. The students in this research were non-native speakers of English, therefore, this may have further impacted upon their inability to grasp the concepts when taught without concrete visual strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research reported in this article explored the implementation of Trilingual Education Policy in Kazakhstan. The authors explain the challenges stakeholders came across while taking on the reforms in the language-in-education policy. In this context, the scholars describe four main challenges, such as the simultaneous implementation of several reforms, teachers training, a lack of an English environment, and different language origins. The topic is important, as the issue has been raised for almost two decades. Despite the two decades of meticulous deliberation and piloting of the system, it has not been fully implemented yet. During the research, a systematic literature review method was adopted. The authors used Google Scholar, ERIC, Web of Science, and Scopus databases as well as the official websites of the Government of Kazakhstan and Media resources. This review was conducted using Russian, English, and Kazakh databases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This systematic literature review sought to examine whether iPad or other mobile technology use by school students aged 9 to 14 years enhanced academic outcomes. Conducted in March 2019 using the PRISMA statement, the review identified 43 studies published between 2010 and 2019 which specifically addressed the research question. Findings revealed that iPad use for specific school learning areas such as mathematics, English, science, and the like has not consistently enhanced academic outcomes. Some reviewed papers also indicated that teachers were not always employing the technology most effectively. To defend the current extensive classroom use of mobile technology such as iPads, further research employing within-subject designs must be conducted. Such research must assess the efficacy of iPad use for attaining specific content area outcomes against pedagogies which utilise paper reading, handwriting and/or other manipulations of teaching materials. Moreover, teacher professional learning needs to be provided so that when teachers use iPads in classrooms they are able to deploy them in the most appropriate way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a commentary on the classroom interventions on the teaching and learning of proof reported in the seven empirical papers in this special issue. The seven papers show potential to enhance student learning in an area of mathematics that is not only notoriously difficult for students to learn and for teachers to teach, but also critically important to knowing and doing mathematics. Although the seven papers, and the intervention studies they report, vary in many ways-student population, content domain, goals and duration of the intervention, and theoretical perspectives, to name a few-they all provide valuable insight into ways in which classroom experiences might be designed to positively influence students' learning to prove. In our commentary, we highlight the contributions and promise of the interventions in terms of whether and how they present capacity to change the classroom culture, the curriculum, or instruction. In doing so, we distinguish between works that aim to enhance students' preparedness for, and competence in, proof and proving and works that explicitly foster appreciation for the need and importance of proof and proving. Finally, we also discuss briefly the interventions along three dimensions: how amenable to scaling up, how practicable for curricular integration, and how capable of producing long-lasting effects these interventions are. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This qualitative study reports on the early implementation of bilingual education by teachers working in pre-tertiary contexts in Taiwan, with a specific focus on perceived challenges and the resulting bilingual education arrangements. Taiwan's public schools have begun to implement bilingual education in response to the Bilingual 2030 policy. Several scholars have identified potential challenges that may affect implementation. However, little is known about the challenges perceived by teachers and their effect on the implementation of bilingual education. This study addresses this gap using data collected through semi-structured interviews with 12 teachers from various academic disciplines in five primary schools and five junior high schools in northern Taiwan. Three challenges and six bilingual education arrangements were reported by the participating teachers. The paper discusses how these challenges may produce varying arrangements that are designed to achieve different outcomes, highlighting the need for policymakers to clearly define the intended outcomes of the bilingual education policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main drive for this study is to look into potential predictors of educational achievement using OECD's original Pisa 2018 dataset. This paper explores (i) access to ICT, (ii) physical characteristics of learning environment at school, (iii) quality of teaching staff and educational material, (iv) student characteristics and learning climate, and (v) political and economic structure of the country as potential true predictors of academic achievement. Our sample covers 41 countries and data used in our analysis are collected from 282,461 students distributed in 9,317 schools worldwide. Multiple linear regressions are developed and analyzed using stepwise estimation techniques. The results indicate that (i) availability of internet connection and enjoyable pastime activity at home have positive impacts on student's success, (ii) a strong correlation exists between high test scores and student characteristics & learning climate, i.e. students' sense of belonging at school, students' fear of failure and disciplinary climate, (iii) there is a negative relationship between academic performance and teacher enthusiasm & support, (iv) student success is negatively correlated with income level and political and economic freedoms but positively associated with economic competitiveness of a country, and (v) the students in lightly populated classes are more successful than those in overloaded ones and inadequate or poor educational material deteriorates educational outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports from a case study which explores kindergarten children's mathematical abstraction in a teaching–learning activity about reflection symmetry. From a dialectical perspective, abstraction is here conceived as a process, as a genuine part of human activity, where the learner establishes "a point of view from which the concrete can be seen as meaningfully related" (van Oers & Poland Mathematics Education Research Journal, 19(2), 10–22, 2007, p. 13–14). A cultural-historical semiotic perspective to embodiment is used to explore the characteristics of kindergarten children's mathematical abstraction. In the selected segment, two 5-year-old boys explore the concept of reflection symmetry using a doll pram. In the activity, the two boys first point to concrete features of the sensory manifold, then one of the boys' awareness gradually moves to the imagined and finally to grasping a general and establishing a new point of view. The findings illustrate the essential role of gestures, bodily actions, and rhythm, in conjunction with spoken words, in the two boys' gradual process of grasping a general. The study advances our knowledge about the nature of mathematical abstraction and challenges the traditional view on abstraction as a sort of decontextualised higher order thinking. This study argues that abstraction is not a matter of going from the concrete to the abstract, rather it is an emergent and context-bound process, as a genuine part of children's concrete embodied activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Grouping students into separate classes according to their 'ability' is an inequitable practice that does not, overall, improve academic outcomes. Research has continued to show that class ability grouping widens the educational gap between students from disadvantaged and privileged backgrounds. PISA data analysis suggests that class ability grouping continues to be used in Australian schools, at least in Year 10. However, no research has characterized the existing class ability grouping practices being used in secondary schools from Years 7 to 9. The findings reported in this paper add quantitative evidence to the literature, showing that students are experiencing different class ability grouping practices according to their year group, subjects, and locations. An across-state survey about class ability grouping was conducted with respondents from 143 schools providing data about the schools' class ability grouping practices. The findings reveal variations in how class grouping practices are used by schools in Australia that have been not captured in other research: Class ability grouping was activated differently in different schools, increased as students' year levels increased, was most prevalent in Maths and English, and was used more extensively in Western Australia than in Queensland. The findings use descriptive statistics to show that students in Australia are experiencing different grouping practices, with discussion of how some practices are more inequitable than others. This raises questions about how the varied forms of class ability grouping that are being employed are contributing to educational inequalities in Australia and how future research can address this problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the effects of participation in gifted education programs, and offers several contributions to existing research. First, this paper studies the effects of high school programs, as opposed to the more commonly-studied elementary and middle school versions. Second, this paper considers impacts of gifted programs on later-in-life socioeconomic success, including college graduation and eventual employment, as opposed to short-run standardized test outcomes. Third, this paper uses sibling fixed effects, coupled with a recently-proposed decomposition method, as an identification approach. The main conclusion is that gifted programs tend to include students who possess traits that already correlate with later-in-life success. After controlling for those traits, gifted programs, per se, show little statistical relationship to later-in-life outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Educational technologies have captured the attention of researchers, policy makers, and parents. Each year, considerable effort and money are invested into new technologies, hoping to find the next effective learning tool. However, technology changes rapidly and little attention is paid to the changes after they occur. This paper provides an overall picture of the changing trends in educational technology by analyzing the Horizon Reports' predictions of the most influential educational technologies from 2011 to 2021, identifying larger trends across these yearly predictions, and by using bibliometric analysis to evaluate the accuracy of the identified trends. The results suggest that mobile and analytics technologies trended consistently across the period, there was a trend towards maker technologies and games in the early part of the decade, and emerging technologies (e.g., VR, AI) are predicted to trend in the future. Overall, the specific technologies focused on by the HRs' predictions and by educational researchers' publications seem to coincide with the availability of consumer grade technologies, suggesting that the marketplace and technology industry is driving trends (cf., pedagogy or theory). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Internationally, questions about the perceived utility of university mathematics for teaching school mathematics pose an ongoing challenge for secondary mathematics teacher education. This special issue is dedicated to exploring this topic and related issues in the preparation of secondary mathematics teachers—by which we mean teachers of students with ages, approximately, of 12–18 years. This article introduces this theme and provides a semi-systematic survey of recent related literature, which we use to elaborate and situate important theoretical distinctions around the problems, challenges, and solutions of university mathematics in relation to teacher education. As part of the special issue, we have gathered articles from different countries that elaborate theoretical and empirical approaches, which, collectively, describe different ways to strengthen university mathematics with respect to the aims of secondary teacher education. This survey paper serves to lay out the theoretical groundwork for the collection of articles in the issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Strengthening social and emotional skills can be particularly relevant concerning the emerging skills need as it yields benefits for individuals' successful development. A growing body of research suggests that social and emotional competences are associated with well-being and positive life and academic outcomes. Despite the notable benefits of social and emotional skills, assessment tools are still scarce or target specific risk and problematic behaviours. This systematic review seeks to address this gap and identify instruments measuring social and emotional skills for students in elementary through secondary education. This review also aims to describe the study characteristics and key features of the identified instruments and to assess the extent to which the instruments comprehensively evaluate the five Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) areas of competence. A systematic search of the literature was carried out in Scopus, Web of Science and ERIC databases. This review resulted in the identification of 25 unique assessments over a 20-year period, reported on the basis of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. Our results suggest a rapid growth and notable advancements of social and emotional skills assessment systems and demonstrate the direct influence of the CASEL framework. Our results also show that a combination of multi-method and multi-informant assessment should be employed to effectively assess social and emotional skills. Thus, this paper contributes to support school-based practitioners and psychologists in their efforts to lead social and emotional skills instruction and assessment in routine educational practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Artificial Intelligence (AI) permeates every aspect of our daily lives and is no longer a subject reserved for a select few in higher education but is essential knowledge that our youth need for the future. Much is unknown about the level of AI knowledge that is age and developmentally appropriate for high school, let alone about how to teach AI to even younger learners. In this theoretical paper, we discuss the design of a game-based learning environment for high school AI education, drawing upon insights gained from a prior cognitive interview study at a STEM focused private high school. We argue that game-based learning is an excellent fit for AI education due to the commonality of problem solving in both game playing and AI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a linear categorical random coefficient model, in which the random coefficients follow parametric categorical distributions. The distributional parameters are identified based on a linear recurrence structure of moments of the random coefficients. A generalized method of moments estimation procedure is proposed, also employed by Peter Schmidt and his coauthors to address heterogeneity in time effects in panel data models. Using Monte Carlo simulations, we find that moments of the random coefficients can be estimated reasonably accurately, but large samples are required for the estimation of the parameters of the underlying categorical distribution. The utility of the proposed estimator is illustrated by estimating the distribution of returns to education in the USA by gender and educational levels. We find that rising heterogeneity between educational groups is mainly due to the increasing returns to education for those with postsecondary education, whereas within-group heterogeneity has been rising mostly in the case of individuals with high school or less education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social media are a group of technologies such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn which offer people chances to interact with one another in new ways. Teachers, like other members of society, do not all use social media. Some avoid, some experiment with and others embrace social media enthusiastically. As a means of communication available to everyone in modern society, social media is challenging teachers, as other professionals in society, to decide whether to engage with these tools and, if so, on what basis - as an individual (personally), or as a teacher (professionally). Although teachers are guided by schools and codes of practice, teachers as individuals are left to decide whether and how to explore social media for either their own or their students' learning. This paper analyses evidence from interviews with 12 teachers from England about their use of social media as to the challenges they experience in relation to using the media as professional teachers.. Teachers are in society's spotlight in terms of examples of inappropriate use of social media but also under peer pressure to connect. This paper explores their agency in responding. The paper focuses on how teachers deal with tensions between their personal and professional use of social media. These tensions are not always perceived as negative and some teachers' accounts revealed a unity in their identities when using social media. The paper reflects on the implications of such teachers' identities in relation to the future of social media use in education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the aim of assessing the extent of the differences in the context of Italian educational system, the paper applies multilevel modeling to a new administrative dataset, containing detailed information for more than 500,000 students at grade 6 in the year 2011/2012, provided by the Italian Institute for the Evaluation of Educational System. Data are grouped by classes, schools and geographical areas. Different models for each area are fitted, in order to properly address the heteroscedasticity of the phenomenon. The results show that it is possible to estimate statistically significant 'school effects', i.e., the positive/negative association of attending a specific school and the student's test score, after a case-mix adjustment. Therefore, the paper's most important message is that school effects are different in terms of magnitude and types in the three geographical macro areas (Northern, Central and Southern Italy) and are dependent on specific students' and schools' characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research has shown that students' beliefs related to mathematics are connected to their affect and motivation as well as their mathematical thinking and activity. Moreover, high parental expectations have been shown to play a role in students' positive beliefs and self-efficacy. This paper reports on two studies investigating parental expectations related to students' beliefs and their perceived achievement. These studies highlighted an unusual, but confirmed finding that students who do not perceive that their parents have specific mathematics achievement expectations show more positive mathematics-related beliefs and higher perceived mathematics achievement than students who believe their parents do have specific expectations. This paper explores possible reasons for this finding related to parents' methods of conveying their expectations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic has brought increased attention to the critical mathematical literacy of citizens in the United States and around the world. A statistically and mathematically literate society is crucial for ensuring that citizens are able to sift through political rhetoric to maintain life-saving procedures such as social distancing and other infection dampening efforts. Additionally, recent civil unrest due to the disproportionate killings of Black men by police provokes investigation into the public's mathematical literacy. In this paper, we investigate adolescent students' critical mathematics consciousness and mathematics literacy as they reason through two interview tasks on the coronavirus and police shooting data. Drawing on Frankenstein's program of Critical Mathematics Education, we introduce an analytic framework for documenting the critical mathematics consciousness of adolescent students. We interviewed fifteen 14- to 16-year-old students as they solved five tasks designed to elicit their critical and ethical mathematical awareness. Our findings indicate that students exhibit very little critical mathematics consciousness in the context of the police problem but show awareness that data can be presented in ways that manipulate the public's emotions in the coronavirus problem. We conclude the paper with a discussion of implications for designing future instruction to support students' growth in critical mathematics consciousness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The successful irruption of AI-based technology in our daily lives has led to a growing educational, social, and political interest in training citizens in AI. Education systems now need to train students at the K-12 level to live in a society where they must interact with AI. Thus, AI literacy is a pedagogical and cognitive challenge at the K-12 level. This study aimed to understand how AI is being integrated into K-12 education worldwide. We conducted a search process following the systematic literature review method using Scopus. 179 documents were reviewed, and two broad groups of AI literacy approaches were identified, namely learning experience and theoretical perspective. The first group covered experiences in learning technical, conceptual and applied skills in a particular domain of interest. The second group revealed that significant efforts are being made to design models that frame AI literacy proposals. There were hardly any experiences that assessed whether students understood AI concepts after the learning experience. Little attention has been paid to the undesirable consequences of an indiscriminate and insufficiently thought-out application of AI. A competency framework is required to guide the didactic proposals designed by educational institutions and define a curriculum reflecting the sequence and academic continuity, which should be modular, personalized and adjusted to the conditions of the schools. Finally, AI literacy can be leveraged to enhance the learning of disciplinary core subjects by integrating AI into the teaching process of those subjects, provided the curriculum is co-designed with teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International students in the secondary school sector are a particularly vulnerable group due to their age and status as unaccompanied minors. The establishment of friendships is an important component of the adjustment for these students as they transition into their new school environments. This paper presents issues related to friendships, investigated as part of a larger study examining the motivations, expectations and experiences of international students from the People's Republic of China studying in Australian secondary schools. Data were collected in two phases from 116 international students and 10 teachers using questionnaires and semi-structured interviews, and descriptive analyses employed. Because there is a paucity of information about the experiences of international secondary school students, this was an exploratory study that has contributed understanding of the lived experiences of a small group of international students from mainland China. The study identified that expectations regarding the establishment of friendships are not being met, and that international students from China are seeking more opportunities to form relationships with Australian peers. To reduce dissonance between expectations and experiences of studying in Australia, it is recommended that Australian schools work with both international and domestic students to provide authentic opportunities to build peer relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a clear contemporary interest for developing science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) at schools. Besides, there exist a lot of research that justify the importance of spatial ability to obtain success in STEM subjects. Nevertheless, the spatial ability is relatively ignored in the general practice of teaching and learning in the K-12 setting. The goal of this paper is to analyse the evolution of spatial abilities of students that assist to a STEM course. Additionally, the evolution of their mechanical reasoning is also analysed. The STEM course was designed and implemented for the first time in a 6th grade class (primary school) and a 7th grade class (secondary school) throughout a whole academic year. First, the spatial ability and the mechanical reasoning of the students were assessed with the corresponding prepared pre-tests. Then, after finishing the STEM course, the students were tested with analogous post-tests. An exhaustive analysis of the obtained results is provided in the paper. It is shown that the spatial ability of the students was definitely improved. Furthermore, this improvement was statistically significant. Results also evidenced that the mechanical reasoning of the participants was also improved, although the improvement was not statistically significant. Moreover, this research showed that, in general, obtained results do not depend significantly on the gender of the participants. Finally, results manifested the statistically significant difference of spatial ability between 6th grade and 7th grade students. The difference between grade levels was not as significant in the mechanical reasoning case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scientific advances, particularly in evolutionary biology, genetics, neuroscience and artificial intelligence, present many challenges to religious and popular notions of personhood. This paper reports the first large-scale study on students' beliefs about the interactions between science and widely held beliefs about personhood. The paper presents findings from a questionnaire survey (n = 530) administered to English secondary school students (age 15–16) in which their beliefs and concepts regarding personhood and the position of science were investigated. The survey was motivated in part by an interview study and a previous, smaller survey which revealed that many students struggle to reconcile their beliefs with what they suppose science to say and also that some have reluctantly dismissed the soul as a 'nice story' which is incompatible with scientific facts. The results from this larger-scale survey indicate that a majority of the students believe in some form of soul. Even so, and regardless of whether or not they identified themselves as religious, most students expressed a belief that human persons cannot be fully explained scientifically, a position that some students perceived as a partial rejection of what it means to hold a scientific worldview. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

COVID-19 lockdown has caused disruption to education of all levels with far-reaching implications and unveiled the shortfalls of the current education model. Cycles of tightening and relaxation of COVID-19 lockdown confer uncertainty to the continuity of education. This article aims to comprehensively present the impacts of COVID-19 on primary, secondary and tertiary education and propose sound educational practices in the COVID-19 era. Papers related to educational impacts and implications of COVID-19 were selected for this review through a PRISMA model. The review shows that a shift of learning remotely or online has affected educators and learners, especially in relation to learning loss among learners, limitations in instructions, assessment and experiential learning in virtual environment, technology-related constraints, connectivity, learning resources and materials, besides psychosocial well-being. These impacts are exacerbated by inequalities in the distribution of resources as well as inequities attributed to socioeconomic status, gender, ethnicity, learning ability and physical conditions. The recommendations for future educational practices comprise adaptability of curricula to embed independent and online learning options, concurrence of diverse learning modalities for seamless learning transitions and flexibility, flexible staffing and learning model, enhanced support, technological and curricular innovation with simplification and standardization, as well as interactive, responsive and authentic virtual environment. This review contributes significantly to enhance preparedness of education to crisis while ensuring continuity and quality of education in the era of COVID-19 uncertainty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on concept images of 38 secondary school mathematics prospective teachers, regarding the evenness of numbers. Written assignments, individual interviews, and lesson transcripts uncover salient, erroneous concept images of even numbers as numbers that are two times "something" (i.e., 2i is an even number), or to reject the evenness of zero. The notion of concept image serves in the analysis of the findings, and the findings serve in offering two refinement notions: mis-in concept images that mistakenly grant non-examples the status of examples (e.g., 2i is an even number), and mis-out concept images that mistakenly regard examples as non-examples (e.g., zero is not an even number). We discuss possible benefits in distinguishing between these two refinement notions in mathematics education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The history of science has a unique value to teaching, and textbooks play an important role in permeating the history of science in science courses. This study aims to compare the presentation of history of science in two versions of high school physics textbooks in China. We selected the 2019 edition of the national and local textbooks as samples. The revised Leite's checklist is used to conduct statistics and comparative analysis on the history of science content in the two versions of textbooks, referred to as the PEP and Luke versions described in more detail in the paper. The results show that, in terms of the quantity and presentation of the history of science, the PEP version contains more history of science, while the Luke version presents the historical content more intuitively. In terms of the type and organization of the history of science, the Luke version describes scientists and the type of evolution in more detail. In the presentation of the history of science, both of the two versions of textbooks are mainly based on texts written by textbook authors, supplemented by pictures of scientists and instruments. In the description of the contexts of the history of science, both tend to use the scientific context to present the history of science. In terms of the status of the history of science content, it mostly acts as a fundamental role in the Luke version while plays a complementary one in the PEP version. As for the learning activities related to the history of science, both tend to set up normal-level activities. The two versions of textbooks are relatively poor in the internal consistency of the textbooks with respect to the historical information and interdisciplinary activity design. Only Compulsory Book 1 of PEP version has the content of history of science as bibliography, and both of the two versions of textbooks seldom have history of science books as its bibliography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, many studies have referred to the interdependence between cognitive (hard-skills) and students' academic performance. However, despite their relevance, soft-skills have not received the same treatment and have not been analysed as extensively, particularly from a gender perspective. Therefore, and bearing in mind that analysing from a gender perspective is essential to reduce occupational segregation and soft-skills can enhance young people's personal and academic development, throughout this paper we have analysed the gender gap in soft-skills with a sample of 15–16 years old students from the Spanish region of Andalusia. To do so, we have used a recent innovation of the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition technique. Our results show not only that the gender gap in soft-skills is correlated with gender stereotypes, but also that grade retention or being an immigrant show a greater degree of association with boys' soft-skills than girls', while mothers' educational level is more correlated with the soft-skills of girls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines prospective mathematics teachers' knowledge of asymptotes and asymptotic behaviour of functions in calculus. They are university students and future facilitators of knowledge in upper secondary education. We constructed a reference epistemological model to describe the knowledge about asymptotes for upper secondary and university education and explored prospective teachers' relations to targeted knowledge. The study was conducted within the Anthropological Theory of the Didactic as a suitable framework to analyse and interpret knowledge of mathematical notions. Prospective teachers participated in three questionnaires with open, non-routine questions on different aspects of the notion of asymptotes. An analysis showed their knowledge was fragmented and their work relied heavily on algebraic manipulation and memorized formulas from calculus. The results indicated that knowledge of asymptotes and asymptotic behaviour is a potentially powerful context for developing knowledge related to the limits of functions in calculus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]