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The COVID-19 pandemic has popularized online learning as a mode of teaching and learning in universities, thereby exacerbating college students' stress levels in multiple ways. To enhance the quality of college student training, it is crucial to investigate the impact of perceived stress on their online self-directed learning. Using questionnaire data from 969 college students across China, this study performed an empirical analysis of the influence of perceived stress on their online self-directed learning, while also exploring the mediating role of phone dependence and the moderating role of self-management ability. The findings indicate that, firstly, perceived stress has a significant and positive effect on college students' online self-directed learning. Secondly, phone dependence masks the positive impact of perceived stress on students' self-directed learning, thereby weakening the effects of employment and learning stress on their online self-directed learning. Thirdly, self-management ability positively moderates the relationship between employment, social, interpersonal, and learning stress and college students' online self-directed learning. Fourthly, rural college students' online self-directed learning is more susceptible to employment, social, and interpersonal stress; vocational college students' self-directed learning is more influenced by employment, social, and learning stress; and students in the "Double First-Class" initiative universities are more likely to develop phone dependence. Therefore, this paper asserts that using stress reasonably, controlling stress appropriately, channeling stress properly, and enhancing self-management abilities can aid college students in learning autonomous online.

The beauty of the sound is not only due to advanced singing voice but also depends on breathing techniques. This paper aims to study knowledge about the physiology of breathing and singing, including the effectiveness of conscious control in vocal training and innovative technologies. The authors used observation methods to achieve this goal. They developed mechanisms to set breathing that promote singing using modern technology. As a result, the authors identified the following indicators: body coordination, diaphragmatic respiratory training, inhalation and exhalation training, mixed respiratory training, as well as coordination of the vocal apparatus. Videos, Sing Sharp, Prana Breath, Erol Singer's Studio, and SwiftScales served as tools to provide instruction. The results showed that body coordination and mixed respiratory training significantly influence the sound's naturalness. The singing purity results from body coordination and the vocal apparatus. The study involved two groups of students: Group 1 included vocalists who studied according to the proposed technique; Group 2 united amateur performers. A specific efficiency and quality of singing characterized the performance of the students from Group 1 when playing folk (83%) and popular compositions (77%). The results showed that the students of Group 2 generally received average scores for the performance of folk (54%) and popular (53%) compositions. The practical significance of the work lies in the possibility of developing a singing voice with the help of breathing and modern technology.

Transmitting traditional music for sustainability has been a common theme in global music education. Recently, the school systems of Hong Kong and Guangdong have been encouraged by governmental authorities to teach Cantonese opera aiming at enhancing the sustainability of the genre and promote a Chinese cultural identity within students. This paper details a survey of school music teachers working in Hong Kong and Guangdong examining the current state of Cantonese opera teaching in the schools of both regions and investigate how it is affected by teacher variables including their interest in Chinese opera, the confidence in teaching the subject, and their perceptions of their Chinese cultural identities. A total of 1,974 valid questionnaires were received and examined. Descriptive and inferential statistics including MANOVA and chi-square tests were used to analyze the data. Findings reveal that Cantonese opera teaching is limited in both regions. While teachers are modestly interested, confident, and knowledgeable about teaching the genre, there is a significant relationship between the music backgrounds of teachers and their interest in Cantonese opera. The article discusses the findings within the context of a historical predominance of Western music within music education curricula and wider societies. Implications for policy makers are proposed.

Despite the large quantity of research projects about online learning, studies on students' language learning motivation, self-efficacy belief, and metacognitive strategy use in the online learning setting are limited. The present paper aims to fill this gap through assessing learners' metacognitive strategies, language learning motivation, self-efficacy belief, and their perceived progress in English learning. Responses to surveys were administered two times. The collected data were subject to longitudinal mediation analysis. The participants were a total of 627 university students in China. Results showed a positive and significant relationship among the four variables. The findings highlighted four significant longitudinal mediation patterns. Overall, self-efficacy belief predicted the use of metacognitive strategies, which in turn predicted their language learning motivation and perceived online English learning progress. The findings supported the mediating role of language learning motivation and metacognitive strategies. The findings showed the potential to enhance online English learning by facilitating learners' self-efficacy belief, language learning motivation, and metacognitive strategies.

Collaborative learning (CL) is widely used in higher education around the world because it is associated with increases in students' knowledge and social skills. Low student engagement in CL activities has been identified as a common issue, while there is no CL-specific engagement scale to measure and understand engagement in such settings. Additionally, although western countries have been investigating student engagement since the 1950s, there have been comparatively few studies of this important construct in China. To address these imbalances, the present paper adopted a mixed methods approach to developing and validating a Chinese CL engagement scale. In the quantitative study, Chinese university students (N = 405) completed an anonymous online survey to assess their engagement in CL activities. Results from exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses supported a hierarchical (second-order) three-factor model of student engagement (behavioural, cognitive and emotional engagement), consistent with the tripartite conception of student engagement in Western countries. Participants were further divided into three unique groups based on engagement scores, and in the qualitative study, 12 participants from three groups were interviewed about CL experiences. Interviews served to further validate the quantitative results. The significance, limitations, and implications of these findings are discussed.

The medical field is facing a physician-scientist shortage, threatening future medical research and development. Medical institutions can contribute to developing physician-scientists by stimulating students' involvement in research. In this study, a medical undergraduate teaching module to develop research skills and encourage interest in research was held in Chongqing, China. Undergraduate medical students at Chongqing Medical University completed research skills training. Before and after the training, an online, anonymous, self-reported questionnaire was administered. The self-reported questionnaire investigated students' demographic characteristics, students' perception of attitudes toward conducting research, research skills (e.g., identifying and utilizing information, critical appraisal of literature, paper writing, and understanding of research), and feedback on scientific research training. The module was implemented with 25 students from July 2019 to October 2019, and 96.0% (N = 24) of participants responded to the questionnaire both prior to and after the training. In the evaluation of research skills, results showed that use of appropriate tools for research (Z = -3.340, p < 0.01), students' ability to undertake a focused literature search (Z = -3.40, p < 0.01), identifying and utilizing information (Z = -3.34, p < 0.01), and paper-writing skills (Z = -3.49, p < 0.01) were significantly improved after the undergraduates participated in the scientific research training. A qualitative analysis of the feedback showed that students found that the training helped to enhance their knowledge, improve their study scores, and motivate them to conduct research in the future. Early scientific research ability training strengthened the research skills of medical undergraduates and motivated them to pursue research.

Fairy tales have been an essential ingredient in children's literature. Canonical fairy tales passed down from generation to generation not only enrich children's imagination but connote significant values typical of the community. However, as time passes, contemporary writers often challenge these traditional values when they work on the same topic. This changing face is evidenced by Emma Donoghue's rewriting of classical tales. Based on my teaching of Donoghue's story 'The Tale of the Bird' alongside Andersen's 'Thumbelina' at a university in Hong Kong, this paper discusses the ever-evolving cultural values and the benefit of reading Donoghue via Andersen or vice versa in the literature class and beyond.

This paper analyses the Chinese party-state's production of visual racism towards Uyghurs as a discursive foundation for its ethnic policy, as globally reproduced and disseminated by non-state actors. The paper draws from theoretical literature on the relationship between visual politics and affect, stressing the need for visual literacy to reflect on how images emotionally affect audiences' identities and insecurities. It focuses this analysis on education texts in China's post-2012 'de-extremification' and 're-education' campaigns, specifically on how images tell stories about life-or-death security issues that define Chinese identity. Chinese education about Uyghurs tends to frame Uyghur identities as racialised, culturally external existential threats to be defeated by state violence or teaching them to be Chinese. However, Uyghurs' own visibility strategies in global advocacy counter the party-state's imagery by centring their lives and experiences. The article shows how these strategies can be used as resources for teaching about Chinese politics and society.

Educational reform in China has brought about many Western educational approaches for teachers to consider as part of their pedagogy. An example of this is the theory of multiple intelligences (MI theory). This paper presents how a theory grounded in a Western context is locally reconceptualised by kindergarten teachers who grew up in a different context. A qualitative case study was selected to investigate seven kindergarten teachers' understandings of MI theory in China. Three methods were employed to gather data; semi-structured interviews, field observations and documentation. Evidence from the three sources were analysed using a thematic approach. This paper reports contextual factors that had an influence on the teachers' understandings of MI theory and thus its implementation, and argues that the introduction of new educational theories or approaches should be grounded in the local context in which the teaching will be embedded.

Although concepts such as research without borders have become more commonplace in recent decades, few studies have investigated the capabilities that global researchers require to cross both cultural and disciplinary borders. This paper explores global capabilities along with strategies and spaces that may facilitate academic researchers' acquisition and development of global research competence. The study's dataset comprises responses of 26 participants across 15 countries -- all of whom are members of a specific comparative education society -- who contributed their views via e-questionnaire. Findings indicate that research capacity building is a dynamic process and global competence calls for complex skills and conscious attitudes. Commitment to expand scientific curiosity beyond one's own culture and academic discipline appears to be a main criterion in achieving global competence. Results of this study are not meant to be prescriptive but rather exploratory and informative for a broad group of academic stakeholders.

The adoption of English medium instruction (EMI) in higher education has gained popularity in China's tertiary education as a result of globalization. International students in Chinese universities are celebrated as part of soft power projection to extend China's global impact. Informed by Piller and Cho's concept of "Neoliberalism as language policy" (2013) and Collins' "social reproduction theory" (2009, 2012), this study attempts to explore the EMI learning experiences of a cohort of international students at a border university in China. The policy documents, in-depth interviews, classroom observation, reflective journals and online interactions converge to reveal that, international students in EMI programmes experience exclusion and inequality despite the welcoming discourses of diversity. The paper highlights the necessity to pay attention to the ways in which higher education institutions reproduce inequalities of social stratification of international students through explicit and implicit institutional practices. It is argued that EMI policy in China's peripheral regions targeting international students from less-developed countries tends to perpetuate and accentuate educational inequalities. The study sheds light on a more inclusive pedagogical approach to alleviating international students' marginalisation and educating students of diverse linguistic, cultural, socioeconomic backgrounds for global citizenship in the context of China's Belt and Road Initiative.

Since the 2010s, Portugal has experienced a considerable growth in the number of Chinese international students, who have been attracted by the country's image of tolerance and openness for diversity. However, as it was reported in other contexts, throughout the health crisis, these students were blatantly confronted with racial microaggressions in their daily routines inside and outside their higher education institutions' facilities. Drawing on evidence from 30 in-depth interviews conducted with Chinese international students in Portugal and following a thematic analysis approach, this paper analyses how they frame and perceive their encounters with racism in their daily lives during the pandemic. We argue that Chinese international students resort on distinct discursive strategies to negotiate their encounters with racism during their sojourns in Portugal throughout the health crisis and to negate their "otherness" as a racial minority in the country.

This paper proposes a distance-based doctoral supervisory model to support students in the process of navigating self, agency, and emotions over their doctoral journey. The model emerged through our examination of the lived experiences of three Chinese female doctoral students who, though enrolled as internal students in our New Zealand university, were prevented by the pandemic from returning from their Spring Festival sojourn to China, and continued their study by distance. We employed narrative analysis to deeply engage with their stories shared in diaries and one-on-one interviews, alongside social media interactions. These revealed a strong commitment to study emanating from answerability toward their research projects, already underway, and agentive actions to maintain peer-to-peer academic and emotional support, enabling resilience and reflexivity about personal values and needs. Learning from this experience, we emphasize in our model the need to nurture important bonds between students, their peers and their supervisors in online environments.

Purpose: Firstly, this study diagnosed professional competence amongst Chinese vocational students within a broad range of the manufacturing sectors; then, the authors examined how different types of P-E fit (job, organisation and vocation) and internship quality jointly shape the newly acquired professional competences of interns. Design/methodology/approach: This study utilised the COMET methodology to conduct a large-scale assessment of professional competence amongst 961 graduates from vocational colleges who had successfully completed internships. Participants actively engaged in the data collection process by responding to questionnaires that sought contextual information concurrently. Findings: The majority of students have attained fundamental functional competencies, indicating their fulfillment of basic requirements. However, there is a tendency to overlook the cultivation of shaping competence. Three types of P-E fit and task characteristics are positively correlated with professional competence. The indirect relationship between P-E fit and professional competence mediated by task characteristics was verified through P-V fit and P-J fit except for P-O fit. Overall, the model explains 39.2% of the variance in professional competence. Originality/value: "How to promote professional competence" has been highlighted as an important topic in vocational education. This paper contributes to identify the characteristics of a quality internship program for vocational colleges and firms. These insights are important in considering a student-centred approach, design internships programmes that better fit their own abilities, needs and vocations, avoiding a one-size-fits-all approach to implement internships and thus, enhance students' professional development.

Based on the purpose of improving the communication power of the computational intelligence short videos of China Communist Youth League, this paper takes six typical computational intelligence short video IDs and their popular computational intelligence short videos of the Communist Youth League at the provincial level as the research object investigates the characteristics along with the influencing factors of communication power from four aspects: expression form, content presentation, title text, and local characteristics through content analysis of Communist Youth League computational intelligence short videos. China communist youth league is the organization of young people between the ages of 14-28 which is run by chinese communist party with the purpose of training upcoming party members as well as officials. These six specific IDs of Communist youth league are selected as these accounts have consistently excellent performance in the ranking of government affairs TikTok accounts, and they have certain typicality and research significance. The novelty of this paper is an empirical analysis of Computational Intelligence short video communication. The methodologies that are included in this research are Release frequency that describes video update frequency, word frequency analysis that describes the keywords to follow in the short videos and statistical analysis of coding strategies. These Analysis were carried out through content and case study which was done using python 3.0's pandas, snownlp and other functional packages. The criterias which are used to evaluate the videos are views, likes, content, video format, form of expression, title form, local specialities show the engagement of the viewers in content as well as it helps in reaching the audience. Through the research, it is found that the computational intelligence short videos' communication power of the provincial Communist Youth League is related to video duration, expression form, video content, title text, local characteristics, and audience psychological behavior, but has no obvious positive correlation with title form. The advantage of computational intelligence short videos of the provincial Communist Youth League is that the party media has clear positioning, rich content, and innovative forms, but at the same time, there are some problems, such as unclear "youth" features, lack of local characteristics and audience interaction. This paper refines the characteristics of excellent computational intelligence in short videos of the Communist Youth League and puts forward countermeasures and suggestions for the shortcomings.

While the positive role of engagement in students' learning achievements has been well documented, limited studies have examined whether or how learner engagement would vary with their achievements over time, especially within an unstructured digital learning context. This paper using a purposive sampling method reported an exploratory study on how English as a foreign language (EFL) undergraduate students with lower and upper proficiency levels (LP and UP) behaviorally engaged in their self-initiated mobile-assisted English learning (MAEL) beyond the classroom. Participants were senior-year undergraduate students from universities in central China. Quantitative analysis based on 409 questionnaires showed that there were significant differences in both how long and how often students participated in MAEL across proficiency levels, with LP learners investing more time on a more frequent basis than UP learners. However, there was no significant effect of language proficiency on the number of students' MAEL resources employed. Besides, EFL proficiency was also found to play a mediating role in students' learning preferences despite their common interest in receptive learning practices. Qualitative data from 36 follow-up semi-structured interviews revealed students' cognitive and emotional rationales behind these learning behaviors. This study might offer some fresh insight into the complexity of foreign language learner engagement with self-initiated mobile-assisted learning in Chinese higher education.

The objectives of this work are to investigate the impact of automating the student assessment process using the Schoology web-based learning management system as an example and determine its effectiveness and usability by performing a comparative analysis between the survey results of educators and students. The research methodology is based on an exploratory survey using a data collection questionnaire composed of closed-ended questions. The respondents are 630 students and 159 faculty members from three Chinese higher education institutions. The data analysis enables the conclusion that the overall student and faculty satisfaction with Schoology is high (83.4% and 55%, respectively). The students and educators indicate that with the introduction of Schoology, learning and teaching became easier (82.5% and 53.4%, respectively). In line with this, the analysis of the effect of the automated performance assessment implementation on student academic performance find that learners are more prone to better learning outcomes after this system's launching. The practical significance of this paper is that it demonstrates the positive influence of the Schoology system on educational process effectiveness.

Recently, artificial intelligence (AI)-programmed automated writing evaluation (AWE) has attracted increasing attention in language research. Using a small data set arising from an analysis of five Chinese university-level English as a foreign language (EFL) students' submissions, this paper examined in detail how EFL students interacted with the feedback of Pigai, the largest AI-programmed AWE in China. The analysis started with the intention of capturing the machine feedback on the five students' submissions and the exchanges between the participants and Pigai over repeated submissions, ranging from 3 to 12 submissions. The analysis showed that the learners' interactions with Pigai focused on error corrective feedback in the initial two submissions. In the case of one student who had 12 submissions, the non-error corrective feedback increased gradually over time, providing rich linguistic resources but without examples and contextual information. The students' take-up rates of feedback with linguistic resources were much lower than that of error corrective and general feedback. A terrain model to map the stages and nature of student responses showed a more complete dynamic process, in which students' responses changed from the initial mechanical responses at the discrete language level to more considered approaches in response to machine feedback. The findings of this study have implications for both language pedagogy and the future design and development of AWE for second or foreign language learning.

Information technology is a significant action to promote education informatization. Currently, there are numerous literature studies on information technology education, but existing research lacks a comparative summary of the research status, research hot spots, and research trend of information technology in China and abroad from an overall perspective. Therefore, this paper selected the information technology education literature collected by China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) and Web of Science Core Collection (WoS) from 2000 to 2021 as the research object and used bibliometrics to analyze the literature characteristics, core forces, research hot spot, and frontier trend of information technology education in China and abroad. The results showed that: (1) The discipline literature of information technology education showed a fluctuating growth trend, in which the growth rate of foreign literature was faster, and the scale of Chinese literature was slightly smaller; Both Chinese and foreign literature involved pedagogy, computer, and other disciplines, with the characteristics of multi-disciplinary integration. (2) The United States was the leading country in this field, followed by China, with the total literature accounting for more than 50%, ranking the leading position in the world; China Audio-Visual Education and Computers & Education were representative journals in China and abroad. (3) Foreign research focused on information technology, education, science, attitude, model, perception, experience, self-efficacy, Internet, etc. China's hotspots included information literacy, computational thinking, curriculum standards, application contexts, teaching models, subject integration, etc. Foreign research focused on both theory and practice, while China focused on the theoretical nature of the subject, but the degree of practice was insufficient. (4) Student participation, technology integration, teaching innovation, Internet +, core literacy, and artificial intelligence (AI) have been popular until now, constituting the discipline frontier in information technology education.

This paper addresses the roles of job position in relation to early childhood leadership (ECL) and school type as a potential moderator of this relationship in China. A sample of 918 research participants, including 149 principals/vice-principals, 108 middle leaders and 661 teachers, was investigated. A three-factor model of ECL including staff management and development (SMD), peer learning and support (PLS) and communication with parents (CP) was used. By conducting linear regression analyses, it was found that the higher the job position an individual held, the more ECL practices he or she performed. The interaction terms (job position × school type) were statistically significant related to SMD and CP but not statistically significant related to PLS. In the case of public school type, the relationship between job position and CP became slightly negative. For private school type, however, it showed a curve-linear relationship. This paper indicates that teachers rarely participates in school-level decision-making due to the top-down management structure, especially in public preschools. It also suggests that the traditional preschool management system leads to preschool teachers in China are socialized as followers with no responsibilities outside classrooms.

On the one hand, studies of African international students in China document their instrumental role in "telling China's story and spreading China's voice" while, on the other hand, this research indicates how their lived experiences are shaped by racialisation and exclusionary practices in social life. However, there remains surprisingly little scholarship exploring ways of reducing inter-group stereotypes and racial divides so as to further Sino-African diplomatic relations over the long term. Drawing primarily upon an in-depth interview with Alex - a 23-year-old Burundian international student in China, this paper employs Freire's central concepts of dialogic practices and critical consciousness to examine how he established dialogues with villagers in rural areas in an effort to alter relations between two ethnic groups. The case study of Alex and his daily racial encounters highlights how African students are agentic in disrupting racial discourses. We further argue that dialogue, as a method to read the world in a Freirean sense, can contribute to increased tolerance and understanding.

Ancient Chinese civilisation developed two ideas about the ordering of large human spaces. The first was tianxia or 'all under heaven', the inclusive and cosmopolitan world as a whole, with no exterior, and governance on the basis of shared values and benefits, which first shaped statecraft in the Western Zhou dynasty (1047-1771 BCE). Second, the centralised nation-state which emerged in the Qin dynasty (221-206 BCE). Both strands have been influential through Chinese history. In the last twenty years discussion of tianxia has revived, especially through Zhao Tingyang, stimulated by globalisation and the need for practical relations beyond the nation state. This paper proposes one version of tianxia as a heuristic for understanding, rethinking and remaking ethical relations in worldwide higher education. It reviews different understandings of tianxia in China, identifies a world-centred (rather than China-centred) tianxia, and discusses the potentials of tianxia in higher education. Tianxia is appropriate to world higher education because of its spatiality and its ethical commitment to universal benefit in diverse settings on the basis of mutual respect. The article suggests four clusters of relational values that could constitute a tianxia order in higher education, and compares tianxia to existing practices of globalisation.

This paper addresses the perceptions and mechanisms of doctoral student job decisions regarding the pursuit of careers in the government sector in China. Through the lens of social cognitive career theory (SCCT), we analysed 30 semi-structured interviews that had been conducted with doctoral students from two prestigious Chinese universities who wish to work as civil servants. This study describes doctoral students' understanding of careers in government employment from the perspectives of work content, promotion channels and professional norms. The mechanisms influencing student career choices include personal goals, self-efficacy, outcome expectations and environment. The clear goal of political ambition and work--life balance directly drives doctoral students to choose government institutions for employment. The diploma signal of doctoral degree itself and academic training give doctoral students a high sense of self-efficacy, which is necessary for their choice of employment in the government. Occupational safety, occupational benefits and occupational value constitute the expectations of positive outcomes providing doctoral students with good feedback. In the current environment, the labour market situation and the impetus of universities combine to form a push force and the preferential recruitment policies of the state form a pull force, which jointly promote doctoral students to make decisions to work in government sector. In this paper, the fact that the Chinese government introduced the 'special selected graduates' scheme for doctoral students from prestigious universities in hope of recruiting intellectual elites to improve the quality of civil servants and the modernization level of social governance. Universities encourage PhD graduates to enter the government, hoping that this would enhance their social influence and reputation, thereby safeguarding their status as prestigious universities. From an institutional perspective, the process of doctoral students becoming civil servants can be said to be a form of cooperation between the government and universities.

Global science is more networked and connected than ever before. The rise of research collaborations occurs not only in the established Euro-American science systems that hold 'central' nodes in the globally networked science, but also in other parts of the world as science systems pluralise and multipolarise. Yet, research collaborations between traditionally non-central science systems are understudied. This paper examines factors leading to increased research collaborations between scientists in China and Turkey, two "traditionally" non-central science systems. A multiple regression analysis was conducted using an original dataset of 2256 collaborative papers and 605 China-based and Turkey-based scientists. The analysis reveals the statistically significant role of in-person mobility to the other system in increasing research collaborations. Additionally, being male instead of female and working in a university instead of a research institute are statistically significant predictors of increased research collaborations. The paper adds further nuances to the literature, suggesting that having obtained a PhD abroad or being in a large city may not lead to increased collaborations among traditionally non-central systems, although they may increase international collaborations at the conflated global level.

To tackle the problem of graduate employability (GE), higher education researchers and practitioners are suggesting the inclusion of employability modules in university curricula. However, the orthodoxy of the major-based undergraduate curriculum (MBUC) has rarely been challenged in the GE literature. Drawing on Clarke's (2018) [Clarke, M. (2018). Rethinking graduate employability: The role of capital, individual attributes and context. "Studies in Higher Education," 43(11), 1923-1937. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2017.1294152] integrated employability model, this paper explores how MBUC affects undergraduate students' GE development. The data were 27 interviews with undergraduates majoring in Portuguese at six Chinese universities. Findings show that the MBUC weakens students' perceived employability by cultivating a single rather than compound skill set, limiting their social circles and, therefore, horizons for action and delaying their career self-management. More directly, it affects GE in some cases by overproducing a homogeneously skilled workforce. We argue that in many fields of the current world of work, the MBUC may have contradicted its original, and once achieved, goal of enhancing GE for a particular profession; rather, in practice, it has become an obstacle to GE development.

This article presents an ethnographic case study of pre-service teachers' transformative learning in a Culture-Writing course at a Chinese university. In recounting three stories with fieldwork data gleaned from moments of students' pre-class discussions, reflective writings, and reports on term-paper projects, this study showcases how a group of student-teachers transformed "the self" through getting to know and/or re-understanding "other(s)." Learning to 'write culture', as their teacher led them to see, is to appreciate the lifeworlds of others and further to destabilise taken-for-granted assumptions, beliefs, and understandings, thereby leading towards transformation. I argue that transformative learning takes place in the process of knowing and rebuilding the self in relationships with other(s). It constitutes moments of critical shift that place the self and identity in a more reflexive, relational, and reversible position within specific socio-cultural contexts. This study contributes to the ongoing discussions on transformative education by illuminating how other(s) play a role in promoting pre-service teachers' transformation in a classroom-based course.

Global science is set to experience different times in the 2020s. China surpasses the USA in terms of the number of scientific papers in 2020 in most scientific databases. This scenario is expected to have implications not only in East Asia but also beyond the region. Against this backdrop, this paper investigates the scientific influence of the US-China competition on six major Muslim-majority science systems. Multiple data sources are used to collect data for the bibliometric analyses, which include the trend analysis of collaboration patterns, discipline-based collaborations, authorship patterns for responsibility in collaborations, and citation premium of collaborations with the USA versus China. All the analyses consistently demonstrate that the USA is losing its scientific influence on the selected Muslim-majority science systems to China. Analysis results indicate an astonishing increase in collaborations with China-based scientists in the last decade. Half of the selected Muslim-majority science systems collaborate more with China-based scientists, whereas the other half collaborate more with the USA in 2021, indicating a fifty-fifty split. The collaborations with China-based authors garner higher citation premiums for the selected Muslim-majority science systems than the collaborations with the USA.

In China, higher education institutions (HEIs) have a governance arrangement in which the university president and the party secretary occupy key roles. However, their legal roles as institutional leaders are vaguely specified in existing legal frameworks. Based on a four-dimensional theoretical model, this paper (i) clarifies the leadership roles in the dual governance structure, (ii) explores how HEI leaders (i.e. presidents and party secretaries) perceive their leadership, and (iii) applies the unique Chinese practices as a valuable test bed for critical reflections on how existing theoretical models of leadership are relevant in Chinese contexts. Through in-depth interviews with six top-level leaders from six Chinese public HEIs, our findings indicate that Chinese HEI leaders apply more structural than symbolic dimensions in their leadership practices. Whereas studies on institutional leadership conducted outside China tend to highlight the symbolic dimensions of leadership practices, our study suggests that top-level Chinese HEI leaders may assume the role of university managers rather than institutional leaders. We offer some reflections on the relevance of existing theoretical models of leadership and suggest the directions for further theoretical enhancement.

In an attempt of curricula improvement, many seek to create new approaches that would help develop the necessary knowledge within a shorter period of time. The primary purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of interactive piano teaching in distance learning. The paper suggests new learning approaches to interactive piano instruction. The training programme is based on interactive groups, the Flowkey application, technical and psychological aspects, improvisation, changing role positions, and the development of self-control. The programme results showed that 83% out of 120 students demonstrated a high level of knowledge, and only 2% showed a low level, which was explained by absenteeism. 28% out of 120 students learned to recognise melodies, 27% improved rhythm and tempo, 25% gained two-handed playing skills, and 20% out of 120 students developed improvisation skills. The results have scientific value for researchers engaged in studying various training programmes.

This paper aims to study the features of vocal improvisation using interactive musical technologies. The survey method contributed to determining the level of vocal skills of 214 respondents auditioned before the experiment. The authors developed a training programme based on previously received information. It included breathing, technical, aesthetic, and vocal improvisation skills. The results showed that 93% of the experimental group believed that interactive technologies had advantages in the educational process, and 63% of the control group believed that they had no advantages. The survey of the students allowed identifying elements that required improvement or changes in the curriculum. The students of the experimental group showed that using national Chinese instruments for accompaniment was important for 32% of the respondents, 27% chose the answer "other", which included systematic and more frequent cross-sections of knowledge, the involvement of foreign approaches to learning. The calculation of the level of knowledge obtained showed that 88% of the students demonstrated a high level in the experimental group, a low one was only in 2%. Study prospects relate to studying technical and aesthetic elements to be applied during classical and folk vocal performance.

Recently, researchers have proposed to leverage technology-supported data (log files) to investigate temporal and sequential patterns of interaction behaviors in learning processes. There are two major challenges to be addressed: clarifying the positioning of interaction levels and identifying the evolution of the interaction action patterns in learning processes, particularly for students with differing achievements. This paper explores the use of sequential pattern mining to address the evolution of student action patterns in Massive Private Online Courses (MPOCs) and compare these patterns between different achievement groups. The study was conducted with first-year undergraduate computer science students enrolled in a computer application course at a traditional open university in one of the Chinese provinces (N = 1375). The results showed the development of various action patterns in each phase of the course and the distinct action patterns for high-achieving and low-achieving students. The findings of study provide a new perspective for instructors and students to understand interaction patterns at the fine-grained level, and can help instructional designers develop learner-cantered courses and platforms to improve online learning.

Purpose: Microteaching is a teacher training method based on microclasses (groups of four or five students) and microlessons lasting no more than 5-20 min. Since it was first explored in the late 20th century in experiments at Stanford University, microteaching has evolved at the interdisciplinary level. The purpose of this paper is to examine the networks found via an analytical bibliometric study of the scientific output related with microteaching in teacher training, through a study and examination of the Web of Science database. Design/methodology/approach: This research was conducted with the VOSviewer tool for content analysis through data mining and scientific network structure mapping by means of the normalisation technique. This technique is based on the association strength indicator, which is interpreted as a measurement of the similarity of the units of analysis. Findings: Two hundred and nine articles were thus obtained from the Web of Science database. The networks generated and the connections among the various items, co-authorship and co-citation are presented in the results, which clearly indicates that there are significant authors and institutions in the field of microteaching. The largest cluster is made up of institutions such as Australian Catholic University. The most often-cited document is by Rich and Hannafin. Allen (1968), who defines microteaching as a technique based on microclasses and microlessons, is the author most often cited and has the largest number of connections. Research limitations/implications: This research's limitations concern either aspects that lie beyond the study's possibilities or goals that have proved unattainable. The second perspective, which focuses on skill transfer, contains a lower percentage of documents and therefore has a weaker central documentary structure. Lastly, the authors have also had to bear in mind the fact that the scientific output hinges upon a highly specific realm, the appearance and/or liberalisation of digital technologies and access to those technologies in the late 20th century. Originality/value: This research shows that microteaching is a promising area of research that opens up vast possibilities in higher education teacher training for application in the realm of technologies. This paper could lead to several lines of future research, such as access to and the universal design of learning from the standpoint of different communication and pedagogical models based on microteaching.

Hands-off data-driven learning is a data-based, student-oriented learning model characterized by inquiry and discovery. English context vocabulary teaching is the key to English teaching in colleges and an important indicator to evaluate the quality and level of college English teaching, which is a language teaching paradigm focusing on the language environment. Combining the two approaches can give students a more realistic, practical, and meaningful language learning experience. This paper analyzes the vocabulary learning level of two non-English major undergraduate classes at Southwest University of Political Science and Law before and after the application of the context experiment. The positive effect of context vocabulary teaching in the control groups is verified by comparing and analyzing the influence of context teaching based on hands-off data-driven learning on their scores and learning results between the experimental and control groups. It shows that the combination of context in English vocabulary teaching with hands-off data-driven learning can help to improve students' ability to understand, absorb, and apply English vocabulary.

Lexical ability, an umbrella term to cover various knowledge and skills pertaining to words in print, is a key component in reading comprehension. Little is known how different facets of lexical ability jointly contribute to L2 reading comprehension and how the contributions may differ between higher- and lower-proficiency L2 learners. This study, based on 201 adults who had studied Chinese in China, explored direct and indirect effects of distinct facets of lexical ability on L2 reading comprehension. The participants completed three paper-pencil tasks that measured three facets of lexical ability, that is, morphological awareness, character knowledge, and vocabulary knowledge. Their short-term memory, grammatical knowledge, and reading comprehension were also measured. Separate sets of path analysis showed that higher- and lower-proficiency learners had distinct patterns of relationships. Whereas higher-proficiency learners relied more on morphological awareness and vocabulary knowledge in L2 Chinese reading comprehension, lower-proficiency learners drew largely upon their character knowledge.

Interest in formal Nuosu Yi language programmes has been waning in Liangshan, China, even though Nuosu Yi continues to be widely spoken among Yi residents. In this paper, we adopt Hornberger (2004. "The Continua of Biliteracy and the Bilingual Educator: Educational Linguistics in Practice." "International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism" 7 (3): 155-171.)'s continua of biliteracy and a translanguaging perspective to explore this phenomenon, and draw on a qualitative study of Yi students' and their teachers' language practices in three schools. Data include observations of Yi students' and teachers' spoken practices both in casual interactions and formal classroom instruction, and photos of their formal and informal written practices. Findings revealed a literacy-oracy divide in formal Nuosu Yi education: written Nuosu Yi was prioritised at school but was not found to be widely used in daily life. By contrast, spoken Nuosu Yi, which was drawn on frequently by students and teachers in informal interactions, was largely excluded at school due to a highly standardised and literacy-focused institutional setting. The continua of biliteracy and translanguaging allowed a nuanced investigation into different kinds of language practices at school, showing how the existing communicative repertoire of the students was not considered to be an asset in formal education.

The review article presents an analysis of the literature on environmental literacy in sustainable development. By utilizing techniques to examine multiple documents published between 2013 and 2023, including citation analysis, co-authorship analysis, subject area analysis, and keyword analysis, this study aims to provide valuable information and insights into the research landscape surrounding environmental literacy and its contribution to promoting sustainable development. A systematic search was conducted to gather several scientific articles, conference papers, and publications from the Scopus database from 2013 to 2023. The findings of this analysis shed light on authors, influential institutions, and active research groups that contributed to the study of environmental literacy and sustainable development. This comprehensive review offers an understanding of the state of research in this field while identifying areas for further exploration and research gaps. The insights gained from this study can be highly beneficial for researchers, policymakers, and practitioners seeking to advance knowledge and take action toward promoting literacy's role in sustainable development. This analysis is a foundation for advancing our understanding of literacy's significance while emphasizing its vital role in sustainable development efforts.

Translanguaging goes between linguistic and/or modal boundaries and beyond them (Li, W. (2011a). Moment analysis and translanguaging space: Discursive construction of identities by multilingual Chinese youth in Britain. "Journal of Pragmatics", 43(5), 1222-1235. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2010.07.035). The appearance of this new concept marks a significant development of multilingualism studies. This paper is based on an empirical study of creating a translanguaging space and positive 'classroom climate' (Gabrys-Barker, D. (2014). Success: From failure to failure with enthusiasm. "Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching", 4(2), 301-325. https://doi.org/10.14746/ssllt.2014.4.2.7) by allowing for students' emotional expression and supporting their emotions to benefit EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learning in the Chinese context. The visual data are multilingual and multimodal student-made artefacts called "emotional curves" completed by newly registered university students as descriptive homework of their emotions about English learning in the classroom. These emotional curves create a translanguaging space where students adopt multiple linguistic and semiotic resources to express emotions and identities freely and creatively. The multimodal discourse analysis of emotional curves is combined with (auto)ethnographic observations and interviews, which shed light upon the emotional motivation for translanguaging and manifest effective teacher-student communication owing to the teacher's 'emotional scaffolding' (Park, M. H. (2014). Increasing English language learners' engagement in instruction through emotional scaffolding. "Multicultural Education", 22(1), 20-29.) strategies. Theoretically, this paper highlights the transformative power of translanguaging space and clarifies emotional representations of translanguaging theory. Pedagogically, this study advocates acknowledging and scaffolding students' emotions to establish better teacher-student relationships and create a flexible translanguaging space and harmonious classroom climate.

The vast majority of Chinese universities have embraced higher education reform that emphasizes a "publish or perish" ideology. This brings challenges to the early-career academics, especially those working in language-related fields. This paper employs a multiple case study to explore the identity tension of early career academics in applied linguistics. The three cases had diverse backgrounds and demonstrated different identity trajectories. Data were triangulated through narrative frames, interviews, and documents. Data analysis was conducted using an inductive approach that focused on interpreting the underlying meanings within the data, drawing upon relevant theoretical frameworks for guidance. The findings revealed an array of identity options (e.g., "temporary worker", "blind follower", "green pepper", "leek"). The factors that shaped the identity construction included the shifting value of being a teacher and researcher, intensified "publish-or-perish" ideology, and changing institutional and societal systems and requirements. Implications on teacher development for early-career academics in applied linguistics were proposed based on the findings.

Teaching quality assurance has become a common concern and a common pursuit for institutions of higher learning around the world. This paper takes teaching quality as a governance issue in higher education, as different governance systems entail different approaches to quality assurance. Through a detailed examination of the Chinese system in teaching administration in comparison with the Canadian system, this study aims to provide insights on different approaches to teaching quality assurance in more centralised and decentralised governance structures. Based on the findings of this study, no winner can be declared between centralised and decentralised systems in the area of teaching quality assurance. Instead, the study points to different strengths in each system. With more local autonomy, the decentralised system better respects disciplinary uniqueness and academic freedom in teaching. With more national planning, the centralised system secures a system-wide threshold in teaching quality and an optimal long-term development.

Psychological variables (e.g. L2 grit) remain a much under-investigated sub-category of individual differences compared with cognitive ones (e.g. aptitude). The present paper aims to gain a better understanding of the psychological effects of multilingualism by investigating tolerance of homosexuality (TH), which has received little scholarly attention from multilingualism researchers. Relevant data from the 2015 Chinese General Social Survey, which utilised a representative national sample (N = 10968) from China, were analysed. Out of the 11 initial independent variables, multilingualism and Internet use emerged as statistically significant predictors for TH; their effect sizes fluctuated around the typical-effect benchmark, suggesting that both were important predictors. Although gender role belief was also a statistically significant predictor, its effect sizes fell well below the small-effect benchmark and hence its link with TH was negligible. As the first systematic attempt to link multilingualism with TH in the field of applied linguistics, the present multidisciplinary study: (1) confirms and expands previous studies which show that multilingualism can be considered as an enduring social factor contributing to the shaping of individuals' psychological profiles, and (2) helps broaden the scope along the research line on homophobia in gender studies by linking it with more social correlates (e.g. multilingualism).

This paper reports a study that used a quantitative method to explore literacy planning in Chinese kindergartener families as well as the influences of socioeconomic status (SES) on it. The conceptual framework of family language policy (FLP), which consists of three components--language ideology, language management, and language practice, was adopted to examine literacy planning. The SES factors investigated included mother's education, mother's occupation, father's education, father's occupation, and household income. Data were collected via a questionnaire survey of 664 kindergartener families from 10 kindergartens in a Chinese city. Descriptive statistics revealed reasonable language ideology and practice but relatively weak language management in Chinese kindergartener families. Structural equation modelling corroborated the relationships between language ideology, language management, and language practice hypothesised in the FLP theory. It also indicated that only mother's education significantly predicted the literacy planning of a family. Implications for early intervention for children's language development were discussed.

Background: Adolescent suicide has become an increasingly serious social problem in China. Bullying victimization was found to be an influential factor of suicidal tendency, but less attention has been paid to the internal mechanisms of the relationship. Objective: This paper examined the relationship between adolescents' bullying victimization and suicidal tendency, and the mediating effects of internalizing problems and non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI). Method: Generalized Structural Equation Model was employed to a sample of 3,575 Chinese secondary school students. Results: Bullying victimization has a direct positive impact on adolescents' suicidal tendency, but also has an indirect impact on suicidal tendency through three paths: the independent mediating role of internalizing problems and NSSI, and the chain mediating role of internalizing problems and NSSI. Conclusions: The results suggested that students who are bullied tend to have a higher risk of suicidal tendency, and internalizing problems and NSSI are usually the prelude to suicidal behaviors.

As humanity reaches the 5.0 industrial revolution, education plays a critical role in boosting the quality of human resources. This paper reports bibliometric research on emerging TiP during 1993-2022 in the educational field to analyse its development on any level of education during the last three decades. This study employed a Scopus database. The findings are that the trend of TiP publication in educational fields has tended to increase every year during the past three decades and conference paper became the most published document type, the USA is the country which produces the most publications; "Students" being the most occurrences keyword and total link strength. The publication of the TiP is ranked to the Quartile 1, which implies that a publication with the cited performance is a publication with credibility because the publisher has a good reputation. Researchers can find the topics most relevant to other metadata sources such as Web of Science, Publish, and Perish.

While enjoying the respect and prestige in some countries, in others, despite being a significant educational sector, vocational education continues to suffer from low status and negative societal sentiments. Vocational education in China has been positioned at the bottom of the educational hierarchy, absorbing the 'left-over' students with 'less good' academic records. Addressing the research gap concerning the limited philosophical discourses about the academic/vocational divide from non-Western traditions, this paper seeks to explore the philosophical and historical heritage of the academic/vocational divide and how Confucianism may contribute to this divide and shaped the hierarchy of work in China. The Confucian literati, as 'the privileged other', determined the social rank of 'those who labour with their strength' and 'those who labour with their minds' through the Imperial Examination System. By using institutional logics theory, the paper explores how the legacy of these views may have negatively impacted on the standing of occupations and vocational education in contemporary Chinese society and argues that an alternative philosophical orientation is needed to counter the long-standing consequences for vocational education.

In the field of English medium instruction (EMI), multilingual research approaches are crucial to carrying out effective and ethically responsible research, because EMI policies and practices are inherently multilingual. This paper is a partial replication study that adopts a 'researching multilingually' analytical framework to interrogate the challenges and affordances of using multiple languages during two EMI research projects. In the project in Turkey, the lead researcher, who is an English-Turkish bilingual, analysed policy documents (n = 145) and interview data (n = 67) drawing on her knowledge of both languages. Additionally, 85 EMI classroom observations were conducted. In the project in China, the research team of two L1 English speakers and two L1 Chinese speakers investigated 93 bilingual policy documents and conducted interviews with 26 policy arbiters by drawing on both languages during data collection and analysis. Together, these reflections highlight how multilingual approaches can be utilised throughout the research process, from team formation, research design, data collection, data analysis, and presentation of findings in research reports.

Power relations and change have become two of the most important foci of intercultural communication education and research. This paper contributes to these two elements by problematising and operating an analytical framework from outside the "West," the Chinese notion of Zhongyong (the "Golden Mean"). Based on a dialogical analysis of focus groups collected during an art course, the paper shows that Zhongyong can expand and complexify our understanding of interculturality, looking into how e.g. the students balance otherness with otherness (or not), as well as make use of reflectivity and criticality (or not) to implement potential change when cooperating.

This paper explores what the measures of utterance fluency typically employed in Automatic Speech Evaluation (ASE), i.e. automated speaking assessments, tell us about oral proficiency. 60 Chinese learners of English completed the second part of the speaking section of IELTS and six tasks designed to measure the linguistic knowledge and processing assumed to underpin second language speech production. A sample of eight native speakers rated the learners' oral productions for functional adequacy. Analyses of the data confirm: (1) articulation rate, mid-clause pause frequency, and repetition frequency predict functional adequacy, (2) breadth of lexical knowledge is the main predictor of articulation rate as well as functional adequacy, (3) speed of syntactic processing predicts end-clause pause duration and speed of lexical processing predicts mid-clause pause duration, and (4) measures of utterance fluency together account for 60% of the variation in functional adequacy scores. These findings suggest that articulation rate best reflects overall functional adequacy. Moreover, other measures of utterance fluency reflect different areas of underlying knowledge and processing, opening up the possibility of automating diagnostic speaking tests.

In the field of applied linguistics, Diane Larsen-Freeman is widely recognized, among her numerous contributions, as the originator of Complex Dynamic Systems Theory (CDST). Over the years since her seminal publication (Larsen-Freeman, 1997), CDST has evolved into a meta-theory that guides the field's thinking on a variety of developmental phenomena, not least the study of second language acquisition. As its theoretical potency rises, so does the need to achieve a tangible understanding of CDST's core constructs. In this paper, we empirically examine one such construct, co-adaptation, in the context of asynchronous dyadic interaction. A data corpus of 39 emails sent between two college students in China and the United States over the course of seven weeks is analyzed using NVivo 12. Co-adaptation is observed at the pragmatic, discourse, and linguistic levels. True to the spirit of CDST, we describe, and discuss the nuances of, our findings. Considering the novelty of our approach to data analysis, we end by reflecting on the limitations specific to our study, as well as worthwhile directions for future pursuits.

Purpose: This paper aims to conceptualize the role of leadership in organizational learning processes in multinational companies (MNCs). The authors present a model describing how managers in an MNC facilitated transitions between sub-processes of organizational learning at several organizational levels. Design/methodology/approach: The authors collected data from the plants of a global process company in Norway, Brazil and China. Observation, in-depth interviews and archival material enabled one to reconstruct the organizational learning process over a period of 30 years as the company developed its own tailor-made improvement programme. Findings: Based on the data, the authors describe the role of leadership in linking the sub-processes of organizational learning as orchestration, sponsoring and persistence. Orchestration included creating faith and optimism and designing the organization to allow close cooperation between operators and managers in the sub-process of experimenting. This eased transferring and institutionalizing in the global organization. Sponsoring included structural changes to support transferring and the demonstration of dedication to improvement programme values. These factors were important for institutionalizing. Persistence involved the continuous focus on adjustment of the improvement programme, which then facilitated further experimenting. Originality/value: Firstly, this study suggests that activities and decisions in one sub-process have important implications for the following sub-processes. Secondly, this study indicates that leaders' role in facilitating the transitions between sub-processes extend beyond their individual traits and behaviour, which previous research had focused on, and includes decisions concerning organizational structure and culture that help link social and organizational learning.

The persistent gender inequalities in higher education are an ongoing concern among academics. This paper investigates how male and female academics perceive the need for gender-related changes to support academic women's career advancement in China. Drawing on 40 interviews with male and female academics at a leading Chinese research university, this paper finds that attitudes among male academics were overwhelmingly negative toward the necessity for gender-related changes, whereas the female academics' responses varied. Two underlying issues cause the relatively similar degrees of unwillingness of men and women to make gender-related policy changes at universities. First, these academics had a strong belief in merit-based rules for promotion, which embedded gender blindness in the name of 'fairness'. Second, the power of individual choice was the determining factor for women's career progression, although both men and women acknowledged that their traditional cultural beliefs were rooted in processes and practices that systematically disadvantaged women. The findings expose academics' low expectations for the successful creation or implementation of institutional policies that support academic women's career development, considering that male academics did not support gender-related changes, and female academics were not united in their perspectives. In addition, socio-cultural norms were a critical obstacle. The findings suggest that the successful implementation of any gender policies must meet two conditions: they should stress equal opportunities for both sexes and should not jeopardize the perceived 'fair' meritocracy in academia.