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Background Ample evidence supports the health benefits of low-intensity physical activity such as walking, which is universally accessible and impacted by neighbourhood environmental factors like green spaces and availability of local amenities. Aim The MOBITEC-Routes project will investigate the effects of an individualized GIS-based walking intervention on physical and psychosocial functioning in mobility-limited older adults. Methods A randomized controlled trial to promote habitual walking will take place. The sample will include 130 inactive, chronically ill, mobility-limited older adults. The intervention will combine professional consultations with map-based planning and behaviour change techniques derived from the Health Action Process Approach. Results Expected outcomes include increase in participants’ daily step count, physical activity levels, physical function, life space mobility, self-efficacy, social participation, and quality of life. Conclusion MOBITEC-Routes is poised to offer new insights into personalized GIS-based interventions’ effectiveness in improving mobility and overall well-being in older adults with mobility impairments.

In EFL countries where English is rarely practiced outside the classroom, textbooks have become the major input source for learners. Particularly in Vietnam, multiple textbook series are available simultaneously for the same grade. Thus, it is important to examine if their vocabulary is appropriate and of similar difficulty. This study aims to investigate and compare the lexical demands, sophistication, diversity, and lengths of reading passages in the eight latest series for Vietnamese 10th graders with 53,360 tokens in total. The results revealed that the most frequent 1,000, 2,000-3,000, and roughly 4,000-word families in the BNC/COCA wordlist, plus proper nouns, marginal words, transparent compounds, and acronyms, were respectively needed for 85%, 95%, and 98% coverage. Additionally, pairwise comparisons uncovered that the passages differ significantly in length yet insignificantly in lexical sophistication and diversity. Therefore, the series appear to be well-suited to co-implementation and facilitative to vocabulary development despite not being optimized for independent learning. The study still calls for simplifying the eight textbook series to promote meaning-focused output. Finally, implications for exploiting and revising these textbook series are discussed.

Abstract One of the limiting factors of graphene integration into electronic, photonic, or sensing devices is the unavailability of large-scale graphene directly grown on the isolators. Therefore, it is necessary to transfer graphene from the donor growth wafers onto the isolating target wafers. In the present research, graphene was transferred from the chemical vapor deposited 200 mm Germanium/Silicon (Ge/Si) wafers onto isolating (SiO2/Si and Si3N4/Si) wafers by electrochemical delamination procedure, employing poly(methylmethacrylate) as an intermediate support layer. In order to influence the adhesion properties of graphene, the wettability properties of the target substrates were investigated in this study. To increase the adhesion of the graphene on the isolating surfaces, they were pre-treated with oxygen plasma prior the transfer process of graphene. The wetting contact angle measurements revealed the increase of the hydrophilicity after surface interaction with oxygen plasma, leading to improved adhesion of the graphene on 200 mm target wafers and possible proof-of-concept development of graphene-based devices in standard Si technologies.

Fluency development is one of the prominent components of a well-balanced language course. In particular, speaking fluency interests second language (L2) researchers who have continuously tried to look for the finest approach for helping L2 learners attain a certain level of fluency to achieve effective communication. To this end, the primary purpose of this research is to explore what factors affect English-speaking fluency and what strategies can effectively boost its development among a cohort of Vietnamese university students. The participants were 142 English majors who filled out a questionnaire measuring their perceived self-efficacy concerning English-speaking fluency. Four teachers and six students joined the semi-structured interviews. Quantitative and qualitative data revealed that the most influential factors were linguistic elements, followed by performance, and affective factors. The most effective strategy for enhancing fluency was task repetition. Notably, the findings revealed a mismatch between teachers' and students' understandings of speaking fluency, which may negatively impact the achievement of fluent speech. Based on these results, pedagogical implications are discussed for English teachers and students regarding fluency development.

Organizing effective instruction is a characteristic of classroom management, which minimizes time wasting and keeps students moving at a good pace. The primary purpose of this study is to explore the current practice of instruction-giving strategies being utilized in EFL classrooms in a Vietnamese public university. To achieve this goal, both qualitative and quantitative methods were utilized to explore the critical characteristics of instruction-giving. Classroom observations were the primary data collection method. During 19 observations, 25 instructions were noted for analysis. The findings of this study present certain characteristics of instruction-giving, namely attention-grabbing skills, repetition, the use of mother tongue and language, demonstration, and checking understanding to support instruction delivery. Also, the study's findings propose weaknesses that EFL teachers can take into consideration for better instruction-giving.

Workload has consistently been found to be a predictor of burnout in teachers. However, while academia considers workload a psychological concept, the public tends to simplify workload as the number of tasks assigned. This study seeks to provide further evidence of the psychological nature of workload by examining if workload understood in terms of quantity of work had any effect on teacher burnout and whether this relationship was moderated by psychological processes such as self-efficacy and mediated by stress. 117 primary and high school teachers holding at least two roles at school participated in the study. Teacher burnout was measured using MBI-ES, self-efficacy was measured by OSTES and stress and workload were measured by single-item questions. Results showed that workload (i.e., the number of roles assigned) did not have a main effect on burnout. Perceived stress and self-efficacy had direct effects on teacher burnout: stress increased burnout while self-efficacy reduced burnout. Self-efficacy had a significant moderation effect on workload-burnout interaction. Workload increased burnout only in teachers with low self-efficacy while stress did not moderate the workload-burnout relationship. These findings support the psychological nature of the relationship between workload and burnout among teachers. They also point out the importance of enhancing teacher stress management and self-efficacy in protecting them from burnout.

Nowadays, TikTok is one of the most popular online applications. TikTok has recently been a helpful tool in facilitating teaching speaking skills. More researchers are exploring the teaching application of TikTok in speaking classes. This study is designed as mixed-method research that explores VLU second-year English-major students' perceptions of using TikTok to learn speaking skills. With the help of two research instruments: interviews and questionnaires, the results showed that students agree that TikTok positively impacts speaking skills. Furthermore, TikTok can be implemented in Speaking 4 classes as an additional tool to facilitate students' speaking skills outside the classroom.

Innovative instructional methods can help improve student engagement and learning outcomes when teaching difficult subjects, such as statistics. This instructional innovation article illustrates how gamification can be applied in management education to improve students' learning experience, engagement, and acquisition of knowledge. Our purpose is to demonstrate how gamification is not only a powerful way to build on the use of games and game thinking in our field, but also a versatile application of education technology that could potentially enhance the way management knowledge is taught. Furthermore, it is a low-risk way for management educators to join and contribute to the larger virtual revolution. We document the process of combining the Technology, Pedagogy, and Content Knowledge (TPACK) competency framework and the Mechanics, Dynamics, and Aesthetics (MDA) design framework to create both theoretically and practically motivated gamification designs in a graduate-level statistics class. With student data and feedback, we demonstrate that gamification helped create a positive learning experience, facilitated interactions in the course, and assisted the learning of statistical knowledge. We offer suggestions and concrete examples for interested educators to implement gamification in their courses.

This article examines how graduate employability is viewed by employers in six economically disadvantaged mountainous provinces in Vietnam. The study reported in this article identified continuous self-learning, resilience, adaptability, devotion and empathy for the local people and local community to be among the main employability attributes expected of graduates in regional Vietnam. The findings of the study raise the importance of context situatedness in looking at employability and show how employability is characterised by the local structural conditions, demographic features and socio-cultural norms. The study provides significant implications for career guidance and graduate employability development, especially in relation to regional areas.

The quality of graduate teachers is a significant concern for teacher educators, policymakers and the public. Initiatives regarding the quality assurance of initial teacher education (ITE) programs require critical examination to ensure that ITE programs develop proficient graduate teachers to meet the demands of modern classrooms. In this paper, we draw on Biesta's (2015, 2019, 2020) theoretical framing of purpose in education (i.e., qualification, socialisation and subjectification) to analyse the policy texts related to graduate teaching performance assessment from institutions involved in the creation and implementation of the Teaching Performance Assessment (TPA) in ITE in Australia. Researchers used document analysis to examine the publicly stated purpose of the TPA. The analysis revealed that the relevant policy texts focused much more on qualification (81%) than socialisation (8%) and subjectification (11%). The findings imply that the TPA policies may contribute to narrowing the ITE curriculum and the subsequent thwarting of teacher subjectification.

Early career teacher (ECT) mentoring has never been so important with escalating levels of attrition reported in numerous countries, including Australia, the US and the UK. However, inconsistent understanding of what a mentor can or should do continues to compromise the ways in which early career teachers experience this support. While previous research has reported on mentors' differing perspectives on their role, we take a unique approach to this issue. In this paper, we explore the ways in which both mentors and ECTs understand the mentor role. We argue that where mentor and ECT understandings are in tension, the productive outcomes of mentoring for both the mentor and ECT are undermined. Drawing on Positioning Theory we report findings from the thematic analysis of 31 online interviews with 16 mentors and 15 ECTs in Australia. We found that while ECTs and mentors hold some common positionings, some significant differences were noted. These findings highlight the need to extend opportunities to learn about the mentoring role to include ECTs.

COVID-19 has spread worldwide since December 2019. Among the mutated variants, some were designated by the World Health Organization as variants of concern because of their transmissibility or virulence (1). [...]