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Egypt currently holds the record for the most retractions in the continent of Africa according to the Retraction Watch database, and the 2nd highest of countries in the Middle East. The purpose of this study was to analyse the retracted medical publications from Egyptian affiliations, in order to delineate specific problems and solutions. We examined databases including Pubmed, Google Scholar and others, for all retracted medical publications that were conducted in an Egyptian institution, up to the date of August 31st 2022. We observed for the reason(s) for retraction, number of citations of the retracted work, the length of time between publication and retraction, and where the work was published (journal, publisher and impact factor). 68 retractions were identified. Most retractions were from the speciality of Obstetrics and Gynecology (n = 22), followed by Anesthesia (n = 7). The top 3 reasons for retraction were unreliable results, FFP level misconduct, and duplicate publication. The number of retractions significantly increased over the years, especially in 2022. When taking into account the number of medical publications per institution, the institute with the highest rate of retractions was Mansoura University, while the lowest rate was Cairo University. The number of retracted medical Egyptian publications continues to increase over time, although they represent a small portion of the overall body of Egyptian medical research. Future studies on retracted articles should employ a methodology that considers the institutions where the studies were conducted. This could allow a better understanding of specific problems in certain countries or regions.

The European Universities Initiative (EUI), created by the European Commission in 2017, is a recent novel phenomenon within the European Union policy toolkit that explicitly targets the development of transnational cooperation in higher education (HE). To date, the EUI counts 44 European university alliances, involving around 340 HE institutions. In this paper, we argue that the EUI can be seen as a case of a transnational institution building process representing a potentially significant structural reform for European higher education. Anchored in new institutionalism, we explore the regulative, normative, and cultural-cognitive dimensions of the EUI. Methodologically, this study analyzes the perspectives of European policy actors (n = 4), a set of policy documents (n = 13) and the mission statements of the EUI's partnerships funded before 2022 (n = 41). The results show that the EUI emerges as the 'next level of cooperation' in European HE since it aims to transform European cooperation (regulative dimension), to create and diffuse a new model for European HE following a challenge-based approach (normative dimension), and to work as a way to reinforce and institutionalize European and global scripts for European HE (cultural-cognitive dimension).

Adoption of digital technology by older adults has become an important topic in academia and the public sphere within the debate on digital inclusion. Likewise, this topic has gained traction in the print media also. This paper assesses the representation of older adults in print media in the past 20 years in The Netherlands and Flanders. A total of 281 articles in the Dutch language were analysed to determine the representation of older adults and their level of agency. We found that they were represented in three manners: a) ambassadors of digital skill acquisition; b) naturally lacking in digital skills; or c) not alone in being helpless. These representations clearly increased during the COVIS-19 crisis. Some representations can be problematic, as the relationship between older adults and digital inclusion is not envisioned positively. Furthermore, they receive no agency to participate actively in the discussion surrounding their own digital inclusion and are too often used as the automatic example of the digitally illiterate – which is not particularly encouraging older adults towards digital skills acquisition.

Introduction: Theory papers have been the most commonly employed method to assess learning outcomes in medical education. In these papers, both recall abilities and higher‑order cognitive functions need to be assessed giving proper weightage as per relevance. Hence it becomes necessary that valid assessment methods are employed to evaluate the required objectives/competencies. The objective of the study was to develop a method for analyzing postgraduate question papers of various specialties. Methodology: A rubric matrix was created with three broad objective criteria to assess framing and layout of the questions in each paper, analysis of different sets for same examination, and finally an overall assessment of all the papers for each subject. Results: A total of 28 specialty papers were available. A total number of papers analysed = 340. The overall mean score out of total 60 marks was 38.64 ± 4.5. It was seen that the majority (60%) of the departments have been graded as fair on analysis of the theory papers. None of the departments were graded as very good, while 7% of them were graded as good. Although a very minuscule percentage of the papers had grammatical errors and duplication of questions in the sets, only 57% of the departments had done a proper moderation and 21% had used higher domains of learning for assessment. Conclusion: Analysis of postgraduate question papers showed that the questions asked for postgraduates are more recall‑based instead of higher taxonomy of cognitive domain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the views of contemporary Muslim jurists about withdrawing treatment of the terminally ill. Its aim is threefold. Firstly, it analyses jurists' views concerning core themes within the process of withdrawing treatment. Secondly, it provides insight into fatwas about withdrawing treatment. Thirdly, it compares these views with current medical standards in Europe and the Atlantic world on withdrawing treatment. The data consisted of six papers by Muslim jurists presented at the conference of the Islamic Fiqh Council in 2015. We conducted a directed content analysis (DCA) through a predetermined framework and compiled an overview of all previous fatwas referred to in the papers, which are also analysed. The results show that the general consensus is that if health cannot be restored, treatment may be withdrawn at the request of the patient and/or his family or on the initiative of the doctor. The accompanying fatwa emphasizes the importance of life-prolonging treatment if this does not harm the patient. It becomes apparent in the fatwa that the doctor has the monopoly in decision-making, which is inconsistent with current medical standards in Europe. Managing disclosure in view of the importance of maintaining the hope of Muslim patients may challenge the doctor's obligation to share a diagnosis with them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fingermarks used in forensic investigation are biometric elements widely utilized in identification thanks to their unique and classifiable characteristics. Despite numerous studies investigating fingermark development on different surfaces, few studies have addressed the skin surface of deceased individuals, given the challenging nature of this substrate. This study investigated the transfer and development of fingermarks on human skin that had been systematically deposited over the forehead, neck, and wrist. Additionally, gender, age, and the time elapsed since deposition were issued as additional factors impacting fingermark development. Therefore, we prepared a study setting representing a crime scene by modelling the scene and then utilized 400 fingermarks. The marks transferred to thermal paper were developed by applying ThermaNin and magnetic black fingermark powder as fingermark development methods and then photographed. They were then evaluated for their suitability for identification via scoring and statistical analysis. The results indicated that 36% of all marks obtained from the skin of living persons and 66% of those from skin surfaces of dead bodies received the highest score and were assessed as suitable for identification. Despite the negative effect of increased time since deposition, it was revealed that the ThermaNin method yielded better results than magnetic black fingermark powder. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper outlines the development of a new Indigenous research methodology: Indigenous Literature Re-view Methodology (ILRM). In the rejection of the idea that Western, dominant forms of research 'about' Indigenous peoples are most valid, ILRM was developed with aims to research in ways that give greater emphasis to Indigenous voices and knowledges, foregrounding Indigenous ways of being, doing and knowing. The advantages of ILRM include identifying themes as 'relevant' as opposed to 'common'. This method is based on relatedness, which is framed by Aboriginal ontology, axiology and epistemology, or ways of being, ways of doing and ways of knowing. Describing and employing ILRM to re-view Indigenous Australian boarding school literature, it was found there is a modest but robust body of research that has emerged in the past 20 years. Sixty-six written sources (i.e. journal articles, reports, theses and books) which were published in 2000 onwards and focussed on a topic of contemporary Indigenous boarding schooling were analysed. Sources that included a chapter or section on boarding as part of a publication focussed on other topics were not included in this re-view. Seven major themes emerged, including home, student experience, transitions, access, staff, health and evaluation. This paper focusses on the development and use of ILRM as an Indigenous methodology for researchers in Indigenous fields of study.

The "Memorandum on Lifelong Learning" was launched in October 2000 by the European Commission and has been debated ever since in all member states of the European Union, leading to the publication of a follow-up document in 2001 which promoted a "European area of lifelong learning". The "Memorandum" was a unique document in terms of both form and content, and its outcome and immediate impact were remarkable. But what is the long-term effect of this document, considering policymaking processes and scholarly debates in various EU member states and beyond? The authors of this article aim to answer this question by highlighting the "Memorandum's" "key messages" and analysing how it is referenced in academic papers and publications. Their main findings confirm the "Memorandum's" significant impact, including a long-term one, particularly in raising awareness of the importance of adult education in the political debate. Despite a decrease in explicit references to the document in policy papers over the past ten years, other more recent references to the "Memorandum" can still be identified in the latest policy documents and academic debates. Scholarly papers are particularly interested in critical content analysis, pointing out the strengths and limitations of the "Memorandum" and its follow-up document. During the past decade, the academic debate has become more active than in the first ten years since the "Memorandum's" publication, demonstrating its long-term impact on various sectors in the field of lifelong learning, even outside Europe.

In this paper, I propose a model of plurimethodological approach in ELT textbook design, in which one unit is based on the communicative PPP unit model, where the unit ends with a final communicative task, and the following unit is based on the action-oriented unit model, where the unit is a mini-project unit as a whole. Such a textbook model is based on the concept of plurimethodological pair-unit, where the communicative approach and the action-oriented approach are combined in coherence and synergy. In such a plurimethodological textbook design, the topics of the two successive units (one PPP unit and the other mini-project unit) are the same or closely related, so that the unit based on the PPP model will provide the students with much of the language and documentary resources needed to complete the mini-project in the following unit. The mini-project unit will provide the students with additional language and documentary resources for carrying out the miniproject, but as there will be less language and documentary work for students in this unit, students will be better able to concentrate on carrying out the miniproject. [Note: The page range (228-241) shown on the PDF is incorrect. The correct page range is 228-240.]

This study aims to highlight the current trends in the literature on sustainability by applying a bibliometric review of papers on sustainability published in Environment, Development and Sustainability. Bibliometric analysis is a quantitative approach to bibliographic materials that highlights the core theoretical and empirical research on a specific field. In addition, it allows the classification of previous studies. Previous bibliometric reviewers were limited to sustainability papers in specific industries, while this study considers all papers on sustainability to provide further insights on overall sustainability topics. The analysis was based on keyword cartography analysis, bibliometric authors' citation analysis, bibliometric papers' citation analysis, bibliometric references' co-citation analysis, journals' co-citation cartography, and qualitative content analysis. A total of 997 articles on sustainability were reviewed. Bibliometric analysis was performed using VOSviewer and content analysis was performed using WordStat. Six major clusters were identified: environmental sustainability, sustainable development, urban sustainability, ecological footprint, environment, and climate change. In addition, the results reveal that Environment, Development and Sustainability has increasingly experienced important growth in research papers and citations, reflecting its significant contribution to the sustainability research field. In addition, this study presents recommendations for future research opportunities in the field of sustainability. The findings of this study have implications for sustainability research, such as the assessment of environmental and social sustainability in multinational institutional contexts and across industries as well as the examination of the impact of environmental and social sustainability on different corporate aspects and decisions. This study is the only one to review the key topics on which papers published in Environment, Development and Sustainability are focused and can be largely used for sustainability practices. This study provides an overview of how the literature on sustainability has developed, as well as a summary of the most productive authors, along with countries, organizations, and journal sources. This offers an opportunity for future research to focus on this topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agricultural and applied economists have maintained a public discourse at the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (AAEA) meetings and subsequently published papers discussing the mission of land‐grant institutions and the role of AAEA members in that mission. With a content analysis of 4001 Invited Papers and Presidential Speeches, we find agricultural and applied economists questioned their profession's purpose and role within the land‐grant system. The reflective questions still apply to land‐grant institutions and the agricultural and applied economics profession. We argue that AAEA members are crucial in addressing the food and agricultural challenges connected to society's deepest needs today and into the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an overview of didactic proposals in interpreter training from 2001 to 2020 based on the results of a pre-registered, bibliometric study. The specific aims are: (1) to characterise bibliometric patterns of publications containing didactic proposals in interpreter training both synchronically (for the whole period) and diachronically (in five-year periods); (2) to characterise these proposals both synchronically and diachronically, and (3) to describe synchronically how the aspects being trained and/or assessed in such proposals have been operationalised. The corpus of publication records was extracted from BITRA, and TSB was consulted to expand it. The final database contained 668 documents, and 351 of them included an abstract. Keywords were extracted from the abstracts to characterise didactic proposals. Keywords were analysed using keyword analysis and graphically represented with keyword network visualisations generated with VOSviewer. Results show a tendency to bring interpreter training closer to technological and professional changes over time and a clear use of socioconstructivist methods with a particular interest in developing students' metacognition. The paper concludes with a discussion of its limitations and possible ways to provide more nuanced overviews of didactic proposals in interpreter training.

The current study identified recent trends in socioscientific issues (SSIs) in the field of education. Through descriptive analysis and co-word analysis, selected articles published in journals listed in the Social Science Citation Index and Scopus from 2000 to 2021 were screened. A total of 334 papers were retrieved as research target samples from the Web of Science and Scopus databases after many rounds of searching and filtering. An analysis revealed an overall growing trend of SSI-related publications in the field of education. High-impact journals that published SSI-related research and highly cited articles were also identified. A series of co-word analyses were then conducted to determine co-occurring relationships among the keywords of the sample papers. This study extracted 39 author-defined keywords shared by at least three studies in the target samples. The analytic results indicated that 'argumentation,' 'decision-making,' 'scientific literacy,' and 'knowledge' were frequently used along with SSI as keywords. The co-word networks of the whole corpus of keywords and selected keywords were visualised to refine the common understanding of the educators and obtain the SSI research foci. This paper also offers future research directions.

This paper investigates how inclusive work-integrated learning (WIL) is being approached and addressed by examining current research that highlights the intersection of inclusion, WIL, and employability. It employs an inclusive pedagogies framework to analyse findings from a scoping review (between 2010 and 2022) that address or investigate inclusive WIL. Through this examination, the paper identifies common barriers and enablers of inclusive WIL and presents key recommendations to enhance WIL experiences for all students. This paper proposes an adapted theoretical framework that serves as a foundation for future research in the field of inclusive WIL. Overall, the paper aims to advance understanding of approaches to inclusive WIL in order to promote greater equitable access to and participation in these valuable learning opportunities.

Over the past decade, the intentional promotion of student and staff wellbeing (i.e., positive states of psychological, cognitive, social and physical being) has become recognized as an essential dimension of quality schooling. This development has coincided with a growing body of research that demonstrates significant correlations between wellbeing and positive school outcomes (i.e., attendance, academic achievement, classroom engagement, disciplinary absences). While this body of literature identifies why wellbeing is important to school improvement, it is not necessarily clear whether it provides insight into how wellbeing may be effectively incorporated into the praxis of school improvement. This paper reports on a scoping review that sought to identify how the construct of wellbeing is presented as an imperative within the school improvement (SI) literature. The review identified that promoting wellbeing in schools as a means of improving school outcomes can be understood through three core concepts: (a) the development of personal wellbeing and academic capability are complementary; (b) significant cultural and structural reform is necessary in schools to enable effective approaches to promoting wellbeing; and (c) a nurturing style leadership is a determining factor in a school's capability to substantively promote wellbeing. The paper also provides recommendations for further research in this area.

Citations are valuable capital in the academy as the number of citations is the most frequently used indicator in evaluating the quality of papers, journals, researchers, and universities. Thus, the characteristics of highly cited articles (HCA) have become a common research topic but the approach has been mainly descriptive with no profound critical reflection of what kind of research is cited, where the research is from, where the research is published, and what do these things mean for edtech research. This paper contributes to this need by providing a descriptive and critical analysis of 200 highly cited articles from 10 edtech journals. To summarize the key findings, a 'typical' edtech HCA is a Western-based review article or quantitative research paper reporting positive findings from higher education, published in a high-impact factor general edtech journal by a major publisher.

While public consultation is a signature process of democratic policy formulation, many governments manoeuvre to refract citizen's opinions or conduct it perfunctorily. Using the case of a medium of instruction policy in Hong Kong, this article unveils the strategies that the state and citizens employ to put their opinion through to the final policy text, during a public consultation process. Recent literature has identified the mechanisms through which individual actors or organisations contribute to broad policy agenda-setting or policy programme development. However, yet to be investigated is how they -- sometimes with conflicting interests -- collectively negotiate a policy with the state via public consultations. This paper investigates this very phenomenon, building on previous work conducted in the public policy field, analysing 51 government-generated documents through both thematic content analysis and critical discourse analysis. The paper uncovers four strategies adopted by administrations ("non-commitment," "case closure," "disengagement for irrelevance," and "placation") to evade citizens' equity-oriented demands and stakeholders' three counter strategies ("mobilising" other stakeholders into a coalition, "reopening the case" pointing out a new problem, and "appealing" by affirming relevance). The state's discrete refusals and stakeholders' conjoint reengagement tactics draw our attention to the complexity and subtlety involved in negotiation via public consultations.

We conducted a systematic literature review on automated grading and feedback tools for programming education. We analysed 121 research papers from 2017 to 2021 inclusive and categorised them based on skills assessed, approach, language paradigm, degree of automation, and evaluation techniques. Most papers assess the correctness of assignments in object-oriented languages. Typically, these tools use a dynamic technique, primarily unit testing, to provide grades and feedback to the students or static analysis techniques to compare a submission with a reference solution or with a set of correct student submissions. However, these techniques' feedback is often limited to whether the unit tests have passed or failed, the expected and actual output, or how they differ from the reference solution. Furthermore, few tools assess the maintainability, readability, or documentation of the source code, with most using static analysis techniques, such as code quality metrics, in conjunction with grading correctness. Additionally, we found that most tools offered fully automated assessment to allow for near-instantaneous feedback and multiple resubmissions, which can increase student satisfaction and provide them with more opportunities to succeed. In terms of techniques used to evaluate the tools' performance, most papers primarily use student surveys or compare the automatic assessment tools to grades or feedback provided by human graders. However, because the evaluation dataset is frequently unavailable, it is more difficult to reproduce results and compare tools to a collection of common assignments.

This paper provides an overview of the literature exploring the realities of contingent faculty at U.S. universities and colleges with a focus on STEM. We focus our review of the literature by exploring the experiences of Latinx/é contingent faculty in STEM and propose a series of conceptual frameworks that can be used to explore the hidden professional realities of this population. A focus on the field of STEM, via a deeper exploration of the literature, points to the evolution of contingent faculty in the disciplines and the diversity of the roles they currently fill at our universities and colleges. This paper draws on various frameworks for exploring the experiences of contingent faculty.

This paper combines social fiction and academic analysis to envision hopeful futures for higher education. At the heart of the exploration is Phoebe Wagner's speculative fiction piece, "University, Speaking," which personifies a university grappling with environmental, political, and social change. Phoebe Wagner's first-person narrative highlights the power of collective voice, the importance of centering community, and the urgent need to cultivate resilience and adaptability. Through analysis of key themes, this paper connects Phoebe Wagner's fictional vision to contemporary research on the multi-faceted and complex challenges facing universities today. By integrating artistic and academic perspectives, this paper discusses new possibilities for universities navigating disruption and change.

We conduct a systematic literature review of the academic literature on activities organised by Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) with the aim of improving skills associated with employability and facilitating labour market outcomes. The search resulted in 87 papers followed by an iterative evaluation of their relevance. Papers in the corpus were analysed using an evaluation research framework and classified in terms of the activities, outputs, and outcomes. The reviewed literature is centred on one of three stakeholders: HEIs, students or employers. It suggests all stakeholders value employability activities for similar reasons. Generally, they are seen as a vital part of HEI education programmes, facilitating the development of diverse skills that are desirable in the labour market as well as de-risking labour market entry for students and appointments for employers by alleviating information asymmetries. The evidence base is dominated by small-scale case studies and evaluations that are not sufficiently robust to infer about causal impacts of employability activities on students' development and labour market outcomes. Moreover, the corpus is skewed towards studies of Work-Related Learning. We set out avenues for future research and argue for a comprehensive evidence base encompassing diverse forms of employability activities, such as larger scale 'embedded employability' activities; a more contextual understanding of employability as an interplay between individual and a particular labour market and education system; and a more robust evidence base tracking students from education into the labour market, allowing for selection effects and identifying heterogeneity of impacts across different activities and demographics.

Learning that "career" was not a definite sign in Irish Sign Language (ISL) and that "Career Guidance" was poorly understood by the Deaf community prompted a systematic literature review (SLR). An uncomfortable truth relating to Career Guidance emerged -- "Inclusion" is not where we presume it to be at.This paper presents the results of the SLR and shares how the answers from a thematic analysis can -- through a Universal Design (UD), and Universal Design for Learning (UDL) (Rose & Meyer, 2002) lens -- guide developments for inclusive Career Guidance.This paper shares the story of "d/Deaf guidance" in the literature; the tensions between theory and practice in relation to inclusion (Quirke, 2022), and the themes identified from the SLR -- themes the Deaf community believe are a Deaf gain.

Addressing the ongoing calls to reform teacher education to prepare future teachers to serve students from diverse backgrounds, this introduction reviews recent developments in teacher education to situate our thematic issue on critical teacher education for equitable learning in multilingual classrooms. The five empirical papers and two commentaries included in this issue focus on the connection between language, power, and critical consciousness to address equity concerns in teacher education as it pertains to supporting multilingual learners, asking: how do teacher education programs prepare teachers to work with diverse students in schools where there exists a long-standing history of marginalization and discrimination based on racial, economic, social backgrounds? In this introductory paper, we discuss the contributions of the papers included in the issue and share a vision for new ways for reimagining teacher education for multilingual learners.

This paper aimed to examine the changes in the representations of nature of science (NOS) in Chinese senior high school chemistry textbooks under the influence of the new curriculum ideas. The study was conducted based on an analytical framework in which the aspects of NOS, the approaches to address NOS, and the content relation of NOS aspects were involved. Two series of the new and old chemistry textbooks of required course modules were selected as analysis targets. The results revealed that chemistry textbooks paid more attention to classical views of NOS than contemporary views of NOS. The aspects of NOS were unevenly presented in different chapters of textbooks. The new textbooks covered the NOS aspects more comprehensively and frequently than the old ones. Regarding the approaches, the implicit approach was dominant. Compared with old ones, the proportions of the explicit-reflective and historical-explicit-reflective approaches have increased in new textbooks, but were still not high. Lastly, the content relation of NOS aspects were more of content-embedded than content-generic both in new and in old textbooks. At the end of this paper, the implications of the findings and the suggestions for the further studies were discussed.

Purpose: This paper studies the Digital Service Innovation (DSI) concept by systematically reviewing earlier studies from various scholarly communities. This study aims to recognize how recent advances in DSI literature from different research streams complement and can be incorporated into the growing digital servitization literature to define better and understand DSI. Design/methodology/approach: After systematically identifying 123 relevant articles, this study employed complementary methods, such as author bibliographic coupling, linguistic text mining/textual analysis and qualitative content analyses. Findings: This paper first maps the intellectual structure and boundaries of the DSI-related communities and qualitatively assesses their characteristics. These communities are (1) Innovation for digital servitization, (2) Service innovation in the digital age and (3) Adoption of novel e-services enabled by information system development. Next, the composition of the DSI concept is examined and depicted to comprehend the notion's critical dimensions. The findings discuss the range of theories and methods in the existing research, including antecedents, processes and outcomes of DSI. Originality/value: This study reviews, extends the understanding of origins and critically evaluates DSI-related research. Moreover, the paper redefines and clarifies the structure and boundaries of the DSI-concept. In doing so, it elaborates on the substance of DSI and identifies the essential themes for its understanding and conceptualization. Thus, the study helps the future development of the concept and allows knowledge accumulation by bridging adjacent research communities. It helps researchers and managers navigate the foggy emerging research landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study presents a corpus analysis of academic integrity policies from Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) worldwide, exploring how they address the issues posed by technological threats, such as Automated Paraphrasing Tools and generative-artificial intelligence tools, such as ChatGPT. The analysis of 142 policies conducted in November and December 2022, and May 2023 reveals a gap regarding the mention of AI and associated technologies in the available academic integrity policies. Despite the growing prevalence of these tools in the 6-month period since the release of ChatGPT, no HEIs had produced revised academic integrity policies. Content analysis of 53 guidance documents produced by HEIs suggests an overall positive focus of Gen AI tools, yet advises caution. This study suggests a modification to Bretag et al.'s (Int J Educ Integr 7, 2011) exemplary academic integrity model, introducing "Technological Explicitness" -- emphasizing the need to include explicit guidelines about new technologies in academic integrity policies. These results underscore the urgent need for HEIs to revise their academic integrity policies, considering the evolving landscape of AI and its implications for academic integrity. This paper argues for a multifaceted approach to deal with the issues of integrating technology, education, policy reform, and assessment restructuring to navigate these challenges while upholding academic integrity.

This paper examines underlying beliefs and values about nature within the early years education in Turkey, as reflected in the curricula and standards documents guiding instruction. Given that not every child has the opportunity for nature-based education, it becomes essential to incorporate nature-based learning into indoor classrooms. Employing a document analysis, we comprehensively analyse the Ministry of Education's Preschool Education Program (2013), Activity Book-1 (2013a), and Activity Book-2 (2018), which guides teachers in shaping their classroom practices, therefore providing in-depth insights into the conceptualisations of nature. Our analysis reveals that 'nature' in these documents is characterised by its connection to and intersections of specific settings, concepts, and resources. Moreover, we found out that the identified patterns of relationships in the examined curriculum and standards documents demonstrate a purposeful initiative to engage preschool children in the realm of nature through various means, including conceptual comprehension, hands-on interaction with materials, and direct involvement in natural surroundings. The intersections among these elements unveil a complex network of opportunities to promote an enhanced learning journey. By fostering a deeper understanding of the relationship between curriculum guidelines and nature activities, we aim to empower early childhood educators to embrace nature as an integral part of their classroom practices.

The debate about the characteristics and advantages of quantitative and qualitative methods is decades old. In their seminal monograph, "A Tale of Two Cultures" (2012, ATTC), Gary Goertz and James Mahoney argue that methods and research design practices for causal inference can be distinguished as two cultures that systematically differ from each other along 25 specific characteristics. ATTC's stated goal is a description of empirical patterns in quantitative and qualitative research. Yet, it does not include a systematic empirical evaluation as to whether the 25 are relevant and valid descriptors of applied research. In this paper, we derive five observable implications from ATTC and test the implications against a stratified random sample of 90 qualitative and 90 quantitative articles published in six journals between 1990-2012. Our analysis provides little support for the two-cultures hypothesis. Quantitative methods are largely implemented as described in ATTC, whereas qualitative methods are much more diverse than ATTC suggests. While some practices do indeed conform to the qualitative culture, many others are implemented in a manner that ATTC characterizes as constitutive of the quantitative culture. We find very little evidence for ATTC's anchoring of qualitative research with set-theoretic approaches to empirical social science research. The set-theoretic template only applies to a fraction of the qualitative research that we reviewed, with the majority of qualitative work incorporating different method choices.

Academic genres are not static, but they may change according to the values and demands of the particular discourse communities that shape them. This paper explores the research article (RA) abstract, a relevant informative and promotional genre that exhibits the prevalent rhetorical practices of a specific disciplinary community. From a diachronic perspective, our purpose is to examine how these practices have evolved over time. To this end, using a genre-based approach, we have analysed the rhetorical moves and steps of 180 RA abstracts published in the "Journal of Experimental Medicine," over a period of nine decades (1940-2022). The findings revealed that the abstracts have increasingly become more promotional in terms of the persuasive rhetorical strategies that the authors use to enhance the contribution of their research. This is seen in the fact that the texts of more recent decades present a growing number of promotional communicative functions, mainly the moves/steps that claim the importance of the research topic and state the implications or significance of research. This study can have pedagogical implications for English for research publication purposes (ERPP) practitioners and early career researchers who seek to publish in international medical journals.

This paper presents a systematic literature review on the impact of female directorship on firm performance. We follow Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) to carry out this study. The Scopus database has been used for the identification of all the relevant documents. Several filters and manual screens have been carried out to identify a final set of 984 journal articles. We conduct a content analysis of the top 100 most influential papers ranked based on their average citations per year. The analysis covers a wide range of aspects such as research methodology, the variables and proxies used for female directorship and firm performance, main empirical findings, the sample country, the number of countries included in the sample, the sample region and the sample industry. Most of the top 100 papers (88%) have reported a positive impact on firm performance from having female directors. This study also identifies research gaps and proposes directions for future research. Our findings may have policy implications and can help regulators in devising appropriate corporate governance mechanisms with respect to female directorship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper discusses the issue of homework in primary education in Slovakia. It attempts to contribute to uncovering the homework narrative that is created and used by its teaching staff and to relate it to the discourse on homework and its place in education in the Anglo-American environment. The research used content analysis of the written products of 30 participants (teachers, educators in children's school clubs, and teacher's assistants). Data processing and analysis were carried out by thematic analysis. The results, concentrated in four topics, showed that the homework narrative in primary education is based on homework support. It clearly resonates with the teacher's expectation of the involvement of the pupils' parents in its completion. However, it is without the methodical support of the parents from the school. Part of the discourse is also the teachers' prescription taking into account, particularly, the appropriate number of tasks, their attractiveness, an individual approach when assigning them, and the comprehensibility of homework for all persons involved. Such a setting should reflect potential inequalities between pupils concerning their family background. The narrative revealed details the semantics of school-family relations and the pedagogical strategies of teachers in primary education.

This study comprehensively explores cogenerative dialogue in science education from a sociocultural perspective. Analyzing 120 papers and theses from January 2001 to December 2022 in Korean and English journals, we examine their objectives, themes, methods, learners, educational levels, participants, researcher roles, coteaching connections, and program durations. Our data analysis reveals growing diversity in cogenerative dialogue research objectives and subjects across countries. Consistent patterns emerge regarding researcher roles, participant groups, and program durations. This research offers insights into the evolving cogenerative dialogue landscape in science education, informing future investigations and highlighting trends in this field. The findings presented not only shed light on the current state of research but also provide direction for future investigations, highlighting trends and distinctive features in various facets of cogenerative dialogue-related studies. Specifically, we offer suggestions for the need for research in Korean science education contexts and more broadly in the Asia-Pacific region.