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

In this paper, the author analyzes 89 studies published from 1990 through 2020 that focused on literacy preservice teachers' involvement in action research as part of learning to teach. In doing so, the author provides an example of why critical reflexivity is necessary in qualitative literature review methods. The author relies on a social practice view of race and uses activity theory to answer the questions: How have researchers considered race as a factor in research on literacy preservice teacher education? How can preservice teachers' experience with research be (re)designed to help develop their racial literacy? Findings demonstrate that in the reviewed studies, 51% of researchers addressed preservice teachers' race, and 34% addressed K-12 students' race. Far fewer studies, however, acknowledged their own race or that of field supervisors and mentor teachers, which ultimately minimized their roles. Findings also emphasize four design principles for literacy teacher education programs that aim to include research: collaboration between K-12 partners and universities; selective teacher educator scaffolding; engagement with diverse communities; and extensive time spent as part of the pathway toward racial literacy. The implications and uses of an existing literature base that reflects shifting reporting standards related to race are also examined.

In this study, the variables having impact on the student motivation have been analyzed based on the articles, conference papers, master's theses and doctoral dissertations published in the years 2000-2017. A total of 165 research papers were selected for the research material and the data were collected through qualitative research techniques through document review and content analysis. According to the research results, the most important factors affecting student motivation are the fields of teacher, teachers' classroom management skills and their teaching methods. In this research, factors having less influence on the student motivation are parental communication, student characteristics and study fields. In addition, relational search type was used more than others, mostly students were selected as the study group and most researches were conducted in USA and Turkey.

This article maps the scientific production and the contents associated with the sustainable development goals and their integration with universities during the past 21 years. Although many of the topics related to sustainable development goals (SDGs) have been addressed in different studies for decades, it is since 2015 onwards that they gained greater prominence due to the inclusion of higher education as an important actor in the fulfillment of the 2030 agenda and the United Nations SDGs. For the purpose of this paper, a bibliometric analysis of 871 papers, 535 documents in Scopus, and 336 in Web of Science (WoS) from 1998 to 2019 was performed, and the Bibliometrix analysis tool was used. The objective of this mapping is to answer the following research question: Is the integration of the Sustainable Development Goals and Universities a field of study? An analysis of the network of collaborators and trend topics in Scopus and WoS allows us to identify the concurrence and relationships of some keywords, such as sustainable development, sustainability and planning, and some background words, such as humans and global health. In another analysis, the word "higher education" is related to change. This article suggests that the integration of the Sustainable Development Goals in Universities is becoming a field of study under exploration, with a peak of production in 2016 and that has remained stable in the last three years, but thanks to the leading role assigned to Universities, intellectual production should increase in the following years.

Seamless learning has a significance that has been increasing in recent years, and an increasing number of studies on the subject in the literature draws attention. This study aimed to examine the research on seamless learning between 1996 and 2020 with the bibliometric analysis method. The Scopus database was used in the collection of the data. After various screening processes, a total of 389 publications were included in the analysis. Descriptive analysis and bibliometric analysis were used in the analysis of the data. The distribution of publications by years, types of publications, sources, and languages were analyzed in the research. Additionally, visual maps were created with analyses of co-author, cocitation, and co-word. At the end of the study, it was seen that there has been an increase in the number of publications from the past to the present, articles and papers were predominant, and that most of the studies were carried out in English. As a result of bibliometric analysis, it was concluded that the most efficient countries in seamless learning were the United Kingdom, the United States, and Singapore. Also, it has been determined that the National Institute of Education, Center for International Education and Exchange, and Kyushu University institutions are dominant. The most frequently mentioned authors cited in studies in many different fields are M. Sharples, L.-H. Wong, and H. Ogata. According to the co-word analysis, the keywords seamless learning, mobile learning, ubiquitous learning, and mobile-assisted language learning stand out in the field of seamless learning.

Education is the core of the factors that improved people for a better lifestyle and increases the level of society' development. Quality education is one of the most vital goals of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) due to actualizing these factors. Using relational network data envelopment analysis (DEA), which have three interrelated substages, this current paper computes the educational economy efficiency of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries bearing in mind the characteristics related to SDGs. The contribution of our study is the use of a novel approach to computing the educational economy efficiency using relational network DEA with GAMS. Even though some interesting differences reveal in the efficiency of the countries, the findings show that countries with high-efficiency scores are clustered around countries like Latvia, Slovenia, and Korea.

This paper discusses the noticeable nervousness of many US-based financial statement issuers in adopting IFRS. For contextual purposes, the paper provides an overview of the FASB/IFRS convergence so far and its probable future. A detailed review of convergence in accounting standards is explained through the respective standards for "Pensions and Other Post-Employment Benefits". The paper concludes by suggesting that, while one set of global steps is a noble goal, it might not achieve the desired goal of comparability.

This paper presents an exploratory analysis of the funding mechanisms for higher education across sixteen countries which builds upon existing work on educational institutions, educational outcomes, and welfare regimes. We focus upon the current financing dilemma within the Irish higher education system, seeking potential solutions within an international comparison. Our quantitative analysis identifies four clusters of countries: the Nordic, Continental-Europe, Mediterranean and English-Speaking; all of which are strongly correlated to economic and structural characteristics based on welfare state literature. Each education regime is associated with institutional, economic, and political factors. Our analysis presents evidence that Ireland does not possess the characteristics of a country that could benefit from an income-contingent lending structure to fund university education due to inherent sovereign characteristics. Further, Ireland could be better served through the introduction of free fee structures such as that found in Norway and Scotland or through the generation of state-sponsored lending facilities through private institutions like those already in place in Finland, Germany, and Sweden.

Background: Data from the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) revealed that countries systematically differ in their respondents' literacy, numeracy, and problem solving in technology-rich environments skills; skill levels also vary by gender, age, level of education or migration background. Similarly, systematic differences have been documented with respect to adults' participation in education, which can be considered as a means to develop and maintain skills. From a psychological perspective, motivation to learn is considered a key factor associated with both skill development and participation in (further) education. In order to account for motivation when analyzing PIAAC data, four items from the PIAAC background questionnaire were recently compiled into a motivation-to-learn scale. This scale has been found to be invariant (i.e., showing full weak and partial strong measurement invariance) across 21 countries. Methods: This paper presents further analyses using multiple-group graded response models to scrutinize the validity of the motivation-to-learn scale for group comparisons. Results: Results indicate at least partial strong measurement invariance across gender, age groups, level of education, and migration background in most countries under study (all CFI > 0.95, all RMSEA < 0.08). Thus, the scale is suitable for comparing both means and associations across these groups. Conclusions:Results are discussed in light of country characteristics, challenges of measurement invariance testing, and potential future research using PIAAC data.

Ample evidence indicates that a person's human capital is important for success on the labor market in terms of both wages and employment prospects. However, unlike the efforts to identify the impact of school attainment on labor-market outcomes, the literature on returns to cognitive skills has not yet provided convincing evidence that the estimated returns can be causally interpreted. Using the PIAAC Survey of Adult Skills, this paper explores several approaches that aim to address potential threats to causal identification of returns to skills, in terms of both higher wages and better employment chances. We address measurement error by exploiting the fact that PIAAC measures skills in several domains. Furthermore, we estimate instrumental-variable models that use skill variation stemming from school attainment and parental education to circumvent reverse causation. Results show a strikingly similar pattern across the diverse set of countries in our sample. In fact, the instrumental-variable estimates are consistently larger than those found in standard least-squares estimations. The same is true in two "natural experiments," one of which exploits variation in skills from changes in compulsory-schooling laws across U.S. states. The other one identifies technologically induced variation in broadband Internet availability that gives rise to variation in ICT skills across German municipalities. Together, the results suggest that least-squares estimates may provide a lower bound of the true returns to skills in the labor market.

During his stay in Australia and Melanesia from 1914 to 1920, the anthropologist Bronisław Malinowski frequently experienced dichotomous and contradictory attitudes to people, places, and events: the contrast between the 'civilized' Australia and the 'savage' Melanesia; the background of the Austria-ruled Poland in which he grew up and the British-dominated Australia, Austria's enemy in the First World War; the emotional tension of simultaneous attraction to two women - Nina Stirling of Adelaide and Elsie Rosaline Masson of Melbourne; the dilemma of the 'heroic' versus the 'unheroic' related to the war. Most of the dualities of Malinowski's Australian-Melanesian experience, reflected in letters to his mother Józefa Malinowska, Elsie R. Masson, and in Diary in the Strict Sense of the Term (1989), were resolved at the end of the period, which became a turning point in his life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Austrian and Australian approaches to strategic environmental assessment (SEA) are compared with particular emphasis upon the legal basis for the initial phase of agreement/screening and the final stage of SEA decision-making and implementation. In Austrian SEA, screening is compulsory and the outcome leads only to recommendations, meaning that the SEA results have to be considered, but are not binding for the approval decision. In Australia engagement in SEA is largely voluntary but the process results in legally binding conditions of approval that can be applied to relevant actions arising from an assessed policy, plan or programme; the incentive for proponents to participate voluntarily is that subsequent project level activities may be exempt from further assessment processes. Compulsory SEA in Australia also provides a legally certain outcome, a factor of benefit to proponents. Examples of SEAs are provided to demonstrate the operation of the respective stages in the two countries. In Austria compulsory screening results in a lot of energy being spent avoiding triggering a full SEA. Although Australian proponents have been somewhat cautious in volunteering for SEA of their activities, there are signs that this is changing. We argue that the regulatory framework characteristics are a key determinant of the behaviour of proponents and the competent authority in practice and subsequently of SEA potential and outcomes. Consideration of the construct of the regulatory framework for SEA screening and decision-making provides a useful point of reflection for practitioners attempting to understand the effectiveness of SEA processes in a given jurisdiction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]