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This paper investigates the impact of digital creativity educational practices on the improvement of academic performance and creative thinking development of Chinese high school students. The study defined the importance of the concept of STEM learning in the development of modern skills needed to live and work in a digital socio-economic change caused by the development of Industry 4.0. An educational experiment involving 60 9th grade Chinese students evaluated the impact of digital creativity learning practices on the development of students' creative thinking on such indicators as fluency, flexibility, originality, detailing, and metaphoricity. The impact of digital creative learning practices on the performance of students in the control group and the experimental group was assessed. The analysis of the results of practical research on the impact of digital tools and pedagogical models of learning on the acquisition of students' creative thinking skills was conducted, which proved that the digital environment is the optimal place for students' creative manifestations and provides opportunities to improve creative thinking skills by implementing learning practical activities using innovative tools for the manifestation of digital creative skills.

Geographical practice power is a key competency essential for students' overall development. It is, therefore, important to understand its concepts, contexts, and content. Practical activities following scientific and operable principles in real geographical situations would enable students to unleash their potential across the curriculum. The primary aim of this study was to design and validate a conceptual, contextual, and content framework for geographical practice power competency (GPPC) of primary and secondary school students in China. The study used a three-step mixedmethod research design with expert opinions collected through interviews and questionnaires. The dimensions of GPPC in this study included the mental processes of cognition, awareness, attitude, and behavior. A compilation of the attributes of GPPC for primary and secondary school students was proposed. There was a general consensus among the evaluators regarding the conceptual, contextual, and content framework of GPPC. When the weight values of the four dimensions and sub-dimensions of GPPC were calculated, it was found that they played different roles in the framework. Contrary to the expectation that scientific argumentation would be the most important dimension of GPPC, this study found that information acquisition was rated the most important. In each GPPC sub-dimension, consciousness received the highest weighting.

The study investigated the effect of an instructor's positive (vs. neutral) emotions in video lectures on student learning using either easy or difficult geography topics (i.e. easy: the Earth within the universe; difficult: understanding time and date calculations of Earth). The results showed that, first, students responded more positively towards the video lectures in which the instructor demonstrated a positive emotional state, compared to videos with a neutral instructor, regardless of content difficulty. Second, the content difficulty of the video lecture moderated the effect of the instructor's positive emotion on students' retention performance. Notably, for the easy content, the instructor's positive emotion significantly enhanced retention performance. Third, the instructor's positive emotion in the both easy and difficult video lectures improved students' transfer performance. This beneficial effect was found to be mediated by students' perceived attention during the learning process. These findings contribute to our understanding of the effects of emotional design in video lectures. Practical recommendations drawn from these findings should be interpreted with consideration of the study context and complemented with other empirical evidence, however one interpretation of these results can be that instructors should consider displaying positive emotions while teaching, particularly when delivering easier content, to improve both retention and transfer performance among students.

Emotion has become an important topic in fieldwork courses of higher geography education. This study attempts to provide embodied evidence of the important value of emotional experiences in fieldwork and clarify that the teaching effect produced by fieldwork in a real environment is difficult to achieve in a virtual environment. Using eye-tracking , this study captured the eye movement data of 16 fieldwork participants and 15 nonparticipants gazing upon photographs and analyzed how emotions affect their acquisition of geographic knowledge. The eye-tracking experiment showed that students who participated in fieldwork processed visual information more quickly and had stronger emotional responses than those who did not participate. This article proposes that fieldwork can provide students the opportunity to encounter the environment in a "mind-body-environment" system, thereby constructing the following two different forms of geographic knowledge: characterizable and explicit knowledge and nonrepresentational, implicit, and embodied knowledge. The latter can be realized only via emotional experiences in the field. Therefore, this article claims that although the information age enables students to acquire remote knowledge of geographical environments through multiple channels, training qualified geographers remains inseparable from fieldwork, especially for cultivating cognition, emotions and responsibility for the "living" world.

This study explored international students' motivation toward learning the Chinese culture course. Specifically, the study focused on investigating what interest the students towards the Chinese culture course. The study also looked into the challenges of international students faced while studying the Chinese culture course. To meet these objectives, the study used a descriptive survey design with a mixed method. Questionnaire and interviews were used to collect data from a sample of 38 international students from 7 colleges in Northeast Normal University (NENU). Finally, the finding indicated that international students at NENU are curious to learn the Chinese culture course. The respondents are keen to learn the culture they live in during their study period. Therefore, the study concluded that international students are studying the Chinese culture course not only because the course is compulsory, but also they are also keen to learn the Chinese culture course.

This study examined how the family capital of upper secondary school students impacted on their geospatial thinking skills and explored the mediating effect of their academic achievement in geography. A total of 1,018 upper secondary school students participated. The results of our mediation analysis conducted using the PROCESS modeling tool revealed that family capital has a direct predictive effect on students' geospatial thinking and an indirect predictive effect via their academic achievement in geography. Therefore, this paper aims to redistribute family capital, so as to effectively apply it to the cultivation of students' geographic academic achievement and geographic spatial thinking ability.

As the COVID-19 pandemic unfolds, every aspect of daily life is being altered in response to the virus. The pandemic has altered secondary education. Classes online, teachers struggling to learn Zoom and make lessons meaningful and relevant to students. Students struggling to make sense of this moment, struggling with mental health issues due to the loss of routine and in many cases contact with adult role models. Unfortunately, in times of crisis such as these some of the most disenfranchized people in society are completely overlooked and forgotten, such as refugees. However, if more teachers were to leverage the social studies potential of current events such as the Coronavirus, greater empathy would be felt for marginalized people more starkly impacted by the pandemic, leading ultimately to a heightened sense of civic engagement among the next generation. The purpose of this paper is to assist teachers in guiding their students through analyzing current events, such as COVID-19's impact on refugees, toward developing civic mindedness. In addition to this, the paper will discuss some of the broader societal impacts the virus is having within the United States, as well as ways in which this event may be viewed as a historical subject in the future. The paper will begin by building the content knowledge of high school social studies teachers through addressing the following question: "What is the difference between a refugee entering the United States now versus one year ago before the COVID-19 pandemic?" Following this, the authors will present an inquiry-based learning segment designed to teach the History correlated to the COVID-19 pandemic to a classroom of secondary education students. The inquiry template follows the standard C3 format utilized by the State of Connecticut.

Australia's attitude towards ASEAN has waxed and waned over recent decades, including in higher education. In part a reflection of tensions between its geography and history, it highlighted the question of the extent to which Australia saw itself as an Asian country (an uncertainty shared by a number of its ASEAN neighbours). Reviewing changes in several key indices (Asian languages strategy, International student policy, Education as Aid), the prospects for a regional knowledge network comprising Australia, ASEAN and China are assessed, with the conclusion that the whole would be greater than the sum of the parts, but that for the prospect to be realised, greater consistency in Australian government policy towards the region is needed.

This study centres on the questions and tasks in geography textbooks written before and after the curriculum reform in China. The aim of the study is to reveal the recent changes in amount, learning outcomes and types of questions and tasks in geography textbooks as well as the extent to which the ideas and intentions advocated by the curriculum reform have been actualized in the questioning and tasking practices of geography textbooks. Five geography textbooks written before and after the curriculum reform have been quantitatively and qualitatively analyzed and compared in terms of amount, learning outcomes and type. The findings show that the questioning and tasking practices can be characterized as an increase in amount, more emphasis on the intermediate-order cognitive level of analysis, little concern for the affective and psychomotor abilities, and less diversity of types of questions and tasks. Current textbook writing does not fully and vigorously respond to the ideas and intentions articulated by the curriculum reform. The amount, learning outcomes and types of questions and tasks in the geography textbooks need to be adjusted so as to better meet the aims of the curriculum reform.

Few studies, if any, have systematically investigated the connection or relationship between geography curriculum and scientific literacy. With this realization, in this article, we examined the potential contribution of geography curriculum to developing students' scientific literacy, with China's middle-school geography curriculum as an example. Through content analysis and semi-structured interviews, we found that geography curriculum holds significant potential to develop scientific literacy, especially regarding interpreting data in various formats, scientific reasoning, and interrelationships among science, technology, society, and environment. This study could provide insights for educators to design interdisciplinary programs to develop students' scientific literacy.

This article investigates representations of East Asia in the geography textbooks of the Wilhelmine Empire. This region was of central importance for the imagination of the Empire and for its position in the international balance of power. China and Japan were oft-mentioned regions, and were most frequently included in textbooks as a result of political crises and armed conflicts. As a result, the subject of geography repeatedly aired debates and trends from both colonial and scientific fields, and textbooks reflected the broader social positions of the day.

Although geography education researchers in both China and Korea acknowledge that the education of spatial thinking and the development of teachers' dispositions toward teaching spatial thinking are important, very few studies are available on the topic. This article examines the dispositions of Chinese and Korean geography preservice teachers' dispositions toward teaching spatial thinking through geography, and it identifies the similarities and differences between the two countries. A survey was conducted with 979 Chinese and 323 Korean geography preservice teachers using the "Teaching Spatial Thinking through Geography Disposition Inventory." Overall, both Chinese and Korean preservice teachers showed low-to-moderate dispositions toward teaching spatial thinking in their future classrooms. Chinese participants exhibited more positive dispositions in all five subcategories of the disposition inventory than did their Korean counterparts. Participants from both countries expressed low confidence in utilizing geospatial technologies. No specific score differences were observed by gender, grade level, and overall geography course experiences. The results reveal the current conditions of spatial thinking education in China and Korea and will help to establish strategies for successful spatial thinking education in geography in the future.

This situated case study outlines how a place-based landscape template provided an integrative platform for the environmental arm of a cross-disciplinary international education initiative, the Three Brothers Project, wherein geographers at the University of Auckland worked alongside engineers at Tsinghua University in Beijing to support collaborative research with grassland and agricultural scientists at Qinghai University in western China. These collaborative efforts built upon strategic leadership at government and university level, an appropriate resource base and engaged practitioners who developed and embedded research opportunities that built upon a shared commitment to research on environmental values in the source zone of the Yellow River. We highlight how a landscape framing brought together divergent mindsets, methodologies and practices in this collaborative research, providing an effective platform to share experiences, discuss perspectives and develop research outcomes.

Geographical education has been primarily centering on curriculum, teaching and learning, research about the images that students perceive of the geographer is under presented. Missing out on such research is akin to losing a piece integral to a whole mosaic pattern. Drawing on previous approach, this study explored students' images of the geographer by administering a Draw Geographer Test (DGT) to 212 seventh-, eighth- and ninth-grade students from China. Findings suggest that the geographer is prominently imaged as a Han Chinese, male and physical geographer wearing casual clothes with a magnifying glass, maps, books and/or a globe around and observing, surveying and/or exploring in mountains and valleys. It is suggested that geography education should mitigate the strongly gendered image, duly expose students to more doings of the human geographer, current geographical technology and various working contexts, raise an inclusive perspective of the geographer's ethnicities, deliver students specific information about geographical career as well as translate positive images into a possible geographical career.

The primary purpose of this exploratory study is to identify variations in the ways in which individual teachers in different educational contexts interpret their curriculum and plan their lessons and in particular to explore the possibility that cultural differences as identified by Hofstede (1991) may be a contributing factor to understanding how teachers understand their work. "Educational reform" has become a catchphrase in the Anglo-American world, including the United States, Canada, Australia, and England and Wales, as well as in the Confucian Heritage Areas such as Mainland China, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Across the world, the educational reform measures being implemented are surprisingly similar. This paper describes a study of how geography teachers in Queensland, Australia, Hong Kong, and Changchun, China, plan their lessons and curriculum. From classroom observations and interviews with the teachers involved, we confirmed marked differences in each location regarding their cultural traits of power distance, individualist and collectivist preference and uncertainty tolerance, and that these traits appear to be highly influential in their curriculum planning. Despite the small scale of this study, we contend that there are good reasons for caution before national education systems import policies and curriculum reform initiatives from other countries for unthinking adoption. (Contains 1 table and 7 notes.) [An Appendix containing a summary of points in the textbook, suggested teaching method in teachers' reference and points that Mr. Au, a junior secondary geography teacher in Changchun, covered in his lessons on railways in China, is appended to this document.]

Objective: In China where social work is a fledgling profession, practice research is still a novelty. This article aims to provide an overview of the development of social work practice research in mainland China. Methods: This review analyzes the content of 206 Chinese journal articles published in the Peoples' Republic of China since 1915 using the China National Knowledge Infrastructure database, with a focus on the question "who published what?" Results: The first social work practice research was published in 1999 and it has been increasing in recent years in China. They are predominantly conducted by academics and the collaboration between academics and practitioners is rare and can be further promoted. Conclusions: Practice research could be stepped up to build a distinctive professional knowledge base for social work in China considering its unique geographical, cultural, socioeconomic, and political contexts.

This study investigated Chinese and Turkish prospective geography teachers' use of computer and internet applications as indispensable instruments in and out of education. 292 prospective geography teachers students from Shanghai, China, and Izmir, Turkey, participated in this study. The aim of this study was to examine the use of computers and internet by prospective teachers in both Turkey and China. Hence, this study aimed to propound the similarities and disparities between Turkish and Chinese geography students in computer and internet use. The results of this research show that there are meaningful differences between prospective geography teachers in Turkey and China in terms of purpose of computer and internet usage. Although both Turkish and Chinese prospective geography teachers have used most "education aimed media" Turkish female prospective teachers in Turkey have been using the internet and the computer less than those of its Chinese counterparts. In addition, this research showed with the use of observation, interview and literature review that while internet use of prospective geography teachers in Turkey is largely affected by social-economic and cultural factors, the use of the internet of those in China is decided by political decisions taken by the Chinese government.

This article reports some of the findings of a longitudinal ethnographic research study on the intercultural transition experiences of 50 engineering students in a China-U.K. articulation program. It focuses on the interaction between these students and the U.K.-based cohort, mainly home students. The findings indicate that lack of suitable interventions at the initial stage, the competition for insufficient resources, double-language barriers, and different questioning behaviors led the Chinese and U.K. students to self-categorize themselves into "us" and "them." The separation has a negative impact on peer learning. This research suggests that integration in the class can be promoted through developing a low-stakes learning environment, enhancing intercultural competence and developing a common in-group identity as engineering students on the same program.

Although geographical fieldwork can be viewed as an integral component of geographical education, it fell out of favor in Chinese secondary schools in the recent past. However, the new junior high school geography standards established in 2001 stress the importance of conducting geographical fieldwork for students' learning of geography. Now nearly 10 years after the implementation of the standards, this study attempted to ascertain teachers' views and attitudes toward geographical fieldwork in the secondary schools that have attempted field activities. Information was gathered via questionnaires and interviews. The results reveal that the teachers in China share many perceptions regarding the importance, value, and cognitive and affective benefits as well as perceptions of constraints such as examination requirements, large class size, limited time, overemphasis on classroom learning, liability for student safety, and lack of software and hardware. However, it is also found that there are some differences in the type and purpose of fieldwork, as well as in certain constraints such as cost, logistics, and attitude of junior students, compared to experiences elsewhere. Moreover, extra constraints such as school location, the teachers' many tasks, and the macro-political climate continue to affect the conduct of geographical fieldwork.

Geographic information science (GIS) features a wide range of disciplines and has broad applicability. Challenges associated with rapidly developing GIS technology and the currently limited teaching and practice materials hinder universities from cultivating highly skilled GIS graduates. Based on the idea of "small core, big network," a comprehensive and interesting approach to GIS teaching practice is introduced in which a variety of key knowledge areas and technologies are effectively incorporated into a single project. A year-long assignment based on this approach was conducted, providing the students with practical training and successfully resulting in a digital three-dimensional representation of the campus.

After nearly ten years of implementation of the first junior high school geography standards, Chinese geography educators have been increasingly incorporating fieldwork into their geography teaching. This study examined student perceptions of fieldwork from an international perspective by reviewing student fieldwork reports and administering a questionnaire to 337 junior high school students aged approximately fifteen years. The results demonstrate that the students' perceptions of fieldwork were primarily positive and that they found field experience to be interesting. Fieldwork provided the students with deepened understanding of issues, cognitive and affective benefits, transferable skills and knowledge, social skills, demonstration, and memorable experience. In addition, some factors for improving geographic fieldwork were identified. (Contains 6 tables.)

This article reviews how practical work, including practical skills, is currently summatively assessed in school science in a number of countries and makes comparisons with how other subjects, such as music and modern foreign languages, summatively assess skills. Whilst practical skills in school science are clearly valued as being of importance, there is a lack of clarity as to what these skills actually are and how they might, most effectively, be validly assessed. Countries vary greatly in the extent to which they employ what we term "Direct Assessment of Practical Skills" (DAPS) or "Indirect Assessment of Practical Skills" (IAPS). Each of these approaches has advantages and disadvantages but we conclude that too great reliance on IAPS reduces the likelihood that practical work will be taught and learnt as well as it might be.

The 2001 Geography Standards for Junior Secondary Schools are the first national standards for geographic education since the founding of Communist China. The standards heralded several new ideas for geographic education, and textbook assessments are one important way for understanding their impact. This study examines the changes in assessments by comparing assessments in older geography textbooks with new geography textbooks written in accordance with the new standards. The assessments were investigated in terms of their taxonomy, type, design, and general qualities. (Contains 6 tables and 3 figures.)

Powerful nations have influential systems of higher education. The article explores the possible pattern of geopolitics in the twenty-first century, and the competing prospects of America and its rivals in higher education and research. Pressures on both the American and non-American worlds are evaluated, along with relative economic strengths, and how factors such as these translate into intellectual prowess. The article suggests that peak intellectual and research achievement is dependent on cultural factors, and that America remains well positioned as an intellectual nation despite fierce competition from rivals because of unique cultural characteristics. (Contains 6 notes.)

Validity is a central principle of assessment relating to the appropriateness of the uses and interpretations of test results. Usually, one of the inferences that we wish to make is that the score reflects the extent of a student's learning in a given domain. Thus, it is important to establish that the assessment tasks elicit performances that reflect the intended constructs. This research explored the use of three methods for evaluating whether there are threats to validity in relation to the constructs elicited in international A level geography examinations: (a) Rasch analysis; (b) analysis of processes expected and apparent when students answer questions; and (c) qualitative analysis of responses to items identified as potentially problematic. The results provided strong evidence to support validity with regard to the elicitation of constructs although one question part was identified as a threat to validity. Strengths and weaknesses of the methods can be identified. (Contains 3 figures and 1 table.)

One way that people learn, remember and communicate is visually. We combine past experiences with new visual information to construct meaning. In this study, elementary teachers introduced their students to the peoples and places of the ancient silk routes using illustrations from two children's picture books, "Marco Polo," written by Gian Paolo Cesaerani and illustrated by Piero Ventura (1977), and "We're Riding on a Caravan: An Adventure on the Silk Road" (2005), written by Laurie Krebs and illustrated by Helen Cann. Students in the lower elementary grades were more literal than students in the higher grades in their observations of the books' illustrations. The older students had more knowledge of China and were able to construct more meaning from the illustrations than younger students. They were also able to recognize the illustrators' intent and manner of representation. Additionally the elementary teachers suggested contextualizing the activity within a study of China.

China has the world's largest population, now over 1.3 billion, but its land area (much of it high mountains or desert) is about the same as that of the United States, which has less than one-fourth as many people. So Chinese farmers have learned to use every inch of their fertile land intensively. Pressure on the land has required extremely efficient farming and resulted in a vast mosaic of food cultures, intimately related to local climate (even micro-climate) and water-soil resources. Some products may be found in all of China's agricultural regions, but most places are known for, and take pride in, a local cuisine. For food is never just "what the land can produce," so local preferences--taste and culinary history--play important roles in people's choices. This essay discusses how the regional cuisines of China reflect topography, climate, and people's ability to extract both calories and taste from the land and water. (Contains 3 online resources.)

With the maximum use of the technology such as geographic information science (GIS), remote sensing (RS), and global positioning systems (GPSs) in geography courses, along with its integrative perspective on the social and life sciences and an emphasis on student-centered education, problem solving, and sustainable and environmental education, geography is undergoing a process of revival and rejuvenation. However, it is questionable whether Turkey in particular is providing solid contemporary geography education as required by the new geography school curricular reform, which took effect in the academic year 2004-2005. In this context, there is an urgent need to perform a comparative analysis of the "new" geography education system of Turkey and other regions of the world such as Asian from the perspectives given above. In this study, the present status geography education in Turkey was investigated from local and global viewpoints in relation to geography curricula, teaching methods, and perceptions of geography. Moreover, national and international perspectives and steps that are being taken in geography education are pointed out with the aim of providing better geography education in Turkey. (Contains 2 tables.)

This paper reports a case study of how junior secondary geography teachers in Changchun, China, planned and delivered their lessons. From the observation and interview data, it was found that teachers in the China mainland were strongly influenced by a compliance culture and uncertainty avoidance stance. It is argued that these cultural traits among teachers have significant implications on the implementation of the present wave of curriculum reform that encourages teachers to adapt curriculum for their students. (Contains 3 tables and 2 notes.)

China is one of the largest countries in terms of geography student enrolment in higher education. This study draws on an extensive collection of data as well as the authors' own surveys of 20 geography schools/departments, to elaborate on the development features of China's geography in higher education (GHE) against its unique background since 1980. The findings indicate that GHE in China in the period concerned has been moving forward along an up-and-down path. But it has shared favourably in the country's expansion in higher education in the past six years. The regional patterns by number of geography programmes correlate to the size of population, while the quality of geography programmes shows a close relationship with regional economic development. The transition from a planned to a market-oriented economy has brought GHE opportunities as well as challenges. Judged by the renaming of geography schools/departments, identity is returning following a period of de-emphasis of the name "geography". Further development of GHE in China seems optimistic but several areas demand more balanced development. (Contains 1 note, 6 tables, and 4 figures.)

Examines cross-culturally the assertion that women have a special relationship with the environment and are more motivated than men to work for environmental sustainability. Explores the discourse on ecofeminism and evaluates alternative explanations of gender differences in environmental awareness. (CMK)

Explores the origins and significance of the "victim" debate within global feminism. Focuses on the divide produced by the victim debate by examining the evolution of two development planning platforms. Discusses issues facing women in a China under reform and the relevance of the victim debate in the Chinese context. (CMK)