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Although parents have been shown to be key to children's motivation and learning, little is known regarding the specific ways in which parents might influence their children's academic outcomes. The present study aimed to explore the direct effect of parents' failure beliefs on children's math achievement as well as the mediating effects of children's math self-efficacy, responses to failure and intelligence mindset in this context. The participants included 451 Chinese fifth-grade children and their parents. The results of this research revealed that (a) parents' failure beliefs were directly and positively associated with children's math achievement; (b) parents' failure beliefs affected children's math achievement through the chain mediating effects of children's responses to failure and math self-efficacy as well as the chain mediating effects of children's failure beliefs and intelligence mindset; and (c) children's responses to failure played fully mediating roles in the relationship between parents' failure beliefs and children's intelligence mindset as well as in the relationship between parents' failure beliefs and children's math self-efficacy. All of these findings can guide parents in their attempts to support their children's education most effectively.

We examined the relations between mothers' reading skills, home literacy environment (HLE), and children's emergent literacy skills and word reading and whether their relations vary across urban and rural contexts in China. Four hundred third-year kindergarten Chinese children (M[subscript age] = 74.50 ± 3.77 months) were recruited from Jining (N = 232) and the small towns of Luqiao and Mapo (N = 168). The children were assessed on emergent literacy skills (pinyin letter knowledge, phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming [RAN], and vocabulary) and word reading. Their mothers were also assessed on reading skills and completed a questionnaire on HLE (direct teaching, shared book reading, and access to literacy resources [ALR]). Results of structural equation modeling showed that (a) mothers' reading skills correlated with shared book reading and ALR in both groups, (b) direct teaching predicted children's pinyin letter knowledge, and ALR predicted phonological awareness and vocabulary in both groups after controlling for mothers' reading skills and parents' education, and (c) mothers' reading skills had an indirect effect on children's word reading through vocabulary (in the urban group) or phonological awareness (in the rural group). Multigroup analyses further showed that the effect of direct teaching on RAN was stronger in the rural group. These findings suggest that HLE exerts its effect on children's emergent literacy skills and word reading across contexts, even after controlling for mothers' reading skills.

We examined the relation between home literacy environment (HLE), parents' reading skills, and children's emergent literacy skills (pinyin letter knowledge, phonological awareness, and vocabulary) and reading (word reading and reading comprehension) in a sample of 168 Chinese children (M[subscript age] = 74.26 months) followed from kindergarten to Grade 1. Results of structural equation modeling showed that code-related HLE activities and access to literacy resources continued to predict children's emergent literacy skills after controlling for the effects of family's socioeconomic status and both parents' reading skills. Parents' reading skills also exerted a direct effect on children's reading comprehension. These findings suggest that HLE exerts a true environmental effect on children's reading skills that is not due to a genetic confound.

The use of simulations to better convey abstract scientific concepts or difficult-to-observe scientific occurrences through the manipulation of variables or virtual objects has the potential to improve student science learning. However, misconceptions or extraneous load may emerge if simulation support is insufficient. In this study, we used a self-explanation strategy via question-based prompts in an online scientific simulation learning environment to improve the comprehension of junior high school students in physics concepts, engagement and motivation toward science learning, and task load. Thirty-seven seventh grade students from two junior high school classrooms in northeastern China were allocated into experimental and control groups using a quasi-experimental approach. Students in the experimental group utilized a simulation-based learning environment that incorporated self-explanation, while students in the control group used the same environment but without self-explanation integration. Additionally, sequential analytic approaches were used to examine the behavioral patterns of both groups of students throughout simulation operations and the learning process. The results showed that the students in the experimental group demonstrated significantly better learning achievement than those in the control group; furthermore, we discovered that the students in the experimental group displayed more inquiry behaviors regarding prediction, simulation operation, and explanation than did those in the control group.

Blended classroom assessment (CA) has become commonplace in the post-pandemic era, offering advantages but also presenting challenges for English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers. These challenges can impact teachers' emotional experiences, distinct from face-to-face or purely online environments. However, scant research exists on how EFL teachers employ emotion regulation (ER) strategies in blended CA within EFL contexts. This qualitative study examines how eight EFL teachers at a university in southwestern China employed ER strategies in blended CA. Drawing on Gross's ER theory, the study identifies ten intrinsic and extrinsic ER strategies, either antecedent-focused or response-focused, utilized by EFL teachers. These strategies helped teachers maintain resilience amidst challenges posed by blended CA, including low completion rates of online learning tasks prior to face-to-face instruction, interaction in blended CA, blended assessment design, managing the workload of blending online and face-to-face assessment, and addressing issues of plagiarism and cheating. The study enriches our understanding of EFL teachers' emotions in blended CA and underscores the significance of ER competence in assessment literacy. Implications for equipping teachers with strategies to enhance their emotional well-being and resilience in blended CA are also discussed.

Local socioeconomic advancement has given rise to great growth in language service industry of Gansu China, creating the brisk demand for full-fledged translation and interpretation (T&I) talents. However, such progress is slowed by a lack of senior T&I talents and poor T&I training. The existing literature provides little information on the further exploration of the imbalance between T&I talents supply and market demand in Gansu. Therefore, this study adopts quantitative analysis of the data collected through two structured questionnaire surveys to investigate the root causes of this discrepancy. The first survey is for the employment status and curriculum satisfaction among Gansu's Master of Translation and Interpreting (MTI) graduates. MTI graduates from Lanzhou University and Northwest Normal University provide 220 samples through the random sampling method. While the second survey examines employer demand for T&I talents. 52 samples are drawn from Gansu's renowned and accredited language service providers (LSPs) and non-language service providers (non-LSPs) using the stratified sampling method. Results of the research reveal that only 3.18% MTI graduates enter into the T&I industry, confirming Gansu's MTI training fail to meet the market demand. Based on the market-specific requirements for translators and interpreters, the present authors put forward several suggestions from the perspectives of aligning curriculum design with market needs, meeting the qualification requirements and enhancing the cultivation of essential T&I competences, with hope of providing effective references to the T&I training in Gansu Province and even other regions in northwest China.

This paper takes work-family conflict as the independent variable, work engagement as the dependent variable, and perceived organizational support and emotional exhaustion as the mediating variables, and studies the influence of work-family conflict on work engagement and the mechanism of perceived organizational support and emotional exhaustion of female university teachers in China, based on the job demand-resource model (JD-R). The results of the questionnaire survey of 518 female university teachers revealed a significant negative relationship between work-family conflict and work engagement, with a direct effect accounting for 31.88%. The indirect effect of work-family conflict on work engagement through perceived organizational support was significant, accounting for 63.19%, while the mediating effect of emotional exhaustion was not notable and the chain mediating influence of perceived organizational support and emotional exhaustion was not significant.

Work and family are two of the most important parts in one's life. Individuals cannot fulfill their work requirements and family responsibilities at the same time, so they are faced with the dilemma of timing and role conflict. Based on the conservation theory, this study explored the relationship between work-family conflict and job satisfaction in 422 female university teachers in China, and proposed a moderating mediation model to examine the mediating role of job burnout and the moderating role of perceived organizational support. The results show that work-family conflict has a significant negative predictive effect on job satisfaction; job burnout fully mediates the relationship between work-family conflict and job satisfaction; perceived organizational support moderates the relationship between work-family conflict and job burnout, and the stronger the perceived organizational support, the weaker the negative predictive effect of work-family conflicts on job satisfaction.

Based on the concept of sustainability and the aim of addressing China?s great need for talent with green skills, a green skills scale was designed with the help of Chinese university students. Students from four institutions of higher education who had agreed to the Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME) participated as research subjects. With reference to the reviewed literature, a green skills scale was developed for Chinese university students. The scale was reviewed by experts and scholars and subjected to a reliability and validity analysis, and 900 students were selected to be included in the sample. The green skills of university students are divided into four dimensions: cognition of green knowledge, mastery of green skills, application of green skills, and green skills development, resulting in a total of 16 questions. The overall reliability of the scale is 0.845, the reliability of the dimensions lies between 0.813 and 0.880, the correlation coefficients between the dimensions lie between 0.185 and 0.497, and the root-mean-square values of the AVE of the corresponding coefficients are all larger than the correlation coefficients of the corresponding row and column variables, demonstrating that the green skills scale for university students has good reliability and validity.

Purpose: We examined whether the relations between home literacy environment (HLE), children's independent reading, and emergent literacy and reading skills are confounded by parents' reading skills (a genetic proxy). Method: One hundred eighty-nine Chinese children (M[subscript age] = 74.26 months, 40% female) were followed from kindergarten to Grade 2 and were assessed on emergent literacy skills (pinyin knowledge, phonological awareness, and vocabulary) and word reading in kindergarten and on reading comprehension in Grade 2. Their parents (both mothers and fathers) were also assessed on reading (word reading and reading comprehension) and completed questionnaires on HLE (code-related activities, meaning-related activities, and access to literacy resources) in kindergarten and their children's independent reading in Grade 2. Results: Results of structural equation modeling showed that access to literacy resources was associated with children's vocabulary, and code-related activities indirectly predicted reading comprehension through pinyin knowledge after controlling for parents' reading skills. Parents' reading skills indirectly predicted children's reading comprehension through children's independent reading. Conclusion: Code-related activities and access to literacy resources may have a true effect on children's reading development over and above the effect of parents' reading skills as a proxy for genetic transmission. The children of parents with better reading skills may engage in more independent reading, which may be related to their better reading comprehension.

This study examines the impact of the deviation between parents' educational expectations and children's educational expectations on children's health. This study based on the data from Chinese Family Panel Studies conducted in 2018 and 2020, The participants were 2340 children aged 10-15 years (1310 boys, 1030 girls) in China. We found that when parents' educational expectations are higher than their children's educational expectations, they have a negative impact on children's health status. According to the influence mechanism, the higher the parents' expectations of education are, the greater children's remedial behaviour will be, the less leisure time will be, which will adversely affect children's health. Furthermore, we found that a good parent-child relationship moderated the negative impact of the deviation in parent-child educational expectations on children's health. Therefore, in order to ensure the healthy development of children, it is necessary to resolve the adverse effects of the deviation in parent-child educational expectations by arranging tutoring and leisure time rationally and establishing a good parent-child relationship.

Intangible cultural heritage is an important part of Chinese excellent traditional culture, and college dance teaching is paid more attention by researchers of physical education and computer technology. In order to help the inheritance and development of non-legacy culture in college dance teaching, this paper analyzes the influencing factors of wireless communication network in college dance teaching, constructs an interactive platform for non-legacy digital dance teaching based on wireless communication network technology, and applies it in the dance teaching process of a university in Henan province to highlight the role of wireless communication technology in dance teaching. The results show that the interactive platform can effectively reduce teachers' physical energy consumption and has certain reliability and practicality. Through artificial intelligence algorithm, the traditional dance teaching method has been changed, and a new exploration of non-legacy dance teaching has been realized.

This longitudinal inductive research unpacks the process of African post-secondary students' Chinese language identity (CLI) with the purpose of exploring a model of CLI development. We traced how 12 multilingual African students developed their CLI during the first year in a Chinese university. Data coded from three rounds of interviews conducted at different times reveal that over time, there are fewer distractors and more contributors to the development of CLI. We also found three bidirectional factors that both facilitate and impede CLI construction. In terms of dimensions of language identity, Chinese language expertise and positive affiliation with the new language increased over time without change in students' original language inheritance. Results inform both African students' adaptation in China and the instruction and administration of African students in Chinese universities. This study helps to discover patterns of change in language identity from a micro perspective and informs models of language identity development among multilingual adult learners.

Reading difficulty (RD) is associated with phonological deficits; however, it remains unknown whether the phonological deficits are different in children and adults with RD as reflected in foreign speech perception and production. In the current study, using functional Near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), we found less difference between Chinese adults and Chinese children in the RD groups than the control groups in the activation of the right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) during Spanish speech perception, suggesting slowed development in these regions associated with RD. Furthermore, using multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA), we found that activation patterns in the left middle temporal gyrus (MTG), premotor, supplementary motor area (SMA), and IFG could serve as reliable markers of RD. We provide both behavioral and neurological evidence for impaired speech perception and production in RD readers which can serve as markers of RD.

Although the potential of group awareness (GA) tools on triggering student engagement has been recognized in literature, little is known about the effects of GA tools on student engagement with peer feedback in the context of online collaborative language learning. This quasi-experimental study with 86 college students explored how GA tools influenced student engagement with peer feedback in an authentic learning environment. The results showed that GA tools had positive effects on students' behavioral engagement. The analysis of dynamic engagement progression across three rounds of peer assessment revealed that GA tools helped stimulate and sustain students' continuous cognitive engagement in providing both surface-level and meaning-level feedback. However, GA tools had limited effects on triggering cognitive engagement in incorporating peer feedback into revisions, especially at the late stage of the learning activity. Additionally, the students supported by GA tools demonstrated higher emotional engagement than those without access to GA information but the difference was not statistically significant. Findings of this study provide important insights on using GA tools to enhance student engagement with online peer feedback in collaborative language learning activities.

In science education, chemistry is a discipline that involves macroscopic matter and microscopic particles. It is difficult for the traditional teaching approach to help learners comprehend abstract chemical knowledge. Researchers have attempted to use Virtual Reality (VR) to help learners realize meaningful knowledge via visualizing the learning content. However, merely engaging students in experiencing the scientific contexts is not enough. To fill this gap, the present study adopted Spherical Video-based Virtual Reality (SVVR) to create authentic learning contexts for learners, and proposed an exploration-based SVVR approach which aimed to promote students' understanding of abstract concepts and improve their competence of completing chemistry experiments. A quasi-experimental design was employed to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed approach. A total of 136 junior high school students from three classes were recruited for the experiment. The experimental group adopted the exploration-based SVVR approach, control group I adopted the conventional SVVR approach, and control group II adopted traditional instruction. The results showed that the exploration-based SVVR approach not only improved students' learning achievement, but also increased their learning motivation, learning attitude, and creative thinking tendency. Besides, students adopting this approach had more positive behaviors, including finding problems, making assumptions, investigating and verifying, and discussion.

Praise and criticism have long been reported as central feedback designs in academic writing, yet their relative influences on students' reception have not been fully investigated. This study employed six feedback statements (2 valences * 3 writing areas) and collected students' (N = 56) ratings of each statement's perceived comprehension and usefulness. The results showed that while both feedback valences were well understood, praise was rated significantly higher than criticism in usefulness, especially for the abstract dimension of reasoning. The students also claimed that praise not only boosted motivation but also facilitated efforts to internalise and transfer the feedback knowledge. Suggestions were formulated to harness such emotional and cognitive advantages of praise in feedback design and academic writing pedagogy.

Purpose: This study sought to 1) identify linguistic features important for Chinese text complexity with a theory-based and systematic approach, and 2) address how feature sets and algorithms affect the performance of Chinese text complexity models. Method: Texts from Chinese language arts textbooks from Grades 1 to 6 (N = 1,478) in Mainland China were analyzed. The predictor variables were 265 linguistic features of texts: 154 lexical features and 111 sentence and discourse features. The outcome variable was the complexity level of texts; a one-semester-scale was applied, thus 12 levels in total (two semesters per grade). Results: Features of the categories of character and word frequency, character and word semantic features, lexical diversity, part-of-speech syntactic categories, and referential cohesion were found the most important. With the important features identified, we found that text complexity models with features at all levels outperformed those with features at only one level. Models using the two machine learning algorithms (Random Forest Regression and Support Vector Regression) outperformed those using Linear Regression. Conclusion: This work clarifies important linguistic features for Chinese text complexity, and points to the necessity of considering features across levels and using machine learning algorithms in future text complexity research.

Affect-biased attention is an important predictive factor of children's early socio-emotional development, possibly shaped by the family environment. Our study aimed to reveal children's temporal dynamic patterns of affect-biased attention by looking at time series of attention to emotional faces, individual differences in temporal dynamics, and their relations with parenting practices. Sixty Chinese children (27 girls; mean age: 7.92 ± 1.09 years) viewed emotional--neutral face pairs (angry, sad, and happy) for 3,000 ms while their eye movements were recorded. First, results showed that overall looking time rather than manual reaction time revealed affect-biased attention: children looked more at angry and happy faces than neutral faces, although they looked at sad and neutral faces approximately the same amount of time. Temporal course analysis revealed further differences in visual attention to emotional faces: attention bias to emotional faces emerged early after the stimuli onset (before 400 ms), even for sad faces. This bias did not hold for the entire stimulus presentation time, and only the attention bias to happy faces appeared again in the later period. Second, we applied a data-driven cluster approach to the time series of attention to emotional faces and revealed three subgroups of dynamic affect-biased attention. Finally, the machine learning method revealed that positive parenting was related to the temporal dynamic patterns of children's attention to sad faces.

Background: It is well evident that individuals' levels of print exposure are significantly correlated with their reading ability across languages, and an author recognition test is commonly used to measure print exposure objectively. For the first time, the current work developed and validated a Simplified Chinese Author Recognition Test (SCART) and examined its role in explaining Chinese online reading. Methods: In Study 1, we constructed the SCART for readers of simplified Chinese and validated the test using data collected from 203 young adults in Mainland China. Participants were measured on the SCART and three self-report tasks about their reading experiences and habits. Study 2 recruited additional 68 young adults in Mainland and measured their print exposure (with the same tasks used in Study 1), reading-related cognitive ability (working memory, rapid automatic naming, Chinese character reading, and vocabulary knowledge), and Chinese online reading via an eye-tracking passage reading task. Results: Results of Study 1 support the high reliability and validity of the SCART. Results of Study 2 indicate that SCART scores significantly predicted participants' online reading processing while controlling for subjective reading experiences and habits, and reading-related cognitive abilities. Across two studies, we found converging evidence that the in-depth recognition of the authors (i.e., participants have read the books written by these authors) appears to be a better indicator of print exposure than the superficial recognition of the author names. Conclusions: Taken together, this work filled in the gap in the literature by providing an evidence-based, objective print exposure measure for simplified Chinese and contributes to a broader understanding of print exposure and online reading processing across different writing systems.

This study mainly investigates the relationship between class environment and attitudes towards inclusive education (IE) in China, with consideration of the impact of relevant background factors including grade, experiences of disability, academic level, area (rural vs. urban), family socio-economic status (SES), being a student leader and gender. A sample of primary school students (N = 1158) was recruited to complete a questionnaire with four scales to respectively measure students' perceptions of attitude towards inclusive education, their class environments, academic achievement level, and family SES, with a set of single-measure questions regarding other background variables. Results revealed that students who perceived class environments with better student-student relationships, better teacher-student relationships, and better discipline and order had more positive attitudes towards IE. The association between the other two class environment variables (competition and learning burden) and attitude towards IE were not significant. Students who self-reported as having disabilities held more positive attitudes towards IE than their peers. Among the background factors examined in this study, only the effect of gender on students' attitudes towards IE is significant. Last, this study also made discussion on constructing inclusive classrooms or communities for China.

Introducing knowledge sharing into higher education research and exploring the internal influence mechanism of teacher-student relationship on knowledge sharing of graduate students can provide better guidance and reference for the current stage of higher education knowledge management practice. Against this background, this study built and verified a theoretical model to explore in detail the impact of teacher-student relationship on knowledge sharing of graduate students, and the moderating role of proactive personality in such process. This study collected data across two time points, and finally obtained a sample of 365 Chinese graduate students. The empirical results showed that the teacher-student relationship was positively related to knowledge sharing behavior of graduate students, and their knowledge sharing willingness partly mediated this correlation. Furthermore, the influence of teacher-student relationship on knowledge sharing willingness and behavior is positively moderated by proactive personality. Therefore, the findings of this study provide educational guidance and recommendations for promoting knowledge sharing of graduate students.

Within the COVID-19 pandemic and the new normal period, online learning has become one of the main options for learning. Previous studies on self-regulated learning have shown that it was a better predictor of online learning effectiveness. However, this discussion has not been extended to the situation of the COVID-19 pandemic. To address this gap, this study aims to explore the relationship between the three stages of self-regulated learning (SRL) and learning ineffectiveness (LI). Data of 370 high school students were collected during the period of COVID-19. Structural equation modeling was used to perform confirmatory factor analysis on the data. Findings show that the preparatory stage was positively related to the stages of performance and appraisal, and the performance stage was positively related to the appraisal stage; on the other hand, the stages of performance and appraisal were negatively related to learning ineffectiveness. In addition, the preparatory stage had no direct relation to learning ineffectiveness, but the preparatory stage was correlated with learning ineffectiveness, mediated by the stages of performance and appraisal. These results suggest that better performance in the three stages of self-regulated learning decrease learners' perceived online learning ineffectiveness. This understanding can have implications for global education.

Aviation is a multidisciplinary subject that has influenced human development over the last century. Learning about aviation exposes students to principles of flight, earth science, aeronautical engineering, language, aviation communication and airmanship. In higher education, many non-aviation undergraduates participate in aviation related activities to have a first glimpse of the aviation industry and equip themselves with basic concepts. This study aims to examine learning perception among 82 university students who have participated in a series of online aviation career exploration activities during the pandemic in Hong Kong and China. They participated in virtual visits and career talks led by aviation professionals, hands-on flight simulation activities and online discussion in an online lab setting. A mixed research method was employed with the use of a motivational survey, teachers' observation and semi-structured interviews to understand students' learning perceptions. This study found that flying laboratory activities could effectively motivate students to learn aviation and improve their aviation knowledge. This could promote students' aviation industry optimism, which may help the industry to recover in the post-pandemic world. This article offers recommendations for online engineering educators to use emerging technologies to teach aviation for future career preparation.

A comprehensive laboratory-style teaching activity involving the synthesis, characterization, and analysis of structure-activity relationships of metal-organic framework (MOF) nanozymes was developed specifically for undergraduates at Tianjin University. The students acquired familiarity with the general approach in synthesizing MOFs by solvothermal method using substituted MIL-101­(Fe)-X (MIL is an acronym for Materials of Institute Lavoisier). Several modern characterization methods were taught, including powder X-ray diffraction and fluorescence spectroscopy for assessing MIL-101­(Fe)-X crystal structures and superoxide dismutase (SOD)-like activities. In particular, students were guided by the instructor to investigate the relationship between structural differences in MOFs caused by ligand changes and their SOD-like activities. The Hammett relationships were later demonstrated to be an accurate method of quantifying structure-activity relationships of MIL-101­(Fe)-Xnanozymes. By participating in this laboratory experience, students are able to improve their scientific thinking, practical abilities, and teamwork. Additionally, a fundamental principle of material design can be conveyed to undergraduates based on the structure-activity relationship, thereby deepening their understanding of nanozymes and the course's content.

The purpose of this study was to investigate current Chinese preschool teachers' use of behavior management (BM) strategies in preschool classrooms during the challenging juncture of routine care and their impact on children's behavior performances, as well as the features of high-quality BM. Using a stratified, random sampling procedure from data collected as part of a large, longitudinal study in the Guangdong province of China, 37 teachers agreed to participate. While preschools from high to low SES were invited, 18 teachers in high SES and 19 teachers in low SES regions provided consent to participate, resulting in a total sample of 37 teachers. Both quantitative methods and descriptive statistics were employed through CLASS to analyze teachers' use of BM strategies and possible associations with children's behavioral performances. Findings showed that teachers generally missed opportunities to use high-quality strategies. Features of strategies were identified in this study that were used only to control children's behaviors and to elicit children's situational compliance instead of eliciting their receptive compliance. Results also revealed that most Chinese preschools were generally highly controlled environments. Realizing the need for children in preschool classrooms to establish early and positive behavioral habits as imperative, the results of this study point to necessary professional development to become more intentional in using effective behavior management strategies, such as clear behavioral expectations, proactive strategies, and correction of misbehavior, during routine care activities to meet children's behavioral needs and encourage receptive compliance.

This exploratory study examines the role of foreign and second language contexts in the acquisition of conventional expressions. A group of 21 ESL learners was compared to 25 EFL learners randomly selected from a larger pool. Both groups completed an aural multiple-choice discourse completion task (MC-DCT), which was developed from a previously validated oral DCT. The aural MC-DCT consisted of 21 items with learner-generated options delivered aurally. A total of 91 native speakers also completed the task as a control group. The results showed an effect of learning environment on learners' selection of conventional expressions. The ESL group selected the conventional expressions in more items than the EFL group on the aural MC-DCT; the differences in the selections by the two groups were item-specific. The observed effect of learning context is discussed as related to individual items and type and modality of the task. The paper also discusses the special make-up of the ESL group due to the pandemic and expansion of the group for future research.

Although there are some researches conducted about students' conceptions of technology, little research has been conducted to reveal the primary school students' conceptions concerning technology in China. This research investigated Chinese primary school students' (aged 9-12) conceptions of technology as regards their understanding of (a) the concept of technology, (b) the impact of technology on human life and nature, and (c) the relationship between technology and science. Phenomenography as the methodological framework was adopted for this study. A total of 63 primary school students were chosen as participants in the study to probe their conceptions about technology through picture/photo eliciting activities, and semi-structured, personal interviews in a website video format. It is found that the primary school students defined technology from diverse perspectives, including the dimensions of its attributes, production, operation and use, function, with most of them regarding technology as a double-edged sword. It is also found that they lack a comprehensive and rational understanding of the concept of technology and cannot understand the relationship between science and technology properly. This study contributes better to understanding primary school students' conceptions about technology in mainland China and beyond, thus providing an empirical basis for improving technology education policy, curriculum, instruction, and assessment in the future for China and other countries.

Prospective memory (PM) refers to the ability to remember and complete planned tasks in the future, which relies on working memory (WM) for encoding and maintaining the intention. Implementation intention is a useful strategy for improving PM function in adults. Yet the effect of implementation intentions in children, and whether factors such as age, gender, and WM capacity could modulate its effect remains unclear. In this study, we examined the effect of implementation intentions on PM in 154 children at 7-11 years of age. The standard group received standard instructions on PM task, whereas the implementation intention group received additional PM instruction, which comprised the "if . . . then . . ." format and guided visual imagery of the PM scenario. Participants completed the computer-based PM tasks (tapping into focal event-, time-, and activity-based PM) and the WM tests. The results showed that the two groups exhibited similar focal event-, time-, and activity-based PM performance. Although age and gender did not modulate the effect of implementation intentions on PM, WM capacity moderated the implementation intention effect on time-based PM. Specifically, higher WM capacity predicted higher implementation intention benefit. These findings suggest that children with higher WM capacity may have higher chance to benefit from the implementation intention strategy.

This paper aims to further understand the future development of literacy theory and language learning in contemporary Chinese universities through the research on the current situation of EFL students' literacy in Chinese universities and the teaching characteristics of contemporary Chinese teachers. In this study, literature analysis method, literature comparison analysis method, literature synthesis method and other analytical methods were used to obtain the results. Based on our results, the lack of literacy training is an extremely important reason for the defects of literacy skills of contemporary Chinese college EFL students in the process of language learning. The strengthening of literacy training is one of the key measures to improve the comprehensive level of literacy of contemporary Chinese college EFL students in the process of their language learning. Theoretically, the future development of literacy theories and language learning among contemporary Chinese college EFL students is bound to closely connect with the new theory of multiliteracies and critical literacy in literacy development and the multiliteracies teaching methodology in language learning. Practically, the new theory of multiliteracies puts forward a series of hypotheses for school literacy education to cope with the drastic changes facing the world today. At the same time, the critical literacy theory is rooted in critical education theory, focusing on the important role of literacy in the formation of individual human values. Besides, the multiliteracies teaching methodology in language learning explores how to change traditional teaching methods, effectively using multimedia resources, and cultivating language learners' skills of multiliteracies.

In the spring semester of 2020, all Chinese higher education institutions delivered courses online across the nation in response to the COVID-19. This study explores Chinese college students' self-regulated learning, academic entitlement, and academic achievement during the transitioning from face-to-face to online learning environments during this special time. Structure equation modeling was conducted, and results indicate that academic entitlement associates with students' online learning academic achievement. Whereas self-regulated learning does not relate to academic achievement in the online learning setting. Additionally, academic entitlement is marginally associated with academic achievement only among male students, while self-regulated learning is not a significant predictor for both genders. However, self-regulated learning is marginally linked with higher academic achievement among students who do not have previous online learning experiences but not among those who took online courses before.

Background: Patients with hemorrhagic stroke have high mortality and disability rates. Nevertheless, early rehabilitation interventions can improve their outcomes. We aimed to apply capsaicin atomization as early intervention to patients with hemorrhagic stroke and explore improvements in cough and swallowing functions. Method: Patients with hemorrhagic stroke were randomly divided into the control group, which received routine care, and the intervention group, which underwent the capsaicin solution nebulization scheme in addition to routine care. Differences in the presence/absence of cough reflex and number of coughs in response to capsaicin, the presence/absence of swallowing reflex in response to water, the presence/absence of postswallow residue, substance P (SP) concentration, and pulmonary inflammation between the two groups were determined before and after the intervention. Results: A total of 53 patients with hemorrhagic stroke were included. Results showed no statistically significant difference in cough reflex in both groups after the intervention (p > 0.05). The degree of cough in the intervention group was stronger than that in the control group (p = 0.046). No statistically significant difference was observed in the number of patients with swallowing reflex in response to water between the groups (p > 0.05). The presence/absence of postswallow residue of the intervention group was stronger than that of the control group (p = 0.032). No statistically significant difference was observed between the Glasgow Coma Scale scores of the groups after the intervention (p > 0.05). SP in the intervention group was significantly increased (p = 0.031). The Clinical Pulmonary Infection Score was significantly lower in the control group, and the difference was statistically significant (p = 0.028). Conclusions: Capsaicin nebulization can help enhance the number of coughs in response to capsaicin, reduce postswallow residue, and increase the level of SP in patients with hemorrhagic stroke and has a positive effect on pulmonary inflammation. This study provides intervention points for cough and swallowing rehabilitation after a hemorrhagic stroke.

Under current test-driven educational accountability policies, there has been a debate about school effectiveness. As conventionally measured by test scores in academic subjects, school effectiveness is often limited and potentially biased. With increasing emphasis on preparing students with both cognitive and noncognitive competencies, educational leaders demand "whole child" approaches for schooling. This study examines whether and how different types of school climate in Eastern versus Western school systems affect whole child development. It applies multivariate multilevel models of school effects using the PISA 2015 datasets from B-S-J-G (China), Korea, Finland, and the U.S., which vary in science achievement and life satisfaction. The study results show cross-national differences in these relationships between Eastern and Western school systems. It sheds new light on the need to balance academic and emotional learning goals and develop a whole school climate with culturally appropriate mixes of both "high expectations/discipline" and "high caring/support" toward whole child development.

Changes in physical activity levels and increases in screen time across different cohorts may affect young children's motor skill development (MSD). This study examined cohort differences in MSD in China. Four-year-olds living in Shanghai and in Guizhou province were assessed, in individual sessions, in 2013 (n = 230) and in 2017 (n = 446). Controlling for age, parental education, gender, height, weight, and overall development, children's MSD scores were significantly lower in 2017 than in 2013 in both Shanghai and Guizhou. Parental education moderated these differences. Declines in MSD scores may be due to increased screen time, higher levels of air pollution, and decreased access to safe, outdoor spaces. The overall decline in motor skills across both regions suggests that appropriate and timely interventions are needed to support young Chinese children's MSD.

In the present study, we designed a dynamic measure to assess emerging morphological awareness in Chinese children and examined its concurrent and longitudinal relations with character recognition. The initial question of the dynamic assessment of morphological awareness (DAMA) task asked children to judge whether the first morphemes in a pair of words shared the same meaning. Subsequently, up to four prompts were provided for each word in the word pair to draw children's attention to the meaning of the target morpheme as well as the morphological structure of the word. The participants included 154 first-grade Chinese children. In addition to the DAMA task, they received a battery of measures including nonverbal intelligence, rapid automatized naming, phonological awareness, vocabulary knowledge, and Chinese character reading. While all measures were administered at the beginning of grade 1, the character reading measure was administered again at the end of grade 1, and at the beginning and end of grade 2. The results showed that the prompts provided in the DAMA task increased children's ability to identify morpheme meanings in compound words by helping them separate morpheme meanings from word meanings. Furthermore, the DAMA task accounted for significant unique variance in character recognition concurrently at the beginning of grade 1 and longitudinally at all three other time points after controlling for static morphological awareness and other reading related variables. Our study suggests that dynamic assessment can be used to effectively assess morphological awareness and predict character reading abilities in young Chinese children.

Drawing on insights from a four-day online workshop, which explored geo-engineering and policy making with 13 youth participants, an academic and youth authorial team provide a guide to the co-creation of policy briefs. Drawing on excerpts from the policy brief at different stages of development and commentary provided by the authors during the workshops, we set out four stages including (1) Identifying the key message and audience, (2) Reading and critically engaging with examples of policy briefs during the drafting process, (3) Developing the policy brief text, and (4) Reviewing and revising the policy brief. We have developed this guidance with a co-creative, group work approach in mind and suggest that this has relevance for those working in and beyond the discipline of geography.

Past studies on aptitude for interpreting have investigated the correlation between personal traits and achievement, yet relatively few have singled out students' emotional state as an important aptitude constituent or tracked its developmental patterns. To address this gap, the present study followed 116 Chinese students of interpreting for five months (one semester) and examined their emotional reports as well as interpreting proficiency. The study differentiated learner-internal (positive and negative emotional traits) from learner-external emotional aspects (positive and negative emotional experiences), then administered questionnaires at three time points (the 1st month, the 3rd month, the 5th month) to determine the emotion-proficiency relations. Based on the regression analysis of the questionnaire data and qualitative analysis of students' emotion reports, the study found that: (1) As students' proficiency matured, they experienced growing positive and negative external emotions yet their internal emotions remained relatively stable; (2) While students' internal emotions were only moderately related to proficiency, their positive emotional experience was always the most reliable proficiency indicator; (3) Positive external emotions could stimulate students' long-term engagement with learning, and negative emotions such as anxiety could also promote learning by prompting students to use anxiety-reduction strategies. Specific suggestions are thus formulated for interpreter education.

At present, environmental issues are of concern to all countries, especially for developing countries, and education on waste sorting is urgent. However, it remains a challenge to improve students' learning achievement and engagement in environmental education. Researchers have pointed out the potential of digital games for promoting students' learning motivation. In addition, the two-tier testing mechanism has been recognized as an effective tool for correcting students' misconceptions and promoting their in-depth thinking. Therefore, this study proposed a two-tier testing-based digital gaming approach. To verify the effectiveness of the approach, a digital game was developed and a quasi-experiment was conducted. The participants were two classes of fifth graders, with one class as the experimental group using the two-tier test-based digital game and the other class as the control group learning with the conventional digital game. The results showed that the digital game-based learning with two-tier testing model was conducive to students' improved academic performance compared with the conventional digital game-based learning model, especially for students in the low-level group, who were able to make greater progress. In addition, the approach was effective in terms of reducing students' cognitive load and improving their flow experience.

Background: Families of children with developmental disabilities face extraordinary changes in their life circumstances and needs that require adaptations to create sustainable and meaningful daily routines. The present study explored the adaptation of Chinese families of children with developmental disabilities from an ecocultural theoretical perspective. Method: A total of 34 families of children with developmental disabilities were interviewed using the adapted Family Life Interview, and the data were analysed thematically. Results: The Chinese families put the needs of their child with developmental disabilities as their highest priority, sought to maintain family harmony, faced an unpredictable future, and experienced limited services to support their endeavours. Conclusion: The findings stress the importance of having a deep understanding of the cultural and social contexts that impact the lives of families of children with developmental disabilities prior to developing family-centred interventions to assist families in their changed life circumstances.

Anonymous peer feedback has long been used as a common activity in higher education, yet few studies have systematically tracked students' perceived comfort levels over time, and even fewer have compared givers' and receivers' comfort under this intervention. To address this gap, the present study tracked 40 Chinese university students over eight weeks (four weeks' non-anonymous and four weeks' anonymous condition). Based on quantitative data (comfort ratings) and qualitative data (feedback texts and survey responses), it found that students overwhelmingly favoured the anonymous mode, reporting significantly higher comfort ratings at the peer and class-level dimensions. Additionally, they assigned significantly higher comfort values to the giver role where they could expose and exchange more private feelings with peers as if they were in a masked ball. Pedagogical implications are given to inform and improve feedback activities.

Purpose: We examined the role of distal (parents' education, family's income, parents' expectations, and parents' attitudes to the home teaching of literacy) and proximal (formal and informal home literacy environment, access to literacy resources, and extracurricular activities) parental factors in children's early literacy skills and whether the relations vary across affluent and disadvantaged societies in China. Method: Five hundred fifty-three third-year kindergarten Chinese children (M[subscript age] = 74.59 months) were recruited from Jining, Luqiao, and Mapo and were assessed on measures of phonological awareness, vocabulary, pinyin knowledge, and word reading. Their parents filled out a questionnaire on their education and income as well as on the frequency of engaging in different home literacy activities, their expectations and attitudes to the home teaching of literacy, and their children's extracurricular activities. Results: Results of multigroup analyses and mediation analyses revealed both direct and indirect effects of both distal and proximal parental factors on emergent literacy skills and word reading. In addition, the models were strikingly similar across the two settings. Conclusion: The findings suggest that the pathways of differential influences from parental factors to children's early literacy skills may be similar across socioeconomic contexts.

Purpose: This 2-year longitudinal study examined the unique prediction of a dynamic assessment (DA) of character decoding on Chinese early reading development, and further explored whether learning potential, as assessed by DA, predicts subsequent character reading development in a sample of 135 native Mandarin-speaking Chinese students from first grade to second grade. Method: Latent Growth Modeling was carried out to examine the prediction of DA administered in grade 1 for the character reading growth in Chinese children from grade 1 to 2. Growth Mixture Modeling was used to identify latent-class groups with varying learning potential based on the trial-by-trial progresses on DA, and predicted the distal outcome, Chinese character reading. Results: DA uniquely predicted the final level and growth rate of character reading for Chinese children from grade 1 to 2 after controlling for traditional static predictors. Additionally, three latent groups were identified to characterize different responsiveness to graduated prompts in the DA task; the three latent groups showed significant differences in character reading over time. Conclusion: The findings underscore the importance of DA in predicting Chinese children's early reading development and the classification validity of learning potential subgroups of DA in differentiating early character reading development in Chinese children.

Research Findings: This study investigated teachers' Concept development (CD) strategy use in whole-group math teaching and its associations with children's higher-order thinking processes in 25 Chinese preschool math lessons. We utilized the CD dimension within the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS) to guide our exploration. CD identifies 12 specific cognitive strategies, grouped into four organizing indicators, and include analysis and reasoning, creating, integration, and connections to the real world. Results showed: (1) Chinese teachers rarely used strategies such as "connecting concepts," "integrating with previous knowledge," and "real-world applications"; (2) Over half of teachers' CD strategies failed to facilitate children's higher-order thinking. When teachers used "clarification/comparison" and "brainstorming" strategies, however, was positively associated with children's displaying high-level cognitive processes. Practice or Policy: Findings shed light on the need to promote effective CD strategies during math instruction for preschoolers and have implications for teachers' professional development.

Purpose: This cross-sectional study aimed to depict expressive language profiles and clarify lexical-grammatical interrelationships in Mandarin-speaking preschoolers with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) during the administration of the simplified Chinese Psychoeducational Profile--Third Edition screening. Method: We collected naturalistic language samples from 81 (74 boys, seven girls) 2- to 7-year-old (M[subscript age] = 55.6 months, SD = 15.17) Mandarin-speaking children with ASD in clinician-child interactions. The child participants were divided into five age subgroups with 12-month intervals according to their chronological age. Computer-assisted part-of-speech tagging, constituency analysis, and dependency analysis addressed the developmental trajectories of early lexical and grammatical growth in each age subgroup. Results: Significant within-ASD differences were observed in content words, function words, and lexical categories. Nouns and verbs were the predominant lexical categories, while noun types overwhelmed verb types in children over 3 years old. The grammatical development of 5- to 6-year-old Mandarin-speaking children with ASD was better than that of 3- to 4-year-old children. The trends of syntactic structures, grammatical relations, and grammatical complexity in each age group were similar. Conclusions: Mandarin-speaking preschoolers with ASD produce more lexicons with increasing age. They preserve the noun bias as a universal mechanism in early lexical learning. Moreover, their developmental trajectories of grammatical growth were comparable in each age subgroup. In addition, their lexicons and grammar were synchronically developed during early language acquisition.

Argumentation scaffolding can be used to enhance the formulation of logical arguments as well as the performance of such arguments. This study presents a web-based synchronized scientific argumentation environment integrated with prompt scaffolding to support simulation-based physics learning for elementary school students. To investigate the effects of prompt argumentation scaffolding, two sixth-grade classes totaling fifty-five students worked in small groups to complete a simulation-based physics learning activity regarding the principle of leverage. One class was allocated to an experimental group that received prompt argumentation scaffolding, whereas the other class was assigned to be the control group not receiving prompts. Learning achievements such as science conceptual understanding and scientific explanation skills were examined, and lag sequential analysis (LSA) was used to compare the argumentative behavioral patterns of the two groups. The results showed that the students in the experimental group outperformed those in the control group in terms of their capacity to produce scientific explanations, though no significant difference in their understanding of physical concepts. Furthermore, the LSA results revealed that the experimental group demonstrated more coherent, evidence-based arguments and conscious reasoning, whereas the control group displayed more of a conversational tone and was unstructured in its debates with others.

In the wake of the focus on improving the quality of education in the international community, the development of the cause of education in mainland China has entered the stage of high-quality development. Currently, the construction of internal governance structures for primary and secondary schools in mainland China exhibits three areas of difficulties and problems: In vertical governance structures, the configurations are overly hierarchical, and there is a high cost of communication and coordination, and difficulty forwarding reforms and innovations; in horizontal governance structures, professional organizations do not have high status, there is a low degree of coordination, and efforts for oversight and assurance are inadequate; in integrated network governance structures, there is a weak basis for consensus and low responsiveness, and the degree of coupling needs improvement. In order to adapt to the needs of high-quality development, primary and secondary schools in mainland China must make reforms to and tackle several aspects of their internal governance structures, vertically adhering to the logic of management reform, to improve the rationality of decision-making and promote flattening of vertical structures; horizontally adhering to the logic of intrinsic development, to improve the status, authority and influence of a school's professional organizations; and integratively abiding by the logic of systems integration, to build deliberative democratic network governance structures on the foundation of a consensus of ideas.

The digital skills divide has been raised as a serious issue during the COVID-19. However, few studies explored the predictive influence of personality traits on college students' digital skills in online learning. To address this gap, this study took the second-level digital divide as the focus to conduct a two-round survey of college students over nearly 2 years based on cross-sectional and longitudinal methods to explore whether there is a digital skill divide or personality trait differences between urban and rural college students while learning online, and whether college students' personality traits can predict their digital skills. The results confirmed the rural and urban college students' digital skills divide. There were significant differences in all dimensions of their digital skills except for mobile skills. In addition, the digital skills divide of these college students persisted for nearly 2 years. Specifically, this study further confirmed that there were significant differences in the urban and rural college students' extraversion, neuroticism, and agreeableness, but there was no significant difference in their openness and conscientiousness. Additionally, there was no change in the urban and rural college students' personality trait differences in nearly 2 years. Personality traits could positively predict college students' digital skills. This study provides evidence for bridging the second-level digital divide of the rural and urban college students from the perspective of personality traits.

Inquiry-based learning (IBL) is one of the most important learning strategies. Augmented Reality (AR) is an effective way to support this strategy, which is considered conducive to enhance academic achievements of students during IBL. This paper investigated teacher-student interactions during AR-supported IBL by comparison and case study. First, four video clips carried by two high schools were coded by improved Flanders Interaction Analysis System (iFIAS) with two clips in AR-supported class and others in no AR-supported class. Then, Lag Sequence Analysis (LSA) was used to extract sequence features based on the codes. Finally, suggestions on using AR in IBL and details about study were discussed. Results show that AR-supported IBL has more active responses from students and a higher response rate from teachers. Student responses in AR-supported IBL have more tendency to be approved by teachers. The interactive component of AR software is in positive relation to its capacity of flexible inquiry, but it requires more time to learn to operate and demands more demonstration behavior from teachers. Teachers should develop skills of asking questions to guide and give timely feedback when carrying out IBL supported by AR.

Self-regulated language learning (SRLL) plays a crucial role in the language development of Chinese college English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners. This study presents a systematic literature review aimed at identifying the key variables associated with SRLL among Chinese college EFL learners. By conducting an extensive search of the Web of Science and Scopus databases, 88 relevant research articles were analyzed to gain insights into the effectiveness of SRLL in this context. Through a meticulous analysis of the target articles, this review uncovers the essential variables that shape the landscape of SRLL in the context of China's tertiary education. To examine the interrelationship among these variables, this study utilized Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) for a comprehensive quantitative analysis. PLS-SEM enables a robust examination of multiple variables simultaneously, making it an ideal statistical technique for analyzing the complex dynamics of SRLL. By identifying the crucial factors that drive the SRLL process, researchers and educators can develop targeted interventions to enhance language learning outcomes among Chinese college EFL learners. Moreover, this research will shed light on the existing gaps in the literature and pave the way for future investigations in areas such as technology-assisted learning, individual differences, and the relationship between self-regulation and language proficiency. By unraveling the complexities of SRLL among Chinese college EFL learners, this study strives to empower educators and researchers with valuable insights to foster successful language acquisition and proficiency.

This study examined the relationship between Chinese college students' motivational needs, their attitude as well as the intention to use mobile devices for learning. The relationship between their attitude and intention of adopting mobile learning (m-learning) was also investigated. A total number of 337 Chinese college students participated in the study. Results revealed that the needs of affective, social integrative, and entertainment positively influence their attitude and intention to adopt m-learning. Additionally, entertainment needs and their attitude enhance their intention to use mobile devices for learning. This study extends the understanding of what motivates Chinese college students to adopt m-learning and also provides higher education professionals with a new vision about what influences students' attitude to use mobile devices for learning.