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The COVID-19 global pandemic has prompted educators in universities to reconsider their teaching methods, mainly due to the social distancing measures imposed within the classroom settings. On the other hand, the growing importance of continuing education opportunities for adult learners after graduation has seen the need to transform traditional teaching modes that primarily depend on face-to-face interaction into virtual modes, which are deemed more time- and cost-efficient. These major shifts in social and economic developments have a significant impact on the evolution of curriculum planning in higher education. Education that has scientific inquiry components inevitably comes into question, as conventional beliefs that experiments should be hands-on and will not be as effective if conducted virtually cast doubts on the move to the online space. This paper discusses the background of an impending shift in a university's approach to more online-based laboratory classes in an immunology course, as well as the exploration of the potential of conducting online laboratory experiments based on student perceptions.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent lockdown measures in many countries have increased young people's engagement with digital media. The digital divide goes beyond just having devices and includes differences in how well young people can use digital technology. In this paper, we shift our attention beyond screen time to the nature of the adolescents' digital media use. Our study looks at two adolescents from different backgrounds to understand how their digital media experiences differ in viewing, play, and reading. We add to the literature on the influence SES has on the ways in which adolescents are using digital media during the COVID-19 pandemic in Singapore. Our study was conducted during the pandemic and participants were selected using convenience stratified sampling and the snowballing method. Our findings show that the adolescents' digital viewing was motivated by the need to be a part of an affinity group and that while the viewing was passive, it served a social function to develop a sense of connectedness with peers. We also found that adolescents from high socioeconomic backgrounds tended to engage in more digital reading compared to their peers from low socioeconomic backgrounds. In addition, while the adolescents' digital play was shaped by their socioeconomic realities, they were able to make the most from their circumstances and demonstrated both creativity and savviness. By demonstrating the disparities in digital media experiences between two adolescents from contrastive socioeconomic backgrounds, we shed light on the implications of the digital divide, where both equitable access to digital resources and the development of digital literacies necessary to navigate the digital landscape is currently lacking. We argue for the importance for researchers and policymakers to move beyond acknowledging long-standing concerns and take actionable steps to address these issues.

Studies on language shift in Singapore have focused on the language use within ethnic communities. However, despite increasing numbers of interethnic marriages, very few studies have explored the effect of such marriages on LS. This article explores the language practices within Malay-Chinese mixed marriages and examines how language policies in these marriages and families are negotiated. Through the analysis of surveys and interviews with 16 Malay-Chinese interethnic families, this study found that English transcends both Malay and Mandarin in terms of language use in all domains. The linguistic choices of participants are also dependent on their interlocutors. Parental ideologies, both overt and covert, point to Mandarin being perceived as important for their children's future while Malay was perceived to be a more familial language. This paper also highlights the influence government policies have on Singaporeans' perceptions on the status of languages. The data points unambiguously to language shift in progress within these families, away from either Mandarin or Malay towards English.

Portable mobile technologies and high-speed access to the internet has led to the development of new online-first reading materials such as Korean Manhwa or webtoons, designed for quick consumption on mobile devices. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 11 adolescent girls aged 14 to 15 years old, this study examines why and how adolescents read Manhwa, especially romances. Findings show that these girls read for entertainment and to escape from reality. Strong visual aesthetics, relatable characters and engaging storylines, driven by technological infrastructures encouraging continual engagement, support these adolescents' immersion in online storyworlds. Their engagement with these texts allowed the girls as readers to discover self as reader and person, negotiating multifaceted aspects of their working, moral and romantic lives as they envision present and future possibilities.

This article adopts a Bakhtinian understanding of dialogue to explore the affordances of virtual book clubs, and how they can foster dialogues and encourage dialogic thinking in students. Drawing on a qualitative case study of 11-year-old students participating in an online book club, we explore how digital book clubs open dialogic spaces for students to build on discussions of texts. Readers learn to read beyond the text by becoming more aware of the text and other readers, and also learn collaboratively by building on each other's responses and being exposed to different perspectives and ideas. We demonstrate how online spaces such as virtual book clubs can enhance students' reading engagement and open dialogic spaces for the different exchanges they have with others. Implications for using online book clubs for offering students opportunities to read and think critical and collaborative learning are discussed.

Research shows that motivation is a critical precursor to students' science achievement. However, research on the topic yields ambiguous results in different cultural contexts. While the positive association between motivation and science achievement has been evidenced universally, the relatively predictive effect and strength of different motivational factors in different cultures need additional examination. To tease the potential discrepancy apart and explore different student motivational factors including self-concept, intrinsic value, utility value, and sense of relatedness, this study examines grade 8 students from the U.S. (N = 14,290) and Singapore (N = 6113) by using the International Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) data. The results suggest that the U.S. student self-concept in science learning is the strongest and most significant predictor of their science achievement. In Singapore, students perceived utility value in science learning has the strongest and most significant association with their science achievement. Explanations of the differences as well as the implications for future research are discussed.

Drawing on data from a mobile ethnography study of 12 adolescents from one secondary school, this article proposes to examine the everyday digital reading resources and practices of Singapore adolescent youths to better understand the print and new media (fiction) leisure reading habits of adolescents. Mobile ethnography, with its capacity to capture adolescents' actual reading through images, texts, and video recordings, provides a new way to document and understand the changing reading habits of adolescents. Participants documented their print and digital reading on a smartphone app over four days, followed by a photo-elicitation interview. Findings showed that these adolescents read for pleasure and were self-directed readers who invested time in reading various new media fiction texts such as ebooks, Japanese manga and fanfiction. Practices of new media reading include cross-media consumption, engagement in fandom behaviours, and interest-driven searching for diverse reading materials. Adolescents are motivated to read when the reading experience promises immersive entertainment. A good story, ease of access to interesting content and potential for multiple media engagements encourage adolescents' volitional reading. Implications for curriculum and future research on adolescent volitional reading are discussed.

Higher education institutions have switched from the traditional paper-based assessment to online assessment in the last decade, and it is worthwhile to examine how the users have perceived such a change. While many technology acceptance studies focused on students as participants, this study examines the lecturers' perception of online assessment. The Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology model (UTAUT) has been widely adapted for technology acceptance studies, and it is suitable for the study on online assessment systems. Unlike the findings from the original UTAUT model, performance expectancy did not have a significant effect on behavioral intention. A new relationship was found between Social Influence and Use Behavior. The UTAUT was extended with Usability, Learnability and Attitude as additional constructs. An essential aspect of this study ascertained that attitude, a construct that was absent in the original model, has a significant effect on behavioral intention.

Long-term school absences during pandemic lockdowns may result in learning gains and losses much like the summer reading loss, but little is known about the actual effects of such lockdowns. This mixed-methods study examined changes in reading enjoyment, amount and resources in three groups of bilingual children--English-Chinese, English-Malay, and English-Tamil speaking children--during the COVID-19 lockdown in Singapore. Results reveal a lockdown reading gap between children's stronger language (English) and weaker language (Chinese/Malay/Tamil). Within each language, results show differential reading gains and losses for children who enjoyed and did not enjoy reading in print and digital formats. Children's reading enjoyment before the lockdown, changes in reading enjoyment and print reading amount during the lockdown in English and Chinese/Malay were significantly correlated. Children preferred print reading over reading digitally both before and during the lockdown, and devices were underutilized for reading purposes.

Given constant online access to information, critical news literacy, or the ability to access and critically evaluate the news, is essential for adolescents to learn about the world and obtain civic knowledge to participate as national and global citizens. Although there has been much research focusing on how youths critically read and produce media, less attention has been paid to the issue of access as an essential element of news literacy. Drawing on survey data (N = 5732) and focus group discussions (N = 67) with Singapore adolescents aged 13-17 years old, this study examines (1) whether adolescents access the news and if so, via what technologies, and (2) the factors that influence their news access. Findings show that adolescents prefer to read news online and that older adolescents (aged 15-17 years old) read more than younger adolescents (aged 13-14 years old). Factors shaping access to news include technological (portability, personalization, curation, and notifications), social (families, peers, and schools as sponsors), and personal factors (active seeking of news vs. incidental news exposure). Policymakers, scholars, and educators should consider the "physical," "social," and "curatorial" dimensions of news reading to implement policies and design practices to encourage news access and exposure. Educators can foster adolescents' motivation to read news by engaging them with news of interest to them, creating opportunities for them to receive the news through their smartphones and other devices, and developing their civic knowledge base.

This study investigated and compared family language policies (FLPs) from the perspectives of two groups of Singaporean bilingual children: 2,971 English-Chinese and 780 English-Malay children (aged 9-11 years). It also examined how different FLP components -- namely, language beliefs, practices, and management -- influenced their leisure reading enjoyment and reading amount. We found that although both groups of children attached equal importance to their two languages, their language practices tilted towards their stronger language, English. Both groups of children also reported different patterns of language management efforts at home. Regression analyses revealed differential effects of language beliefs, practices, and management on reading enjoyment and amount in the children's two languages. For both groups and all languages, language beliefs explained the least amount of variance in reading enjoyment and amount compared to language practices and management. For English, language management accounted for more variance than language practices, whereas for the children's weaker language (i.e., their ethnic language), both language management and language practices were significant predictors. Results emphasize the critical role of FLP in maintaining children's ethnic languages. Therefore, it is imperative for parents, educators, and policymakers to identify and implement strategies to bolster language management and practices within the home and school environments.

There is worldwide concern about the decline in children and adolescent enjoyment of reading as documented by international and national surveys, with smartphones and other technologies often blamed for the decline. Yet, with recent rapid improvements in technologies for reading, the accelerated adoption of devices for learning during the pandemic and increased access to e-books through the public library system in Singapore, the relationship between adolescent technology use and reading may be more complex than is typically painted in popular press. This mixed-methods study seeks to make current an understanding of adolescent reading in relation to technology by exploring adolescents' preferred reading devices, their use of technology for reading and their use of public e-resources for reading. In this study, adolescents preferred using their smartphones over print forms for reading and preferred to read social media online. E-books accessed freely through the public library were under-utilised, and adolescents reported lack of knowledge or experience about how to look for reading resources online. Findings suggest an intentional and nuanced approach is needed to create an ecosystem of opportunities for adolescents to have meaningful reading experiences in print and digitally.

Research Findings: Early childhood educators play an important role in promoting children's social emotional learning (SEL). This study proposes a comprehensive coding scheme to explore teachers' strategies and children's responses in shared book reading (SBR), which create opportunities to share pictures and storylines to examine social circumstances and emotional situations. Drawing on videotaped observations of nineteen classrooms from a larger study in Singapore, SEL-related interactions consisted of illustrations or discussions with indicators from the five SEL areas outlined in the national curriculum. Results revealed that teachers' support for SEL occurred more frequently when facilitating interpersonal learning over intrapersonal learning, while children's responses accorded with the types of teachers' input. In response to teachers' strategies within the intrapersonal dimension, children provided responses to teachers' prompts for identifying self-abilities and preferences most frequently. Within the interpersonal dimension, children provided responses to teachers' prompts for labelling others' emotions most frequently. Practice or Policy: Our findings demonstrate that SBR can be useful in promoting SEL even without books that explicitly convey skills and messages relating to SEL. The results imply that teachers should increase their input on facilitating intrapersonal learning topromote children's balanced development in the understanding of themselves and others.

In this study, a micro-level approach was used to investigate how college students in an academic writing course interact with peer and instructor feedback at "different stages" of the writing process. Participants were 146 first-year students at a Singaporean university. A survey and focus group interviews concerning students' feedback-adopting strategies were conducted. Results show that, for these students, revision was a reiterative self-regulated process sustained by the different functions of both types of feedback, which were found to serve different roles at different stages. Overall, peer feedback identifies initial issues with clarity and prompts divergent thinking while, at a later stage, instructor feedback challenges ideas and encourages evaluative thinking. It is concluded that the two feedback types are complementary and should be reconceptualized to be equally valuable and indispensable. The value of feedback should be seen as a "sequential" structure, where both sources of feedback play essential roles at different stages, rather than a "hierarchical" structure, in which instructor feedback is overwhelmingly prioritized.

Interactive oral assessments demonstrate potential to develop graduate attributes such as critical thinking, professional communication and collaborative skills in students through authentic simulation of workplace scenarios. This study captured the design, delivery and evaluation of interactive oral assessments across three programmes -- occupational therapy, nursing and air transport management -- in one university. A four-step Model to Build Authentic Assessment was used to design the assessments. Quantitative and qualitative data collected from 158 students, five assessors and three module leaders were analysed for a basic evaluation of the fidelity of interactive oral assessment implementation across different contexts and to explore the experiences of faculty and students undertaking the assessments. Fidelity was considered in terms of: (i) whether students could express their individualised responses, (ii) if they perceived the assessment to be authentic, and (iii) if it helped them gain professional knowledge and skills. In all the developed assessments, each of the three aspects were somewhat evident, evident or clearly evident. Qualitative findings suggested the interactive oral assessments reflected real-world expectations, promoted deep learning and offered a quality learning experience. From these results, practical suggestions for how faculty can self-assess their readiness for implementing interactive oral assessments are offered.

Show-and-Tell is one of many activities recommended for encouraging children's oral language production in classrooms across the world, but there is little research on the topic. From existing studies, teacher facilitation is posited as key to shaping children's oral language production. This paper explores teacher strategies for facilitating children's oral language production during Show-and-Tell, in the case studies of four Singapore preschool language teachers (English, Chinese, Malay and Tamil) sampled from a larger nationwide longitudinal study, with 47 children observed across the four classrooms. Using a coding scheme with high reliability (d = 0.80), a total of 1192 teacher utterances and 539 children's utterances were coded to capture teacher strategies and types of children's responses across the classrooms. Findings showed that the English teacher employed language modelling most frequently, while all other teachers most frequently facilitated through questioning. The potential of Show-and-Tell in encouraging children's language output is observed in how self-initiated talk is among the most frequent form of child participation, especially in the English-language classroom, which was expected given the context of English-dominance among bilingual Singapore children. In response to teacher facilitation, children were more likely to respond with verbal responses and gestures, as compared to not responding. It was, however, noted that a lack of wait-time provided by teachers hampered children's opportunities to express themselves during the activity. Our findings have implications on the need for different types of teacher strategies required to ensure the effectiveness of Show-and-Tell for promoting children's oral language production.

Teacher research has been promoted as a context-relevant approach to improving children's learning experiences in early childhood settings. In this article, we focus on social-emotional learning (SEL), a crucial domain of the early childhood curriculum, to illustrate the role of teacher research in changing early childhood teachers' everyday practices. We present an informative project on facilitating toddlers' conflict resolution to exemplify the process of early childhood teacher research for supporting SEL. Evidence of the teacher research project revealed that integrating the child-focused approach into the existing curriculum was beneficial for promoting children's conflict resolution skills and self-regulation. As situated in the particular context of Singapore, this case of teacher research presents how to successfully innovate early childhood curriculum practices within sociocultural realities, which include the hierarchical management culture, the imbalance between pressure upon and support for teachers, and limited time and resources. Suggestions and implications for early childhood practitioners and policymakers are also discussed.

This study used three previously validated instruments, namely Science Academic Hardiness (SAH), Students' Conceptions of Learning Science (COLS) and Science Learning Self-Efficacy (SLSE) on 431 Singaporean students. Using structural equation modeling, results showed that the SAH commitment dimension a positive predictor explaining both the reproductive (e.g. science learning as memorizing or testing) and constructivist (e.g. science learning as understanding or seeing in a new way) conceptions of science learning as well as all dimensions of students' self-efficacy among high school students. It was also found that the SAH control dimension is a positive predictor for explaining the SLSE science communication dimension but is a negative predictor for explaining reproductive COLS. Finally, only students with constructivist COLS had significant associations with all SLSE dimensions. These findings suggest that students' personal commitment to learning science is an important aspect to cultivate since it has the ability to predict conceptions of science learning and self-efficacy. Further, creating opportunities for students to be engaged in learning through constructivist ways--such as designing tasks to help students understand and see phenomena in new ways and occasions for students to apply their science knowledge to solve science problems--is likely to lead to positive self-efficacy in practical science work, science communication, and everyday applications of scientific knowledge. Additionally, students' engagement in reproductive ways of learning science--such as memorization, testing, and calculating and practicing--could be reduced since these do not contribute to building students' science learning self-efficacy.

Though the two languages most frequently used in the homes of Chinese Singaporeans are English and Mandarin Chinese, there is not much information on how the home language can influence language use and attitudes toward these two languages. This study investigates the family language ecology in bilingual homes and aims to compare attitudes toward Mandarin Chinese between Chinese Singaporean young adults from English-speaking homes (ESH) and those from Chinese-speaking homes (CSH). A total of 118 participants took part in a questionnaire designed to elicit language use and attitudes toward Mandarin. Results reveal that participants from Chinese-speaking homes do show greater use and proficiency in Mandarin, as well as possess more positive attitudes and motivation toward Mandarin as compared to participants from English-speaking homes. Both group report using more English with their siblings than their parents. However, the CSH group reports using more Mandarin than English with their siblings and more so with their younger siblings. This study emphasizes the process of "enculturation" to be an essential feature of language maintenance and as the home is the main site for enculturation to take place this study has implications for language maintenance for minority languages.

Studies on language shift in Singapore have focused on the language use within ethnic communities. However, despite increasing numbers of interethnic marriages, very few studies have explored the effect of such marriages on LS. This article explores the language practices within Malay-Chinese mixed marriages and examines how language policies in these marriages and families are negotiated. Through the analysis of surveys and interviews with 16 Malay-Chinese interethnic families, this study found that English transcends both Malay and Mandarin in terms of language use in all domains. The linguistic choices of participants are also dependent on their interlocutors. Parental ideologies, both overt and covert, point to Mandarin being perceived as important for their children's future while Malay was perceived to be a more familial language. This paper also highlights the influence government policies have on Singaporeans' perceptions on the status of languages. The data points unambiguously to language shift in progress within these families, away from either Mandarin or Malay towards English. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Child characteristics, family factors, and preschool factors are all found to affect the rate of bilingual children's vocabulary development in heritage language (HL). However, what remains unknown is the relative importance of these three sets of factors in HL vocabulary growth. The current study explored the complex issue with 457 Singaporean preschool children who are speaking either Mandarin, Malay, or Tamil as their HL. A series of internal factors (e.g., non-verbal intelligence) and external factors (e.g., maternal educational level) were used to predict children's HL vocabulary growth over a year at preschool with linear mixed effects models. The results demonstrated that external factors (i.e., family and preschool factors) are relatively more important than child characteristics in enhancing bilingual children's HL vocabulary growth. Specifically, children's language input quantity (i.e., home language dominance), input quality (e.g., number of books in HL), and HL input quantity at school (i.e., the time between two waves of tests at preschool) predict the participants' HL vocabulary growth, with initial vocabulary controlled. The relative importance of external factors in bilingual children's HL vocabulary development is attributed to the general bilingual setting in Singapore, where HL is taken as a subject to learn at preschool and children have fairly limited exposure to HL in general. The limited amount of input might not suffice to trigger the full expression of internal resources. Our findings suggest the crucial roles that caregivers and preschools play in early HL education, and the necessity of more parental involvement in early HL learning in particular.

Research on the gendered reading habits and preferences of boys and girls presents them as very different. This study focuses on the gendered reading habits and preferences of Singapore adolescent students (aged 12 to 17) to examine if such polarity exists in their reading habits. Drawing on survey data from 4830 adolescents in five secondary schools, the findings show that, while more girls enjoyed reading compared to boys, both boys and girls preferred to read for pleasure. Although there are some gendered differences in reading preferences, adolescents' preferred reading materials differ less than often portrayed, with convergence in areas such as Adventure and Science Fiction and Fantasy. In the area of reading and technology, the findings suggest that girls read more online, reflecting their tendency to read more in print. More complex understanding of contemporary adolescent reading will allow educators, librarians and parents to better address adolescent reading needs.

The accounting cycle is an important yet difficult topic for introductory financial accounting students to learn. This problem motivates the authors to develop four innovative online tutorials with a coherent storyline to enable students to learn the accounting cycle and to supplement in-class learning. The survey results suggest that the accounting cycle online tutorials substantially improve students' perceived knowledge of the topic (an increase of 59.8% in the perceived knowledge) and the improvement is statistically significant. The results also indicate that the online tutorials are valued by students for increasing their interest in the course and providing the business context to understand the accounting cycle.

The acquisition of cultural capital can only be understood in the light of the formation of habitus, including the socialisation process, and in the context of the field in which any such capital has value. Yet, the relation between cultural capital and habitus is seldom discussed in research. Drawing on the data from focus groups with 96 students and a survey of 5,779 students from six Singapore secondary schools, we analyze how reading as a form of cultural capital is distributed among High-SES, Mid-SES and Low-SES students in Singapore. We show how middle-class practices of "intensive immersion" in school-valued reading practices is a form of habitus that prepare some students better than others for engaged reading. The findings highlight how reading as a form of cultural capital is operationalized through students' familial habitus and argues that making visible familial habitus provides insights for transforming institutional habitus for students' reading futures.

This paper was part of a larger study to examine one primary and one secondary teacher's classroom. The study analysed the classroom discourse to describe the types of interaction and illustrate how the teachers used talk moves to mediate talk for learning science around visual representations (VRs). The study employed ethnographic approaches to collect and analyse classroom data as "snapshots of practice" in two Singapore classrooms. The findings identified that both teachers featured interactive/authoritative discourse, with the primary teacher using talk moves to unpack science terms through eliciting student observations of diagrams followed by talk moves for students to make connections to the meanings represented in the associated graph. The secondary teacher featured an interactive/dialogic approach, using talk moves around student-generated VRs for students to predict, reason and revise their representations. The findings highlighted the value of examining talk from dialogic and authoritative approaches to better understand how teachers provide opportunities for students to learn science through talk around VRs.

This paper reports on the effects of using wiki-based process writing in Singapore's Chinese as a Second Language (CSL) scenarios. A group of 32 Secondary 1 (Seventh Grade) students ("Students") received various forms of online scaffolding at different steps of the writing process over two years. A whole set of teaching materials on 45 writing skills was developed and uploaded to the Wiki platform through five recursive cycles. In each cycle, the students were encouraged to apply skills they learned via Wiki platform in their writing and afterwards work as a team in the platform to peer-review each other's first draft. With feedback received from peer revision, students proceeded to edit their first draft, focusing on the content of narratives and the appropriateness on their use of micro writing skills. The scaffolding decreased as the project progressed. Students' pre-, mid- and post-writing tests were marked and compared. The authors analyzed the impact that the feedback in the process had towards the students' overall writing performance. It was discovered that students' quality of written products was improved in general. It was also discovered that students benefited the most from giving remarks to their peers' writing. The revision patterns of high, medium and low language ability students were also compared. It was found that the higher the language ability of the students, the more concerned they were with macro level for their revisions. ICT-mediated process writing has not garnered much attention in the field of CSL. The study hopes to contribute to the literature of ICT-mediated writing instruction in the field of CSL.

This study aims to identify the level of acculturative stress and to examine the correlations between acculturative stress or its subcategories and variables such as English language proficiency. The results show that international students were challenged by social interactions, lack of English language proficiency and financial issues. The results of this study and their possible implications for educational institutions in Singapore and Asia are considered.

Gratitude, like other positive emotions, has been theorized to help individuals build psychological and social resources and promote resilience and well-being. Some scholars suggest that gratitude may not generate positive outcomes in all cultures. In this study, we examined the relationship of gratitude with school resilience and school well-being, and the potential mediating role of relatedness with key social partners within an Asian cultural context. Participants in the study were 190 secondary students attending one school in Singapore. Results revealed that gratitude was positively associated with school resilience; relatedness with significant others partially mediated this association. The final model also showed a significant sequential pathway from gratitude to relatedness (with significant others), then to school resilience and then to school well-being. Practical implications and limitations of this study are presented.

This study aimed at enhancing the Mandarin essay writing by learners of Chinese as a second language (CSL) in Singapore by using authentic contexts in Second Life (SL). The participants were students in two classes of eighth graders from a junior high school in Singapore, and the study lasted for 5 weeks. A quasiexperimental design was adopted by randomly assigning the two classes to the experimental group (N=26) or the control group (N = 34). The two groups received identical writing instructions and were asked to write essays about identical topics within an identical time period. The only difference between the two groups was the activities performed at the prewriting stage: with or without immersive exploration in SL. Three kinds of qualitative data were collected and analyzed: students' writing plans, students' compositions, and in-class observation data. The analysis results show that the writing motivation and performance of the CSL students varied depending on whether or not they performed immersive exploration before writing. Those who explored the authentic contexts in SL before writing performed significantly better at constructing a prewriting plan and exhibited significantly higher writing quality compared to those without such an immersive experience. The former group also demonstrated higher motivation.

Does print still matter in this digital age? What is the role of technology in reading? Do adolescents who enjoy reading view the reading of print and digital material differently from those who do not enjoy reading? Drawing on survey data from 6,005 students and focus group data with 96 students across six secondary schools, the authors conducted a mixed-methods study to examine adolescents' print and digital reading habits in Singapore. Findings show that adolescents prefer print but move toward more online reading as they get older. Adolescents' online reading habits are reflective of their print preferences and behavior with physical books. The authors explain how both print and technology matter to motivate adolescent reading.

Popular culture images of reading tend to portray readers as solitary individuals deeply immersed in reading a single text in a quiet, undisturbed spot. Yet, in our documentation of adolescent students reading in Singapore secondary schools, we find that there are many ways and modes of reading, much of which is social in nature. Through the use of comparative, critical visual analysis, this paper expands the understanding of what it means to read and to understand how adolescent readers experience reading in school contexts. Visual images serve to disrupt dominant readings of what counts as reading to elicit new considerations for engaging adolescents in reading.

We suggest that prior to school entry, our earliest "teachers" and "learning settings" --that is, our parents, caregivers, and homes--provide signals about our environmental conditions. In turn, our brains may interpret this information as cues indicating the types of environments we will likely face and adapt accordingly. We discuss ways in which two such early-life cues--bilingual exposure and sensitive caregiving quality, influence "domain general" neurocircuitry and associated functioning (e.g., temperament and emotional reactivity, emotion regulation, relational memory, exploratory play, and executive functioning), as well as pre-academic outcomes. We conclude by discussing the need for early upstream intervention programmes, as well as the need for additional research including our upcoming "BE POSITIVE" study, designed to help bridge the gap between the community, home, and school environments.

This descriptive cross-sectional mixed methods study conducted in Singapore aimed to describe community-dwelling older adults' differences in physical activity (PA) based on perceived safety to exercise, barriers to PA, and preferred modes of PA during a pandemic. Out of 268 older adults, 25.4% felt unsafe to exercise during the pandemic. More participants who felt unsafe were aged 75 years and older (72.1% vs. 57.0%, p =.028) and lacked formal education (54.4% vs. 37.0%, p =.040). Barriers included difficulties exercising with masks, family concerns, and exercise center closures. Those who felt unsafe were significantly more likely to exercise at home and had significantly shorter duration of exercise and walks per week (2.72 vs. 4.50 hr, p =.002). Perceived barriers and exercise preferences should be considered when developing programs to improve older adults' PA during pandemics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This collaborative inquiry project brought together 14 Chinese Language teachers, 4 researchers and 2 Ministry of Education (MOE) curriculum specialists to co-design the Chinese Language curricula with the integrated use of information and communication technology (ICT). Three qualitative data sources--one-to-one interviews, focus group discussion, and the field notes--were collected and comparatively analyzed. The findings indicate when the participants in the three parties (teachers, researchers and ministry officials) brought their own agendas and interests to the project and this resulted in various tensions initially. The participants experienced gradual changes in knowledge, beliefs, attitudes and practice after coming out of their comfort zones. When they reached a consensus to enhance Chinese learning for primary school students, they actively contributed their respective strengths to the project. The findings indicate that the collaborative inquiry model is one possible way to resolve tensions arising from education reforms and to build-on diverse ideas for contextually viable innovations. (Contains 1 figure and 2 tables.)

This paper reports an intervention study on Singapore primary five (fifth Grade) students' ICT (information and communication technology)-mediated Chinese idiom learning. We introduced "seamless learning" to the learning design, that is, the bridging of formal and informal learning, and individual and social learning, conforming to the current trend of language learning which emphasizes more on communicative and authentic learning activities. Our study lasted for ten months. In the formal learning context, the teacher conducted in-class contextualized learning activities and group activities. In the informal learning context, students made sentences by using the idioms to describe their encounters in day-to-day life and post them onto a class wiki space for sharing peers' review. Meanwhile, students learned from and performed peers' views on the wiki by commenting on, correcting or improving their peers' sentences. Through our analysis on the empirical data, it was found that the new ICT-mediated learning could effectively help students synergize the formal and informal, as well as the individual and social language learning spaces. (Contains 8 figures and 1 table.)

Students' normative perceptions of the nature of Science and their worldviews on the relevance of Science in pragmatic everyday contexts influence their keenness in wanting to learn Science and develop scientific mindsets. The chief goal of the research study delineated in this paper was to examine patterns of commonalities and variations in the attitudes of students enrolled in Singapore secondary schools towards Science as an organized disciplinary field of knowledge and the efficacy of the teaching of Science subjects in the classrooms. A constructed survey was administered as the primary means of data collection and statistical methods were used to analyze the collected data corpus to establish salient research findings. Generally students found Science to be of utility in making better sense of sensory experiences and understanding the complexities of the mechanistic functioning of this universe. Students were also generally satisfied with the quality of teaching being carried out in their classrooms. However, interestingly, gender, academic levels and streams based differences did emerge in scrutinizing students' responses on their conceptions of the structural character of Science and the approaches adopted in the pedagogical delivery of Science content matter during lesson time.

Many young children spend a significant amount of time each day in preschool settings. It is important to understand how teachers create and maximize opportunities for children's social and emotional learning (SEL) in the classrooms. This research was conducted in Singapore and explores how SEL is supported by teachers in areas identified in the national curriculum (self-awareness and positive self-concept, self-management, social awareness, relationship management, and responsible decision-making). The qualitative analyses draw on observations across six preschool classrooms. There were 32 instances identified in which teachers provided support for SEL across three aspects of interactional situations: group size, type of activity, and type of teaching opportunity. More opportunities for SEL were afforded in small group versus whole group activities and more often in outdoor play and planned lesson times than when children were in learning centers, at mealtimes, or making transitions between activities. Intentional teaching also afforded more opportunities for SEL as compared to incidental teaching. Teachers adopted a variety of verbal and non-verbal strategies to support SEL that included setting a positive tone, suggesting solutions, allocating tasks, and extending on responses. This research provides knowledge about how, and in what interactional situations, teachers demonstrate SEL support to individuals and groups of children in kindergarten classrooms.

This research examined the effects of structured group supervision (SGS) on counsellors' self-efficacy, counselling competency, and job involvement in Singapore. Twenty-one counsellors participated in six, 3- hour SGS sessions over 12 weeks with one qualified counselling supervisor. The counsellors had at least six months' experience working as counsellors in schools or educational-related settings, such as student care centres. A single-group, before-after design was adopted. Pre- and posttest questionnaires were administered--Counselling Self-Efficacy Scale (CSES), Counsellor's Competence Self-Evaluation Scale (CCSS), and Job Involvement Scale (JIS)--to examine counsellor self-efficacy, counselling competency, and job involvement respectively. Paired-sample t tests were used to examine the impact of SGS on the three measures, whereas the Pearson correlation was used to examine the relationships among them. It was found that there was (a) a significant increase in mean scores for pre- and posttest scores for counsellor self-efficacy and counselling competency, but not for job involvement after SGS; and (b) a significant positive correlation among the three variables. With a better understanding of the SGS and the impact on counsellors, supervision practices can be improved and school counsellors can become more competent and confident.

While preschool educators are currently encouraged to educate young children in and for sustainable development, limited observational research has focused on documenting how sustainability notions are introduced or discussed in preschools. Drawing on a large database of videos of practice, this study describes typical features of conversations about sustainability in Singapore Kindergarten 1 classrooms (4-5 years). Four representative conversations (two planned, two incidental) are qualitatively analyzed to illustrate the strengths and weaknesses of preschool educators' pedagogical moves. The analyses indicate that while educators build upon children's experiences and provide real-life examples, their interactional styles tend to be direct, prescriptive, and somewhat rigid. The study, therefore, raises awareness among early childhood practitioners about the need for more dialogic forms of interaction. Children need increased opportunities to have a voice in conversations about sustainability issues. Facilitating deeper discussions will require preschool educators to position themselves as co-constructors of knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors for a more sustainable future, rather than as mere transmitters of information.

This paper examines contestations over the value of Literature in the secondary school curriculum in the former British colony of Singapore and the way the Literature curriculum has been framed to understand the various issues surrounding the role of Literature education. Using Raymond Williams' framework of dominant, residual and emergent ideologies, I show how the dominant perception of Literature study in Singapore as a decontextualised humanistic and aesthetic subject is influenced by its residual British colonial legacy. Significant official changes, fundamentally conservative, have been driven by the governing ideology of instrumental pragmatism and are tied to twin aims of economic well-being and national belonging. The conservative view of Literature education prevents the adoption of emergent views of Literature education as hybrid, multimodal and critical. A pragmatic re-evaluation of the aims of Literature education in the twenty-first century is required to regain renewed significance for the subject.

Background: Asynchronous online discussion (AOD) has found widespread use in tertiary education and adult learning environment; however, there has been little research on its use in elementary school, especially in the context of the teaching of the Chinese Language. This study explores the use of AOD in a Chinese Language class in a primary school in Singapore. Aims: To investigate: (1) The perceptions of elementary students toward the use of AOD in the learning of the Chinese Language; (2) The factors perceived by students that would encourage them to participate more in the AOD; (3) If students perceived that using AOD could help them improve their Chinese writing and reading abilities; and (4) If students perceived that they thought more in AOD as compared to face-to-face interactions with their classmates, or classroom teaching by the teacher in the learning of the Chinese Language. Sample: A class of 29 primary four students (n=29, 8 boys and 21 girls) with ages between 9-10 years old in Singapore. Method: A qualitative case study methodology was employed. This approach was suitable given that the key purpose of this study was to gain an understanding of students' perceptions towards using AOD in an elementary school Chinese language lesson, rather than to make generalizations or prove/disprove underlying hypotheses. Data collection methods included the use of questionnaire and interviews. Results: Students were generally positive about the use of AOD in the learning of the Chinese Language and felt that their reading and writing abilities had improved. Students perceived that the following factors "if in existence" would encourage them to participate more in the online discussion activities: the posting of the messages (e.g., submitting the messages to the discussion board) is faster, the ability to access internet whenever they want, stronger Chinese language ability, and faster typing skills in Chinese. A majority of the students felt that they thought more in AOD as compared to face-to-face interactions with their peers or classroom teaching by their teacher. Conclusion: The findings revealed that AOD was useful in engaging the students in the learning of the Chinese Language in an elementary school. However, more research has to be done to validate this. Further research can also be done on students with lower ability in the Chinese language. (Contains 4 tables.)

Background: Critical thinking disposition is an area that has been overlooked in various academic fields until recent years. Critical thinking occurs only when individuals possess thinking dispositions. This study explores the possibility of using directed viewing-thinking activity (DVTA) to cultivate the critical thinking dispositions of students. Aim: To investigate if critical thinking dispositions can be cultivated using DVTA. Sample: Students participating in this study were Secondary 3 Higher Chinese students from one of the researchers' class in a traditional English school. All 18 students were present throughout the six lessons. These students were all females between 14 to 15 years of age. Method: Pre and post argumentative essay tests were administered to the whole class before and after the students had attended the DVTA lessons. The essays were coded in terms of the indicators of the various thinking dispositions that could be spotted in them. A Wilcoxon Matched-Ranks test was used to analyze the four thinking dispositions: systematicity, open-mindedness, analyticity and truth-seeking. Results: Based on the given conditions, the study suggests that DVTA has the potential for cultivating critical thinking dispositions. Conclusion: The findings revealed that it was worthwhile to conduct the study. (Contains 2 tables and 2 footnotes.)

Some synthetic dyes are fraudulently added into spices to appeal visually to consumers. Food regulations in several countries, including the United States, Australia, Japan and the European Union, strictly prohibit the use of unauthorised synthetic dyes in food. Nevertheless, illegal practices persist, where spices contaminated with potentially carcinogenic dyes have been documented, posing potential health risks to consumers. In the present study, 14 synthetic dyes were investigated through liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry in 252 commercially available spices in the Singapore market. In 18 out of these (7.1%) at least 1 illegal dye was detected at concentrations ranging from 0.010 to 114 mg/kg. Besides potential health risks, presence of these adulterants also reflects the economic motivations behind their fraudulent use. Findings in the present study further emphasise the need for increased public awareness, stricter enforcement, and continuous monitoring of illegal synthetic dyes in spices to ensure Singapore's food safety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The "coral gardening" approach has been effective in facilitating the recovery of degraded reefs but methodological variations can influence survivorship and growth of the coral material. In addition, the disproportionate use of certain corals, such as acroporids and pocilloporids, has contributed to a general lack of information on growth patterns and restoration strategies for species that are less common. To investigate how the yield of other species may be increased to support reef restoration efforts in Singapore, we assessed the effects of (1) environment (nursery, reef, and seawall) and (2) transplant orientation (horizontal and vertical) on the performance of Echinopora horrida (Dana, 1846) fragments. Fragments secured in the coral nursery grew significantly faster and survived better than those transplanted on the reef and seawall, highlighting the importance of a nursery‐rearing phase in optimizing the yield of this species. Additionally, survivorship and growth rates were not significantly different between vertically and horizontally transplanted corals, suggesting that modifying transplant orientation was less crucial toward enhancing coral yield. Our findings highlighted the need to optimize the propagation techniques of a wider range of understudied coral species in order to preserve their genetic diversity in the face of anthropogenic and climatic impacts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This proposal outlines the development of a comprehensive solution to address hydration challenges through the creation of a Smart Water ATM with Arduino integration, RFID authentication, and dynamic dispensing capabilities. Traditional water dispensers often fall short in monitoring water intake and promoting optimal hydration practices. In response, our project aims to revolutionize hydration practices by integrating Arduino Mega and Uno boards into a Smart Water ATM with a Bottle Dispenser. This innovative system is designed to dispense specific water quantities based on user preferences, encourage the use of personal water bottles, display water temperature, and operate independently without the need for a water line connection. Prior to prototype fabrication, an extensive literature review and survey were conducted to understand existing water dispenser shortcomings and gather public perspectives in Singapore. The Smart Water ATM addresses identified issues by incorporating sensors to monitor water levels, dispense specific quantities, and measure water temperatures. The prototype fabrication involves designing a stainless-steel housing, 3D printing the Smart Water dispenser unit, and installing tanks, tubing, and electronic components. To enhance user interaction, the Smart Water ATM requires RFID authentication through Identity Cards, tracking daily water consumption. An LCD screen displays the dispensed water volume over the ATM's lifespan, motivating users to be mindful of their water consumption and minimize wastage. Adjustments will be made for deployment in public spaces, such as train stations, where access to permanent water dispensers is limited. This proposal presents an innovative solution to promote enhanced hydration practices, encouraging users to adopt mindful water consumption habits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research shows that motivation is a critical precursor to students' science achievement. However, research on the topic yields ambiguous results in different cultural contexts. While the positive association between motivation and science achievement has been evidenced universally, the relatively predictive effect and strength of different motivational factors in different cultures need additional examination. To tease the potential discrepancy apart and explore different student motivational factors including self-concept, intrinsic value, utility value, and sense of relatedness, this study examines grade 8 students from the U.S. (N = 14,290) and Singapore (N = 6113) by using the International Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) data. The results suggest that the U.S. student self-concept in science learning is the strongest and most significant predictor of their science achievement. In Singapore, students perceived utility value in science learning has the strongest and most significant association with their science achievement. Explanations of the differences as well as the implications for future research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]